There's a lot of excitement building for Magic's newest set Bloomburrow, and for good reason!

Of course, we've finally got our first big Standard rotation of the new three-year rotation cycle, turning over what has been an awesome and vibrant Standard format into something fresh and new. Aside from that though, Bloomburrow itself as a set just looks awesome. The theme is something that is a breath of fresh air, presenting a unique setting and characters that is unlike anything we've seen in the 30 years of the game, and the mechanics of the set are equally intriguing. All signs point to Bloomburrow being perhaps the most successful set of the year.

And we're almost there!

As of writing this, the majority of the main set has been previewed, meaning we've got a pretty good look at the set as a whole. This means it's time for first impressions in the form of my love/hates! Note that these are not just static rankings. The point is to shed light on cards I think are being over or undervalued based on first impressions. The point of my Love/Hate article is not just to call cards good or bad, but to view cards based on the first impressions people have been having or are likely to have. The goal is to dispel undue hype or to draw attention to cards that are being overlooked.

Let's get started!

LOVE - Dreamdew Entrancer

Flametongue Kavu, meet Mulldrifter! Dreamdew Entrancer looks like a very innocent card. This frog wizard has a modest 3/4 body for four mana, while containing a tap-and-stun mechanic that looks like it was tailor made for limited play and nothing more.

Don't be fooled.

Three stun counters is a long time, meaning that whatever you hit with Dreamdew Entrancer on your opponent's side of the board is going to be out of commission for three full turns, which is basically an eternity. This can be used to remove a blocker, or probably more commonly take a key attacker out of the picture while providing a very solid defensive body that can survive most early attackers as well as block fliers.

If that's all Dreamdew Entrancer did it probably wouldn't be flexible enough for maindeck Constructed play, but then you see the line about drawing two cards if you target your own stuff and we're off to the races. Maybe it's a random token or some creature with a non-combat ability, but being able to draw two cards while adding to the board is a very powerful ability. It can even target itself in a pinch, and in a longer grinder game that's a three for one once it comes back online. And that's to say nothing of the various frogs in the set that are based around bouncing your own things.

I won't mince words, Dreamdew Entrancer is one of my favorite cards in the set and one that basically everyone is sleeping on.

HATE - Salvation Swan

Look, I knew Restoration Angel, and Salvation Swan is no Restoration Angel.

The flying, flash creature that protects your own stuff is a nice place to be, but Salvation Swan has a number of issues.

The first is the sizing. Restoration Angel's 3/4 body felt even bigger than that before a decade's worth of power creep, as it very often came down just to ambush some random attacker without ever even blinking one of your own things. Your goal was to blink things for value, but this super high floor made the card format defining. Salvation Swan is only a 3/3 in a world where creatures are much bigger than they used to be, making it quite fragile in combat.

The second issue is that while Restoration Angel was locked to "non-angel" creatures to prevent loops, Salvation Swan's safety valve is "non-flying" creatures, which invalidates a huge amount of potential targets. The most common home for a card like this would be some sort of Blue/White flash deck, which will likely contain quite a few flying creatures. The trigger is also a delayed return in the end step, making it even more clunky.

Yes, you can use it multiple times with a bunch of birds in your deck (which of course will mostly have flying for more nombos), and yes it does give things flying counters, but these minor upsides don't make up for the poor sizing and awkward deck-building tension that Salvation Swan creates.

LOVE - Three Tree City

Okay, maybe this one isn't quite a sleeper, but holy moly have you read Three Tree City?

Nyxthos, Shrine To Nyx is the obvious comparison, and of course quite an impressive one as that card was a huge deal in Standard, helped to define Pioneer, and is a staple in most mono-colored Commander decks. Any land that can tap for more than 1 mana deserves a serious look, especially if it enters untapped and can also tap for colorless as a failsafe.

The idea of Three Tree City in a Goblins or Elves deck is very impressive, but the floor is so high here that it could even be played in some sort of a token deck that has a good number of similarly-typed tokens.

There's not much more to say here, this is going to be one of the defining cards from the set that we will remember a decade from now.

HATE - Long River's Pull

What makes a counterspell good is answering an opponent's card one for one, usually at a mana advantage - they spent four mana to cast their spell, you spent two to counter it, that's a great exchange.

If your opponent casts a creature, sure that's what Long River's Pull is, but needing to gift your opponent a card to counter anything else is a disaster in any sort of resource war, making Long River's Pull mostly a pure tempo card rather than a more universal counterspell. If you're just countering a creature great, but typically countering non-creature spells like Sunfall is more important and in those cases, this is a lot more like an Unsubstantiate than an actual counterspell.

The card is somewhat flexible in its modality, but this is heavily offset by the difficult casting cost. Long River's Pull is certainly a playable card in the right kind of deck that can consistently cast it, but don't expect too much more than a medium role player.

LOVE - Hugs, Grisly Guardian

With a name like Hugs, what's not to love?

Hugs, Grisly Guardian is very much a modern-day Magic mythic rare. A four-mana 5/5 trample with Exploration as an upside is already pretty nice, but your big beaters these days also get to draw a bunch of cards too!

Hugs is one of those cards that's good anywhere from four to twelve mana, allowing you to sink it into whatever part of your curve you see fit. Amusingly if X is too high, it's likely you won't actually be able to utilize all the cards you reveal, but this is of course a very good problem to have. The extra land drops play perfectly with this sort of influx of cards, also paving the way for the next copy of Hugs to be even better than the first. While the mana cost on Hugs may look a little intimidating, the fact that you're usually casting it for at least a few colorless makes it far more palatable.

Hugs is one of the best threats in the entire set.

HATE - The Infamous Cruelclaw

The Infamous Cruelclaw is a very odd card.

In a lot of ways it is both costed and stated as an aggressive creature, with a decent body and evasive ability. However, there are a number of issues with the card.

The first is that it actually has to successfully deal damage to your opponent to do anything. This is a tough sell for a 3-drop with only mild evasion and no way to protect itself. However, once you actually do hit, things get even weirder. Casting spells for free is usually the domain of more combo or "big stuff" type of decks, but putting a bunch of big spells in your deck is going to make it far easier for your opponent do deal with Cruelclaw because you won't be presenting other threats. There's also an element of randomness at work which gives Cruelclaw a really low floor, even if the ceiling is high.

The Infamous Cruelclaw is an awkward card both in deck-building as well as gameplay, which is usually a recipe for disaster.

LOVE - Gev, Scaled Scorch

However, if you are looking for a sweet Rakdos legend that actually works, check out Gev, Scaled Scorch.

There is a light "aggressive lizard" theme across Bloomburrow, with Gev leading the charge. Adding one damage and a +1/+1 counter to all of your lizards is frankly incredible, providing reach as well as battlefield sizing for no additional cost. The damage is also capable of triggering other abilities, helping Gev serve as a synergy piece as well.

What makes Gev so impressive compared to a card like Cruelclaw, aside from the fact that Gev just does his thing immediately without needing a successful combat step, is the floor of the raw stats. A 3/2 creature with ward- pay two life is an incredibly efficient body even before you consider the abilities.

Mana efficient body plus great abilities is the recipe for success and Gev passes with flying colors.

Complete Set Review, Ten New Brews, And More!

To say I'm excited for Bloomburrow would be quite the understatement, and today is the day I get to dig in with my Complete Set Review on my stream and YouTube!

Then next week I get to actually dig in and start playing new, rotated Bloomburrow on the MTG Arena early access streamer event! As usual I'll be building my Ten New Brews and playing them live on stream and putting them on YouTube, and you'll be able to read all about them next Friday right here on CoolStuffInc.com with all ten decklists and my thoughts on each deck.

And lastly for you Limited fans, I'll be starting my usual Bronze To Mythic draft run on the day Bloomburrow releases on MTG Arena! You can join me and the learn the format right alongside me as we draft mice, squirrels, bats, and more!

Unfortunately, there's no Pro Tour for this set, but that does give me some extra time to work on content and new things, so keep and eye out!