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.
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.