Magic: The Gathering's 10 Best Bloomburrow Cards (2024)

With Magic: The Gathering's Bloomburrow set now available, there's been a small window of time for players to really experiment with what the new expansion offers. An anthropomorphized plane full of woodland critters engaging in epic fantasy battles, - if not in literal scale, in the metaphorical sense - Bloomburrow has been an immediate win for fans of flavorful, interesting takes on the MTG universe.

It's also been a pretty big win for competitive play, too. There have been plenty of Bloomburrow Commander cards discussed both in power level and price, but the Standard set entries aren't too shabby, either. Standard will get shaken up a lot by many of these cards, and we've even see a few of them creep into Pioneer (and even Modern!) lists here and there. That's indicative of a strong set, even if its subtly powerful, and there will no doubt be plenty of cards we don't cover that make their mark on formats as time goes on.

However, we've got a pretty solid list of the best Bloomburrow cards. Or, if nothing else, a list of the most promising ones. Whether or not they fulfill that promise will likely be up to deckbuilders and metagame evolutions, but here's ten of the best MTG cards in its newest set, ranked for likelihood of breakout performances.

10 Kitsa, Otterball Elite

A Powerful Build-Around

Kitsa, Otterball Elite is a mythic rarity card, so it should already raise some eyebrows from prospective deckbuilders even before reading the card's many abilities. Kitsa has vigilance, prowess, and two abilities - you can tap the otter to draw a card and then discard a card, or you can spend two generic mana and tap it to copy an instant or sorcery spell you control, with the caveat that Kitsa needs three power to do so. With prowess, that's fairly easy to do, and Kitsa has so many keywords stapled on it that its bound to be an appealing option for any UR prowess or tempo strategies in upcoming Standard formats.

9 Heaped Harvest

A Subtly Great Artifact Option In Standard

Heaped Harvest isn't an eye-catching card at first glance. For three mana, it enters and searches a basic land card and puts it on the battlefield. When it is sacrificed, it does the same thing, and it has two generic mana and a tap effect to sacrifice it to gain three life. Experienced Standard players will likely see where this is going already, though - this is a great card for ramp strategies, offering two lands and three life for a total investment of five mana across two turns. Its flexibility and consistency will probably make it a staple of these strategies for the foreseeable future.

8 Season of Gathering

A Modal Spell With Hate-out Potential

When looking at modal spells, there are two tests to pass - are the effects good enough on their own to warrant being selected at some point in a hypothetical match, and are they cost-efficient with regard to the spell's total mana value? Season of Gathering looks like the most promising of its Bloomburrow cycle, because all three of its effects are beneficial in a green ramp strategy. Even in a "bad" use case, if a player has three to five creatures in play, they can give each of them trample, vigilance, and a +1/+1 counter to push damage through. And against a deck that happens to use a lot of artifacts and enchantments? This card really shines, and its existence could stifle those types of archetypes from finding their footing in the upcoming Standard format.

7 Fountainport

A Flexible Land That Has Multiple Homes

The most obvious landing spot for Fountainport is in a token strategy that can afford to have a land that only taps for colorless, but the tradeoff is huge, letting players slowly keep up a stream of creature tokens if they're flooding. I think its most interesting home could be in a Standard control deck, however - in a two color strategy with a solid manabase, this card provides card draw over a few turns, a board presence or a blocker for one life, or a Treasure token to eventually ramp into game-winning spells. I think this is one of Bloomburrow's biggest sleeper cards.

6 Darkstar Augur

An Iconic Effect Once Again Iterated Upon

Going from an underrated card to one with the potential to end up as Bloomburrow's most overrated card, Darkstar Augur is another reimagining of the iconic Dark Confidant ability, letting players draw an extra card at the cost of their life each turn. What sets Darkstar Augur apart is the fact that it flies, and for four mana total, creates two of that same card draw effect thanks to offspring, pressuring players to find two removal spells or a sweeper rather than the usual one-for-one trade a Dark Confidant might elicit.

It's interesting and could be one of the best Dark Confidant-style effects Standard's ever seen - or, as we've seen time and time again, it will look good and ultimately never fill the spot that Dark Confidant did so many years ago.

5 Emberheart Challenger

A Prowess Player's Dream

I've seen aggressive cards get slept-on plenty in early Standard seasons before a Red deck inevitable sweeps a tournament without breaking a sweat. Emberheart Challenger has a ton of power packed into its 2/2 body, with haste and prowess forming a potent combination - Monastery Swiftspear has remained relevant since its printing for a reason. Emberheart Challenger also has the Valiant ability, which states that whenever it's targeted by a spell or ability you control for the first time in a turn, you exile the top card of your library and can cast it until the end of that turn.

That effect helps aggressive decks churn through cards at a healthy rate, and it plays into the type of strategy Emberheart Challenger slots right into, with prowess decks often employing pump spells that target their own creatures. Creating a combo of targeting the Challenger and then triggering its ability to find another pump spell can create a lot of damage fast, and this card might even slot into Pioneer decks if they have enough pieces to reasonably support it.

4 Stormchaser's Talent

Most Likely To Make A Splash In Pioneer

Stormchaser's Talent is a reasonably costed Class Enchantment that immediately produces a threat for one mana, with additional levels that make it even more powerful. It's not guaranteed find a home in Standard, though it has a great chance to, but I'm pretty set on it becoming a staple of Pioneer in Izzet Phoenix decks. It's a low opportunity cost card that can help sink excess mana into a great static effect, with level three offering an alternate win condition in the same vein as Young Pyromancer without the same level of investment or vulnerability to common removal spells.

3 Sunspine Lynx

Eliminating The Bane Of Red Players Everywhere

Sunspine Lynx won't be overly strong because of its enters ability, though it might incidentally deal anywhere between two and eight damage depending on the Standard opponent. Its prevention of life gain and prohibiting damage prevention is what makes it so scary - for some strategies, life gain or "fog" effects get them through scary turns against aggressive Red decks, which is no longer an option when Sunspine Lynx is in play. There's also a chance this card sees older format play, because even with its expensive cost, its Price of Progress-esque ability and big body might ask awkward questions of control decks that they aren't prepared to answer properly.

2 Iridescent Vinelasher

Increasing Landfall's Lethality

Iridescent Vinelasher is an exciting card for Scapeshift decks, which look to win the game by putting lands into play all at once with its namesake card, often in conjunction with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Those decks often set up for many turns by simply ramping more lands into play, and Iridescent Vinelasher is both an alternate win-con and an easy way to set up the magic number of 18 life that Valakut needs to combo kill a player in Modern.

That's to say nothing of the card potentially innovating new landfall archetypes, too. While it is a creature - which makes it far easier to interact with than Scapeshift - it's efficiently costed and can split into two bodies to deal with. It'll be interesting to see how players brew with the card, which is also in a color in Black that doesn't often get new land synergies that are intriguing.

1 Lumra, Bellow of the Woods

Bloomburrow's Best Card

There's a reason everyone's been talking about this card ad nauseam since it was first spoiled. It's such a powerful effect in Standard ramp decks to have a creature both become stronger based on the number of lands in play and also ramp that number up when it enters, and that's not the only use case for Lumra. Midrange strategies can play Lumra as a potent six mana threat that incidentally provides them with plenty more lands to help fuel their one-for-one trades and slowly accrued advantages, creating a situation where creature lands might be the only real win condition they need if Lumra gets answered.

It's also the first MTG card ever illustrated by famed Pokemon TCG artist Mitsuhiro Arita, so it's got a historical moment printed on it at the same time! There's very little to dislike about Lumra, which is our pick for the best MTG Bloomburrow card.

Magic: The Gathering Arena

Digital Card Game

Franchise

Magic: The Gathering

Platform(s)

PC , Android , iOS

Released

September 27, 2018

Developer(s)

Wizards of the Coast , Wizards Digital Games Studios

Publisher(s)

Wizards of the Coast

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Engine

Unity

ESRB

T for Teen // Blood and Gore, Mild Fantasy Violence