Usman's Cube Commentary: Bloomburrow

Bloomburrow has a lot of classic 2012 Cube effects at 2024 power levels. That makes it interesting to analyze, which I’ll do by focusing on my Eternal cube and Bloomburrow’s main themes and cards. Let’s dive right in:

Kindred:

This is the big theme of the set, and a lot of the types represented by this woodland world aren’t ones that are commonly represented in many cubes. That isn’t to say that Squirrel or Rat Kindred can’t work in a cube, it just means that you’ll have a harder time since they aren’t naturally occurring like the old types.

It’s somewhat like the “colorless” theme where you’re essentially trying to make a subtheme of cards in a much shorter timeframe than 30 years, to compete with cards that don’t care about that. Still, I’m going to evaluate Bloomburrow in the context of a cube that isn’t looking to explicitly go out of their way to make Kindred work.

Valiant:

Similarly, Valiant can be difficult to make work in a traditional sense with pump spells, but cards that target without requiring the use of a whole card can help with cards like equipment that has cheap equip costs and planeswalkers that can target your own things - even something like a flipped Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound can easily trigger Valiant.

While I haven’t seen this go ravenous that often, usually it’s been good enough when cast for

If you’ve been a long-term reader of mine, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of Flash as a keyword, since it allows decks to be able to represent a wider range of plays. I’ve liked Salvation Swan in White for similar reasons that I’ve liked its obvious analogue - Restoration Angel. I’m not personally running the Splinter Twindeck any more, which would have moved the needle slightly towards Resto, since Salvation Swan dies to Bolt and is a nombo with going infinite, but the extra evasion via giving the blinked creature flying has been more than enough to make up for it.

Beza’s a Siege Rhino riff that usually at least gets one mode off, and occasionally two. It’s mostly been a midrange card that acts like Siege Rhino did - get cast, get some amount of value, punch for four. But, like Siege Rhino, being a 4/5 for

I see this as an Essence Capture with the upside of being able to get anything more than as a bad Counterspell, which is more realistic than just focusing on the downside. The

I’m lower on this than many since it does cost five mana to get something back, and getting a 1/1 Prowess isn’t the most impactful thing - but it’s at least something to impact the board and can curve into getting back an interactive card later on, when you can afford to level it up and hold up interaction, which may be its best mode. I just hadn’t been impressed with it when you couldn’t do that.

Vigilance is a nice upside for getting in chip shots and being able to still loot, and the clone ability isn’t flavor text in decks with a lot of cheap cantrips. Shoreline Looter does have some upside with threshold but I like it significantly less (3.5) because of it being one of the worst looters if threshold isn’t hit - but cubes looking for a critical mass of these kinds of cards that can dump things into the graveyard can pretty easily play both.

The Tolarian Serpent creatures never did a lot for me in cube, but also don’t have a TON of cantrips either. Trading flash for Ward is a big upside, and I’m more bearish on this than a lot of the other ones because of how well it plays with the tempo playstyle - play cheap spells at instant speed and play a big threat for cheap. Being able to be deployed at sorcery speed is great too, like with Horned Loch-Whale.

When I tried this out, it ended up making offspring about half of the time. For years, a “Blue Wall of Omens” was one of those things cubers really wanted, but despite the decent rate, I don’t realistically see this lasting that long in my cube.

Usually “kicking” this is best either as a YOLO play, if you don’t have to worry about a clock from the opponent, but low-curving decks should be doing that anyway. Unfortunately, a nombo with Lurrus of the Dream-Den in my cube, but it’s a solid curve topper for low-to-the ground decks like Orzhov and Rakdos, and some flavors of Dimir tempo.

Fell doesn’t do much for me because it’s a sorcery, even with its splashable cost and non-conditionality. I’ve liked the ones with (small) catches like Go for the Throat and friends much more. I like Feed the Cycle (5.5) more as a nice Hero’s Downfall variant that can, if need be, held up for two mana - similarly to Long River’s Pull, it has a suboptimal mode just in case it’s needed.

I found that the cost on this was pretty high - usually the idea is that these kinds of cards get fed “just by playing magic” like the various Tarmogoyfs we have now, but it seemed like the stars had to align more than I would have liked.

I’m not doubling up on fetches, but if I was, I’d likely rate this around a 6.5-7.5 because of how much damage it can represent. I usually tend to personally take fetchlands very highly in cube anyway, and I’ve generally been leary of cards that make cards that don’t need much help better - but there’ve been exceptions like Titania, Protector of Argoth. Overall, I’ve been okay with this and I don’t think it’ll last longer than a year, despite its flexibility.

This is the strongest Valiant card and really the only card with the mechanic that I’m interested in for cube, mainly because of its solid rate even outside of triggering Valiant. You don’t tend to see as much dividable burn in cubes these days (Arc Lightning, etc) but they can be used in a pinch to trigger this. It’s another one that I’m cautiously optimistic for.

This one-drop with extra utility made me think of Knight of the Ebon Legion, by representing some late game value, even if cubes don’t really have a high Lizard potential. It’s probably better than the 2/1s for

Scrapshooter suffers from some identity crisis by being seen more as a “bad Reclamation Sage” that gives an opponent a card, but I look at it more like a big threat with an emergency Naturalize modality. Three mana for a 4/4 isn’t absolutely absurd on rate, but it’s strong and can be ramped out on turn 2. I’m likely going to just supplement Reclamation Sage and friends with this rather than just replacing it.

Keen-Eyed Curator was another I had been seen in a somewhat unfair light, but I found it isn’t usually too hard to get it to it having its kinda-delirium turn on. Starting as a 3/3 helps too, and being just a “there if you need it” as graveyard hate is nice too and it’d been nice so far.

I’d rated this lower since this more beatdown than midrange, and I’d probably have given this a 8.5-9 if it was in White. The “jund em out” strategy of nickel-and-diming a bunch of things with removal is worse against this, although mass removal still does something. But I’ve liked this as a “army in a can” or, if need be, something that just comes out on turn one and punches like any good Jungle Lion does.

This one caught many, myself included, off guard since this isn’t something that’s generally a good effect if it’s not on a creature - and because of that, I’m still not entirely sold. The last level combos incredibly well with planeswalkers, which was always the pipe dream with Doubling Season. Talent’s “unkillable Lunarch Aspirant” is much more reasonable, and the strongest Class in the set for my money.

Probably the best “bloodthirsty” Rakdos card since it virtually draws a card, although I’m torn between this and Gev, Scaled Scorch (4.5) although Fireglass Mentor has some higher upside later in the game. Not something that I’d splash for, but I don’t think that applies to any of the multicolor Rakdos cards (same with The Infamous Cruelclaw, which suffers from lack of evasion.)

Out of all of the cards in the set, this is the one that I’ve had the most time with. The mouse text was mostly additive distraction since there aren’t many strong mice, but I mostly liked it as a three-drop that came into play with an equipment - there aren’t many close analogue to Cragflame, but Haunted Cloak and Sword of Vengeance somewhat emulate it, so I estimate the Cragflame token to be approximately worth

So, in that sense, Mabel was a three-drop with a Kicker to turn it into a 4/4 trampling haster, emulating a lot of the mono-red five-drop dragons. Flying is a much better form of evasion than trample, but not strictly so, and I found that being able to throw Cragflame onto something else (even a new creature) to get into the red zone was great. I’m currently running an asymmetrical multicolor section and found Mabel, Heir to Cragflame worthwhile until Phlage got printed. But, I still think Mabel’s very good and better than some middling things I see in some cubes like Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon.

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