Special Guests have become a regular fixture in each new MTG set, and Bloomburrow is no exception. There are ten old cards with new art in here, many of which are slam-dunks both thematically and financially. They’re not all winners, as is always the case, but even the duds look pretty enough to warrant a slot in the rare instances where they appear. Let’s take a look at each of the new Special Guests cards in Bloomburrow.
What Are Special Guest Cards?
Before we kick things off, a quick word on what Special Guests actually are. Special Guest is a new subset of Magic cards, introduced in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan as a replacement for The List. Instead of identical reprints with a planeswalker symbol in the corner, as The List offered, Special Guests are reprints with all-new borderless artwork. Said artwork is even thematically linked to the set each Special Guest card comes from, which is a lovely touch for all the Vorthos’ out there.
In most sets where they have appeared so far, there have been 10 Special Guest cards in total, all at mythic rarity. This isn’t mythic in the traditional sense, however. Instead, Special Guest cards have a 1.5% chance to replace a common in a Play Booster, and a 3% chance to appear in one of the slots in a Collector Booster.
These numbers remain the same for Bloomburrow, meaning your chances of finding one of these cards are fairly slim if you’re not cracking packs by the box. This makes opening one an exciting experience, even if the card in question isn’t the best. As we’ll get into, though, Bloomburrow has a well-rounded batch of Special Guests, with plenty of highs and few lows.
As a side note, since they can be found in Play Boosters, Special Guest cards will also be coming to MTG Arena.
The Big Hitters From Bloomburrow
We’ll start by looking at the two major outliers in terms of value from the Bloomburrow Special Guests. Both Sword of Fire and Ice and Sylvan Tutor are orders of magnitude more expensive than the other cards reprinted here. Stunning, limited-supply versions like this will likely be worth even more. Basically, if you open a Bloomburrow Special Guest card, you’re hoping it’s one of these two.
Sword of Fire and Ice is a certified MTG classic. It was one of the first members of the ongoing ‘Sword of X and Y’ mega-cycle to be printed, way back in 2004’s Darksteel. It still sees a lot of play to this day, appearing in countless Commander lists and even some Modern decks, such as Death and Taxes and Stoneblade. Copies of this card will run you around $40 on the low end, so this reprint is more than welcome. The new fish-based art is excellent, to boot.
Sylvan Tutor is, somehow, an even deeper cut than the Sword. Outside of a reprint in Tales of Middle-earth Commander, this card has just one solitary printing: in the 1997 Portal set. A lot of cards from this era are difficult to come by now, and Sylvan Tutor is no exception. As a tutor, it also has plenty of demand from Commander players. Though the strictly-better Worldly Tutor exists, this card still commands a price of around $40. It’s hard to say which is the better card between this and Sword of Ice and Fire, but you’ll be very happy opening either in your Bloomburrow booster pack.
Solid Reprints
Value-wise, things in the MTG Bloomburrow Special Guests take a pretty big dive after those two cards. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing else worth talking about, however. Ledger Shredder, for example, is an excellent reprint. It’s a fairly recent card; in fact, it’s still legal in Standard at the time of writing. Despite that, it sits at around $13, largely thanks to heavy use in Pioneer. This is the first alternative-art printing the card has seen, which will likely make it quite sought after. Expect that base price to double at least.
Next up we have Toski, Bearer of Secrets. This card really only sees play in Commander, but it’s an incredibly popular choice for green decks. Even the non-Squirrel ones. You can’t counter or destroy Toski, which makes it very difficult to deal with. It’s also a premium card draw engine, which is always in demand in the format. Toski goes for around $7 right now, so this is a very solid card to open, particularly in a common slot.
Before we hit another drop in the value waterfall, let’s look at Kindred Charge. This Bloomburrow Special Guests appearance marks the first time this MTG card has ever been reprinted. It showed up originally in Commander 2017, and we’ve heard nary a peep from it since. Given the heavy typal focus of Bloomburrow, it makes perfect sense to bring the card back now. A lot of Commander players will be trying out typal brews, and this is a fantastic addition to any of them playing red. Like Toski, this card goes for around $7 right now. Expect at least a slight markup for the slick Mouse-based artwork.
Returning Rats
The bottom half of the Bloomburrow Special Guests list is largely made up of bulk, but it does have a couple of interesting pieces. Both Relentless Rats and Rat Colony are being reprinted here, so Rat fans can rejoice. These cards are interesting anomalies when it comes to MTG. They each break the ‘four copies per deck’ rule that most cards must abide by, instead allowing for any number to be included. This works in Commander too, which is where these cards see pretty much all of their play.
Building a deck with 20 copies of Rat Colony or Relentless Rats is something a lot of players find fun. When you’re including so many copies of one card, any alternative art versions are very much sought after. As a result, we’ve seen some very interesting financial patterns on these cards. Rat Colony usually costs $4 a copy, but the Secret Lair version goes for around $8. Relentless Rats is similar, with regular copies at around $3 but Secret Lair printings reach as high as $15. Going by these patterns, we can expect these versions to sit somewhere between $7-10, which means they’re not the duds they look like on the surface.
Bottom Of The Barrel
Of course, there are still some duds among the MTG Bloomburrow Special Guests. These last three cards all go for around $1 at the time of writing, so they’re not the most exciting to open in such a rare slot.
Swords to Plowshares, with that fun new Mouse artwork, just barely squeaks into this category. The card has a huge number of reprints, which means its cost is very low despite its staple status. That said, there is precedent for alternative art versions going for more, with some Secret Lair printings selling for as much as $15. This version could end up in a similar spot, but right now it’s too early to tell.
The same cannot be said of Secluded Courtyard. Every version of this card, Promo Pack printing aside, goes for just over $0.50. Even with an alternative-art markup, it’s unlikely to be worth more than a dollar or two. Like Kindred Charge, this is a fantastic addition to any typal deck in Commander, so it will always have demand. With no real home outside of Commander, though, the ceiling on this one is low.
Finally, we have a fun one in Frogmite. Despite seeing play in Affinity decks in Pauper, Modern, and Legacy, the price on this card remains around $0.50 since it has always been printed as a common. This new version changes that, and also marks the first-ever alternative artwork for the card in 21 years. Finally, our froggy friend is getting the respect they deserve. Since Affinity isn’t doing particularly well in Modern right now, I don’t see this one climbing above $3-5. Dedicated fans will definitely want to snag this bold new artwork, however, so I may be proved wrong yet.
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