Bloomburrow/Woodland Fantasy Cube

Why Bloomburrow? Why this cube?

Bloomburrow was a set and a plane I instantly fell in love with.

I have always loved woodland/animal fantasy; Secret of Nimh, Mouseguard, Usagi Yojimbo, Watership Down, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Silverwing to name a few were all series that I interacted with in my life to various degrees and the genre had a huge impact on me.

So when this set came out I knew right away I wanted to make a set cube to keep drafting these cards. But I also knew I wanted to not just use the whole set but to customize the drafting and sealed experience a little bit.

I wanted my customizations of this cube to meet specific criteria/restrictions:

Have the cube be primarily commons/uncommons and few select rares (the *caller cycle mainly as it encourages three colour splashing) to keep the power level low

Strengthen some of the weaker archetypes in the set (primarily Azorius/Birds)

Do NOT break the woodland vibe (mostly just no non-plane native creatures)

Run duplicates of signpost cards and common spells. I.E draft consistency over singleton

Colour Design Philosophy and Draft Guide

The full card list can be found [here]

2-COLOUR PAIRS

For the colour pairs the drafting design has been largely copied from the vanilla Bloomburrow set with some minor changes. The notable changes will be mentioned alongside each archetype:

Azorius white manablue mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

seedpod squireplumecreed mentor

Bird typal where the primary strategy is evasion through flying, both for themselves and by giving flying or anthem effects to non-flying creatures

Also shares some combat tricks and aggro from it's crossover with Boros

The weakest of the archetypes as-designed, and one I felt I needed to boost a bit. So I added the following:

[Judge's Familiar] for a cheap 1-mana creature with some limited counter-spell utility.

[Dramatic Rescue] as a way to deal with creatures that have reach or flying that your opponent has. Also [Hindering Light] for some extra card draw and an azorius specific counter-spell

[Soulcatchers' Aerie] for a way to really boost an all-in for bird typal

Dimir blue manablack mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

mind drill assailanttidecaller mentor

Rat Typal, it's all about the graveyard! Dimir wants you to get threshold as fast as possible to buff your creatures and unlock their abilities.

I found they were already pretty solid in the default drafting space, so didn't want to buff them too much. However, I'd like to add a few more ways for them to get things in your graveyard

Especially since another faction (Golgari Squirrels) also care about the graveyard, by adding some more graveyard synergy I'm improving them booth and their interoperability for a splashed three-colour deck

What I included is as follows:

[Memory Sluice] to self-mill and reach threshold very quickly. This also benefits Golgari foraging

Added [Consider] for cantrip surveiling. Also as a mono-blue spell it will help all other blue factions

Rakdos black manared mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

cindering cutthroatfireglass mentor

Lizard Typal, it's all about doing direct damage to your opponent and getting buffs for it. It's aggro and fast and in your face!

These quick little guys didn't need much help to carry out their gameplan, so in general I just wanted to provide a bit more utility spells for both red and black

So I added [Thrill of Possiblity] for red card draw and [exhume] for black to do a smidge of re-animating.

I also added [Nihil Spellbomb] as a sorta black card to deal with the graveyard synergies in this set

Gruul red managreen mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Junkblade BruiserWandertale Mentor

Raccoon typal that wants you to ramp, spend 4 mana every turn for buffs and smash things up!

Like most others I was pretty happy with how this faction turned out, however I wanted to help with the ramp a smidge

So I added a few cards from the raccoon pre-con like [farseek] and [explore] to help with ramp

I also added [electrickery] to help red in general deal with offspring tokens and [shock] for a bit more removal ability

Selesnya green manawhite mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Head of The HomesteadBurrowguard Mentor

Rabbit typal that's all about offspring and tokens, going wide and swinging out with a full board

I wanted to add some more cards that helped with making tokens, so looked towards other mechanics like populate

I added [Sundering Growth] for some extra removal and populate, as well as [Eyes in the Skies] for populate and a bird token (this also helps the bird count for Azorius/Bird Typal).

Orzhov white manablack mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Moonrise ClericStarseer Mentor

Bat typal that's all about sucking the life from your opponents

In my experience the bat faction was already pretty effective so I kept changes to a minimum:

I added [Basilica Screecher] for another body that helps with gaining/losing life. It also triggers on each spell cast so it can help if you're splashing bats with the spellslinging otters

Then finally [Sign in Blood] for some card draw using the life you gain as a resource

Golgari black managreen mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Corpseberry CultivatorVinereap Mentor

Squirrel Typal! It's all about foraging (exiling cards from the grave or food tokens)

For this one I NEEDED to add the following squirrel staple:

[Chatterstorm] for it's iconic status as one of the best squirrel cards

Simic green manablue mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Pond ProphetLilysplash Mentor

Frog Typal that's all about enter effects and bouncing or maybe hopping (get it like a frog) your permanents so that you can recur value

I really enjoyed this deck when drafting and I loved it's simic-y value nonsense

There was only a few spells I wanted to include for help with the flickering, so I included the following staples:

[Ghostly Flicker]: the classic mono-blue flicker spells

[Ephemerate], while not simic encourages some colour splashing and can help recur the ETB effects of the other white creatures in the draft as well

Izzet blue manared mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Tempest AnglerStormcatch Mentor

Otter typal that's all about casting as many spells as you can to buff your prowess creatures

A very fun and aggro mechanic, especially with the signpost cards being some of the best prowess and prowess-like creatures you can draft

I found there was already a lot of enablers for this strategy and cantrips in the cube by this point so I didn't make any notable changes

Boros red manawhite mana

Signpost Common and Uncommon

Veteran GuardmouseSeedglaive Mentor

Mouse typal! An aggro deck that wants you using combat tricks on your creatures to trigger valiant and give them surprise boosts!

I added only a few cards to help with the aggro strategy:

[Cheeky-House Mouse] works as a great spell for triggering valiant as well as another mouse body that's cheap to get on the field

[Smashing Success] for artifact removal or to destroy an opponents land to keep you ahead of the curve