There are few creatures in MTG with the provenance of Colossal Dreadmaw. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Nadu, Winged Wisdom may be iconic, but they’re hardly well-liked. Colossal Dreadmaw may be pretty terrible, but it’s undeniably beloved as far as MTG cards go.
As a 6/6 with Trample for six, Colossal Dreadmaw is far from playable by today’s standards. Thankfully, Bloomburrow is giving this beloved creature a major upgrade… in spirit at least. As a 6/6 for 6, Galewind Moose definitely has Colossal Dreadmaw vibes in the best way possible.
Colossal Elkmaw
Galewind Moose is a major upgrade compared to Colossal Dreadmaw. While the stats are the same, and both have Trample, this Elemental Moose has three more tricks up its sleeves. Boasting Vigilance and Reach, Galewind is already a vastly more utilitarian blocker compared to Colossal Dreadmaw.
As if these extra abilities weren’t good enough, this card’s real killer feature is Flash. Thanks to this ability, you can make Galewind Moose a massive surprise blocker before crashing in with them on the next turn. Thanks to Vigilance, they’ll even be able to block after that, which is insane value.
While surprise blockers are always fun, the real value here is in avoiding removal. One of the major problems with Colossal Dreadmaw is that it’s incredibly slow and vulnerable to sorcery speed removal. Now that Fell is floating around in Bloomburrow, this will be all the more important and pivotal to Galewind’s success.
Admittedly, while Flashing in Galewind is one hell of a play, in Standard it’s not that amazing. As fun as it could be, a creature of this size is rather obvious. If you’re playing mono green and holding up six mana with a giant smirk on your face, your opponents will know what’s up.
In Limited, however, Galewind Moose is an absolute weapon of a bomb.
A True Limited Bomb?
In Limited, it’s not uncommon to fail to curve out, or at least run out of gas. As a result, leaving six mana open after your turn isn’t nearly as obvious as it would be in Standard. This allows Galewind Moose to reach their full potential as both a surprise blocker and a powerful threat.
To further their strength in Limited, Galewind Moose is currently the biggest creature in Bloomburrow. Tied in power and toughness with only Ygra, Eater of All, the offensive and defensive power of Galewind is practically unmatched. As if that wasn’t enough, our newly beloved Colossal Elkmaw is an uncommon, so they’ll appear fairly frequently in Limited.
At the moment, it looks like Galewind Moose has Limited bomb written all over them. While they are expensive, they’re more than capable of living up to their name and blowing away the competition. That being said, we don’t really know what Bloomburrow Limited looks like at the moment.
The Big Unknown
Currently, the playability of Galewind Moose is dependent on the state of Bloomburrow’s Limited environment. Should this set favor aggressive decks with go-wide strategies, Galewind’s impressive size may be for naught. Similarly, if games are over before you can ramp up to Galewind you’ll be out of luck.
Thankfully, while Limited environments have been rather fast recently, Bloomburrow does have some decent ramp. With Tender Wildguide, Thornvault Forager, and Wandertale Mentor, getting to Galewind hopefully won’t be too difficult. Even if you mana a turn-four Galewind Moose, however, you’re still going to struggle against token-based decks.
Sadly, it appears that token-based and go-wide strategies are fairly prevalent in Bloomburrow, even at this early stage. As a result, we’re just going to have to cross our fingers and wait to see if Galewind is actually the bomb we hope it to be. For the sake of memes and Colossal Dreadmaw’s continued existence, we certainly hope it’ll be a welcome powerful surprise.
