The Mechanics of Bloomburrow: Offspring

Posted on August 1, 2024

Hello everyone! I'm Levi from The Thought Vessel Show, and today I'm excited to share with you a fresh take on a recycled ability with Bloomburrow's latest mechanic: offspring!

In recent memory, Wizards of the Coast has been reworking older mechanics into newer abilities. This allows the designers to revisit these mechanics, refining them for better balance and support. Bloomburrow is no exception. Offspring reads: "Offspring {4} (You may pay an additional {4} as you cast this spell. If you do, when this creature enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 token copy of it)." While this example has an offspring cost of 4 mana, other cards might have cheaper offspring costs or require colored mana. Zinnia, Valley's Voice, the headlining commander for the "Family Matters" precon, is currently the only card that grants other creatures the offspring ability.

Interestingly enough, we've actually seen similar effects to this before, but never in a standard legal set. In the Warhammer 40k precons and The Lord of the Rings set, we were introduced to the "squad" mechanic, which allowed the caster to pay the squad casting cost multiple times to create identical copies of the creature, similar to the multi-kicker from Worldwake. Clearly, Wizards of the Coast wanted to scale this effect back with offspring, limiting it to a single 1/1 copy and only allowing it to be used once per creature.

Let's look at some of the stronger cards in this set with offspring:

Agate Instigator

Doubling down on this type of effect with the same card is great. It effectively allows decks to run another Purphoros without the indestructible.

Darkstar Augur

Though the increased mana value might raise some eyebrows, this card is competing to power creep Dark Confidant out of Commander, which is very impressive for a regular rare to say the least.

Prosperous Bandit

Creatures that turn into treasure producing engines will always have a home. Granted I would be a lot more excited if this card was designed more like Professional Face-Breaker, but in the right deck I could see the appeal of the higher ceiling.

Steelburr Champion

Normally, this type of effect can go overlooked in commander, though we have seen some cards like Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker rise above. The idea of populating this token and watching an entire army of this cute little mouse grow is very exciting.

Tender Wildguide

For two mana, you get a mana dork that can also pass out +1/+1 counters if you don't need the mana. Then, for another two mana, you can get a second one. This card is awesome.

Warren Warleader

Being able to choose between an anthem effect for your creatures or a Hero of Bladehold-type effect is impressive. And since it has offspring, you can get a second one as well. Pretty fly for a White guy.

This ability also has additional rules benefits you might not have considered:

ETB Effects

Offspring triggers an enters-the-battlefield (ETB) effect, assuming the offspring cost was paid. This means Panharmonicon effects would support this strategy. Conversely, cards like Torpor Orb would cancel this effect. Since offspring triggers on entering the battlefield, if the spell is countered, the offspring token won't be created, unlike copying a spell.

Tokens

Offspring creates a token that can be copied with abilities like populate, making it possible to create copies of creatures that normally wouldn't have this ability, like Esper Sentinel, Dockside Extortionist, and Sakura-Tribe Elder.

Anthems

Though they might be small, getting multiple bodies for your creature spells can be a huge asset for decks running anthem effects that buff your creatures +1/+1. In Commander, Cathars' Crusade would make every offspring spell equate to two +1/+1 counters on every creature you control. This can escalate quickly.

Color-wise, we see the best of these effects in Blue, White, and Green. With Zinnia, Valley's Voice, you'll likely see this mechanic in Jeskai decks, and the Green will work in most Green decks that value their creatures and have excess mana. I believe this mechanic will shine best in decks that can take advantage of the 1/1 token entering the battlefield right away through ETB or damage effects, such as Purphoros, God of the Forge.

However, similar to a blink strategy, many of these creatures will be small compared to their mana value. Brute force from trampling creatures will present a major problem for this type of deck. When massive creatures charge in, it simply means the kids aren't alright. Though the 1/1 blockers will be useful, this deck will likely take chip damage consistently because it aims to win through outlasting with value. The more you can pressure the opponent's life total, the better, because the longer the game goes, the more advantage the offspring player will gain.

I hope you learned a thing or two about this amazing new mechanic for Bloomburrow. This mechanic has incredible potential to be very powerful. Once you give it a chance, you're gonna go far, kid. I promise that is the last offspring-related pun. Until next time!

Be sure to check out the other Bloomburrow mechanic guides!