Bloomburrow Tier List: The Best New Cards For Standard | Magic The Gathering
26 juillet 2024
Zach Kiihne
Magic: The Gathering
4 Min.
Making this tier list was not very easy. Bloomburrow is not a particularly strong constructed set and none of the mechanics offer a particularly good reason to maxamize them, so the set is left relying on stand alone cards. The set is fairly creature focused, which pushes down the ceiling on how good a lot of the cards can be. Now with larger standard rotations creatures can only be so good, as noncreature combo strategies have a larger card pool to pull from.
Bloomburrow Tier List: Grading Criteria
The criteria for my tier lists is fairly strict. I only wanted to include good cards rather than having some expansive list that includes the whole set while not differentiating between tiers. Differentiating between the top couple cards in the set is more important to me than judging whether some niche sideboard card is C or D tier. If your tier list has 5 cards in S tier, it probably isn’t well thought out. The tiers are ordered left to right and top to bottom, by how I would rank the cards within that tier. Each tier follows the following criteria:
Blumeburrow Tier List for Standard | Magic: The Gathering
S Tier cards from Bloomburrow
You might notice that my tier list has no S tier cards. This is because the set does not have any cards strong enought to qualify and I am not lowering my standards. S tier cards are either archetype defining or get banned, they don’t come every set and that is okay.
A Tier cards from Bloomburrow
Rottenmouth Viper
Rottenmouth Viper is a hard card to evaluate. The things that enable it are wide and varied, but the payoff isn't amazing. You could always play Sheoldred to get a similar effect, a big body that snowballs if you untap with it. That being said, Viper offers a unique sort of payoff and enabler that it should end up being stronger than it looks on paper.
Sunspine Lynx
Sunspine Lynx is incredibly pushed. Not only does its damage scale into the late game, making it an insane top deck, it also has a large body with relevant abilities when you play it on curve. I suspect this is the push mono red needs to be tier 1.
Thundertrap Trainer
I won my first Game Day with Augor of Bolas back in 2012 and I am excited to see a juiced up version enter Standard! The Thundertrap Trainer looks at an extra card, can hit any noncreature and has kicker, while only losing a point of toughness in return. I expect Otter of Bolas to be wildly played in midrange and controlling decks.
Fabled Passage
Fabled Passage is a uniquely powerful enabler to have in Standard. It both fixes otherwise sketchy mana bases and enables a wide variety of abilities. Landfall, Revolt, Escape, Delve, Delirium, Aftermath Analyst ... the list goes on. Since it enables so many things, it is likely to play a key role in many standard decks throughout its life time, earning it a spot in the A tier.
B Tier
These valiant mice expand on the already strong mono red space, pushing it towards being a heroic style deck. It even might be worth playing some borderline equipment such as Dire Flail just to trigger these consistently.
The frog and the swan represent the best payoff and enabler for the blink theme in Bloomburrow. Dreamdew Entrancer is a sort of Reflector Mage/Null Drifter hybrid. Note that he can target himself to draw two cards and leave a blinkable body behind. Salvation Swan is a fixed restoration angel, but considering that rssto dominated standard during its time, I expect the swan to be at least powerful.
Caretaker's Talent and Fountainport should work together to provide a Mono White strategy with the card draw it was missing after Reckoner Bankbuster was banned. The Talent in particular is a very strong draw engine in the right deck.
Going from a large amount of mana to a ton of mana is always better than it seems. Lumra is a card that both does that while being a huge brick wall. Being a creature is an advantage here because you can guarantee its resolution with Cavern of Souls.
I'm not sure where exactly this little lizard will fit into Standard decks, but it does a lot for a 1-drop. It enables crimes efficiently and provides a lot of reach with offspring plus Fabled Passage. This might also be card where offspring is the closest to being an exact copy of the original and thus at its best.
Most likely Beza will see play as an ultra strong sideboard card. You can expect for it to gain 4 life and make 2 1/1s against any aggro deck which should be enough to stabilize the game and regain your footing. In general, with 4 different ways to be behind, it should be easy to put yourself in a position to trigger at least 2 of them.
This is a Standard review, but Into the Flood Maw is here because it is good in eternal formats. Combo decks have always wanted a 1 mana instant dispersal - and it is finally here! This should be a sideboard 2-of in decks from Pioneer to Vintage. Get your foil copies now.
Overall I expect rotation to be a much bigger factor in Standard changing than Bloomburrow’s release. Rotation should unearth new strategies, break up old synergies and overall lower the power level of the format. If there was a set of synergies you loved but that weren’t quite good enough before, now is the time to make them happen!
Autor:
Zach Kiihne
Zachary Kiihne was a longtime grinder on American tournament circuits with success on both the Star City Games and Grand Prix scenes, then a breakout performance at Players Tour Phoenix saw him join the Magic Rivals League. He found even more success online battling on Arena than in paper with two Set Championship Top-8s and has continued to be a critical part of Team Handshake Ultimate Guard. Zach's ruthless efficiency combined with his constant drive mean that few players are as productive as him.