Portent of Calamity | Art by Sam Guay)

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Blue-mburrow!

Hello, everyone! It’s your friendly neighborhood Jesguy here, and welcome to the Bloomburrow blue Set Review!

Bloomburrow has been a highly anticipated set over the last year, and it's easy to see why. All the little critters and cutesy imagery makes even an Innistrad-loving heart like mine soar with wonder!

While it would be fun to talk about the aesthetics of the plane though, that isn't what you're here for! Let's get right into all the brand new blue cards!

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Mythics

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Eluge, the Shoreless Sea

Well, let's start off strong with my favorite legend in the set, Eluge, the Shoreless Sea!

There is a lot to unpack with this big ol' gar. First of all, with enough islands in your deck, you can easily have a commander who is in the "Three Hit Club", which is quite nice, especially with all of blue's ways to make creatures unblockable. Second, putting flood counters on your lands whenever Eluge enters or attacks turns them into islands, which will synergize with both its first (and last) ability. Speaking of its final ability, Eluge is a massive cost-reducer, making the first instant or sorcery you cast each turn cost quite a bit less depending on the amount of flood counters on your lands.

These abilities provide a lot of space to build around, whether you want to try and utilize commander damage as a late game plan, blink Eluge a bunch in order to maximize your flood counters, or play a slow controlling game plan with plenty of instants and counterspells. This isn't even touching on the fact that this calamity beast is excellent in the 99 of other decks!

The most obvious home here is Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood, where you can double the amount of flood counters in a quick manner, giving you plenty more lands to untap! Spellslinger decks are also in the market for cost reducers as well, even if it is only on the first spell they cast. This will help them utilize larger spells like Crackle with Power and Sea Gate Restoration on their turn with ease, while keeping up plenty of "mana" for instants on opponent's turns.

Overall, I think there is a lot of potential with Eluge, the Shoreless Sea, whether it's at the helm of a deck, or in the 99. It's definitely one that made me put my brewing cap on, and I appreciate that. Seems great to me!

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Kitsa, Otterball Elite

This is where I would put in some kind of "Blitzball" reference, but I haven't played Final Fantasy before. Sorry for letting you all down.

Two keywords, the ability to loot, and the ability to copy spells? Meet one of the best looters ever printed! While I think Kitsa isn't as good to build around as Eluge, the Shoreless Sea, it's still an interesting legend in its own right. It will more often than not be relegated to the 99 of Spellslinger decks, but since Merfolk Looter shows up in over 18,000 decks, I can definitely see it finding a home in Graveyard, Discard, and Reanimator strategies as well, where the looting ability of Kitsa is the most important part.

Overall, Kitsa, Otterball Elite is a bit of a mixed bag, but unlike other legends, that is actually a boon for her instead of a hindrance. While she is pulled in multiple directions, this doesn't hurt her viability, and in fact gives her plenty of homes in the format, which is a nice change to see!

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Season of Weaving

Sorceries have to pull a lot of weight in EDH, and luckily, this powerful modal spell does!

Anyone who has read my set reviews and articles before know that I value modal spells very highly, and Season of Weaving is no different. Being able to draw five for six mana is quite good. Being able to make one to two token copies of a creature or artifact and either cantrip or draw three cards is great. Being able to bounce all nontoken nonland permanents and make a token or draw two cards is awesome. No mode on this is bad.

Season of Weaving is strong and versatile, providing card advantage, board presence, and a board wipe all in one! I think this, along with the rest of the Season cycle are some of the best modal spells we've gotten in quite some time. A+.

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Rares

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Azure Beastbinder

Tiny, evasive, and annoying. All three words describe Azure Beastbinder. And while those are some nice adjectives, I don't know if those words translate to a powerful card though.

While it will almost never die in combat, it can be stopped by a bunch of 1/1 tokens, which is never a good thing. Also, while it is annoying, it never really gets rid of a problem, only delays it. This is fine for 60-card formats, but in EDH, it is often better to get rid of something fully, unless it is a commander, which Azure Beastbinder can deal with pretty handily. There are also some political moves you can make where you swing at one player only to target a different player's cards...But I really don't want to rely on politics to say a card is good.

Azure Beastbinder is fine. It can deal with commanders well enough, and slow certain threats down, but over all I am pretty unimpressed. I cannot see it outside of dedicated saboteur decks.

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Dour Port-Mage

Dour Port-Mage is the first instance of Frog's hopping/bouncing theme, and I think it's pretty cute.

The Port-Mage is excellent in Blink decks, full stop. Any list that wants to blink and bounce things into exile or into their hand is the perfect home for this card. Turning Ephemerates and Ghostly Flickers into cantrips sounds awesome! It can even bounce stuff itself if need be! Great!

This little guy can provide a lot of draw for Blink decks, and I think that is where its home will be. No need to look elsewhere, it knows what it wants to do and does it well.

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Kitnap

I don't want to spend too long on Kitnap, despite loving the play on words.

If you need an effect like this, play Control Magic. If you don't mind the extra mana, play Mind Control or Confiscate. I'd rather pay an extra mana than give an opponent an extra card. Heck, I'd probably even play Grafted Identity over this.

Yes, it can go into Theft decks, but there are so many other options; I personally wouldn't bother.

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Mockingbird

This is an interesting clone. It doesn't break the mold, but it's a really neat design.

Being constrained by mana cost kind of sucks, but always having flying on whatever creature you copied is a nice get. You're never going to be able to copy a Blightsteel Colossus, but being able to snag an Esper Sentinel, a Dockside Extortionist, or a Reclamation Sage can be quite solid, especially for the relatively low mana investment.

Mockingbird is at its best when you are only spending two to three mana on it. Any more, and you are better just using a traditional Clone variant. Love the design though!

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Portent of Calamity

You have to pull a lot of weight as a sorcery, and I don't think Portent of Calamity does.

A two mana draw one isn't great, a three mana (maybe) draw two is just a bad Divination. Anything more than that, and you probably aren't going get your mana's worth out of it. Even getting to cast something for free you have to put a minimum of five mana into it, and there isn't any guarantee you'll hit four card types!

I'm incredibly unimpressed with Portent of Calamity. We have better ways to draw cards and cheat things out. No thanks.

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Stormchaser's Talent

What do you get when you staple together Monastery Swiftspear, Archaeomancer, and Monastery Mentor?

...

This isn't a joke. I'm just talking about Stormchaser's Talent.

Look, there isn't much to say that hasn't already been alluded to. This is a lot of value for a one mana enchantment with a payment plan, even if that payment plan is pretty steep. Luckily all of its modes are perfect for different stages of the game! Early on you want a 1/1 with Prowess, in the mid game you want to buy back one of your spells, and in the late game, you'll love an enchantment that can spit out more Prowess tokens since they can help close out a game!

I'm not going to sit here and tell you this is the most mana efficient spell I've ever seen, but it is certainly strong. I'm going to try it out in my Narset, Enlightened Exile deck for sure!

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Thundertrap Trainer

Move over Augur of Bolas, we have Otter of Bolas now!

Augur of Bolas sees play in almost 7,000 decks, and a version of it that can hit more card types and can come with a second version of it should put up similar numbers. Thundertrap Trainer is great early, good late, can can draw you one or two cards from the top of your deck...This little guy seems spectacular!

The only downside here is the high Offspring cost, but that just gives you something to do later in the game in my opinion. Put Thundertrap Trainer in Wizard and Spellslinger decks, and be happy!

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Wishing Well

Wishing Well is a strange kind of Birthing Pod variant for spells in your yard, and I don't think I like it.

It's slow, it's unimpactful, and it can only hit spells that have the exact mana value of the number of coin counters on it. And it costs four mana. YIKES.

This could be fun in a Spellslinger deck that has a bunch of cheap spells, but unless you can go up the chain easily, you're just wasting time and mana. I say pass.

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Valley Floodcaller

Back in my day we had Hypersonic Dragon when we wanted to cast sorceries as instants. Nowadays you kids get that in one color, at three mana, with flash, and it's any noncreature spell? Spoiled! All of you-

Wait, what do you mean there is more text?

While the last effect won't come up super often, having a mini Jeskai Ascendancy for specific creature types can be pretty powerful, especially if any of them have tap effects. That said, that effect isn't why you play Valley Floodcaller, it's for the first one.

Being able to play any of your noncreature spells as instants is a huge get. It lets you keep up mana for activated abilities and counterspells, all the while keeping your opponent's on their toes and always guessing what your next play is. As someone who plays Yeva, Nature's Herald, I cannot overstate how powerful it is to just say "draw, go" is.

Any noncreature-based deck, from Spellslinger to Enchantress, to Artifact decks might have use for Valley Floodcaller. It is powerful and allows for tons of shenanigans with plenty of different card types.

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Uncommons and Commons

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• Daring Waverider is an expensive Snapcaster Mage, but it definitely has some utility. It is solid in Blink decks as a way to reuse your cheap blink spells, or even in Inalla, Archmage Ritualist as a way to flashback something like a Victimize or Damnation. The four MV restriction here really makes it difficult to do anything super splashy, but it can provide some solid value for sure!
• Gossip's Talent is cute in a saboteur deck like Kamiz, Obscura Oculus or Edric, Spymaster of Trest. A bit of surveil is nice, some conditional evasion is good, and being able to blink things to retrigger surveil and give psuedo-vigilance is icing on the cake. It takes a lot of mana to fully unlock this talent, but since you are able to pay it in instalments, Level 3 shouldn't be that difficult to achieve.
• Long River Lurker is a bit of an odd one, but the easiest place for it is Frog decks! The extra ward to all your Frogs are pretty cool, and the blink effect is neat if you have some etbs, but that's about it. I can't see this doing much outside of the aforementioned Frog lists.
• Long River's Pull is not the second coming of Arcane Denial. It's still worse than Counterspell, but I think it is definitely a solid option once you've exhausted your normal suite of counter magic. Definitely an interesting card for sure!
• Otterball Antics is reminiscent of Goblin Wizardry, which sees play in about 4,000 decks. That isn't a ton by any means, but it does show that there is a want for tokens with Prowess. Having flashback is a nice little plus as well, since you get to double dip with all your spells-matters triggers!

• Plumecreed Escort is a nearly strictly better version of Saiba Cryptomancer. Being a two mana 2/1 is nice, being able to save your creature is awesome, and sticking around as a creature that can peck in for some damage is nothing to scoff at. Great for Flying decks, or decks that need an extra piece of protection on a creature!
• Shoreline Looter is a tiny little unblockable looter which is cute for saboteur decks. Having a cheap, evasive creature that can provide a bit of card velocity is something that these decks love, especially if that looting can be upgraded to straight-up card advantage later!
• Spellgyre is a really expensive Cancel/Notion Rain hybrid. Either option for four mana isn't a great value, but the modality is nice. if you're a deck like Narset, Enlightened Exile, Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch, or Anhelo, the Painter who want counterspells that can also not be counterspells, here is another one for you!
• Sugar Coat is no Song of the Dryads, but it is still a tasty little removal spell. Yes if it's a commander they can sac it to put it back to the command zone, but it works great on other creatures! Three mana is a bit much to ask though though, especially when you have to compete with Pongify and Reality Shift. It excels as removal in Enchantment decks, but falls short where there are better options.

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Commander Cards

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• Fortune Teller's Talent is interesting. It's a build your own Future Sight that gives you a peek at your deck early on, and then, for some investment, conditionally play cards from the top of your deck. So...For the same cost as Future Sight we have a worse version of it? Not great. But, for an extra three mana, you do get to reduce the cost of spells that you cast from anywhere other than your hand by two, which is pretty great. I don't hate the card, but I do think that I would probably play Future Sight over it in the average deck, though I am sure there are builds where this shines.
• Twenty-Toed Toad is a strange mix between Simic Ascendancy and Triskaidekaphile. I don't judge alternate wincons too harshly since, outside of Thassa's Oracle, they are usually quite fun. It shouldn't be too hard to draw a bunch of cards or get a bunch of counters on the toad, so I can see this winning a couple games here and there. This isn't anything game breaking, but like I said, it does seem fun.
• Pollywog Prodigy takes a lot of work to get going, but once it goes, it goes! It will probably need to get to two of three counters before you start seeing a return on your investment, but once you hit that threshold, you'll be sitting pretty. This is perfect for +1/+1 Counter and Proliferate decks since they can stack up those counters right quick!

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Otter-ly Adorable

And there we have it! Possibly the cutest and cuddliest set review of all time ever!

I love palette cleanser sets, and Bloomburrow certainly provides that in spades. The cutesy critters and bright aesthetics are a welcome sight after some of the doom and gloom we've had recently, and doubly so with our trip to Duskmourn, House of Horrors next.

But staying the the present, there are tons of blue cards from Bloomburrow that stand out to me. Eluge, the Shoreless Sea, Thundertrap Trainer, Valley Floodcaller, Otterball Antics, Plumecreed Escort...So many of these are slam dunks in so many different kind of decks!

What about you though? What blue cards stood out to you during the set review? Any that you agree or disagree with? Make sure you let me know down in the comments below!

Until next time, stay cute and cuddly!

You can reach me on Twitter (@thejesguy), where you can always hit me up for Magic- or Jeskai-related shenanigans 24/7. Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Please don’t hesitate to leave them below or get in touch! Stay safe, wear your mask, wash your hands, and keep fighting the good fight. I support you. No justice, no peace.