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Do you have your eyes on the MTG Bloomburrow Starter Kit but aren’t sure if it’s for you? First off, congratulations for not just impulsively buying it based on how cute the creatures are – that’s impressive strength. Thankfully, the good news is that the Bloomburrow Starter Kit isn’t just a pretty face.
Despite this being a learn-to-play product, it doesn’t matter whether Bloomburrow is your first introduction to one best card games of all time or you’re a seasoned Magic player who’s understands such complex ideas as “the stack” and “actually winning the game”. Either way, there’s plenty to enjoy in the MTG Bloomburrow Starter Kit, and it all comes in at a refreshingly reasonable price.
What’s in the MTG Bloomburrow Starter Kit?
In any MTG Starter Kit, the main event is a pair of 60-card Starter decks. In the Bloomburrow product, both of these are suitably Animalfolk-themed with Hare Raising (a Green-White rabbit-centric deck with a focus on buffing creatures) and Otter Limits (a Blue-Red deck featuring plenty of spell-slinging otters).
With those color pairings, the only section of the MTG color pie that doesn’t get a look-in is Black. Personally speaking, this is a bit of a shame; Black’s mechanics and flavor were part of what hooked me when I first started playing MTG. However, when you dive deeper into what the goals of what a Starter Kit are, its exclusion is pretty understandable too.
In Magic: The Gathering, Black is often associated with trading off resources like life and creatures to get ahead. With this in mind, it makes sense why the other four colors might serve as a better fit for a beginner’s introduction to the game. Effectively piloting a Black deck requires you maintaining a delicate balance between sacrifice and self-preservation, and this prospect can be a little scary for newbies.
Beyond the decks, the MTG Bloomburrow Starter Kit also comes with a number of useful extras. Inside are two cardboard deck boxes which, while not practical for long-term use, are handy for players who haven’t built up a collection of MTG accessories yet. As well as that, if you’re fond of Magic: The Gathering’s digital equivalent, you’ll be happy to learn that the kit includes two redemption codes for MTGArena.
Beyond the decks, the MTG Bloomburrow Starter Kit also comes with a number of useful extras. Inside are two cardboard deck boxes which, while not practical for long-term use, are handy for players who haven’t built up a collection of MTG accessories yet. As well as that, if you’re fond of Magic: The Gathering’s digital equivalent, you’ll be happy to learn that the kit includes two redemption codes for MTGArena.
Other beginner-friendly inclusions are rules reference cards and a how-to-play booklet. This booklet includes a rundown of how to play Magic: The Gathering, as well as a glossary of common keywords players have to get to grips with during games. While the information is comprehensive, there are parts of it which are awkwardly formatted thanks to there being up to three columns of texts on one small page.
Thankfully, I can’t see this problem having any substantial negative impact on players’ understanding of the game but it does make the booklet slightly awkward to navigate. The how-to-play booklet isn’t a total ugly duckling though. The entire Bloomburrow set has plenty of charming art featuring cute pastoral motifs alongside images of Valley’s fuzzy denizens, the Calamity Beasts, and visiting Planeswalkers. Our everything you need to know about Bloomburrow page will come in handy if you need to decode what that all means but lore-aside, just know that there are lots of adorable talking animals.
MTG Bloomburrow starter decks
Among the Starter Kit, are a number of exclusive reprints but unfortunately, these aren’t given new card art to suit Bloomburrow’s world. Not only does this make their exclusivity feel less special, but the presence of humanoid creatures in what is supposed to be a definitively ‘Animalfolk only’ plane is an admittedly small but irritating discrepancy. This is a level of canon-divergence that both the Assassin’s Creed and Lord of the Rings Starter Kits avoided entirely. So, I can only imagine this was a deliberate decision made with the kit’s budget in mind.
One of these reprinted cards is Colossalification, an enchantment in Hare Raising that’s the purest distillation of the deck’s ‘go-tall’ play style. By tapping a creature and then buffing it by +20/+20, the card is both a valuable beginner’s lesson in combat rhythm and a really powerful end-game permanent for any Green deck.
Other examples of great cards that bolster Hare Rising’s strategy are Finneas, Ace Archer (buffs creatures when it attacks and provides card draw according to creature power) and Bryke, Long Ear of the Law (which deals out +1/+1 as part of its enter the battlefield and triggered abilities).
Meanwhile, Otter Limits wholly embraces the Izzet (Blue-Red) archetype by incentivizing and rewarding casting non-creature spells. Stormcatch Mentor is a helpful, low-cost card for furthering this game plan, as it not only gets a temporary buff from non-creature spells thanks to Prowess but also reduces the cost of casting them. Bria, Riptide Rogue extends her Prowess to all other creatures you control and allows you to make one of your creatures unblockable — great for landing damage on your opponent.
All in all, both decks are fun to play, well-balanced, and suited for a starter product. Each of them feature mechanics that are mainstays of Magic as a whole but also their respective color identities. However, they also manage to give players a taste of new keywords like Offspring which debuted in Bloomburrow in a way that integrates organically with the decks as a whole.
If you’re just getting your start with Magic: The Gathering and need some guidance or you’re an established player who fancies some casual 60-card fun on the cheap, the MTG Bloomburrow Starter Kit is well worth picking up.
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