Hey all. Bloomburrow releases on July 30th on MTG Arena not just adding a new set to Standard and Alchemy, but also triggering rotation in both of those formats. That means that both formats are ripe for experimentation and brewing, as surviving decks try to rebuild, and new decks emerge to take the place in the top tiers. So as we peruse spoilers we have to keep in mind my usual card evaluation philosophy:
Card Evaluation Philosophy: When evaluating new cards there are three categories to keep in mind when trying to decide if they are going to see play or not:
- Will this card be added to an existing deck,
- Does this card create a new deck or revive an abandoned deck, and
- Is this an impactful sideboard option?
(A quick note: These rules are mostly for evaluating cards from a competitive standpoint. When it comes to brewing, let your imagination run wild and try out any of the new cards that you think look awesome or seem fun!)
As this is rotation, I will be taking a slightly different approach, and will be first talking about individual cards that stand out to me as possible players in the new format, and then go over groups of cards that I think can come together to form a new deck. I won’t be covering cards I already discussed in my Standard article, so go read that one as well, but instead focusing on cards that I think will specifically have potential in Alchemy.
Stand Out Cards
Dollmaker Combo Cards
One of the outstanding combos that is going to continue to exist in Alchemy is the Three Blind Mice plus Dedicated Dollmaker combo, which allows you to slowly build up an insurmountable board as you make more and more mice. There are a couple cards from Bloomburrow that I think plays nicely with this strategy.
First is Caretaker’s Talent, which is going to serve as a card advantage engine and then as an anthem later in the game. The dollmaker combo doesn’t really need to be drawing cards after it has started to go off, but Caretaker’s Talent can help you draw cards before you’ve assemble the combo by running out a Three Blind Mice or making a token with your Dedicated Dollmaker, which will help you find your combo. It can also just help you find interaction or other pieces that will help you end the game, making me at least want to consider this for the deck.
The second card is Valley Questcaller, which again isn’t necessary while you are slowly going off with the combo, but can help you end the game faster by pumping up all of your mice tokens, but also giving you a lot of scry 1 triggers while you are making mice tokens to help find the cards you need.
With these two cards, I think the deck could shift gears from a B/W midrange/control deck to a more aggressive version in G/W, playing more off the tokens theme to go wide and overwhelm the opponent quickly.
Insidious Roots Cards
Forage is a new mechanic that lets you either exile three cards from your graveyard or sacrifice a food to get an effect or pay a cost. Forage is a perfect mechanic for Insidious Roots decks, as exiling three cards from your graveyard will trigger the Roots. There are two cards in particular that I think Roots decks need to take a look at.
First is Feed the Cycle. A simple removal spell, it has the default mode of being a Hero’s Downfall, but if you forage it is a two mana removal spell for anything. Roots decks used to play Pile On, and Feed the Cycle is not free like Pile On was thanks to convoke, but two mana and triggering your Roots is a pretty good replacement.
Next is Osteomancer Adept and wow this card is great with Insidious Roots. The Adept’s activated ability lets you cast creatures from your graveyard as long as you forage in addition to their other costs. So not only are you able to cast previously killed or milled combo pieces, but you’ll trigger Roots twice, once for casting the creature from the graveyard, and second for exiling a creature to the forage cost.
I wasn’t sure how this deck was going to adapt to a post Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler world, but I think Osteomancer Adept is powerful enough to consider bringing this deck back in a post-rotation format. The deck may have to change a bit to be more focused on self-mill so that the graveyard is always stocked for excessive foraging, but regardless I look forward to seeing how it plays out.
Cards For and Against Heist
Looking over the set I don’t see anything that stands out as a card that Heist decks will specifically want, besides maybe The Infamous Cruelclaw as a way to try to cheat a Grenzo, Crooked Jailer into play, but the deck doesn’t have anyway to stack the top of the deck unless they want to adopt Insatiable Avarice.
I expect that Heist will need to settle on a new identity post rotation, as the mana for three color decks is so much worse now, and they did lose some cards like Crucias, Titan of the Waves, and efficient removal spells like Cut Down and Go for the Throat.
We are losing Reprieve with rotation, the best card for getting your heisted cards back, but we did get Parting Gust as a spell that can blink a heisted creature and return it to play under your control at the end of turn, or used as a removal spell by gifting your opponent a fish, and Into the Flood Maw as a cheap bounce spell to return your heisted creature to your hand.
New Archetypes
Otters
I didn’t cover Otters in my Standard article because Alchemy has one thing that Standard doesn’t, which is one more playable otter in Accident-Prone Apprentice, without losing access to any of the relevant spells that Standard has access to.
Bloomburrow provides us with several cheap new otters, like Kitsa, Otterball Elite, which can help us find more gas with its looting ability and even copy our spells to help us find lethal, copying something like Monstrous Rage, or help us get ahead on cards by copying card draw spells like the new Pearl of Wisdom that we can cast with a discount.
Stormcatch Mentor is a powerful haste threat, but also makes our card draw spells cheaper. With Stormcatch Mentor in play, Pearl of Wisdom only costs one mana, which is a very cheap way to draw two cards. Coruscation Mage can come with a copy if you pay the offspring cost, and is going to turn all of our card draw and burn spells in two extra damage, helping us close out games.
Valley Floodcaller is in a way an Otter Lord, as whenever we cast noncreature spells all of our otters, including the floodcaller, get +1/+1 and as a bonus get to untap. With a Valley Floodcaller in play, it can be easy to assemble lethal out of nowhere with just a couple of cantrips.
At the top end we have both Stormsplitter and Ral, Crackling Wit. Both are very powerful four drops, but I’m not sure if this deck wants to go all the way up to four mana. I expect that the most successful version of this deck will top out at Valley Floodcaller, but perhaps as a one-of these four drops could sneak into the deck.
Stormchaser’s Talent and Otterball Antics serve the purpose of creating an Otter token with prowess but also being a noncreature spell to trigger all of our prowess creatures, giving us the best of both worlds. They also both have value if the game does go long, with Otterball Antics having flashback, and Stormchaser’s Talent having the ability to return a spell from our graveyard at level 2, and to become a token maker at level 3.
Lastly, we shouldn’t forget our existing otters. Elusive Otter is a nice one drop to get the ball rolling, and while I don’t think the deck wants to splash Green, with Captivating Crossroads we can occasionally play it on Green and cast the adventure side to boost up our creatures. Frolicking Familiar gives us a cheap adventure to trigger prowess and then an elusive flying attacker to close out the game.
The aforementioned Accident-Prone Apprentice also has a powerful adventure to help shrink an opposing creature when it benefits us, and can get very very big over the course of the game, as it grows permanently whenever you cast a noncreature spell, even while it is in exile.
All in all, I’m excited to give Otters a try, so look out for my decklist coming out in my next article, where I go over my new brews for both Standard and Alchemy.
Wrapping Up
There are even more sweet cards in this set that I didn’t have the chance to go over, so check out the cards for yourself and have some fun brewing! I’ll be back soon to talk about the decks I’ve put together for both Standard and Alchemy, so look out for that in the coming days. As always, best of luck in your games, and in this case, in your brewing!
