New Bloomborrow Explorer & Pioneer Decks

Bloomborrow is an exciting set. Many new cards can be incorporated into existing archetypes of different constructed formats. Also, some can revive forgotten strategies, and there is enough support for new tribes and mechanics to explore new ideas.

It’s time for decklists! I will share with you Explorer lists and if the archetype is interesting for Pioneer I will also mention what changes can be made in case you enjoy playing paper Magic.

Let’s get ready and start our journey into The Valley. 🐭

Izzet Prowess

We start this article with one of the most promising decklists out there. Izzet Prowess looks powerful.

Stormchaser's Talent is great. It helps us have a creature on turn one in almost every game and gives us a fantastic enchantment to work as a mana sinker. This will help us in attrition matchups as spell recursion and an alternate win condition.

Kitsa, Otterball Elite make this deck strong against other aggressive strategies. With 3 toughness, prowess, and vigilance, it will be a hard wall to pass that can let us keep the upper hand attacking and blocking at once.

Playing 18 lands may seem pretentious. However, almost all our cards cost 1 mana and we have amazing card selection spells. Having enough land to develop our plan is not a problem at all.

Azorius Ensoul Artifact

Seasoned Warrenguard is an amazing creature in the right deck. I was wondering about playing it on Convoke, however, I think Ensoul Artifact is a better deck for this rabbit.

With Novice Inspector, Thraben Inspector, and Spyglass Siren having a Token is easy. With these, Seasoned Warrenguard will be attacking as a 3/2 for one mana. Then, If we think about what we could do with these tokens besides Convoke, Ensoul Artifact can transform them into 5/5. This will let us put ourselves as the aggressor even earlier than Convoke.

Toolcraft Exemplar serves as a redundant Seasoned Warrenguard with an upside. Instead of sacrificing our tokens like Boros, they will make All That Glitters and Michiko's Reign of Truth great for making big threats turn after turn and it will help us solve the Case of the Flitched Falcon.

Making this even better, besides the lands that are always great crafts (or buys for paper Magic), the rest of this deck is affordable. Great of starting on Explorer or Pioneer with Bloomborrow.

The list may show 56 cards, but there’s a bug where one of the lands is not considered in the total amount of lands even if is there. Probably Darksteel Citadel. The deck has 60 cards.

Rakdos Lizards

This tribe has a lot of new friends. It will certainly be playable on Standard, however, Explorer and Pioneer have enough lizards to make this archetype even better.

Flamecache Gecko is an amazing Burning-Tree Emissary for this tribe. Thanks to it we can create amazing board states as early as turn 2. If that wasn’t enough, Fireglass Mentor gave us gas letting us keep the aggression.

We have many sources to deal non-combat damage to our opponent. This will make Chandra's Pyreling big enough to hit hard and habilitate the spectacle for playing Light Up the Stage and Skewer the Critics for one mana each.

It’s important to note that Viashino Pyromancer had an errata and is now considered a lizard. Thanks to this, Hired Claw, and Gev, Scaled Scorch will also trigger from it.

Boros Heroic

One of my favorite archetypes got an upgrade. Tenth District Legionnaireis a card that has been an archetype staple for a long time. As time passes, the card sees less and less play. Even if it gets a +1/+1 counter while scrying at once, that’s not enough card advantage to push this soldier into newer lists. This is particularly true especially when Slickshot Show-Off is taking 4 slots in almost every list nowadays.

Now, with the Emberhearth Challenger, this could change. This little brave mouse doesn’t get +1/+1 counters but has Prowess which makes it hit hard even if you target your spells to your heroic creatures like Favored Hoplite and Illuminator Virtuoso.

Tenth District Legionnairecan scry many times in a turn, but it doesn’t give us extra cards for final hits; Emberhearth Challenger does. Thanks to its Valiant ability we can exile the top card of our library once and until the end of the turn play that card.

This could be the difference between winning and losing and I will try this card on Boros Heroic on day 1.

Jund Scapeshift

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle was part of the first great Scapeshift deck. Now, with Iridescent Vinelasher we could emulate Valakut’s effect and deal 2 damage to our opponent when a land comes into play.

Sadly, Bring to Light is not yet legal on Explorer. Still, many Pioneer ideas can be implemented like Omnath, Locus of Creation + Aftermath Analyst or a variation of one of the newer archetypes of Pioneer, Golgari Control with Sentinel of the Nameless City and Beseech the Mirror + Mastermind Acquisition + Pillage the Bog

Let’s go for a mix and pack the best of both worlds. We could find all we needed with Pillage of the Bog, Mastermaind’s Acquisition, and Pitiless Carnage. Thanks to Aftermath Analystand Lotus Cobra ramps quickly while Iridescent Vinelasher can ping our opponents to 0 in many ways besides Scapeshift.

Lumra, Bellow of the Woods is one of those ways thanks to its integrated Splendid Reclamation and putting a big body into the battlefield.

Rakdos Scam

Rakdos is a well-known color pair in these formats. With Rakdos Aggro and Rakdos Sacrifice being the main two reasons for playing these colors, The Infamous Cruelclawnow gives us a big reason for trying a new iteration of Rakdos.

Similarly to Rakdos Breach the Multiverse from Standard’s last rotation, we will aim to put big threats in play for less mana than we should and as early as possible. Thanks to Caustic Bronco we could use these big spells also to deal tons of damage to our opponents on turn 3. With Bloodtithe Harvester and The Infamous Cruelclawsaddling Caustic Bronco is not a problem.

Tutoring our threats to the top is extremely easy thanks to Insatiable Avarice and Scheming Symmetry. When you put Emrakul, the Promised End, Shadow of Mortality, or Atraxa, Grand Unifieron top, closing the game in one turn became common.

Azorius Birds

Spirits is a strong choice both for Explorer and Pioneer. Despite if you choose Mono-Blue or Azorius, this tribe is something you always have to have on your radar. Now, thanks to Bloomborrow, birds got a ton of support and it looks like they have what it takes to compete at the same level as the other big Azorius tribe.

Spirits got Geistlight Snare, but now birds have Dazzling Denial. If we combine this with Lofty Denial and 8-10 one-turn birds, our opponents will have a rough start since turn 2.

Speaking of turn one, we have many other options like Judge's Familiar, Miner's Guidewing, and Cloudfin Raptor for Pioneer that let us switch our strategy as the meta demands.

We can experiment with Get Lost for having some removal, Spell Pierce for more counters, or Cryptic Coat, a popular choice for Spirits.

Nimble Obstructionist and Aven Mindcensorare good enough that both are seen playing in UW sideboards even without being bird decks. Now, we can make them even better.

Finally, with so many good counterspells, we can play Curious Obsession to fuel our hand. You can add a Green splash and go for Collected Company; the choice is yours.

Golgari Food

Do you remember how the Cauldron Familiar combo started getting popular? Golgari was the first iteration of this combo deck. Time passed and Rakdos is now the main Sacrifice variation for Explorer and Pioneer. However, thanks to Ygra, Eater of All and Scavenger's Talent, Golgari is ready to take the crown.

If you have Ygra, Eater of All on the battlefield, every other creature becomes a Food artifact in addition to their types. Thanks to this ability, two Cauldron Familiars can be sacrificed to each other. This enables the cat loop without having Witch's Oven.

Ygra’, Eater of All is a creature making it more fragile than an artifact. Nevertheless, with Ygra we can combo having both cats in our graveyard. It is powerful enough to play the combo with a combination of both enablers.

Scavenger's Talent is fantastic for this idea. It lets us create more food when we sacrifice a creature and gives us alternative win conditions.

Don’t forget to add Urborg’ Tomb of Yawgmoth for Pioneer.

Rakdos Viper

Rottenmouth Viper is an exciting card to build around. Many players think this snake is a threat to fear and powerful enough to finish the game if it goes unanswered for 1 turn.

Voldaren Epicure, Bloodtithe Harvester, and Blood Fountain create tokens. We could create more tokens with Gleeful Demolition. Thanks to this myriad of blood and goblins, casting Rottenmouth Viper on turn 3 is common. This will put our opponents under high pressure.

Torgaar, Famine Incarnate demands a lot of sacrifices. Nevertheless, in this deck, we have enough fodder for this legendary creature letting us cut our opponent’s life in half in one move.

Even if we don’t play Rottenmouth Viper early, thanks to Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, we can establish a solid position until we can play our two big threats.

End Step

Bloomborrow brings many cards to build amazing new decks and to try on existing archetypes. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Red and Black have a lot of attention with Rakdos taking the spotlight. However, I’m excited to try Azorius Ensoul Artifacts and Azorius Birds.

During the next weeks, we will surely discover more ways to enjoy and have fun with Bloomborrow cards, and who knows, Mono Green or even Abzan Rally can become the next contenders.

If you have any other interesting ideas let us know in this article’s comment section, in the MTG Arena Zone Community Discord, and on my Twitter.

Don’t forget that I have started providing personal coaching services for Magic the Gathering and Marvel Snap. If you want to contact me, look for me:

• On Discord as bohettv
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Thank you so much for reaching this last paragraph and remember; don’t forget to smile every day; it surely makes a difference.