This Week in Magic: Friday, July 26

Posted on July 26, 2024

Bloomburrow Prerelease This Weekend

It's fuzzy animal critter time as the Bloomburrow prerelease kicks off this today and runs throughout the entire weekend! Make sure to check out your local game store and participate in a fantastic event for players of all skill levels in a setting perfect for newer players. Stores will also be able to sell you product at the event as well, making the cards legal in all formats as of this weekend, kicking off the first Standard rotation in two years! Get to your local shop and enjoy all the fun, or if you're unable to check out your local shop, pick yourself up some sweet Bloomburrow goodies right here on CoolStuffInc.com.

No Emergency B&R Announcement Coming

Fresh from today's WeeklyMTG, Blake addresses the next Banned and Restricted announcement date, gives a peek into the process behind the curtain & discusses the potential for future changes to the philosophy. pic.twitter.com/9DFKGCxkYH
— Magic: The Gathering (@wizards_magic) July 23, 2024

For weeks following Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, players have been begging Wizards to provide an emergency banned and restricted update to contend with a number of powerful cards. In case you haven't been paying attention to most competitive formats, these include Nadu, Winged Wisdom in Modern, Grief in Legacy, and all kinds of things happening with Boros Energy in MTG Arena Historic. All three have proved tremendously problematic with Nadu dominating major tournaments with a 60% winrate, Grief "Scam-animator" decks holding a 35-50% meta share in Legacy, and the entire Arena Championship 6 event warped by Boros Energy.

All of this has led to the aforementioned outcry and Wizards took note. During this week's Weekly MTG stream, Blake Rasmussen made an announcement stating that there wouldn't be any such emergency announcement prior to the next scheduled update. This was stated to ensure players would feel secure in their deck choice and testing ahead of major events like the upcoming RCQ season for Modern. Many players were angered by this, thereby leading to even further outcry soon after the announcement went live. The next B&R update will be on August 26 with numerous changes expected, though an MTG Arena update will happen on August 6th that rebalances several cards for the Historic format.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail Crossover Announced

Many Secret Lairs have been getting revealed over the course of the last week such as a Bloomburrow planeswalkers Lair, one featuring the art of Andrew MacLean, and a couple collaborations with BrainDead. One in particular got many players incredibly excited, though, and that was the pair of crossover releases with Monty Python and the Holy Grail! These include numerous visual and verbal nods to many of the most iconic scenes and characters in the film, including a double-sided African/European Swallow Birds of Paradise or a Black Knight themed Dismember. One of the more inspired choices was to make Tim the Enchanter a Prodigal Sorcerer, as many players affectionately nicknamed the Blue pinger as "Tim" in reference to the Monty Python character during Magic's early days.

For full details on the contents of the two lairs, be sure to check out the IGN article that revealed all of the cards!

Hasbro Has Strong Second Quarter

CNBC reported on Hasbro's financial earnings report for the second quarter and it's looking quite good! Modern Horizons 3 was a major boon for Wizards and for Hasbro as a whole, as was WotC's continued victory lap with Baldur's Gate 3. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks also noted that the company would be looking to go more all-in on the digital gaming front going forward as a way to help increase earnings.

Decklist of the Week

Rakdos Lizards | BLB Standard | Yoman5

Instants (8)
4 Shock
4 Lightning Strike

Buy This Deck Export text Export Arena

As is usual with all new sets, Yoman5 is bringing the cool new brews with his 50 new decks for Bloomburrow! I'm highlighting this list because it doesn't feel like a rehashing of existing decks but rather something all new and fresh. In this case, it's a creature typal deck focusing on one of the game's less represented creature types: Lizards! This highly aggressive deck provides a new way to dish out damage fast in a way wholly unique to the plane of Bloomburrow. Make sure you check out his other decks for some really cool ideas, or you can check out my own article about rotation-proof lists from earlier this week. Regardless, get out there and enjoy Bloomburrow and new Standard to the fullest!

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

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