Given Prereleases only started last week, Bloomburrow Limited hasn’t been around for long. Despite this, thanks to the ease of online play, we already know a surprising amount about this Limited environment. Shifting strategy mid-Draft, for instance, is often a death sentence since Bloomburrow is all about the synergy between its typal-oriented color pairs.
Of all these synergistic archetypes in Bloomburrow, Golgari Squirrels seem to be putting up the best results so far. Let’s take a look at some of the early data from 17Lands.com.
Squirrels are a Bit Ahead of the Rest
- Mana Value: BG
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Stats: 3/2
- Card Text: When VInereap Mentor enters or dies, create a Food token.
The good news with Bloomburrow Limited is that there doesn’t seem to be a broken piece of tech yet. Modern Horizons 3 was infamous for a common, Writhing Chrysalis, taking over the entire format. Thankfully, there doesn’t seem to be anything like that in Bloomburrow yet. This is a huge breath of fresh air.
That said, the slight squirrel dominance can especially be seen when looking at the best uncommons for Bloomburrow on 17Lands.com. To be clear, we’re using the Game in Hand winrate to measure this. This means that any game where the cards appear in your hand at some point counts towards this metric.
The best uncommon MTG card in Bloomburrow, according to these metrics, is the Golgari signpost payoff Vinereap Mentor. The card is rather simple in design, offering a 3/2 that creates a Food token on entry and when it dies. Yet, the creation of two Food tokens on a creature with decent stats is incredible. This fuels a ton of token synergies that appear in the Rabbit archetype, as well as the Forage mechanic that appears in the Squirrel archetype.
Going down this rabbit hole a bit, the majority of the top six uncommons in Bloomburrow have green or black in their color identities. Burrowguard Mentor is the odd man out here, but all of the other cards are generically powerful cards in Golgari colors. Hunter’s Talent seems to be a step ahead of all the other Talent enchantments at uncommon. Thought-Stalker Warlock is a crazy amount of value, essentially offering a Thoughtseize on a creature as long as your opponent has lost life this turn. Wick’s Patrol is generally a creature that kills something on entry, which is, once again, strict value. A lot of the cards in Golgari are generically powerful.
Commons have a bit more variation, adding some white cards into the mix. That said, black and green are still very strongly represented here, as well. Savor is incredibly powerful for the Squirrel archetype, removing an opposing creature and creating a Food to trigger Foraging. Cache Grab also enables Foraging while being the second highest winrate common in the set currently. Looking at commons does suggest, however, that white is not too far behind green or black.
Izzet Falls Behind
- Mana Value: UR
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Stats: 1/1
- Card Text: Haste, Prowess, Instant and sorcery spells you cast cost (1) less to cast.
While Golgari seems to be a bit ahead, Izzet seems to be falling behind. Powerful cards in both the common and uncommon categories tend to be of the Abzan colors or have strong synergies towards the Dimir Rats archetype outside of that.
Considering how much excitement there was for Otter support coming into Bloomburrow initially, this certainly seems like a shame. Many were excited to try the playful sea pups for themselves. Statistics suggesting that they’re rather underrated is disappointing, to say the least. For what it’s worth, 17Lands does support this. In the top 32 commons for Bloomburrow, only one card is mono-red! There are a few blue and red cards otherwise, but they are all hybrid MTG cards that can tap for one of the other three colors.
So, if you’re looking to get into MTG Bloomburrow Limited, the lessons here are pretty clear. Squirrels seem to be the best thing to do, but anything in Abzan colors is fair game. Otters, as cute and cuddly as they are, seem to be a step behind the rest.
Read More: How to Find Bloomburrow’s $150+ Face Commanders
