Family Matters Upgrade Guide - Bloomburrow
July 31, 2024 by
Andy Zupke 
Welcome back friends. It’s our final precon guide for Bloomburrow, and we’re finishing the set with our Upgrade Guide for Family Matters. In case you missed it, go check out my review of the deck, where we looked at what’s in it and how to play it.
This precon got a solid grade in my review, hampered only by an out of place secondary commander. Aside from taking him out, what’s left to do? We’ll punch things up a bit by making more tokens and dishing out more damage.
Let’s tune up.
What’s in the Original Deck?
Family Matters is blue, red, and white, and led by Zinnia, Valley’s Voice, a 1/3 Bird Bard with flying. Zinnia gives all of our creature spells offspring 2, meaning we can tack on an extra two mana to each creature we cast to get an extra 1/1 copy of that creature. She also gets +X/+0, where X is the number of creatures we control with base power 1.
The backup commander is Arthur, Marigold Knight, a 4/5 Mouse Knight with haste. When Arthur attacks with at least one other creature, we look at our top six cards and we can put a creature card from them into play tapped and attacking. That creature then goes to our hand at the end of combat. While I think Arthur has a lot of potential, he’s a very poor choice for this small creature token deck. So he’s getting the axe.
Here’s the original decklist:
(BLB) - Family Matters
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What Budget Cards Can We Add to Family Matters?
As always, we’ll separate our upgrades into two categories, budget (less than $5 per card) and non-budget ($5 or more per card).
First on the agenda, let’s boost our token game. Aven Wind Guide gives our tokens flying and vigilance, ensuring that we can sneak them in for chip damage far more often. Caretaker’s Talent, from the main Bloomburrow set, gives us card draw when we make tokens. Wildfire Awakener can use our tokens to cast it, and make a bunch of extra tokens in the process. Better still, if we offspring it, we get twice X tokens. Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard not only gives our tokens double strike, she also gives us some pretty significant card advantage.
Of course, we can’t forget the token titan, Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. It not only gives our tokens haste, which I appreciate, but it also allows us to create a 2/1 Myr token every turn, then turn all of our tokens into copies of a token we control. Now imagine what we can do with this. For instance (assuming we already have a handful of tokens on the board), let’s say we turn them all into Inferno Titan offspring. Go to combat and swing with them and dish out three damage each. Or turn them all into Junk Winder offspring, so whenever we drop a token we’re essentially locking down all opponents' nonland permanents of value. Or maybe Helm of the Host has been doing work for a couple of turns and we’ve already got copies of Zinnia on the board. We can turn all of our tokens into non-legendary copies of Zinnia, then with a handful of Zinnias, each of them are going to be monstrous. Okay, I’m done fawning over Brudiclad. Let’s move on to more goodies.
One of the biggest strengths of the deck is enter-the-battlefield effects, with cards like Sun Titan, Inferno Titan, Cloudblazer, and so on. So let’s lean into that even more with Panharmonicon. Obviously this card has been outclassed in the last year by Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, but that just means that Panharmonicon is more affordable for us. And for more creatures with enters effects, we’ll throw in Bronze Walrus, which will help us dig to our best cards (especially if we offspring it) and give us a mana boost as well. Then we have Rumor Gatherer and Witty Roastmaster, both with the alliance keyword, with the former giving us major card advantage, and the latter making our opponents’ lives shorter.
With all these enters effects, maybe we should run some of them back? Let’s throw in a Dour Port-Mage, which lets us tap two mana to return a creature we control to our hand. With this, we can recast our creatures and get even more offspring. Also, that card draw ability makes this a home run of an addition.
And last, we’ll throw in Chromatic Lantern for more ramp and mana fixing, as well as Oketra’s Monument, which discounts our white creature spells and gives us a 1/1 token whenever we cast a creature spell.
These cards are out of the family: Aetherize, Arthur, Marigold Knight, Circuit Mender, Cut a Deal, Dusk // Dawn, Fortune Teller’s Talent, Hanged Executioner, Martial Coup, Restoration Angel, Stolen by the Fae, Thriving Isle, Time Wipe
Here’s our budget upgraded list:
Family Matters Budget Upgrade
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And a few more cards to consider (some of these boost our tokens’ power/toughness, which can be a path you can go with the deck, but keep in mind that they nullify Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive): Akim, the Soaring Wind, Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, Basri Ket, City on Fire, Elspeth Tirel, Horn of Gondor, Inspiring Leader, Intangible Virtue, Knight-Errant of Eos, Mulldrifter, Prava of the Steel Legion
Non-Budget Cards to Add to Family Matters
Here’s where things get really expensive. Token decks are extremely popular, and because of that, the strategy’s best cards command a higher price. Like Anointed Procession, which doubles all of our tokens, or Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, which triples our creature tokens.
Clever Concealment is a fantastic protection spell for token decks, since we can tap our tokens to cast it, then phase out all of our stuff in response to a board wipe. Grand Crescendo runs along a similar line, giving our creatures indestructible, with some additional tokens if we wanna throw some extra mana into it. There’s also Nesting Dovehawk, which copies one of our creature tokens each turn, and gets bigger in the process (kinda scary with Ojer Taq on the board).
For extra card draw, we’re enlisting Esper Sentinel. He’s great on turn one, but even better on turn four if we offspring him. And since this is a token deck, let’s run the infamous Goblin Pirate Dockside Extortionist. If we offspring him, we’re likely to make a ridiculous amount of Treasure. Now just imagine what we can do with all those Treasure tokens with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer on the board!
Our last expensive addition is Purphoros, God of the Forge. I’m a bit torn on this one, since we can’t offspring legendary creatures (well, we can, but it’s kinda pointless with the legend rule), and we already have similar effects. Still, there’s a reason he’s one of the most popular cards in Commander. Two damage per creature entering adds up really fast. The pump activated ability is just icing.
These cards are getting disowned: Blade Splicer, Bronze Walrus, Calamity of Cinders, Luminous Broodmoth, Plumecreed Escort, Pull from Tomorrow, Spirited Companion, Witty Roastmaster
And here’s our non-budget upgraded list:
Family Matters Non-Budget Upgrade
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Just a couple more cards to consider: Goblin Goliath, Wurmcoil Engine, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
Keep It in the Family
There you have it friends, our upgraded lists for Family Matters. We kicked out the secondary commander and gave a big boost to our token game, ensuring a stronger path to victory.
But what do you think? Did I make this deck better? Any cards I missed? What’s your favorite precon from Bloomburrow? Sound off in the comments below, or hit me up on the Twitter.
Make sure to check back soon for more precon content here on EDHREC, because Duskmourn will be here before you know it. As a horror fan, I can’t wait to see what this set has in store for us.
More Precons:
Peace Offering Upgrade Guide - Bloomburrow
Squirreled Away Upgrade Guide - Bloomburrow
Animated Army Upgrade Guide - Bloomburrow
Andy Zupke
Andy's been playing Magic on and off since Fallen Empires. He loves to travel, drink, eat, and spend time with family and friends.
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