Magic the Gathering Bloomburrow Review, Part 3 of 4: White, Blue, and Black Cards

Magic’s newest expansion takes us to the newly introduced plane of Bloomburrow, a land without humans populated instead by anthropomorphic animals.  

Last time we covered the set’s multicolor cards, and this time we’ll be look at the first batch of monocolor cards from the set, covering white, blue, and black cards. As usual we won’t be looking at everything, and we’ll be doing this primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.

 

Beza, the Bounding Spring

Loxi: Beza isn’t the type of legendary I think will take to the Command Zone often, but it’s a really solid piece that will generate a lot of value in Blink or Reanimator strategies, and honestly I can even see some play if you’re in Elemental Typal decks. I think the first line is arguably one of the most interesting, since it’s the only one that doesn’t “scale down” the more ETB triggers it gets; drawing cards is absolutely fantastic, but if a player only has one more card than you, even if you’re able to blink this a bunch, it might plateau out. No matter how many Treasures you make though, you can just keep chugging more out if someone still has more lands than you when this goes off.

BPhillipYork: WotC loves to give white these kind of balance effects where you benefit if you are sort of behind in some way. For multiplayer this works out fairly well since you can have 1 opponent with more cards, one with more creatures, etc. Your best case scenario is a 4/5 for 4 that gives you a Treasure, 4 life, 2 1/1s, and a card. That’s pretty good, but you have to know how many times you are going to have less of those things than your opponents to really know. Running this as a Commander seems fairly boring and bad to me, but throwing it into a flicker deck or something like that would be okay.

Marcy: Beza has seen a lot of play in the gap that was created by The Wandering Emperor rotating, as a somewhat ‘resetting’ bomb; there’s been some fairly good success in that regard, but obviously the gap the Emperor left is not going to be filled so easily. Beza’s biggest issue is that it relies on you being ‘behind’ in at least one, if not two areas, but creative usage of Beza can really get you insane value — playing Beza before you drop your 5th land if you were on the draw, for example, is a nice way to get a little mana ramp. The aggro meta of Standard makes Beza tough because if you are hanging on for deer (not sorry) life, Beza might not be enough to save you off just 4 life –you need more.

 

Builder’s Talent

BPhillipYork: Well the level 2 on this is fairly solid. Level 3 is really expensive (effectively 8 mana for a resurrection, one time) so it comes down to whether you need a consistent source of +1/+1 counters for some reason. If you are trying to do a proliferate deck or something like that, this makes perfect sense as an enabler. 3 mana for that effect isn’t bad at all.

Loxi: Now adding Laborer Class to the cycle, I think this one’s not too shabby. My best use case for this would be any counter deck that will have a lot of frequent triggers for the Level 2 ability, as that’s the main selling point to me. A counter generator that has a TON of extra value strapped to it is absolutely nothing to scoff at though, and the reanimation can be super strong if you can time it well.

Marcy: This has been kind of slept on in Standard for the moment, and I think it probably will continue to be so. The Level 3 ability is interesting, because it is a very slow reanimator that your opponent can see coming, but a lot of the reanimator spells rotated out, so there’s not many other options right now.

 

Caretaker’s Talent

BPhillipYork: Wow. This is quite strong conditional card draw for white. There’s quite a few ways to get triggered Treasures on your opponents’ turns for your opponents doing things, like Monologue Tax and Smothering Tithe. White also has plenty of ways to create tokens via lands or artifacts on your opponents’ turns. Not quite an auto include but if you are doing those kinds of things already, this is going to create even more card advantage for you.

Loxi: We had counters before, but now we’re looking at tokens. Honestly, it had me after the Level 1 ability; that’s just card generation for free in so many decks, and to boot Level 2 makes a copy for disgustingly cheap. I’d argue level 3 isn’t spectacular, but board-wide anthems are always good to have especially when tacked onto the rest of the package. This is a crazy high value card and I think most token decks could make a good argument for this one.

Marcy: It’s funny that this card shows up after rotation in which most of the token creating decks have been obliterated by said rotation; they weren’t extremely common anyway, but this could have seen some play in Humans/Soldiers or even some neat weirdness with Gala Greeters style of decks. Oh well.

FromTheShire: I think there’s still going to be a token deck or two in GW and RW but they are aggro decks where you want your opponent to be dead by the time you’d have the mana to level up to the anthem. For Commander this is great though, definitely able to draw 3-4 times per wheel of the table if your deck is set up right.

 

Carrot Cake

Loxi: The bunnies in the back all absolutely pogging out of their mind is phenomenal, I love this card for that alone.

BPhillipYork: Not really worth it unless you are doing a bunny-themed deck I guess.

Marcy: So since my compatriots basically only play Commander, this card deserves some attention for the fact that it is very very good in Bunny Typal in Standard. There is a lot going on here for 2 mana: you get a body that is in your type, and you get 3 life and then another body. You also get to scry twice, which for the aggro typal style is really valuable to ensure that you can top-deck what you need. Also very nice to use it to put a body on the board off your own turn.

FromTheShire: 3 life and 2 bodies can be absolutely huge against aggro for sure.

 

Dawn’s Truce

BPhillipYork: Yeah this is super good, just protect your board from a Wrath or something similar. Or an Armageddon.

TheChirurgeon: Definitely a fair trade, and the non-gift mode is super playable. Only a few things get around this.

Loxi: The obvious comparison is to Teferi’s Protection, and while I don’t think this is technically as outright powerful, it’s so negligibly close that I think both are pretty much equally as powerful. Giving one person a card is better than being dumped out of the game almost 100% of the time, and two mana is perfectly reasonable to keep open for this. You can’t dodge board wide exiles with this, which I think is the main drawback compared to TePro, but that’s a really hard use case to find protection from in other ways.

Marcy: The funniest part of this card is that Standard wise there are not nearly as many boardwipes as there were before rotation (anyone remember the Oops, All Boardwipes deck? Yeah.) The ones that do exist are Temporary Lockdown, which doesn’t target or destroy, and Sunfall, which exiles and does not target. So outside of Standard, this might be valuable. In Standard, not so much.

FromTheShire: Rootborn Defenses and co are still a staple for me in creature based decks since getting wiped once your hand is played out is so devastating to recover from, and this is straight up better a lot of the time. Instant staple.

 

Dewdrop Cure

BPhillipYork: This is really solid and works super well with things like Buried Alive, you can bury two or three combo pieces, execute, and win the game.

Loxi: Agreed, it’s a really great card. You need a deck with enough targets for this, either in a combo or aggro context, but either way it’s really efficient as a way to get things back to the board. Might be able to even make a friend with that Gift if you play your cards right.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah adding another of these effects to let you double up on Reveillark/Sun Titan effects really helps make decks built around that recursion more consistent without having to go harder on tutor effects and adding another color.

 

Essence Channeler

BPhillipYork: Wow this is so pushed from former 2 cost get a +1/+1 when you gain life. Just 2 more abilities on top of that, and a loss of 1 toughness.

Loxi: If you’ve ever played with or against a lifegain deck, you know how easy it can be to incrementally gain little bits of life very often, so this can become a pretty scary threat quite quickly. Being able to distribute the counters away also makes this a really solid target for anything else you have that might put additional counters on a creature, which includes things like a keyword counter from Ikoria cards.

Marcy: Feels like this is supposed to fill the void left by Voice of the Blessed, but that card wasn’t really what made lifegain work, and this doesn’t really do the same thing as that card. Can still certainly grow out of control, but the lack of indestructible and permanent vigilance are a hard loss.

 

Jackdaw Savior

BPhillipYork: This is solid, works super well with white’s already-extant Elementals that return things, like Vesperlark and Reveillark; definitely has the potential to be a combo enabler or just a huge value play.

Loxi: Notably the creature you return doesn’t have to be something with flying, just the creature actually dying to trigger the ability, which honestly makes this more versatile than at first glance.

FromTheShire: Hell yeah, big love for the recursion on this card. Worth noting that despite me loving it for being a Bird, it’s also a Cleric, and those tend to play nicely with big expensive flying Demons in Orzhov shells.

 

Jolly Gerbils

Loxi: I’m going to put this in a deck and bring a bunch of random snacks and goodies to my games and just offer them to other people as “gifts” and claim it counts to trigger this if they accept it. Who can say no to homemade cookies?

BPhillipYork: Yeah, this is fun but there probably aren’t enough gift cards unless you are deliberately building around t hat.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah it’s too parasitic for Limited or EDH but could be fun in more casual constructed multiplayer formats? Do people play those?

 

Salvation Swan

Loxi: This can be handy as a protection piece to fizzle a spell or dodge a board wipe on a creature. The flying counter is a fun touch, I think the viability of this really just depends on your deck construction and if you have enough things you’d want to target with this to make it worthwhile. If you can’t remove the counter, you can’t reuse this on the same creature so…Solemnity stocks to the moon?

BPhillipYork:  Okay a bird cleric. Right. Well it flickers with flash, so that’s a decent defensive play and can be looped to create constantly entering triggers if you can profit off of that, but it’s on a delay so not as useful. Also an interesting way to just give away flying.

 

Season of the Burrow

Marcy: This particular card has seen a lot of play in White and White adjacent decks in Standard that have been using it to really take advantage of the 2 cost part, as there aren’t a ton of fantastic ways to get rid of Enchantments, Planeswalkers, and Artifacts at the moment, and the multi-mode card choices mean that this card can just show up and win a game.

BPhillipYork: 5 mana is a lot for this effect to be perfectly honest. It’s nice you can return a 3 or less, make it indestructible, and also exile something. But 5 mana is generally just too much for something like that.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah, I feel like returning permanents need to be the two-paw mode and you could swap that with exile and remove the “draw a card” rider that makes this so rough – Getting rid of two permanents and giving my opponent two cards is just not a great deal.

Loxi: This is a great example of doing a whole bunch of things decently well, but not often things I always want at the same time. Exiling two of anything for 5 mana isn’t the worst, but at that point it might just be better to play a cheaper spot removal card or a board wipe. I don’t think it’s particularly bad, it’s just a bit unfocused for a single card to cast which might make it hard to really slot into a deck with a good purpose.

 

Shrike Force

FromTheShire: Look at this little dork, he’s adorable. The abilities are great, but you definitely want to be buffing him somehow with things like anthem effects or Voltron pieces.

Loxi: You can carry equipment on this guy really well if you want to cosplay as Brian Kibler and make your best Caw Blade deck for Commander.

BPhillipYork: Okay, uh, no.

 

Starfall Invocation

Marcy: Filling the void left by the multiple board wipes, this card is certainly a decent replacement and the extra mana cost is an odd change. I suppose it is for the Gift ability, but in my opinion I feel like the Gift should reduce the mana cost to 4? Otherwise, Sunfall is probably the card you run over this.

BPhillipYork: Well this is a wrath that will let you set up something or just have the only creature on the board at the end, which is fine.

Loxi: Yeah it’s a pretty solid wrath, it’s nothing to write home about really but it’s generically really solid. If you’re not a really spellcaster/hand control style deck, you usually have something worthwhile to keep on board. If not, just blast everything and offer no gifts!

 

Valley Questcaller

FromTheShire: 2 mana is great for a lord effect full stop, and then this not only hits 4 different creature types but gives you card advantage by scrying? Excellent. The only downside is being on a creature.

BPhillipYork: Probably weirdest lord to date in Magic? So that’s something.

TheChirurgeon: Oh trust me, we’re gonna get weirder when we get to the black cards. I appreciate what they’re doing here – some of these creature types need a lot more help and you don’t want to devote 5-10 card slots to making a lord for each – but thematically it kind of stinks to put a Rabbit lord in my Rats or Birds deck. It’s fine and I’ll do it, but I’m not gonna like it.

Loxi: It’s decent enough, it’s cheap and has nice stats for the cost on top of the other lord effects, so I see no reason why you couldn’t run this one in the respective typal decks. Probably best suited to Rabbits due to being one itself.

Marcy: A very odd Lord because the only deck it currently sees play in is Rabbit Typal, and ironically Rabbit Typal does splash a few non-Rabbits, but almost none of those are Bats, Birds, or Mice.

 

Warren Warleader

Marcy: A game ender in Rabbit Typal; still very strong in non-Rabbit token aggro, but less so.

BPhillipYork: Yeah this can make a lot of triggers, so fairly dangerous for go wide tokens that wants to phase into going tall. Really expensive to get going but a powerful value engine once established.

Loxi: It’s good, but with the offspring trigger it’s 6 mana, which is quite a bit, and it’s not particularly safe being spread among a 4/4 and 1/1 creature with nothing to keep them safe. It’s going to do work if you do get to attack with it a bunch, but I do think I’d mostly run this in a deck where Rabbit synergies are worthwhile and probably wouldn’t just jam this in a token deck.

FromTheShire: Especially late game when you can pay for the offspring this is a house in 60 card. Stacking the triggers off of multiples is punishing, and it doesn’t even have to attack itself to get them so you can keep going wide.

 

Whiskervalue Forerunner

BPhillipYork: Interesting. Solid enough for Feather, the Redeemed decks, this is a strong way to generate even more insane value in that deck if your opponents just ignore what you’re doing. The nice thing is the wording of the trigger means your opponents can’t react to deny your flip 5, since it will have become a target before a counterspell or kill spell lands.

Loxi: Even ignoring the fact that this can get cards right into play, the worst case scenario is that this can filter through your deck and grab some low cost cards to your hand. That’s really potent, and really the only pitfall of this card is that it has no keywords and the stats aren’t great. If you can trigger it regularly and can work with the mediocre body, this is gonna generate some solid value.

Marcy: Shut up card reader, Go for the Throat Blast.

 

Azure Beastbinder

BPhillipYork: Neat way to attack, also to enabling blowing things up by doing 2 damage with a Shock, or removing pesky effects you can’t otherwise deal with. I’m just not sure this really matters almost any of the time.

Loxi: Built in evasion and utility makes this a pretty easy sell for any deck looking to leverage Rogues, especially since getting to turn off any scary artifacts or planeswalkers for a turn can seriously stuff some decks out of the game if they can’t deal with this.

Saffgor: Comparing this to Warkite Marauder, that extra toughness stops a lot of accessible pings from clearing a neutered creature. That said, you get a similarly evasive body that in theory has 3 toughness to block with, and the effect lasts the whole turn cycle. If you’re playing one, you’re considering the other, but this one isn’t a Pirate for Malcom. Eh.

 

Dour Port-Mage

BPhillipYork: Wow this really makes flicker decks go absolutely berserk.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah this is going to be absolute bonkers with a bunch of blink effects. Let’s gooooooooooo

Loxi: Yeah this one’s a gimmie, you want to play this in ETB/blink decks and pop off. Enjoy your 30-minute turn, you wild child.

Saffgor: A way to draw the deck with Dockside loops containing Barrin, Master Wizard or Temur Sabertooth …if you needed that. I’m far more bearish (read, skeptical) that this is going to find a serious home in cEDH, and I would argue it’s the second-best 1/3 Frog Wizard for {1}{U} in Bloomburrow’s broader card set. There’s a certain Pollywog Prodigy that likely outshines this as a draw engine.

Marcy: CovertGoBlue gets some credit for showcasing this card in pre-release in a Frog Typal deck that was absolutely bonkers and also kind of non-interactive, but still very fun (For you. Not for anyone else).

 

Eluge, the Shoreless Sea

BPhillipYork: This is apparently a cEDH card already. I guess it’s probably just a taking extra turns deck, which is kind of boring, but makes perfect sense. Free extra turn spells is pretty bonkers, and then you can potentially just beat someone to death with it. Kind of funny it doesn’t have islandwalk, which usually accompanies this sort of thing.

Loxi: The thing that makes this card uniquely scary is that it discounts Blue mana pips, and as we know from years of Magic, free spells = free wins, baby. It can get a pretty big body quickly as well, and though I don’t think that’s the main way you’ll close out games, it’s pretty terrifying when that’s strapped to other rules as strong as it has. It has some unique other synergies with flood counters, which means there are a few other cool tech pieces you can use here that you don’t see often. Good stuff.

Saffgor: Full discretion, I’m running the 150+ person Eluge Discord for all levels of EDH, so suffice to say I’m a massive, massive fan of the gar. Being able to play a greedy permission control commander, and tap out early to shove it onto the board while holding up cards like Swan Song, Pongify, or Wash Away has been a joy, and as someone who played Baral far later than I should have in cEDH, I have a weakness for monoblue control. Critically, while Eluge improves your action economy, especially with repeatable spells, it lacks a mana outlet or combo in the Command Zone, which likely means this is nothing more than fringe cEDH at best. That said, from budget to degenerate, so much works with Eluge, and does so with a gusto yet-unseen in monoblue. Splice/Arcane? Suspend with 4 Clockspinnings per cycle? Good old fashioned ‘Hang on, before that resolves-‘? The fish is a format mainstay, for years to come.

 

Gossip’s Talent

BPhillipYork: Wow. Well this basically duplicates Brago, King Eternal and also makes things unblockable which is nice. Rare to see a level up card where all three levels up are valuable and have good internal synergy.

Loxi: I mentioned Rogues earlier, and this is another great card for those decks. Level 3 is very very powerful, but it will take you 8 mana to work up to that point, so be ready for other players to have an answer if you aren’t dropping this and leveling it up right away.

Saffgor: The main reason this will see play is that first effect, as commanders like Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and its ilk are swooning at the fact this lacks “Nontoken” in its text. While no obvious combo exists, as far as I’ve seen, there’s a world where this could make a splash as a means to deck oneself off of ETBs before reanimating a Thassa’s Oracle.

 

Kitnap

BPhillipYork: Interesting worse Control Magic.

Loxi: I read this as “Catnip” and it just made sense, so I didn’t know until exactly now that the name was not “Catnip.” I don’t know if I should be disappointed or not. It’s meh, I think it’s a fun concept but I don’t really like it outside of potential Limited play.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah having to wait three turns makes this more like blue removal than a new version of Control Magic and I’d rather just have Mind Control at 5.

 

Kitsa, Otterball Elite

BPhillipYork: Solid. If you really need to copy spells this is a great way to repeatedly do it. Works super well in taking turns decks. You really only need to cast 1 other spell before the one you want to copy, so that’s solid.

Loxi: This has so much synergy with the other Otters shown in the set that it should be a slam dunk in any of those decks, but even other generic spellslinger decks should find a spot for this one. I think it’s one of the better cheap Prowess carriers and does a whole ton of stuff for a 2 drop.

Saffgor: One of Monoblue’s biggest issues in Commander is its lack of easy wincons. While Teferi Chain Veil is well known, and Kefnet’s Zombie incarnation allowed for taking turns, the color largely relied on an awful-in-hindsight combo surrounding Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal alongside mana rocks. Kitsa is just another piece to that puzzle, a second Scepter, but this time tutorable with Wizardcycling over artifact tutors. This reeks of being played in exclusively adorable Otter tribal, or as part of Monoblue’s yearning for a wincon.

Marcy: In the current shuffle of decks, Otter Typal Prowess struggles, and I think this card is sadly very indicative of why. There’s also the argument that Otters just don’t currently have many good spells to help them out here — For example, you’d need to either cast 2 spells or something like Monstrous Rage to then be able to use Kitsa’s ability, which is asking you to have 3-5 mana open. That’s a lot.

FromTheShire: Do you want to cast infinite spells? Because this is how you cast infinite spells.

 

Long River Lurker

Loxi: This makes your Frogs frog even froggier and also more annoying to kill with some ward protection. The frogs are all really potent, so if there’s any good creatures worth re-triggering ETB effects for in your deck (spoiler: there will be), this will be a sweet card.

BPhillipYork: Oh good uh, for my frog. Yeah this is uh, not good.

Marcy: Shockingly, not great, and also not in most Frog Typal decks.

 

Mockingbird

Loxi: There’s quite a bit of utility with just stealing some scary creature and giving it flying. There are a lot of really brutal creatures in this game without natural evasion, and having access to any that may be on the board with a flexible casting cost is ace.

BPhillipYork: Neat clone with added flying, potentially cheaper. I really like it.

Saffgor: Now this is what I’m talking about! Blue Llanowar Elves? Flying Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer? Able to be tutored with Ranger-Captain of Eos? When I say this is a multiformat staple, I mean it. While this doesn’t scale as well as something like a Flesh Duplicate or Phantasmal Image, it more than makes up for it in terms of a power floor. I’ll be slamming this into my Volo/Street Urchin Scramble list, and pretending UR gets 1 mana dorks.

 

Portent of Calamity

BPhillipYork: Complicated and overly expensive. You really need to have a high X to get the “free” spell so this just doesn’t seem worth it.

Saffgor: Hard pass, as the condition is very unlikely to be met unless you sink an ungodly amount of mana into it. Notably, this gets around draw-locks ala blue Narset, but sorcery-speed and hyperspecific clauses make this mediocre.

 

Season of Weaving

BPhillipYork: 6 for draw 5 is solid enough, so having other decent modes on top of it is fine if you are willing to pay that much to draw.

TheChirurgeon: I’m a big fan of Copy + two cards.

Loxi: This definitely is an improvement over the white version of the card, as there will always be a good case to want to cast this while the more niche effects can be really powerful in a pinch, although copying your stuff isn’t exactly niche at this point. Sorcery speed is really the only limit here, and that’s a fine price to pay for great flexibility.

Saffgor: I got to play with this at Gen Con, and it is a house. 6 mana is a lot, but if you’re copying anything worthwhile and bouncing the rest, you’re feeling pretty stoked. I wish this was 5 mana, but beggars can’t be weavers.

 

Splash Portal

Marcy: This sees a lot of play in Frog Typal for obvious reasons — that deck archetype really wants cards to be coming and going from the battlefield.

Loxi: I’d like this more if it was an instant so you could do it to juke removal, but that might be a little strong at one mana.

Saffgor: If Essence Flux is Ephemerate at home, this is the Dollar Tree brand. Still, in decks like Eluge that may want to flex into a “free” blink early on, or if this is a cantrip, you might see this be the 101st card cut, rather than one without consideration.

BPhillipYork: Too slow, draw a card upside not really doing it.

 

Stormchaser’s Talent

Marcy: Essentially Shark Typhoon in Standard, but it hasn’t really had much time to shine in that capacity. It has the ABILITY to be Shark Typhoon, but really is shaping up to be ‘we have Shark Typhoon at home’.

BPhillipYork: Kind of a funny way to make a huge horde of prowess otters which is fine. Really it’s an aggro deck strategy except you have to invest 11 mana to start generating 1/1s which is not good.

Loxi: Yeah this one’s just too expensive in my book. All of the effects are good, it’s just waaay too much for one card.

FromTheShire: I think it’s better to look at this as a 1 mana 1/1 with prowess for the Otter or Izzet spellslinger Standard deck, and less as something you’re actually trying to level up. Sometimes you will have the extra mana to activate the second mode and get back the last Monstrous Rage or whatever you need to close out a game, but the third is never actually in your plan. At that rate it’s a solid roleplayer.

 

Sugar Coat

Loxi: We used to use Imprisoned in the Moon to send someone to moon jail, but now we turn them into a cookie. This is cooler honestly. Only a monster would eat their own creature, right?

BPhillipYork: Yeah, this is a great removal card. I like that it forces them to pay mana and have it untapped. It’s not “you’re a moon” or “you’re an invulnerable bug” but still.

 

Thundertrap Trainer

BPhillipYork: This is an okay way to dig, especially in flicker decks. The offspring 4 is a lot to duplicate that effect, way more playable at 2 and you are going to be able to repeat it because of what your deck does.

Loxi: I can’t imagine paying the offspring cost unless you have silly mana, but it’s not bad. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t make the cut for any Otter decks, since I’d rather just do this with an instant or sorcery to trigger Prowess on other things.

 

Valley Floodcaller

Loxi: Giving all of your noncreature spells flash has a really good use case for a lot of decks. Look at how often you see Vedalken Orrery! While I’m not suggesting to just jam this in any deck, even if you don’t have any inherent typal synergy with the second part of the card 3 mana (with flash as well) to give your other noncreatures flash can be really handy for anything that wants to play on other people’s turns, like some artifact or enchantress decks.

Saffgor: Another enabler for Retraction Helix lines, this time all at instant speed. Shimmer Zur feels ancient now, compared to its contemporaries, but I won’t complain about being able to shove a win when everyone’s theoretically tapped out and unconcerned. Could be solid, if Helix & Co find a home!

Marcy: One of the core Otter Prowess cards, and yet sadly also kind of… hard to get to work. Best if cast on end step or as a blocker if you can protect it, so that you have more mana open on your own turn to take advantage of the effects.

BPhillipYork:  Oh good more pieces for my *checks notes* uh aggro otter… prowess.

 

Wishing Well

Loxi: I was a bit low on this until I read “from your graveyard,” which makes this really crazy if you have a big graveyard of junk to play with. It’s worth mentioning that it has to be exactly equal to the number of counters on this, so any counter manipulation might make this a bit easier to work with.

BPhillipYork: This is really solid. 4 mana is probably too much to be worth investing, but it’s going to rapidly be doubling things. As always I’m going to recommend doubling extra turns.

Saffgor: Specificity is the death knell of this card. As Foretold from the grave, it is not.

 

Bandit’s Talent

Loxi: It’s a good payoff for forced discard, not really too much to go over here. It has a really specific use case, but it’s quite good there. It’s a bit expensive, but the Level 3 version can start to net a lot of cards really quickly if you’re proactively forcing discards often.

Marcy: This is seeing a lot of play in the very frustrating and boring Mono Black Discard shells that are out there. The Level 2 is very game ending if you can’t get rid of it or mitigate that effect, though, and is frankly very cheap to activate.

FromTheShire: Yeah this and Painful Quandry being in Standard means there’s an actual playable 8 Rack variant (a mono-black control deck with effectively 8 copies of The Rack with the inclusion of Shrieking Affliction as its win condition) which is awesome, though the current build I’ve seen only runs 2 copies of Affliction to be 6 Rack in truth. If the final level pops offer in Commander it’s crazy too.

 

Coiling Rebirth

Loxi: It’s a solid reanimator spell for any decks that like this sort of thing, it’s priced accordingly but can really make a splash when you reanimate a bomb. As per many of the other cards with “Gift a Card,” what you can do with a copy of a creature usually will outweigh giving someone a card, and even if it won’t you have the option to just not give the gift.

TheChirurgeon: The Legendary rider here makes sense, but it would have been cool to see something that could copy Commanders at 5 mana value. That said, this is just really solid and yeah, gifting a card is usually worth the copy.

FromTheShire: Definitely worth it even if you’re not planning on gifting, returning things directly to the battlefield is great and not every card can be Reanimate.

 

Consumed by Greed

Loxi: It’s going to be a bit meta dependent on if this is better than a regular kill spell, but this can get around a lot of protections with the caveat of having a bit less control over what you target. Being able to replace itself in hand with something from your bin is really nice too. I quite like it, it’s nothing outstanding but I can see a case to be made if your meta has a lot of decks that win through big scary dudes.

TheChirurgeon: This is a big expensive for semi-targeted sacrifice, but getting a creature back with a card gift kind of makes it like an inverse Bone Splinters, which is pretty neat. I think being an instant makes it borderline playable.

FromTheShire: At most I think this winds up being like a 2 of, Sheoldred’s Edict doesn’t hit the biggest thing quite as reliably but it does the job pretty regularly, plus the additional modes are sometimes relevant as well.

 

Darkstar Augur

Loxi: Dark Confidant but a little batty. You can offspring this for cheap if you like murdering your own life total for insane card advantage. I love these types of cards, Pain Seer holds a special place in my heart.

TheChirurgeon: The Offspring decision here is so incredibly interesting – it’s got huge potential upside, especially given you’re likely to pull more lands, but you could end up eating a lot of life loss really quickly this way and accidentally drawing yourself out of games. That said, it’s super optional so you can just opt to not do it against decks which can burn you to the face and in Commander that life loss is pretty trivial, whereas getting an extra 2 cards on early turns is a much bigger deal.

FromTheShire: Fortunately the Bat deck also has a solid chunk of life gain in so this is just great. In Commander with even more life to work with and ways to gain it back, getting 2 copies of this trigger for 4 mana is even better. It can even safely attack due to the flying.

 

Feed the Cycle

Loxi: This is a fantastic removal spell for decks that don’t have easy access to exile-based removal. Worst case scenario, it’s a Hero’s Downfall. Best case scenario, it’s a nicely efficient kill spell with a negligible non-mana additional cost. Even if you don’t run food, I think this is a really good budget replacement for anyone still with a Murder stirring around in the bottom of your decklists.

TheChirurgeon: As a two-mana Instant this is very solid and the extra cost is pretty easy to hit even early in the game. I like this a lot and it’ll see plenty of constructed play.

FromTheShire: Yeah I think this is the one that sees way more play, not Consumed by Greed. 2 mana plus a cost vs 3 is a big difference.

 

Fell

Loxi: Sorcery speed makes this a bit too clunky for constructed play, but from a limited standpoint it’s hilarious to see two black kill spells at Uncommon.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah it’s absolute dynamite in limited but in Constructed being a Sorcery hurts it real bad. That said it’s interesting to see how we’ve arrived at a two-cost “destroy target creature” spell after 30 years. It’s been a long, wild road to get here from Terror.

 

Iridescent Vinelasher

Loxi: Group Slug and Landfall decks will love this one, I’ll likely free a slot in my Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck to jam this guy in. Being a one drop makes this a really sweet turn one play.

TheChirurgeon: Damage on landfall is a sweet deal and there are enough ways to get extra lands into play to make this an engine in some decks.

Marcy: A very strong card in the Lizard Typal Rakdos shell and also in a lot of ramp decks as a wincon — pairing it with a card like Aftermath Analyst can churn out a LOT of damage.

FromTheShire: Vicious little Lizard that can throw an impactful amount of damage out surprisingly quickly, it’s great.

 

Maha, Its Feathers Night

Loxi: Maha opens up a crazy amount of options for how you can control the board, and thus lends to a really neat mono-black control shell where you can use things like Kaervek, the Spiteful to make sure nobody can stick a creature without having a way to buff it before it hits the board. Maha themselves are scary enough to beat people up pretty well, and can honestly be an easy win condition if you give it some equipment to allow it to two/three hit players with Commander Damage. I really like this card, it might not be the most fun thing to play against but it opens up a pretty unique control option we haven’t really seen before.

TheChirurgeon: This reminds me a lot of Spirit of the Night for several reasons, but it’s much, much better for obvious reasons. Despite her built-in protection I don’t think Maha is an amazing Commander but the board control you can get out of being able to wipe your opponents with a simple -1/-1 effect or 1 damage to everything opens up a lot of options.

FromTheShire: Definitely in the 99 not your commander, unless you want to focus on repeatedly reanimating Massacre Wurm or activating Pestilence, which is funny enough that I will probably do it but it’s a very grindy plan begging to be disrupted. Much better in Rakdos or Grixis. In 60 card the rate and protection alone are probably enough to warrant inclusion in a bunch of decks, with the upside of the toughness manipulation sometimes mattering.

 

Osteomancer Adept

Loxi: This is pretty crazy for reanimator decks, it’s a really low opportunity cost to allow you to have a lot more play with your graveyard. As I mentioned above, I don’t even really think you need food to leverage this well: you’ll likely be self milling in the types of decks that want this, and you’ll surely have some junk you don’t mind throwing away to get a creature back.

TheChirurgeon: Do squirrels have a reanimator theme?

FromTheShire: They definitely have a graveyard/sacrifice theme between this set and the extant Chatterfang, Squirrel General, and this is a great piece if you’re sacrificing your stuff a bunch. Even better if you can remove the finality counter with something like Hex Parasite.

 

Rottenmouth Viper

Loxi: The blight counters are really scary on this, once it starts stacking this is going to get game-winningly strong very fast. It’s a kill on sight card – if you can untap with this I think it’s going to be really tough for others to deal with if you don’t have fodder to sacrifice/discard.

TheChirurgeon: This is an interesting alternate way to approach poison, which used to have poison counters as a Deciduous mechanic. Being able to cheat this out early with sacrificed permanents is really interesting and this guy can get scary really fast.

Marcy: Really strong card especially since Black and Black/Green decks generate a lot of tokens these days in Standard (like Food), and this card can certainly become a game ender if not dealt with — very much so if it appears far earlier than your opponent is set up to deal with.

 

Scavenger’s Talent

Loxi: This is basically Golgari Goodstuff – the Class, and I’m here for it. It does pretty much everything this graveyard/reanimator/sacrifice-y archetype of cards wants to have support for, and it comes down real early. If you have any use at all for the Food tokens, I think this is a great inclusion in a lot of graveyard-oriented sacrifice decks.

TheChirurgeon: Yeah triggering Food tokens on token death is huge, turning this into an incredibly nasty engine when you combine it with forage effects.

FromTheShire: Massive value engine with all of the free sac outlets in Commander, rewarding you for a thing you wanted to be doing anyway.

 

Season of Loss

Loxi: Picking the two paw version twice can net a stupid amount of cards if you rip this after a board wipe or big sacrifice turn. The third effect can be pretty potent and is a nice finisher in a pinch, and the first one can be really handy if people are vulnerable to sacrifice effects (or just to juice up the 2 paw ability). I’m quite a fan of this, sorcery speed limits the second effect a bit, making this a bit better in decks that are cool with their own things dying rather than just throwing it any black deck, but it’s got some great utility.

TheChirurgeon: Don’t discount just going five single pawprints for a five-creature-per-player board wipe.

FromTheShire: Big fan of all of the modes here.

 

Stargaze

Loxi: I actually think this is a pretty underrated card for the set in the context of Commander. Hear me out: the best draw spells in the format are ones that can scale into the game well, either offering good value over time or can provide a full fist of cards when you need to start dishing out the hurt post-ramping. This a really clean single-card way to get a bunch of selective draw, and if you have any way to offset that life loss (either via lifegain or the certified Black-player maneuver of just winning before you die), it’s a solid draw spell. Sorcery speed limits it slightly for decks that have access to better draw in blue, but in Mono-Black or Rakdos, there’s a great case to be made for this.

TheChirurgeon: It’s a bit wonky but yeah at 5-6 mana there’s some promise here. Though at Sorcery Speed it feels like a worse version of Opportunity.

 

Valley Rotcaller

Loxi: You know where to play this one, and you know you want to play it there. The creature congregation just got spookier.

TheChirurgeon: The Squirrel-Rat alliance is an unholy union which should not be.

FromTheShire: Kind of weirdly this has mostly been seeing play in Lizard decks from what I’ve seen. The Lizard deck really likes these ways to push damage through/around blockers, and the Squirrel deck hasn’t quite materialized yet. In Commander the reverse is likely to be true, and with how wide Squirrels can go this can be massive amount of damage. Hell, it can even be game ending if this is already out when you pull off your Earthcraft Squirrel Nest combo.

 

Wick, the Whorled Mind

Loxi: Ok, Rat make Snail, Rat kill Snail, Snail kill players. I really like this card for a few reasons: first, it opens up Rat decks in Grixis colors, which is pretty neat. Second, it provides a Rat deck that wants to proactively win the game in a way that strays from the traditional style of big go-wide combat or aristocrats. Finally, it means you can play Skullcap Snail for absolutely forbidden tech. That’s a win from me.

TheChirurgeon: We’re definitely getting some of these rats repackaged as Skaven in a future Secret Lair drop.

FromTheShire: Super fun deck and I’m here for it, growing your dorks and doming folks with your value.

 

Next Time: Red, Green, and Colorless

That wraps up our look at the first half of the set’s monocolor cards but join us next time as we review the set’s remaining monocolor cards, looking at red, green, and colorless cards and picking out our favorites while talking about the future build-arounds.

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