Technically, the official spoiler season for Bloomburrow ended just under a month ago. Since then, the set has launched and made waves in multiple formats. Despite this, even more new Bloomburrow cards have appeared online over the past few days. Today, 25 new Bloomburrow cards have been revealed to finish this extended spoiler season once and for all.
These newly revealed cards are all part of Alchemy: Bloomburrow. Releasing on August 20th, exclusively on MTG Arena, there’s a lot to love about these new cards. In particular, Alchemy and Brawl will be getting a lot of adorable new toys to play with. Alongside plenty of typal delights, there are also some absolutely baffling designs the likes of which we’ve never seen before.
The Weird
Earlier today, Amazonian hosted the official set review for Bloomburrow: Alchemy. Debiting the set’s remaining 25 cards, there’s a lot to unpack in this video. There may not be any new mechanics, but there is Archival Whorl which features the text “Gift a Rhystic Study.”
Essentially, Archival Whorl is an extra expensive Time Twister that can only affect you if you promise the Gift. In theory, this is incredibly powerful, but giving your opponent a free Rhystic Study is no small sacrifice. After all, you’ve just stocked up your hand with spells to cast, potentially giving your opponent lots of free cards.
If only there was a way in Alchemy: Bloomburrow to make your opponent’s card draw effectively worthless. Oh hello, Sandcloud Harbinger. Admittedly, this symmetrical effect doesn’t play well with Archival Whorl, but it’s nonetheless incredibly weird. By conjuring cards into each player’s library, this unique Horse can bring games to a standstill.
Should you flicker Sandcloud Harbinger repeatedly, you can make sure no one draws anything but Sunscorched Desert for a while. If you’re running a Desert-themed deck using Yuma, Proud Protector this can be a great source of value. In almost every other situation, however, you’re just stalling the game for very little reason.
Thankfully, while these two cards are weird and kind of bad, there are plenty of others that have genuine potential.
The Wonderful
Unsurprisingly, the new mythic cards in Alchemy: Bloomburrow are the best out of the bunch. Offering powerful value-rich abilities, it’s hard to go wrong. So long as you’re not playing the typal-focused Euru, Acorn Scrounger, at least.
Out of all the new spoilers, Recruit Instructor is probably the most competitively viable. Fitting into the established Boros Mice archetype, this card offers mouse tokens and a Spellbook full of mostly combat tricks. Not only will these help to overwhelm blockers and pile on pressure, but you’ll get plenty of Valiant triggers too.
Since it’s so easy to activate their Spellbook-based ability, Recruit Instructor offers consistent and repeated value. The same is true of Leaf-Leap Guide, which works perfectly with Bloomburrow’s Frogs. Playing into the theme of flicker and bounce effects, Leaf-Leap Guide gets big quickly, while buffing your other creatures too.
As if it wasn’t good enough that Leaf-Leap Guide is a two-mana value engine, it can even bounce your creatures too. This card does everything you could need when playing a Frog-themed deck right now. A similar style of synergy can also be found on Buxton, Decorated Host.
Thanks to Convoke, you can basically play Buxton for free, which is already pretty good. Should you do this, you’ll also seek a five-mana card onto the battlefield, which is insane. Depending on how you build your deck, you could cheat in Virtue of Loyalty or even Gigantosaurus for completely free.
The Playable
While they’re not mythic bombs, plenty of the other Alchemy: Bloomburrow cards look like upgrades to existing archetypes. Orzhov Bats, for instance, is getting new removal in Darkstar Banisher. Similarly, White Weenie decks are getting an Offspring-based Collected Company in Three Tree Batalion.
Thanks to Bloomburrow’s presence in the Alchemy metagame, a lot of the new Alchemy cards may find constructed homes. That being said, a lot of the new Alchemy: Bloomburrow cards are definitely best suited for Brawl. Idris, the Hydrostatic Surge is a perfect example of that.
Idris is obviously looking to be the Commander of your next Izzet deck, or at least included in the 99. This card may be expensive, but the ability to turn any instant or sorcery into a cantrip is undeniably useful. Getting a Storm-empowered Lightning Bolt on top is just extra icing on the cake.
Admittedly, thanks to their mana cost, Idris won’t be an auto-include in every deck. Vigorous Farming, however, may be for mono-green decks going forward. Not only does it buff the next land in your Library, but it also ensures lands enter untapped. In Brawl, playing this as soon as possible will be a value goldmine, especially in multicolored decks.
Keeping with the theme of ramp, both Traverse Valley and Cindercone Smite are potentially amazing. Sadly, both of these cards are held back by their requirements of Kicker and not being the starting players. Should you be able to meet these conditions, however, these cards provide fantastic ramp and fixing.
The Rest
With 30 cards comprising Alchemy: Bloomburrow, sadly not every one of them is a winner. While we’ve covered the best bits in this article, there is still technically more to see. If you want to take a gander at the rest of what’s available, the set review video has everything you need.
Thankfully, the release of Alchemy: Bloomburrow is only a few days away now. Once the next MTG Arena update rolls around on August 20th, the set will be released. Accompanying this release will be a new “Into the Future” event so everyone can test out the new cards.
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