Benjamin Levin • August 3, 2024
Deckbuilding
Ms. Bumbleflower | Illustrated by Marta Nael
Baylen, the Haymaker | Illustrated by Ryan Pancoast
Mr. Foxglove | Illustrated by Anna Podedworna
Gev, Scaled Scorch | Illustrated by Mark Zug
Zoraline, Cosmos Caller | Illustrated by Justin Gerard
Hey, nerds! Instead of doing one or two deck techs for the set, I'm going to share five unique deck ideas featuring some of the new commanders from Bloomburrow, with three additional honorable mentions for a total of 8 deck ideas! But don't worry, I'll also be going over some key cards for these decks. Alright, let's get into it!
Let's start with the honorable mentions.
Vren, the Relentless
The idea here is to give other players tokens using cards like Genesis Chamber, Akroan Horse, and Acorn Catapult. Then use Pestilence and other cheap sweepers to exile the creatures, giving you a bunch of Rats. I'm not sure how many effects we have in Dimir to give players tokens, so I put it at an honorable mention.
Ygra, Eater of All
Next is Ygra Stax. Ygra turns creatures into artifacts, meaning you can turn off everyone's creatures with Karn, the Great Creator. Then you can toss in Nature's Revolt and suddenly everyone's lands are turned off. You have access to plenty of tutors in black to get this combo out pretty consistently. It's just a bit too mean for my liking, but hey, to each their own!
Zinnia, Valley's Voice
The final honorable mention is Zinnia, Valley's Voice Jeskai Legends. Zinnia gives all your creature spells offspring , including legendary creatures. Of course, you'd have to sacrifice one of them because of the legend rule... unless you turn off the legend rule with Mirror Box, Mirror Gallery, or Cadric, Soul Kindler. Cadric specifically turns off the legend rule for tokens, which is perfect for this deck. You can also play clone effects like Spark Double that just ignore the legend rule altogether.
Now onto the main show!
Ms. Bumbleflower
First up is Ms. Bumbleflower Voltron. Bumbleflower is the face commander for one of the new precons and is an incredibly powerful Bant commander that provides card draw, counters, and temporary evasion. Her counter ability can target herself, so as you cast protection, Equipment, and Auras you grow your commander and give it evasion. You are giving opponents cards, so you want to either play Narset, Parter of Veils to stop the card draw and load up on protection spells, like Blossoming Defense, Tamiyo's Safekeeping, and Tyvar's Stand. And you don't need to play pure Voltron; instead, you can buff other creatures that can hold Equipment well.
Baylen, the Haymaker
Next is Baylen token pile. This idea was inspired by my friend who created an Atla Palani, Nest Tender Egg pile deck where they shuffle in a random 33 creatures into their Atla deck each game. The random creatures they get in each game keep it fresh and prevent it from relying on combos to win, and sometimes they just flip Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts back-to-back and end the game. But this idea is about Baylen, but instead of 33 creatures, you can shuffle in 33 or some other number of token-generators; cards like Pest Infestation, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, or Farmer Cotton. Honestly, just pick your favorite token-makers and shuffle them together. Baylen is powerful enough to take advantage of whatever tokens you make.
Mr. Foxglove
Next is the other Bant precon commander, Mr. Foxglove combat tricks. Foxglove draws you cards based on the difference between your and your opponent's hand sizes. It also lets you just put creatures into play, but that's boring. Instead, I want to load up on combat tricks to pump him while emptying our hand to draw as many cards as possible. Simic Charm, Shadow Rift, and Blacksmith's Skill are some of my favorites, but wait, there's more! Because we're casting so many spells each turn, Aetherflux Reservoir can turn our spells into additional life. That, along with Foxglove's lifelink, means we should be able to ping people down pretty quickly, and River Song's Diary can store the spells for later. Plus, Mavinda, Students' Advocate lets you recast the spells from your yard. If you want to go even further, you can try building creatureless Foxglove.
Gev, Scaled Scorch
Next up is Gev persist combo. Gev gives creatures +1/+1 counters so long as an opponent has taken damage during the turn, so creatures with persist, such as Murderous Redcap, Puppeteer Clique, and Putrid Goblin, go infinite with any sac outlet. We can take this even further, however, because sometimes we might not have these exact creatures in play. With the combination of Cauldron of Souls and Dross Scorpion or Infernal Captor, we can repeatedly give our entire board persist with Cauldron, then sacrifice all our creatures except for Gev, have them return and untap Cauldron so we can do it again. Infernal Captor does need a creature that generates a token creature when it enters or another persist creature. To close out the game, Altar of Dementia can mill everyone, Goblin Bombardment pings, and Gray Merchant of Asphodel drains the table. Ideally, you just get a sac outlet with Murderous Redcap and Gev though. That is the easiest way to win.
Zoraline, Cosmos Caller
And finally, we have Zoraline, Cosmos Caller Orzhov Vampires. Obviously, Zoraline wants us to build Bats, but what is a Vampire except a Bat that's humanoid? Jokes aside, there are 19 Vampires in Orzhov that make Bat tokens, and over 150 Vampires that are mana value three or less. You do lose some lifegain from their first ability, but the second ability is what I'm interested in. It's great recursion from the command zone for some of our best Vampires, like Blood Artist, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and Cruel Celebrant. You should still add some Bats to the deck; I mean it's still on theme. Basilica Screecher has extort, Darkstar Augur is a flying Bob with offspring, and Lifecreed Duo is a Bat soul-sister.
And that wraps up the 8 unique deck ideas from Bloomburrow! If I inspired you to build any of these or have a unique deck idea yourself, let me know in the comment section below! And let me know if you want more deck ideas just like this for other commanders and check out my other videos shown on screen here. Alrighty nerds, I'll see you next time!
