Magic: The Gathering’s Bloomburrow set has many exciting factions available to draft once the set’s pre-release begins on July 26.
There’s no question that Bloomburrow is shaping up to be an exciting MTG set for players of all stripes. Long-time fans are relieved to have a mostly self-contained, back-to-basics fantasy plane to visit after the genre experiments of Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction.
Meanwhile, new players have an accessible, exciting starting point available to them in this engaging animal-only set. For MTG enjoyers both new and old, Bloomburrow’s draft environment is a great way to engage with the set as soon as its pre-release begins.
We’ll run you through each of Bloomburrow’s draft archetypes so you know how these factions operate ahead of July 26.
All MTG Bloomburrow draft archetypes
Birdfolk: White/blue
Birdfolk have access to the Flying ability, allowing them to soar over most of your opponents’ blockers and deliver direct damage.
Still, most of this archetype’s heavy hitters are grounded, with Birds delivering buffs to your non-fliers and allowing you to win through carefully coordinated attacks.
Ratfolk: Blue/black
As with many of MTG’s Dimir strategies, Ratfolk care strongly about the graveyard. As opposed to Golgari recursion, Bloomburrow Ratfolk are at their peak after stacking your grave with enough cards to activate their Threshold abilities.
Alongside graveyard-based mechanics, blue and black offer a host of excellent removal to control the game’s tempo until Threshold’s conditions have been met.
Lizardfolk: Black/red
One of Bloomburrow’s most engaging archetypes, Lizardfolk’s key abilities are only active when opponents take damage on the same turn.
This archetype works best with abilities that deal reliable direct damage, whether they be burn spells or Enchantments that chip away at opponents’ life totals. Once direct damage is assured, Lizards can press the advantage and act aggressively to claim a quick win.
Raccoonfolk: Red/green
Bloomburrow’s Gruul archetype rewards big investments, giving you an additional payoff for spending large amounts of mana on each turn.
Raccoons are among Bloomburrow’s largest Creatures, and these ( relatively ) colossal beaters can wreak havoc once they hit the field, especially with Expend backing up their utility.
Rabbitfolk: Green/white
Selesnya often excels at going wide in MTG, and Bloomburrow’s Rabbitfolk live up to that with aplomb. With the new Offspring mechanic, Rabbits join the ranks of Magic’s best token strategies.
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Other draft archetypes may have Rabbitfolk beat in terms of individual cards’ power, but none can go wide as easily. Flooding the board with tokens enables you to skirt around opponents’ capacity to block and hit them with a whole hoard of Creatures.
Batfolk: White/black
Following on from Vampires’ examples on planes like Ixalan, Bloomburrow’s bats are a lifegain strategy that stands apart by taking life loss into account.
This Orzhov archetype can easily outlast opponents’ attacks, controlling the pace of the game with careful life total adjustment.
Otterfolk: Red/blue
Bloomburrow’s spellslinger archetype follows in the footsteps of Lutri, the Spellchaser, and Izzet’s everlasting knack for spellcraft.
Instants and Sorceries are the name of the game here, along with a number of Creatures that help to heighten their impact through copying, Prowess, and other spell-adjacent abilities.
Squirrelfolk: Black/green
Squirrels have already had a surprisingly powerful showing in Magic, thanks to popular Commander Chatterfang, Squirrel General. This Goglgari draft archetype forges new ground for Squirrels, drawing in the increasingly popular Food tokens.
While green gives Squirrelfolk access to big beaters and black mana provides powerful removal spells, you’ll want to be working towards stacking your grave to activate Forage effects reliably, even when you don’t have Food to hand.
Mousefolk: Red/white
Mousefolk are a hard-hitting Boros archetype, initially fielding cheap, weak Creatures to establish a board presence, before buffing them up into real threats.
You’ll rarely have issue outnumbering your opponents thanks to mana-cheap Mice and Offspring, and using spells and Equipment to power up your Creatures will also trigger their inherent Valiant ability, giving them an extra boost.
Frogfolk: Green/blue
Utilizing the best of blink and ETB triggers, Bloomburrow’s Frogs accumulate value and march steadily toward the endgame.
Simic archetypes are rarely lacking in mana production, and you can use that reliable access to mana to fill your board and still have enough left over to re-trigger your ETB effects. Blinking is also useful for avoiding targeting, helping to prevent opponents from picking off your best cards.
