Bloomburrow Update

Bloomburrow is here and I like funny little critters.

Changelog

  • Steel Hellkite is a sweet colorless card, but it saw nearly no play. 6 mana is a big ask, even for a decent colorless creature, but you know what is a better colorless creature? Wurmcoil Engine! With some really awesome new art, Wurmcoil may be a smidge on the strong side but I’d rather have a colorless card people will fight over than one that is relegated to sideboards. It’s on the watchlist for now, though.
  • Soul's Attendant is a card with a bit of a weird place in the cube. It is a solid card against the R-based aggro decks and good in GW tokens, but didn’t see a lot of play. Its also competing with some heavy hitters in the one-drop slot for W decks and most importantly I want to put it into a commander deck instead of it being here. Lifecreed Duo has two toughness and flies, which lets it hold equipment and finds a more interesting home in the UW fliers shell that has been drafted a few times while still being a solid pickup for the GW tokens decks.
  • UR spells is a deck that I’d like to boost the power level of, and Coruscation Mage is a cheaper Guttersnipe that also can be two bodies at 4 mana. I like the flexibility of this card a lot and R decks weren’t really playing Embereth Shieldbreaker much anyway. Plus this cube has plenty of answers to the few problem artifacts in the cube already.
  • Speaking of UR power boosting, Stormchaser's Talent is a 1-drop prowess creature that also returns a spell to hand from the bin and lategame takes over the board by pooping out a billion prowess tokens. Poppet Stitcher was a bit of a pet card that didn’t see a ton of play, so ideally this will be better at all points of the game for UR.
  • Goblin Electromancer is way outclassed now by Stormcatch Mentor. ‘Nuff said.
  • This might sound crazy, but nobody wanted to play Giant Growth! Overprotect does everything a green combat trick can do but for two mana. I hope this one will get some use in UG tempo but maybe other decks will be interested.
  • I discussed this before, but Tatyova, Benthic Druid was not doing a whole lot for Simic other than drawing one card a turn and land drops get missed more often post-turn 5. Prophet of Kruphix is way more in line with what I want UG players trying to do at 5 mana. Might be a little bit oppressive but I’ll keep an eye on it.

Parting Thoughts

There are a few more cards in Bloomburrow I have my eyes on, but these are the only ones I opened at prerelease so there may be a small update again soon. In the meantime, the cube has been playing well when I actually get a draft going. Hopefully that will happen again soon.