Warning!

The decks you are about to see are mostly untested first drafts! They were played Wednesday on the early access Streamer Event on MTG Arena and are my first stabs at the new Bloomburrow Standard format. Most are brews jam packed with Bloomburrow cards, while there are also a few updates to previously established archetypes, but it's important to note that these are the first steps and not finished products! Use them as stepping stones for your own deck brewing process, but play them card for card at your own risk!

What a breath of fresh air!

Obviously, it's exciting to see Standard's first ever three-year rotation, as while Standard has been incredible and probably the best format in Magic for the last year or so, it's still nice to see some cards like Raffine, Scheming Seer and the Triomes being put out to pasture. Standard has a natural flow to it and it's great to see it get back into its groove.

However, the real draw is how awesome Bloomburrow looks. There's a real vibe in the community of basically everyone being excited about Bloomburrow, from the themes to the refreshing level of simplicity in the set - no flip cards, no bonus sheets, just a lot of fun mechanics and great art.

Mark my words, Bloomburrow is going to be a renaissance set for Magic. Which is why this is going to be an awesome Ten New Brews!

Today we are going to go over all ten decks I played as part of my Ten New Brews on YouTube and stream, briefly going over each list and my thoughts on how it was, giving it a letter grade, and talking about what kind of potential it has going forward. I played five games of best of one with each deck so the deck's record will also be included, but do note that these matches were played during the Early Access event not on the open ladder. My opponents were all other content creators also trying out all sorts of fun Bloomburrow stuff.

Let's go!

The Mouseketeers | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (32)
• 2 Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
• 2 Spellbook Vendor
• 2 Whiskervale Forerunner
• 3 Knight-Errant of Eos
• 3 Skrelv, Defector Mite
• 4 Cheeky House-Mouse
• 4 Emberheart Challenger
• 4 Flowerfoot Swordmaster
• 4 Heartfire Hero
• 4 Manifold Mouse

• Instants (5)
• 2 Torch the Tower
• 3 Get Lost

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Lost Jitte

• Lands (22)
• 5 Plains
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Cavern of Souls
• 2 Restless Bivouac
• 3 Rockface Village
• 4 Battlefield Forge
• 4 Inspiring Vantage

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Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: B+

Deck Potential: High

Standout Card: Manifold Mouse

Mice may be the smallest of the critters in Bloomburrow, but boy are they mighty.

The mouse mechanic in Bloomburrow is valiant, an offshoot of heroic that has the downside of only being able to trigger once a turn, but the huge upside of triggering on both spells as well as abilities, which is big game as there are a ton of ways to target these creatures over and over again without spending any many or cards. This buffs up Heartfire Hero and Flowerfoot Swordmaster and friends, and also creates a card draw engine with Emberheart Challenger and Whiskervale Forerunner.

There are tons of free to mostly free ways in the deck to target, like non-mice Spellbook Vendor and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, and Skrelv gets to pull double duty offering valiant triggers as well as protection. However, the really exciting draw to the deck was a bit of a surprise.

Say hello to Embercleave 2.0!

Manifold Mouse was initially added to the deck as a free way to target your mice and trigger valiant, as double strike didn't seem that important. Boy was a wrong, as we had many players over the course of the event fire in Monstrous Rage with double strike for an Embercleave-like kill out of nowhere.

Will that be the way the Mouse deck goes in the future? It's worse against removal, but we will see!

Long Legged Bonny | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (34)
• 2 Aether Channeler
• 2 Bonny Pall, Clearcutter
• 2 Gruff Triplets
• 2 Mistbreath Elder
• 3 Clement, the Worrywort
• 3 Inga and Esika
• 4 Clifftop Lookout
• 4 Dour Port-Mage
• 4 Dreamdew Entrancer
• 4 Pond Prophet
• 4 Valley Mightcaller

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Splash Portal

• Lands (24)
• 2 Forest
• 2 Island
• 2 Cavern of Souls
• 2 Lilypad Village
• 2 Three Tree City
• 3 Oakhollow Village
• 3 Restless Vinestalk
• 4 Botanical Sanctum
• 4 Yavimaya Coast

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Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: C+

Deck Potential: Medium, I Guess?

Standout Card: Dreamdew Entrancer

Every color pair has a specific creature type in Bloomburrow, with each also having a theme/mechanic that they are built around. Frogs are by far the weirdest.

Things like "target your own stuff" or "cast non-creature spells" are all pretty easy to parse, but frogs are all about bouncing your own things so you can recast them for value. This of course is a huge tempo issue, because if your opponent is applying any sort of pressure then you're spending way too much time spinning your wheels. Cards like Mistbreath Elder and Dour Port-Mage are rewarding you for returning things, which can lead to value with...

...things with sweet enters the battlefield abilities. Drawing cards, getting lands, tapping things down - these are all really cool things, but extremely mana intensive. Shout out to Dreamdew Entrancer here as perhaps my favorite card in Bloomburrow, played out awesome.

While we certainly won some matches, this is a really difficult mix to put together. There's cool stuff happening here but it's so weird that it's going to need a lot of work.

Cold Blooded | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (33)
• 2 Laughing Jasper Flint
• 2 Valley Flamecaller
• 2 Valley Rotcaller
• 2 Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier
• 3 Fireglass Mentor
• 3 Gev, Scaled Scorch
• 3 Thought-Stalker Warlock
• 4 Flamecache Gecko
• 4 Forsaken Miner
• 4 Hired Claw
• 4 Iridescent Vinelasher

• Instants (3)
• 3 Shock

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Fell

• Lands (21)
• 3 Mountain
• 6 Swamp
• 2 Rockface Village
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2 Restless Vents
• 4 Sulfurous Springs

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Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: B-

Deck Potential: Medium?

Standout Card: Gev, Scaled Scorch

One of the obvious decks coming out of Bloomburrow is Lizard Outlaws.

It's a pretty simple, two-step deck. Step one, deal damage to your opponent. Hired Claw and Iridescent Vinelasher do a good job of this without needing to actually deal combat damage, but the real draw is Gev, Scaled Scorch, which adds a damage to basically every spell in your deck as well as a +1/+1 counter to your creatures as well.

Then you've got your cards that "turn on" once you've delt damage. Flamecache Gecko does a nice Burning-Tree Emissary impression, Fireglass Mentor can draw cards, and Thought-Stalker Warlock gets to cast a Thoughtseize. These are all great things, but it is very important to note that these cards don't do much when you're behind.

Add on some outlaws from Outlaws of Thunder Junction and you fill out the deck nicely, but this deck has serious issues when it can't get the ball rolling. We had some games where our first steps were stymied and the deck completely ceased to function.

Glarbage Disposal | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (31)
• 2 Blossoming Tortoise
• 3 Harvester of Misery
• 3 Huskburster Swarm
• 3 Writhing Necromass
• 4 Aftermath Analyst
• 4 Blanchwood Prowler
• 4 Chupacabra Echo
• 4 Glarb, Calamity's Augur
• 4 Hollow Marauder

• Instants (2)
• 2 Overwhelming Remorse

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Up the Beanstalk

• Lands (23)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Underground River
• 2 Blooming Marsh
• 2 Restless Cottage
• 3 Yavimaya Coast
• 4 Hedge Maze
• 4 Undercity Sewers
• 4 Underground Mortuary

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Deck's Record: 2-3

Deck's Grade: C+

Deck Potential: Low to Medium, But Very Fun!

Standout Card: Glarb, Calamity's Augur

This was the weirdest and perhaps most fun of all the brews.

Glarb, Calamity's Augur is an awesome new card that isn't super easy to find a home for; it's oddly costed and has a somewhat odd mix of abilities. However, it likes expensive cards and it likes the graveyard. Up The Beanstalk is another card that loves expensive cards.

Well, what if we got a bit creative?

There are a stunning three creatures in Standard right now that cost a lot of mana and essentially have "affinity for creatures in graveyard." With some self mill and other graveyard shenanigans, you can get these down to very low mana costs, ideally one mana each, but they still count as large for Glarb and Up the Beanstalk so it creates a pretty awesome engine.

This deck was awesome and did some great stuff, but would need to both be refined as well as have a good plan vs graveyard hate.

Otter Pops | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (17)
• 1 Kitsa, Otterball Elite
• 4 Elusive Otter
• 4 Emberheart Challenger
• 4 Monastery Swiftspear
• 4 Slickshot Show-Off

• Instants (15)
• 2 Monstrous Rage
• 2 Shore Up
• 3 Lightning Strike
• 4 Might of the Meek
• 4 Shock

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Sleight of Hand

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Stormchaser's Talent

• Lands (20)
• 4 Island
• 4 Mountain
• 2 Botanical Sanctum
• 2 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Shivan Reef
• 4 Spirebluff Canal

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Deck's Record: 4-1

Deck's Grade: B+

Deck Potential: Medium To High

Standout Card: Emberheart Challenger

Otter Prowess is perhaps the most obvious Standard deck to come out of Bloomburrow.

Elusive Otter is one of the many Bloomburrow plants in Wilds of Eldraine, providing a card that is on the correct theme and creature type, and when you add it up with the new Stormchaser's Talent and the always impressive Monastery Swiftspear, you end up with an extremely impressive twelve-pack of 1-drops which is very important. Also added onto the prowess pile is the awesome Emberheart Challenger, which is great even with not that many ways to target it.

Add this on to Slickshot Show-Off and a solid-if-unexciting lineup of cheap spells like Shock and Sleight of Hand and you've got a very reasonable looking aggro deck, that will be excellent if there are more linear decks in the format but struggle against removal heavy midrange decks.

Hop Hop Hop | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (21)
• 1 Finneas, Ace Archer
• 2 Baylen, the Haymaker
• 2 Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds
• 2 Pollen-Shield Hare
• 2 Warren Warleader
• 4 Burrowguard Mentor
• 4 Pawpatch Recruit
• 4 Regal Bunnicorn

• Sorceries (7)
• 3 Season of the Burrow
• 4 Hop to It

• Enchantments (10)
• 2 Case of the Gateway Express
• 4 The Huntsman's Redemption
• 4 Three Blind Mice

• Lands (24)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 2 Battlefield Forge
• 2 Karplusan Forest
• 3 Copperline Gorge
• 3 Restless Prairie
• 4 Inspiring Vantage
• 4 Brushland
• 4 Razorverge Thicket

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Deck's Record: 2-3

Deck's Grade: C

Deck Potential: Low

Standout Card: Pawpatch Recruit

A rabbit "go wide" deck also feels like it should be one of the simpler decks to build from Bloomburrow, but proved to be pretty tricky. It's an odd deck because all of the payoffs are cheaper than the enablers.

The new Burrowguard Mentor, as well as more Wilds of Eldraine plants in Pollen-Shield Hare and Regal Bunnicorn are all pretty solid payoffs for having a bunch of tokens in play, but they oddly come online before the tokens do. This makes for some awkward spots where you're exposing your payoffs before you like to but there aren't really many good two mana set up cards.

Hop To It is a pretty awesome new token card, providing a lot of bodies for a low cost, while Three Blind Mice is sort of operating in the same space. Add on The Huntsman's Redemption and the new Season of the Burrow for a bit more token utility, but unfortunately aside from Hop To It these mostly underperformed.

I did try dipping into red for the very exciting Baylen, the Haymaker, which was pretty excellent when it worked. Unfortunately, Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds was pretty underwhelming and didn't do much.

This deck would need to be much lower to the ground to succeed, but Pawpatch Recruit and Finneas, Ace Archer did both impress.

LizardBearLand | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Lumra, Bellow of the Woods
• 3 Aftermath Analyst
• 3 Cache Grab
• 3 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
• 4 Freestrider Lookout
• 4 Iridescent Vinelasher

• Instants (6)
• 3 Cut Down
• 3 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Pitiless Carnage
• 3 Pillage the Bog

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Spelunking

• Lands (27)
• 4 Forrest
• 4 Swamp
• 3 Restless Cottage
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 4 Festering Gulch
• 4 Lush Oasis
• 4 Soured Springs

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Deck's Record: 2-3

Deck's Grade: B

Deck Potential: Medium to High

Standout Card: Lumra, Bellow of the Woods

With the New Cappena common sacrifice lands gone, that means that Aftermath Analyst no longer has a place in the metagame, right? Wrong!

Borrowing a page from the less commonly seen Jund Analyst decks, what if we sacrificed all of our lands to Pitiless Carnage, drew a ton of cards, and then returned them with Lumra, Bellow of the Woods or Aftermath Analyst? And what if we had a Iridescent Vinelasher or two in play and/or those returned lands were deserts that delt damage?

This may sound like a lot of moving parts, but aside from the Pitiless Carnage, all of these cards play a perfectly serviceable fair game as well.

Freestrider Lookout is the real all-star, which obviously plays well with the deserts as well as the removal spells, but also with Iridescent Vinelasher on both sides of the ball. Nissa, Resurgent Animist is partly a combo piece, as any double landfall can trigger the elf/elemental ability and find either combo card, but is also just a well sized threat that makes mana.

There are a lot of moving parts here, but the potential for a viable combo deck with a solid plan B is definitely there.

Batty Koda | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (23)
• 2 Gumdrop Poisoner
• 2 Zoraline, Cosmos Caller
• 3 Darkstar Augur
• 4 Amalia Benavides Aguirre
• 4 Deep-Cavern Bat
• 4 Essence Channeler
• 4 Ruin-Lurker Bat

• Instants (6)
• 2 Bitter Triumph
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Go for the Throat

• Enchantments (7)
• 3 Lunar Convocation
• 4 Case of the Uneaten Feast

• Lands (24)
• 4 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Fountainport
• 2 Restless Fortress
• 2 Thran Portal
• 4 Caves of Koilos
• 4 Concealed Courtyard
• 4 Scoured Barrens

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Deck's Record: 4-1

Deck's Grade: A-

Deck Potential: High

Standout Card: Essence Channeler

Bats won pretty much every game they were involved in for me during the Early Access event, no matter what side of the table they were on.

The Orzhov/bat mechanic is all about life gain and oddly losing life, preferably at the same time. Essence Channeler is yet another Ajani's Pridemate variant that is excellent, as it can gain flying and then also gets to move its counters if it dies. Lunar Convocation did a sort of Bitterblossom impression, while Zoraline, Cosmos Caller basically does it all.

Add this to an already impressive suite of lifegain effects in the format like Case of the Uneaten Feast, Amalia Benavides Aguirre, and the always impressive Deep-Cavern Bat, and you've got quite the core getting a whole bunch of new options.

Also amusing here is how important painlands like Caves of Koilos are to trigger the "if you've lost life this turn" effects, as gaining life is the easy part. There's a lot to grab onto here, as getting to play all of the great Black cards is also a great place to be in Standard as well.

Let's Go Nuts | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Camellia, the Seedmaster
• 2 Osteomancer Adept
• 2 Ygra, Eater of All
• 3 The Goose Mother
• 4 Bonecache Overseer
• 4 Bristlebud Farmer
• 4 Thornvault Forager
• 4 Vinecreap Mentor

• Instants (8)
• 4 Feed the Cycle
• 4 Seed of Hope

• Enchantments (2)
• 2 Virtue of Persistence

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Heaped Harvest

• Lands (22)
• 4 Forest
• 1 Island
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Fountainport
• 1 Restless Vinestalk
• 3 Restless Cottage
• 4 Blooming Marsh
• 4 Llanowar Wastes

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Deck's Record: 3-2

Deck's Grade: B+

Deck Potential: Medium to High

Standout Card: Ygra, Eater of All

There aren't really that many squirrels in Bloomburrow, nor are there many plants from prior set, which made the success of the squirrel food deck that much more exciting.

The synergy between the food makers and the forage cards is very nice, with enablers like Vinereap Mentor and Heaped Harvest available to make food with significant upside, and cards like Thornvault Forager or Feed the Cycle all set to chomp on them to make extra mana or get a cost reduction.

All of this setup looks nice, but it's the payoffs that make it all worth it.

Ygra, Eater of All was surprisingly powerful, unbeatable against decks that struggle to remove it, but getting good value otherwise. Bristlebud Farmer is an awesome pickup from the Big Score sheet and was excellent, while The Goose Mother stands in on the splash as another big use for all the extra mana.

There's work to be done here, but it feels like the start of a very nice midrange engine.

Lucky Frogs | BLB Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (15)
• 2 Maha, Its Feathers Night
• 2 Threefold Thunderhulk
• 3 Glarb, Calamity's Augur
• 4 Clifftop Lookout
• 4 Dreamdew Entrancer

• Instants (2)
• 2 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Make Your Own Luck

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Virtue of Persistence

• Artifacts (10)
• 2 Ancient Cornucopia
• 4 Nexus of Becoming
• 4 Portal to Phyrexia

• Lands (25)
• 3 Forest
• 1 Island
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Mirrex
• 1 Restless Vinestalk
• 2 Underground River
• 2 Yavimaya Coast
• 4 Fabled Passage
• 4 Llanowar Wastes
• 4 Restless Cottage

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Deck's Record: 5-0

Deck's Grade: A-

Deck Potential: Medium to High

Standout Card: Dreamdew Entrancer

Frogs to the rescue!

Dreamdew Entrancer, Glarb, and Clifftop Lookout were all excellent additions to my old Make Your Own Luck ramp deck, doing a fantastic job and producing card advantage while ramping up into the deck's big threats. The curve of Clifftop Lookout into Dreamdew Entrancer tapping the Clifftop Lookout is also awesome, while Glarb helps to make land drops and set up Nexus of Becoming.

Nexus of Becoming and Make Your Own Luck are the cores of the deck, both looking to cheat into play big things like Portal to Phyrexia and Threefold Thunderhulk, which can both totally take over a game. Virtue of Persistence is also awesome in this deck as an early removal spell that gains life that's also a great hit off of Make Your Own Luck.

This deck went for the perfect sweep and seems like an awesome place for anyone who loves big spells.

No Pro Tour This Time Around!

Usually this is where I talk about how important this set is going to be for the upcoming Pro Tour, but there is actually no Pro Tour for Bloomburrow! The next major event is the World Championship in October, which will feature Duskmourn.

However, this doesn't diminish my excitement to play more with these Bloomburrow cards. I can't wait to iterate more on these decks as many of them were a blast, and you won't believe what I've got in store for my video right here on CoolStuffInc.com on Monday!