Magic The Gathering's Bloomburrow set is tailor-made for novice deckbuilders

Magic The Gathering's Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed dropped just last week, but as ever we're always keen to see what's next for the long-running card battler.

We already knew Bloomburrow was going to be an adorable trip to one of Magic's own planes, with critters galore, but now that I've been able to listen to Wizards of the Coast's team talk about it in detail, I'm convinced Bloomburrow could be an ideal starting point for newcomers to deckbuilding.

It's all about pie

As Magic fans will know, much of the game's appeal stems from its use of five different colours of spells, each with its own playstyle attached.

Broadly speaking, Red is aggressive, Black is focused on sacrifice and renewal, etc etc. And, while there are always cards that blur the lines between them, it's Bloomburrow's renewed focus on factions within its world that could make it easier than ever to build a deck of adorable, but powerful, critters.

Each race within Bloomburrow has a colour or two attached to it, whether it's the community-focused farmers of the Rabbitfolk that come in green and white, the plucky Mousefolk in red and white, or the bounce-loving Frogfolk in green and blue.

• Birdfolk - White/Blue
• Mousefolk - Red/White
• Rabbitfolk - Green/White
• Batfolk - White/Black
• Racoonfolk - Green/Red
• Lizardfolk - Black/Red
• Squirrelfolk - Black/Red
• Ratfolk - Blue/Black
• Otterfolk - Blue/Red
• Frogfolk - Green/Blue

I've got plenty of pre-constructed Commander decks, but dipping a toe into building my own deck for Standard or Modern has always felt like a big step. Colour identity is intrinsic to Commander, but those formats can be more flexible, so knowing which cards to look out for, and knowing there will be at least some synergy right off the bat, is a helpful training tool for a novice like myself.

Mechanic Mouse

Bloomburrow has a story, of course, and its star is Mabel, Heir to Cragflame - a mouse warrior who leaves her children to tackle Maha, Its Feather's Night, one of the Calamity Beasts. Wizards stopped short of explaining what the plot's inciting incident will be, but Maha, and fellow Calamity Beast Ygra, Eater of All have some gorgeous new "field guide" style variants that have me yearning for a Magic The Gathering: Monster Hunter crossover.

With new cards come new mechanics, too, and there are a few in play here. Offspring will let you copy cards as 1/1 versions of themselves by playing additional mana, while Expend will see players paying a certain amount of Mana to restore some life (given the way I'm often targeted in my Commander matches, that sounds ideal).

Forage will let players jettison cards to exile or spend Food tokens to trigger additional effects, while Ratfolk and Squirrelfolk decks with plenty of black spells can use Threshold to trigger effects based on the cards in their graveyard.

Perhaps most interesting is Gift, a new mechanic that sees players promise their opponents something. Wizards even mentioned that the Peace Offering Commander precon will have an additional win condition tied to this mechanic, but racking up 1/1 counters while keeping the player in the good graces of their opponents certainly sounds unique.

Final Thoughts

Every cycle I say to myself "OK, I can probably duck out of this one", and as a big fan of wild, monstrous decks, I didn't think Bloomburrow would fit with my sensibilities.

And yet, Wizards may have got me again. Whether it's the new characters, seeing new furrier versions of existing ones, or the suite of new mechanics, I think this will be the set where I start to build my own deck more keenly - Ratfolk, prepare to rise up.

Preview access provided by Wizards of the Coast.