Bloomburrow

Unique Setting Identity

What makes a setting/plane feel like its own thing, not just "Magic does X"?

It’s very subjective. Bloomburrow is as much “Magic does X” as Murders at Karlov Manor or Outlaws of Thunder Junction, but it feels different to a lot of players.

Bloomburrow Murders at Karlov Manor Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Inquiry into Bloomburrow

I went to prerelease this weekend and greatly enjoyed the new set.

What I want to know is: Was Bloomburrow part of an elaborate scheme on your part to get Squirrels back in Standard?

No comment.

Bloomburrow Prerelease Sealed Format Squirrels Standard

Appreciation for Bloomburrow Set

Hi, Mark!!!Last night I went 3-1-0 in my first ever limited event, the Bloomburrow prerelease, courtesy of a black-red deck built around Valley Rotcaller.Please apply double turbo high-fives to everybody involved in making the set (including yourself); it's awesome and adorable and a ton of fun to play and open!

Will do!

Appreciation Bloomburrow Limited Prerelease Sealed Format Valley Rotcaller

Bloomburrow Design Compliment

did my first ever pre release event today and just wanted to pass on my props to everyone who designed Bloomburrow because it builds decks and plays so nicely in a sealed format

Glad you enjoyed it.

Bloomburrow Prerelease Sealed Format

Balancing Flying and Reach Abilities

Is R&D down on flying or high on reach? From Midnight Hunt through Murders at Karlov Manor sets averaged just over 5 creatures with reach, topping out at 7 four times in those 11 sets. In OTJ there were 10 creatures with reach, and Bloomburrow has 13. A rather high number for a set where the theme is small woodland creatures.

Bloomburrow has more reach because two of the ten dedicated animal creature types (Birds and Bats) all have flying.Other than that, I think it’s just an ebb and flow thing.

Bats Birds Bloomburrow Creatures Flying Game Design Murders at Karlov Manor Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Diversity in Playerbase and Styles

Magic is for everyone. I really like how varied the playerbase is, anyone can find what is fun individually in such a large and flexible history of cards. Even recently, comparing the tone and demographic for ONE/MOM compared to Bloomburrow shows that many players enjoy very different styles

Bloomburrow and Duskmourn do that. And that’s just a slice of a few months. : )

Bloomburrow Humor

Pre-release Enthusiasm Encouragement

Hi Mark!Just letting you know that my girlfriend is very excited for Bloomburrow prerelease (she likes the fuzzy creatures, and the not fuzzy ones too), but feels like she might not have the right to get excited

Show this to her: You absolutely have the right to get excited! Our whole job is to get people to fall in love with specific cards, so please get as excited as you desire. Magic is a game for anyone who wants to play it.

Bloomburrow Creatures Prerelease Sealed Format

Creature Types in Bloomburrow

Does Bloomburrow’s lighter emphasis on more creature types set a precedent for how sets with more typal themes will be treated in the future? I think I remember you claiming that Lorwyn’s typal density created balance and draft issues, which Bloomburrow’s lighter focus seems to solve.

The big lesson of Bloomburrow is Innistrad is a better model for typal sets than Lorwyn.

Bloomburrow Creatures Draft Formats Innistrad Kindred / Typal Lorwyn

Bloomburrow Anti-Typal Cards Query

Were there ever any anti-typal cards in Bloomburrow? It would have been interesting to see how an otter interacts with rabbits, or how bats interact with raccoons, etc.

Making typal work was hard enough without adding cards to discourage it.

Bats Bloomburrow Kindred / Typal Otters Rabbits Raccoons

Animal Inclusion in Bloomburrow

Regarding the Aardvark ask, they are African animals. Bloomburrow seems to be a Noeth American style biome (based on the raccoons and Opossums). I don’t think it would be a good fit for Bloomburrow 2. But it would be a GREAT fit for Zhalfir.

The biome does impact what animals we can use.

Bloomburrow Raccoons United States

Bloomburrow Aesthetics and Phoenix Cards

I love bloomburrow, the cards look very fun but the art style stands out as my favorite part, please let all the artists know they did an incredible job! (No Chandra legendary phoenix though. If a monored legendary phoenix is ever printed, do you expect to see it in a standard set, a commander deck or something else?)

I’ll pass along the compliment. I think a legendary Phoenix could show up in many places.

Art Bloomburrow Commander Decks Phoenix Premier Sets

Bloomburrow Bats Type

Hello. ^_^Was giving any of the Bloomburrow Bats the Vampire type ever considered?

No.

Bats Bloomburrow Vampires

Aardvark Request on Bloomburrow Return

If you return to Bloomburrow, all I ask is that we get some aardvark representation. The little critters go so unloved!

What animals should we do on a return to Bloomburrow?

Bloomburrow

Reasons for Absent Dogs

There doesn't seem to be any dogs in Bloomburrow. I'm sad.

In my first preview column for Bloomburrow, I talked about the two takes we could do for the anthropomorphic animal genre. Take #1 involved working around a biome, so it was limited to creatures of that biome. Take #2 allowed any animals we wanted as it wasn’t built around a biome. We obviously went with Take #1 which greatly shaped the animal selection options. Had we done Take #2, there probably would have been Dogs, but probably very little typal.

Bloomburrow Creatures Dogs Kindred / Typal Limited Spoilers

More Large Creatures Request

HELLO.
I like creatures with big mana costs and I found BLB a bit underwhelming.
Please make more fatty!

Worlds ebb and flow. Bloomburrow is more focused on the animalfolk which are definitionally small. There will be other worlds that lean more towards larger creatures.

Bloomburrow Creatures Mana

Possibility of Slivers Return

Hi Mark, I just wanted to say that I’ve really been enjoying all the recent magic content. After not being someone who thought they’d like UB I’ve really enjoyed the LOTR and Assassin’s Creed sets and Bloomburrow might be my favorite plane now! That all being said, I’ve been trying to get a friend of mine back into magic after he took a hiatus for school and I know he’s a big Sliver fan and would instantly come back to the game if they were to present themselves again. I know you wouldn’t be able to share much, but is there anything about slivers in the pipeline so I can try to re-engage him?

I can’t talk about the future, but we are aware of the popularity of Slivers.

Assassin's Creed Bloomburrow Slivers

Disappointment on the Bloomburrow Preview

Gotta admit some disappointment with part of the bloomburrow preview. It was really cool seeing the counters in set list until the set dropped and it became “two of these are evergreen, two are ability counters which are deciduous, one is flood which has appeared on and off for two decades…and the ones new to the set are actually all just flavorfully named charge or verse counters in how they work if it’s just one-off cards building on themselves for an effect to count.” Which is super disappointing as it feels like if new counters are named they should mean something

I list counters a lot of the time, and it’s mostly for flavor. The majority of Magic sets have existing evergreen counters (like +1/+1), sometimes deciduous ones (like flying), and usually a few new ones that are charge counters with added flavor. Usually, if there’s some new functionality, that’s it’s own bullet point.

Bloomburrow Deciduous Evergreen Flavor Flying Spoilers

Typal Archetype Swap

Could a return to Bloomburrow swap the typal archetypes like RG be Badgers and RB be Weasels or do you think the current ones are kind of locked in?

Let’s ask.
If we returned to Bloomburrow, what would you expect? The same ten animals Ten new animals A mix of old and new animals No preference

Badgers Blogatog / Tumblr Bloomburrow Gruul (R/G) Kindred / Typal Rakdos (B/R)

Excitement for Bloomburrow

Wazzzaaaaap, Mark da Shark,Just wanted to send kudos and share my excitement about so much of Bloomburrow! It's gonna be my first prerelease in a long while, since M20, I think, as well as there's so many things to love about it. I've been a big fan of Doug Beyer since Kaladesh, glad he was the lead designer on this set. Also super pumped to be getting both a revisit to the Heroic mechanic in Valiant, one of my favorite mechanics from Theros, and the amount of rabbit typal support. My Cadira commander deck is gonna go through a major redesign when the set is properly out. Hope you have a lovely day!

I’m glad you’re so excited. I can’t wait to hear all the prerelease stories.

Appreciation Bloomburrow Commander Decks Core Set 2020 Doug Beyer Head Designer Heroic Kaladesh Kindred / Typal Mechanics Prerelease Rabbits Sealed Format Sharks Theros Valiant

Feedback on Bloomburrow Tokens Article

Some website feedback: When I click on an article titled "The Tokens of Bloomburrow", I expect an article that shows all the tokens of Bloomburrow. Don't make me have to click several more links to various other pages; just put them all in that article (like you used to).

I’ll pass along the note.

Bloomburrow Tokens