Humble Adventures

Hello! Welcome to the whimsical Bloomburrow black set review. I'm your Raccoonfolk tour guide for today, and I'll be guiding you through the treacherous parts of the Valley. One wrong step and you might find yourself rotting in the bogs or constrained by the Rottenmouth Viper. Stick close to me and you'll have nothing to fear from these new black cards.

Mythics

Maha, Its Feathers Night

Our first Calamity Beast is Maha, Its Feathers Night. Certainly, it won't ever be used in conjunction with something that gives everything -1/-1 (which black can easily do). While it doesn't change the power of your opponent's creatures, it ruins any creature decks at the table. Thankfully the ward cost doesn't require additional mana to remove it. I think Maha will become a salt-inducing commander, as you'll always have access to the one card that combos with a sweeper like Kaervek, the Spiteful or Night of Souls' Betrayal, or potentially ends the game with Massacre Wurm. These effects pair nicely with Blood Artist effects to drain the table out.

The reason why I think it'll be salt-inducing is because I have a hard time seeing why people would build Maha if not to then kill the board with -1/-1 effects. And commanders that repeatedly sweep the board aren't all that fun to play against. Outside of the command zone, the new Massacre Girl, Known Killer will have an easier time killing creatures and drawing cards with Maha out.

Rottenmouth Viper

Unless you want to sacrifice nonland permanents, this effect doesn't seem all that worth it. Now if you can cheat it out and even give it haste, I might find Rottenmouth Viper to be more appealing. Henzie "Toolbox" Torre decks would love to blitz out a 6/6 that'll force opponents to either lose up to 12 life, sacrifice three nonland permanents, discard three cards, or some combination of the three. And since Jund decks like to sacrifice permanents all the time, it can do all that for one mana.

Season of Loss

This whole cycle is cool to me. They're flexible and can be a real game changer depending on the modes chosen. Season of Loss can either be a edict that can remove up to five creatures for each player, draw cards that have died under your control this turn (twice), or kill your opponents if you have a huge graveyard. The flexibility of Season of Loss means it's hardly ever be a dead card because it's useful at almost any point in the game. Decks like Syr Konrad, the Grim, that want to sacrifice creatures and fill the graveyard, will make the most out of this card.

Rares

Coiling Rebirth

I think this card is great, I'm all about this, and I'm saying this as someone who has a Gonti deck that's basically mono-black reanimator. I want to use Coiling Rebirth to reanimate and copy creatures with powerful enter-the-battlefield (ETB) abilities like Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Archon of Cruelty. We often see five-mana reanimators in standard sets and it's a meddling rate for just one creature, but for that same price, you can get a copy of that creature and do dumb stuff with it. Creatures with ETB triggers or static triggers are the best targets because you'll get those effects right away. How good this card is depends entirely on if your deck can capitalize on it. If you're looking through your creature package and think, would getting two of these for five mana be good?

Let's talk about some cool synergies with Coiling Rebirth. If we're in a deck that's making tokens, we can really make use of populate effects. If you're in Orzhov or Abzan, you have access to the best populate cards like Nesting Dovehawk and Growing Ranks. Or in non-white decks, you have access to Determined Iteration or Promise of Aclazotz. I like Coiling Rebirth because it opens up some cool synergies that aren't primarily for reanimator decks.

I haven't even talked about the Gift a card part yet and it also has some perks. Giving a single card to one opponent in Commander isn't that steep of cost, especially when you're getting a pretty good upside for doing so. Similar giving an opponent a card to cast Baleful Mastery for two instead of four. The upside outweighs the one card. And this can be used to make deals, which adds another level of interaction to an already good card.

Cruelclaw's Heist

Thoughtseize effects don't see play in Commander due to how little it matters to remove one card from one opponent, but what if you could take that card instead? There are a few ways we can already do this type of hand-stealing in Commander: Elder Brain lets us exile a player's hand and have access to those cards, Intellect Devourer gives our opponents the option as to what card we take from their hand, and Fiend of the Shadows has to deal combat damage to steal a card of their choice. These are the more popular options and that's not saying a lot. Further down the list, we see Covetous Urge, which is similar to Cruelclaw's Heist for four mana. Elder Brain is probably the best hand theft we could play but it's a seven mana creature that needs to attack. Intellect Devourer has a better rate on it, letting us see three cards for three, but it's of an opponent's choice and we lose those cards if we lose the Intellect Devourer.

In comparison, Cruelclaw's Heist is a pretty good rate for this effect. For two, we can take one card of our choice from an opponent and Gift a card to another opponent, whom we can make a deal with. Or, gift the opponent we're stealing from to see an extra card. The second option even gives us the advantage of seeing what the opponent drew from their gift. Thief players already include Siphon Insight, since it's a cheap theft effect that can be flashed back, and I'd consider Cruelclaw's Heist to be better than Insight. It's definitely on my want list for Gonti, Lord of Luxury.

Darkstar Augur

A slightly overcosted Dark Confidant with flying, but it comes with an Offspring. For the price of four mana, you get two Dark Confidants and two fliers. Now, if you do pay to make an Offspring, you're going to lose a lot of life each turn. It only takes a couple of bigger spells off the top to make you an easy kill for your opponents. But at the cost of that life, you're drawing two additional cards each turn, and that's not nothing. So, is this as good as Dark Confidant? Do you run it in every black deck? Maybe, since you can still cast it by itself, so it's worth running. I would definitely consider the Darkstar Augur in lifegain decks or in decks that can really make use of the life loss like with Greven, Predator Captain.

Hazel's Brewmaster

Hazel's Brewmaster allows us to copy the activated abilities of a mana dork that went to the graveyard or maybe a sac outlet like Viscera Seer. How good Hazel's Brewmaster is depends entirely on whether you even exile a creature with an activated ability. But even if you don't exile anything you can use, you still exile cards from a graveyard. At worst, it's graveyard hate and a Food generator. At best? All your Food tokens can be mana dorks, or Sakura-Tribe Elders, or Mother of Runes, or Haywire Mites. You could even exile a Humble Defector and give an opponent a Food token that won't draw them cards because it'll lose that ability. Any graveyard deck with a decent number of creatures with activated abilities should consider this, even if it's not a Food-heavy deck. Aristocrats decks that use creatures like Spore Frog or Selfless Spirit should consider Hazel's Brewmaster.

Insatiable Frugivore

With a big enough graveyard, you can make a lot of Food tokens. However, getting five Food tokens requires exiling 15 cards from your graveyard. Which isn't an easy task unless you're self-milling or it's late game and a few board wipes have gone off. What's truly scary about Insatiable Frugivore is that activated ability. Sacrifice all your Food tokens into one big overrun. It's a good finisher that can be activated at instant speed, but it's eight mana in total for that effect if you wanted to use it the turn it's cast it. If it's able to stick around for a few turns, a repeatable overrun would be an overwhelming threat.

Iridescent Vinelasher

In comparison to Retreat to Hagra, Vinelasher doesn't seem all that great. Retreat is draining a total of three life from our opponents and gaining us one life for every land we play. Iridescent Vinelasher can only drain for two. However, if you're running Retreat to Hagra in your deck because you're getting a lot of lands into play through a commander like Zimone and Dina, then a second Landfall card that drains opponents is a great inclusion. Zimone and Dina, in particular, will want the Vinelasher cause you now get two creatures to sacrifice off one card. And like I've mentioned before, we can populate the Offspring to deal even more damage to the table.

Moonstone Eulogist

Moonstone Eulogist has a very similar design to Kamber, the Plunderer. And Kamber is just one half of a pair with Laurine, the Diversion. To make up for the fact that the Eulogist doesn't come with a partner, it's a flier that gets +1/+1 counters and gives us one life whenever we sacrifice an artifact. Which is honestly an insane design given how prevalent Treasure tokens are. As a reward for sacrificing Treasure tokens, you get a big flier and some lifegain. It doesn't have haste, so it has to survive till your next turn before attacking, but if an opponent doesn't have a flier, the Moonstone Eulogist can take a huge chunk of life out of them.

Osteomancer Adept

If we're already filling our graveyard, then there's no real cost to foraging three cards to cast a creature from the graveyard. You're not even limited to how many creatures you can cast. As long as you have enough cards in the graveyard or Food tokens to sacrifice, you can cast multiple creatures a turn. Those creatures will enter with a finality counter, however, so you aren't able to do anything crazy like cast Dockside Extortionist, sac him, then cast him again from the graveyard. The counters are an obvious safeguard to prevent things like that from happening, and I don't mind them here. Plus you can remove those counters with cards like Nesting Grounds.

Osteomancer Adept has an amazing synergy with Gyome, Master Chef. Sac a Food token to cast a creature from the graveyard and then Gyome will make a new Food token at the end step for that creature. And Syr Konrad, the Grim will love a cheap creature that can reanimate creatures and exile cards from your graveyard–dealing extra damage if you exile creature cards.

Scavenger's Talent

If you're in a graveyard theme, Level 2 is really strong. Every time you sacrifice a creature, Treasure tokens, or even fetchlands, you can mill yourself. This card reeks of Syr Konrad, the Grim triggers. Level 3 is also sweet, you can sacrifice your Food tokens to reanimate any creature with a finality counter on it. While it is six mana to get to that final level, the value of the other two levels makes up for it. Scavenger's Talent comes down early and will make a few Food tokens here and there, and then before your opponents realize it, you're sacrificing them to bring back your biggest threats.

Swarmyard Massacre

Swarmyard Massacre is a typal-specific boardwipe like Olivia's Wrath. Since you make two Squirrel tokens, each creature that's not an Insect, Rat, Spider, Squirrel, will at worse get -2/-2. Given how token heavy these creature types are in particular, this could easily sweep every other creature off the board. And since decks that do focus on these creatures like to win through attacking with a bunch of token creatures, Swarmyard Massacre is essentially a boardwipe and a wincon on one card.

Valley Rotcaller

Valley Rotcaller is a decent finisher in a deck that runs these creature types. It's a cheap creature too, so this can start draining life in the early turns and ramp up as you cast more creatures or make creature tokens of these types. It's also a noteworthy inclusion in Changeling decks. At least in a Changeling deck, you wouldn't have to check if a creature had the relevant creature types. Also, Valley Rotcaller lists Bats and Lizards, but Swarmyard Massacre lists Insects and Spiders, while both include Squirrels and Rats. Not sure why they aren't consistent with what creature types get grouped.

Uncommons & Commons

Feed the Cycle

Feed the Cycle is an efficient removal spell for if you have cards in the graveyard to exile or a Food token lying around. If I was going to go through the pros and cons, I don't think it beats Bitter Triumph since discarding a card could be advantageous and there's a chance you won't have enough cards in the graveyard to cast Feed the Cycle on an early turn. But, late game? Feed the Cycle beats Bitter Triumph. Exile a few cards you aren't getting back to remove a threat instead of losing a card or even losing three life when life totals can matter. Either way, you could run both and have two very efficient removal spells.

Stargaze

Just a straight-up better Damnable Pact. You draw cards equal to the amount of mana you put into X, but you can see twice as many cards as X and put the cards you didn't choose into your graveyard. Wow. Card draw and fill your graveyard? Sweet!

Starscape Cleric

Solid life drain effect for lifegain decks. Run this alongside Moonstone Eulogist and you could really drain the table out. You'll want this cleric for a deck like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic that's gaining a lot of incremental life instead of a lot of life in one instance.

Bonebind Orator

I actually think Bonebind Orator deserves a mention here. It's an over-costed effect, but I think it fills in a slot graveyard decks need. It's a cheap creature to play early to sacrifice to Deadly Dispute and on a later turn when you run out of gas, you can exile it to bring back an impactful creature. Is it strong? Not really, and neither is Eviscerator's Insight but we'll always have access to it in our graveyard. And late game when I have mana but no cards in hand, I definitely would pay five to draw some cards with Eviscerator's Insight. I'm evaluating Bonebind Orator the same way. When I need sac fodder or ways to bring back a noteworthy creature, I'll be happy to see this in the graveyard.

Diresight

Based on how desirable the surveil lands are over the scry lands, Diresight is definitely a better Read the Bones. Plenty of decks interact with the graveyard. This helps you put any big threats in the bin to reanimate or do other graveyard shenanigans with.

Light at the End of the Thicket

Our tour through the Valley comes to an end, folks. I hope you enjoyed the sights and found new gems for your decks. I've been looking forward to this set for awhile and Bloomburrow has met all my expectations. What are you thoughts of these new cards? What critters are you adding to your decks? Let me know down below and I'll see you next time!

season of loss

Bloomburrow Set Review - Black