With what’s shaping up to be the most popular set of the year, Bloomburrow has everyone talking about prospects for the next meta-shattering card. Moreso than in the past sets, I find myself disagreeing with most players’ assessment of what a post-rotation standard will look like. In this article, I’d like to highlight some cards I think will make waves, cards that have potential, and the hottest takes of all: cards I’ve seen make the rounds on Twitter that I think are completely unusable.
The Sleepers
Are lizards good? Is this happening? The lizards of Bloomburrow like Iridescent Vinelasher and Hired Claw feel like they’re right out of Outlaws of Thunder Junction (maybe they’re from there?) as crime-committing outlaws in the red-black archetype. While some people are eyeing this card in a combo shell à la the rotating Temur Ramp deck with Doppelgang, I’m more focused on a low-to-the-ground crime deck with Vadmir, New Blood, and maybe even a lizard typal deck with Valley Flamecaller and Gev, Scaled Scorch. There’s also a cute synergy with Fabled Passage.
Blooming Blast is Searing Blood at home. Or… is it? Is it better? In some ways it isn’t- I surely don’t love giving my opponents treasures. However, Blooming Blast’s less restrictive casting cost is a definite upside. Also, you don’t need to give them the treasure if you only want to kill their creature. It’s also worth noting that the creature in this case also doesn’t need to die for its controller to take 3 damage. Also, as far as gifts go, treasures are the lowest-risk case for this type of card. You don’t want to be replacing the body you just killed with another by gifting a fish, and you don’t want to be gifting a card for obvious reasons. Treasures are the best for control decks to have on curve, and you’re sideboarding this out against those decks anyway. If you’re a psychopath you can make them suffer by gifting them a treasure with Generous Plunderer and Vengeful Tracker, but that’s not something I recommend. Now, there is a risk when casting this into a midrange deck but I think the risk is worth the reward. After all, they can’t utilize a treasure once they’re dead. The jury’s out, but I think this new card is a MASSIVELY slept-on staple in at least standard.
This card is nuts. I hope you’ve enjoyed having cards in the previous year of standard because getting curved into with Deep Cavern Bats into Thought-Stalker Warlock will be the groan test for the next two years. Black was pretty resistant to control before, and this set has just solidified that further with yet another great hand-disruption creature. Whether it’s now or after a few sets, this card will get its time in the sun.
The Staples
Sheoldred, The Apocalypse eat your heart out, a new 4 mana 4 / 5 will be tormenting red aggro decks for rotations to come. Sheoldred has been a standard staple for the last two years, slowly falling out of favor in the past half-year or so. Beza, the Bounding Spring has all the benefits of Sheoldred in standard, except it frontloads all of its value. There are situations in which Beza is worse, but my hottest standard take is that this is better than the bane of multiple formats, Sheoldred.
Rottenmouth Viper works incredibly well with the cards from the last year. And I mean specifically just the last year. Spiteful Hexmage, Novice Inspector, Spyglass Siren, Case of the Filched Falcon, and a surprising amount of other cards that are “permanent that make another permanent for 1 mana” support this so much that it’s shocking that this wasn’t made earlier. It’s such a slam dunk in terms of design. Not to mention the cards printed in this set, like the spell It’s a risky body with little protection, but interactions with Not Dead After All and other protection spells make this an amazing card. Though, I think it will be better next rotation rather than this rotation considering very few of those two-body permanents are from the Dominaria United rotation.
Do I even need to say anything? 2 mana 2 / 2 haste prowess is good, we know this. Now take Fugitive Codebreaker and make its draw a lot less conditional. And on curve. Slickshot Showoff has a new running mate.
The Twitter Takes
*Disclaimer – I have no ill will towards anyone who I quote or cite in this section. I’m just using their tweets as examples of discussions I have seen during spoiler season. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.
Everyone who’s been on Magic Twitter has seen Fell floating around [example] and for understandable reasons. Fell is a new exploration into the territory of Murder, costing a whole black mana less, but also losing a lot at the same time. The largest point against this card is the sorcery speed removal. I have staked the position that this card will never see any competitive play in any format. And why should it? In standard alone, it’s outclassed by the recently printed Shoot the Sheriff, by Bitter Triumph, Cut Down, Sheoldred’s Edict, and Go for the Throat. Not to mention the few people in the replies to the various semi-viral tweets (For Magic Twitter, 2k likes is a lot) comparing it to all-time format staples like Fatal Push. This is not “powerful standard time”. This isn’t even the most powerful uncommon removal spell in its own set, color, and rarity. It’s not even in second! It’s outclassed by Consumed By Greed and a card with actual potential, Feed the Cycle.
The catalyst for this article was a now-deleted Tweet about Stormsplitter, which sparked a lot of controversy on its spoiler day. Half of the people were unsure what to do with this card but thought it had potential, while the other half were enamored with the coolness of such an effect in commander. The commander players, however, extrapolated that design to being usable in the other constructed formats with sentiments towards the card being a “multi-format all-star”. Yes, it’s a cute card, yes it’s a cool effect, and yes there are some cute things you can do with this and the backside of Invasion of Segovia, but no, this card will not see play anywhere other than commander. While I’m not as knowledgeable about other constructed formats as I am about standard, making this card work seems like an impossibly labor-intensive task. It will be cool, but it won’t be good. While this isn’t the original Tweet, here’s one from SaffronOlive about this card and the conversations in the replies about standard playability if you’re curious.
Thundertrap Trainer is one of those cards that blows up on Twitter [example] [2] that I truly don’t understand. I cannot wrap my head around it. Let’s evaluate. Is it strictly better Augur of Bolas? No, sadly. Two toughness on this card makes it abysmal. While it may have the marginal benefit of its offspring ability, as well as the measurable benefit of looking at another card from the top of your library, cards that will soon be standard staples like Blooming Blast care a lot about 2-toughness creatures to pick off. With Strangle rotating, red decks will have a harder time dealing with 3 toughness creatures post-sideboard, and therefore I’d rather have Augur of Bolas in the current meta than Thundertrap Trainer. Not only that, but the “Zoomers” have had a card that’s better than both of these at the common level for almost two years now with Fallaji Archaeologist. At least with Fallaji Archaeologist you can whiff and share that information with the class (and also have those cards very relevantly in your graveyard). Needless to say, the days of Restoration Angel’ing an Augur of Bolas are behind us.
And finally, the cause for the most egregious standard takes [example] I’ve seen on Twitter this spoiler season, Stormcatch Mentor. Getting right to the point, this card is not great in the current rotation. Goblin Electromancer, while it’s one of my all-time favorite cards, wouldn’t be great, and neither would a worse-statted but hasty version of it be good either. I mentioned it previously, but Blooming Blast hitting for two makes this card a hard sell since it needs two prowess triggers to go off. I don’t think this card will ever be bad per se, but it will just be a lot less optimal than other options, including another 2-mana creature with prowess and haste from Bloomburrow, Emberheart Challenger. If this deck belongs anywhere, it’s with a lot of burn effects as well as impulse draw cards like Blazing Crescendo and Wrenn’s Resolve instead of the currently played package. I’m sure this will be a great, cheap FNM deck though that can certainly win games. If you’ve made it to the end, thank you. This is the first article I’ve ever written for Magic: The Gathering, and I hope to do plenty more.
My name is Beale, a long-time tabletop magic player who got into limited and standard when Adventures in the Forgotten Realms came out. I’m also studying to become a teacher and currently teach my students about MTG. If you’d like to keep up with my future articles and Magic takes, give me a follow on my Twitter! https://x.com/itsmebeale
