30:36 X spells see the value of X on the stack, so as long a you pay enough, they will be the 4 or greater needed

Helga does work with x spell creatures like hydras. It cares about mana value on the stack, which includes what you payed for the x.

33:00 Mocking Bird copies Atraxa or Etali for 7 mana, not 8 mana. The card says "the mana spent to cast Mocking Bird" not the value of X.

I'm loving this set more now that I'm getting the flavor. Rabbits reproduce, squirrels gather food, weasels are sly and cunning, frogs...just bounce lol.

30:36 What you're missing is that X costs DO affect mana value of spells. X is always 0 when evaluating the mana value of cards and permanents, but that doesn't apply to spells.

My sides went into orbit at "crustacean mage"

4:00 This is something I learned when looking at Xorn and Revel in Riches. If two cards are synergizing together and they both say "one or more" you only get one effect, but if one of those two cards says "a" or "each" or puts multiple individual triggers on the stack or does multiple individual things, then you get multiple effects from the card that says one or more. Another thing I learned on the very first day I started playing Magic is that the wording on a card and every single word on a card matters and it matters A LOT. I know people always joke about "reading the card explains the card", but you do, especially for newer players, have to not just read, but closely read a card if you want to be able to accurately determine what it's going to do. A lot of the wording is the same throughout Magic, but, even for long time players, with new mechanics coming out all the time, it's an important thing to remember. Edit: Season of the Burrow is a little bit different since it's a card resolution mechanic thing, but you get the point. Understanding mechanics is very important too.

A frog walks into a bar. Bartender says "Why the wide face?"

After 2 standard sets of sets not really feeling like mtg im happy bloomburrow has brought that vibe back and the card designs are so cool

For wick as a commander you can’t forget changeling creatures as both rats and snails.

Just a fun fact about the "paw" modal design, it was used in the prototype card "pick your poison" from mystery boosters sets.

Season of the Burrow: notable that the second mode doesn't say "an opponent controls". So, if you want to you can use it exile one of your own things to draw a card in a pinch, which is particularly good with tokens

Ah yes, Toskis Welcome. I remember that card from brothers war.

A note on playing Vren with wraths. Vren doesn't care if he was on the battlefield when the creatures get sent to exile, only if he's on the battlefield at the end of a turn in which things went to exile. So if you've got the mana, you could do a wrath with Vren out, and just recast him, and he'll still see everything else that got wrathed to exile and make a bunch of rats. Or if you've got a way to exile-wrath, you can play that first, and then play Vren. He also doesn't care what turn things get exiled in, as he makes the rats at the end of every turn. So if an opponent is playing a sac-heavy deck and doesn't care about exiling their tokens, they'll still be feeding Vren's ability.

This really does feel like the most Magic set we've gotten in a very long time. I am so excited

30:21 Seth did you forget that the mana value if X spells is the amount of mana spent on that spell that's why they tacked it on 😂

Very surprised that you included Stargaze in the "draft" pile at the end. I think that card is extremely good.

For clarification, Seth missed another X spell related functionality. Mocking Bird cares about how much you cast it for, not it's own X value. So you wouldn't need 8 mana to play Etali or Atraxa, you would only need 7. This means the card will always be on curve but never above curve. It also means it is a terrible reanimation target (unlike the majority of clones) because it will only be able to copy creatures with mana value 0 (the wording is weird here, if you just put it into play without casting it then that means that value it checks for should be 0 but I may be wrong about how it works).

Tombstone Stairwell mentioned? Thas my favorite Kambal payoff :D

11:51 It's "Song of TotenTANZ" it's a german word, the "A" is pronounced like the "U" in "Luck", "Deaddance" would be the literal translation so "Song of Totendance" would make sense if you'd like to mix it

Big fan of the set so far. The theme is a nice breath of fresh air. I like darker or less traditional magical themes in MTG but it's nice to take a step back to some more classical elements of fantasy. Having only animals so far is also cool, makes the set feel like Redwall with actual magic and 'monsters'.

Loving how wonky all the frogs are 🤣

the comment about this being the most magic set recently actually is a good way of putting how I feel about it. I started magic with Morningtide as a child and fell in love with that kinda feeling bloomburrow has that same feeling of cute but also dangerous.

Vren would be terrifying to see across the table from me playing my new Azlask deck lol

The Infamous Cruelclaw as a Voltron commander seems fun as well

Others already posted about the mana value, so I'll just add the comp rules citation is: 202.3e When calculating the mana value of an object with an {X} in its mana cost, X is treated as 0 while the object is not on the stack, and X is treated as the number chosen for it while the object is on the stack.

Wick can also use changlings or cards that change the creature type (like psychic paper). Either play big creatures and turn them into snails, or threaten your opponent's stuff and make them into snails.

I think Mistbreath Elder is one of those one drops that you play to draw out the opponent's removal spells. If they don't kill it, it seems like it could run away with games.

Tha fabled Urborg Lurgoyf deck that only ever existed in Seth's set reviews...

You can also use Season of the Burrow to exile a useless token or two you control to draw cards.

I'm ready to get some squirrel action going.

Starfall invocation can also reanimate your opponents creatures. Steal your sheoldred haha

Frogs caring about bouncing is a massive flavor win.

31:28 What Hearthborn Battler does is... whenever ANYONE plays a second spell in a turn, it deals 2 damage to ONE OF YOUR OPPONENTS. Not you, always the opponent. So not only is opponent punished for casting 2 spells per turn, you can burn them yourself and you can actually do it in your turn and their turn too if you have enough gas. It's really scary 3 drop. Obviously not a Shoeldred level threat but still.

50:55 Don't forget Shanna, Sisay's Legacy! Still Barrowguard Mentor seems to be the best version. Trample is solid.

Wick would be really awesome for a shape shifter commander deck :)

39:25 Like 20+ years ago in Tempest standard there was an awesome deck named SGD that used Stampeding Wildebeests to bounce Wall of Blossoms, Spike Feeders, and Uktabi Orangutan's over and over. Was so fun. The 1mv frog has me excited.

The dream is mistbreath elder + mystic remora early in commander

With Wick, it seems like you really don’t need many snails, you just want one tall snail ->more activations don’t give you more efficient effects

Starfall Invocation can definitely be a better wrath than Sunfall in certain decks. Two cases come to mind. If domain ramp continues to be a deck in standard, I see Starfall Invocation as a strict upgrade to Sunfall. Imagine you have an Atraxa out but your opponent has a pretty big board. You cast Starfall Invocation and get to wipe their board while keeping your Atraxa and getting another ETB trigger. How many times have you seen someone have to Sunfall away their Atraxa because the opponent's board overpowered it? The deck would want to look for some cheaper ETB creatures to replace Topiary Stomper and Archangel of Wrath as well. That's one use case. Another is the new dimir rat, Vren. You're in esper colors. Your opponent has a few creatures. You play out a Vren. They can't kill it because of the ward. You cast Starfall Invocation, wrath away the board but keep your Vren. Then every one of the opponents creatures becomes a huge rat on your side. Wrathing away just 3 creatures of your opponent's is going to leave you with 15 power on the board.

Oh Gawd, Helga works really well with Solitude and Subtlety...we are screwed.

Into the flood maw is really sick in vintage oath.

Having played Vren (I am from the future), ways to make vanilla 1/1 rat tokens are far worse than just running more ramp, edicts, wraths, and card draw to get more of Vren's tokens. Lord Skitter is versatile enough to run, but in the game I played, was really only useful as graveyard hate. The tokens never mattered

I think that you could make a Mistbreath aggro deck work. If you have cards like Burning tree emissary or amped raptor you can keep looping them and you could also return your whacks and kick/surge them again. It probably wouldn’t be competitive but might be a fun against the odds or something.

The dad joke intro alone earned my like

@22:22 I feel like generally sunfall will be better, but starfall I think is preferred over day of judgment, 1 mana for flexibility to keep one of the creatures you control on the field, or re trigger its ETB effect could win the game, where a day of judgment just stops you from losing most of the time, for 1 mana I think it is worth it, especially in commander.

I don’t know why but “fair weasel deck” sounds like an oxymoron.

I just noticed that if you use conspiracy effects to turn the snail into a rat, with the trigger on the stack you can sacrifice the snail to ashnods or altar of dementia and loop the snail infinite times to any sacrifice outlet, as it will see another rat entering and then you sac the snail so when it resolves you see no snails on the battlefield. with altar of dementia this will instantly mill out any opponents entire libraries if they don't have a way to stop the loop, and you're also in some of the best colors for stopping opponents messing with you so.

Helga works with X spells for the same reason you can cast Prismatic Ending for 2 to get a chalice on 1

Mocking Bird seems interesting in Synthesizer, Dimir Rogue, and Simic or Bant Toxic strategies.

Now you can do a commander clash where everyone plays a rat commander in a different color combination

I started playing mtg during Zendikar/Alara block standard and I was always so bummed that I never got to play during Llorwyn/Shadowmoor, which is exactly up my alley from a gameplay and aesthetic perspective. Bloomburrow looks like the closest I'll ever get to playing this vibe and I'm so excited for it!

"What am I missing about the X spell text?" Literally everything lol

50:25 I mean idk, Long River Lurker and Stargaze seem worth testing out in some formats.

Cruelclaw will definitely be used as a one-hit KO gimmick brawl commander.

Helga does work with x spells while being cast they are whatever mana value that was spent but only during that time

the price on Maskwood Nexus is gonna get so nutty after this set

Mocking bard does have the potential to copy tokens as well. Not tokens that are copies of a card with a mana value, like offspring, but other tokens that don’t have mana values. Then it’s just a one mana copy of them. Definitely some potential there!

Also in Modern mocking bird can become a DRC, Ragavan, Nethergoyf...for one mana.

Oh man I can't wait for Crustacean Mage

Helga looks fun with Evoke Elementals 😇

Huskbuster swarm seems like it could be good in some kind of Delve deck since it gets the discount even if you delved the creatures out of your graveyard.

You could play Darkstar Augur alongside Ashiok, Wicked Manipulator. Whenever you reveal a spell to the Augur, you're going to exile cards from your library instead of losing life.

There is something that seth overlooked with Mocking bird. I think the best thing to do with this card is to copy token creatures. In standard they have already introduced the Offspring mechanic. So Mocking Bird can enter as a copy of the token created from the Offspring card for 1 mana. This could be really strong copying Karnstructs or other powerful creature tokens as well. Imagine flying Karnstructs. This could also be paired with Fable of the Mirror breaker to copy the goblin to make more treasures. You can also wait til chapter 3, activate the reflections of kiki jiki on the next turn. Then Mocking bird can be a copy of the token Kiki creates. and you can do that all for 1 mana. Because tokens don't have a mana cost.

Im allmost upset that he did'nt comment on the fact 'The Relentless' makes 'Relentless Rat' tokens Without the 'has to be named relentless rat' part XD Good card, gonna put it in the marrowgnawer and make this the new commander maybe

Oh seth, now you can play Boomer Jund in Standard with Lililana of the Veil, Bob aka Darkstar Augur and Tarmogoyf aka Urborg Lhurgoyf ^^

Season of the burrow is pretty good for a lurrus deck. Because of lurrus' companion condition, every permanent is below 3 cmc anyway, and season can return a lurrus which can then return another permanent. Since most lurrus deads use "on death" or ETB effects, getting 5 1/1 tokens can also be benefitial. and the exile target effect is always good.

I think Mistbreath could be really good in a +1/+1 counter deck with something like Enduring Bondwarden. You get a +1/+1 counter from Mistbreath and a second for a single white mana on Bondwarden ETB every turn (you just have to make sure you always play her). If you have anything that cares about counters happening it is a lot of value for very little. The main issue is that any removal on your bouncing creature will just force you to bounce something you probably don't want to bounce. And because it happens on upkeep you can't use it to bounce something like Bristly Bill as protection to replay him before the land drop each turn

Does anyone else see Infamous Cruelclaw and get Rowan Kenrith vibes with the whole red riding hood?

I've mostly fallen out of Magic for a wide variety of reasons, I essentially only play Arena once a week while folding laundry. I basically only play one deck (many variations of the same deck), a BGx midrange deck I've been playing since Ikoria. I haven't really gotten any new cards for the deck since LotR, which has made me even less interested in Magic because it's really the only deck I care about - if a card doesn't fit in the deck, I *probably* don't care about it. ALL THIS TO SAY - I'm way more excited for Bloomburrow than any other recent set. There are a bunch of new cards from it that will spawn new variations of my deck or even make their way into the core deck! Genuinely excited to play with these cards! (For anyone interested, it's a flexible resilient graveyard-focused midrange deck with a core value engine of Fiend Artisan (also a wincon) and Lurrus (maindeck). Nowadays it's usually core Jund with a splash of white, but I've probably played most possible color combinations with it. I really love this deck, to the degree that I actually made a Jenson/Lurrus EDH version of it.)

Mocking bird is also great free value with offspring tokens

Mocking Bird sounds like a really funny card to play to copy Ragavan in Timeless.

Why is the first thought when I saw Vren was to attempt to make something of a blink deck?

Against the Odds Idea- Huskbuster Swarm plus Relentless Rats Surgical extraction your own rats to empty your library and have Huskbuster swarm permanently discounted. Thasas oracle for backup

Huskburster swarm IS going to be present in modern meta for sure

Question on the Mistbreath Elder The 2nd part says "You may return" Which means that if I don't want to do it I can keep it there and its still a 1 mana 2/2?

Vren doesn't work with Tombstone Stairwell, no? They both trigger on end step, APNAP he resolves first then the tokens get exiled. In fact because he says "this turn" he has all the same problems as Smuggler's Share, ie anything that dies in an end step (after his ability resolves) he never sees.

I think Mistbreath Elder can work in an aggressive deck, the deck needs to be built differently though. Your other creatures should be cheap and ideally have haste or they would have good 'enters' abilities (like making tokens). Kumano Faces Kakkazan is interesting because it is kind of like a 1/1 haste the turn you play it, on the second turn it can potentially "swing" again if the creature you cast has haste and then it dodges Mistbreath's mandatory bounce the turn it flips if you only had it and Mistbreath in play. You can then recast it and doesn't feel bad. This card gets worse in multiples for this type of strategy, but I still think there are a good number of hasters that appreciate being recast for some reason.

this set slaps harder than my step-dad

X is counted as zero unles its on the stack when its being cast, would that technically trigger the frog then? Since it checks the card at the time of casting, so it would work as a hydra commander? Or am i missing something really hard

The 3 color frog legends are all very weird. They seem like they’d all work well together on the battlefield, but you can’t play them together in commander, and flubs isn’t standard legal. Not to mention the mana constraints of getting 3 3-color creatures without protection on the field at the same time.

Season of the Burrow, continuing to make white stronger and crazier.

2 good changelings for wick is taurean mauler and bloodline pretender because they can speed up there ability to be buffed.

Persistent Marshstalker is crazy at uncommon. Feels like for SURE would have been a rare a year or two ago. I just imagine you think you kill this sort of rat lieutenant in a battle, but during the next wave of rats he just pops back up out of the horde like SURPRISE!

I don't think it'll be all that good, but Riku of Many Paths will be pretty fun with the Season cycle. Some fun interactions: Season of Weaving: Make 3 1/1 bird tokens, bounce all nonland nontoken permanents, draw 2 cards. Season of Gathering: Make Riku 8/8 + trample, draw 8 cards. Season of the Bold: Create 5 tapped treasure tokens, impulse draw 5.

I'm sure that Into the Flood Maw will be maindeck - not sideboard - for blue tempo and combo decks.

I wished Wick had just used "Amass Snails 1" instead. It would be the same, except we would have a Snail Army token instead.

Wick, the whorled mind (commander) I just wanna ideally jam maskwood nexus and cast phrexian dreadnaught.

Into the Flood Maw is shades of Chain of Vapor, but not being able to target your own stuff is unfortunate.

Starfall invocation with prototype creatures seems like where you would want to go with it. But strictly a sideboard card there I think

One thing you didn't mention about mocking bird is that it has the potential for being a 1 mana make a flying copy of any creature token, I think with it being blue and us getting dimir rats and as we see rats love to make big boards of tokens and some times pump them (as well as most rats being pretty cheap) it might actually be a 1 mana flying rat if dimir or grixis rats become a real deck. Question is if making just one more flying copy of a token or 1 drop for one mana is really worth it

Some of these are trying to work well with the Outlaw mechanic with these creature types:warlock, rogue…

Mocking bird says mana spent to cast it, not x so if x=6 you can copy a seven drop

Loved it when Seth said it’s bloomburrowin’ time and bloomburrowed all over the place

Helga having Blue means she's a Marwyn with access to a lot of untap effects. Helga with Beast Whisperer and Intruder Alarm is nuts.

Ain't no way he actually read that as "Crustacean Mage". Coruscate is a real word Seth, you don't have to guess

That intro made me impulsively say “you’re fired” out loud in a crowd.. You’re not and I love everything you do, but it was a reflex

So... Wick.... or as he will be known as John... I love that guy. First of all... first proper Grixis Rat commander. His pet Snail is... well... loving +1/+1 counters... what does Blue do well? proliferate. What goes well with proliferate? Poison. What does Wick do? He throws the Snail Minsc&Boo Style and DEALS DAMAGE to all opponents... so basically... proliferate the snail to really big, spam some rats... and then "Tainted Strike" giving Wick infect... I will surely try to build him as a poison maintheme with rats sub...

I can't see dawns truce seeing play in standard to give yourself hexproof because surge of salvation can already do that for 1 mana instead of 2

Hey Seth playing an X spell for 4 or more mana would trigger helga. mana value of X spells on a the stack is equal to their cost plus the amount paid into X.