Welcome to the cutest new plane in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. On the plane of Bloomburrow, there’s a location simply called “Valley”, where small animals of all kinds live their day-to-day lives.
The idea of anthropomorphism, or giving human traits, emotions or intentions to (in this case) small, cute animals is something that has been around for ages – most of us grew up watching cartoons about rascally rabbits, mutant ninja turtles, or reading fantasy stories to Brian Jacques’ “Redwall” series. There is something inherently appealing about it, and by leveraging that, WOTC has built a world with broad appeal to all age groups.
And it seems to be working really well for them, with most of the chatter on social media about Bloomburrow being bright and positive.
While the set’s tone in general is quite light-hearted and happy, there are still dangers on the plane. These come in the form of larger predator animals, or ‘Calamity Beasts’, who generally come from outside Valley. They usually are tied to elemental forces like night, fire, or the changing seasons.
The official story involves a group of animals led by a frog named Helga and a mouse named Mabel, banding together after the attack of a calamity beast to try and work out the reason for the attack.
The story and visit to the plane appear to be only tangentially related to the overarching story arc – Ral Zarek determines that Jace Berelan may have been here but does not appear to be any more.
Bloomburrow has a special, unique property that differentiates it from other planes. It is subject to a massive, planar-wide enchantment – anyone who visits gets turned into an animal version of themselves. In the official story accompanying the set release, this is demonstrated by Ral Zarek, the only planeswalker officially in the set, arriving transformed as an otter.
WOTC are leveraging other planeswalkers in a series of cards labelled Imagine:Critters; reprinting some powerful and iconic planeswalkers with artwork showing them as they might appear on Bloomburrow. This has the cool advantage of not having them form part of the base set, not requiring them to be part of the story, and being able to use Planeswalkers who are now deceased or desparked. A handful of legendary creatures from other planes are given the same treatment.
As usual, there are a broad variety of card frames and treatments for collectors. Extended art and Borderless, Woodland Showcase and Field Notes Showcase variants show off the adorable art in different ways. The chase cards for the set have Japanese anime-style artwork with raised foil borders.
When it comes to mechanics, the main new one to keep an eye on is “Offspring”. This new keyword found on creature cards has an optional additional cost which you can pay or not as you cast the card. If you do pay, when the creature enters, you create a token that’s a copy of it, same name, creature types, mana cost, mana value, and abilities as the parent creature, except the token is 1/1. “Gift” allows you to promise (or not promise) a gift to your opponent, with implications either way. “Forage” lets you sacrifice cards from your graveyard or a Food token to pay a cards cost, and “Valiant” triggers whenever a creature becomes the target of a spell or ability you control for the first time each turn. It wouldn’t be a MTG expansion if the gameplay didn’t continue to evolve, and Bloomburrow is no exception.
I feel like Wizards know they’re on to a winner with this set. The artwork is gorgeous, it’s got a broad generational appeal, and it’s getting a stack of good press. Some people are even predicting that the extensive planewalker guide to Bloomburrow points the way toward it being leveraged into WOTC’s other products, like Dungeons and Dragons.
Are there any negatives? Well, one could argue that Bloomburrow is just another set in the continuous barrage of new product releases. But that is more tied in with parent company Hasbro’s demands on profit margins, and not a problem with the set itself. One of the few negatives I’ve seen levelled at it on social media revolves around the fact that a lot of cards in the set generate some pretty specific token cards, either directly or via the offspring mechanic. Limited environments just don’t get enough tokens to cover this.
Really though, this is just nitpicking. Bloomburrow looks to be a great success for WOTC and has a lot of fun new cards to add to your collections.
Magic: The Gathering – Bloomburrow is available now in all good TCG stores.
Magic: The Gathering – Bloomburrow cards were provided to Checkpoint Gaming from Wizards of the Coast to provide this coverage.
About the Author
Ric Bullock
he/him
Ric is a board game afficiando who has been playing Magic: The Gathering for way too many years.
