Bloomburrow: Seasons' Heralds - Signpost Uncommons and Heralds
Hi everyone! I'm very happy with how the first two parts of this blog series have been received so far. I've gotten some really great feedback on some of the structural elements of the set which I'm still considering. This consideration may result in some (relatively minor) changes to a few of the mechanics I previously described. In particular, I received some compelling feedback on Hibernate and Equinox which I found very useful. If I decide to act on any of this, I'll do a small post going over those changes. Again, any changes will be contained in scope, so I can continue going through the set for now since the majority of anything I cover will remain relevant.
Today we'll kick off discussing one of my personal favorite elements of a set, its cycles! In particular, I'll be focusing on signpost uncommons for the most part here. At the end, I'll also discuss a cycle of mythic rares which represent the seasonal archetypes as a whole, which is quite exciting as I haven't focused on any higher rarity stuff just yet. So let's get right into the signpost uncommons and how they relate to the previously discussed Limited archetypes!
Signpost Uncommons - Spring
For those who aren't aware, signpost uncommons are frequent cycles of multicolored cards featured in draftable Magic sets which are meant to represent the play patterns of the various Limited archetypes. You can sort of think of them like "mascots" for each archetype. They both give players drafting that archetype a solid pick once they've committed and act as signals for high-skill drafters about which colors might be open.
As such, these are some of the earliest cards I designed after settling on my intended archetypes as they give a good indications for depth, novelty, and feasibility for the Limited design. Of course, these designs alone are not a sufficient condition for such important metrics, but they are vital nonetheless.
The signpost uncommons for the Spring archetypes, (which are Bloom Tempo and Flower Spellslinger in case you forgot) are:
As always, the typical caveats on balance still apply here; I've done my best to balance these reasonably well, but there are myriad factors which make that difficult. I'll point out risks in the design (balance or otherwise) and potential knobs as I go through my thought process.
Starting with Pollination Hymn, I want to say first off that I'm quite happy with how this card turned out visually. This art (from as USPS stamp interestingly enough) just really fits Bloomburrow so, so well which is always a joy when scouring for art online for custom cards. Design wise, I think it's pretty clear, this card is very loudly telling you to go wide and swing. The second ability helps end games and also calls back to the original archetype from original Bloomburrow in a way I like. The big risk here is this is a two mana "do nothing" enchantment, which always a bit risky in modern Limited environments. My hope is this set is slow enough to support taking turn two "off" to set up (in fact, if it isn't that's a good indication something's wrong). Plus the cost reduction is very feasibly relevant by turn three with double two-drops, which is great if you can swing it.
Next up is Fireworks Display, which I think came together well, flavor-wise. Balance-wise, it's more debatable as I can't tell if it's too strong or too weak. Historically, spellslinger decks have struggled to close out games in Limited. It looks like Magic's designers have tried to fix this recently by making "big spells matter" the dominant theme over true spellslinging. I've decided to go a different route here to see if a more traditional spellslinger shell can work. So, Fireworks Display is my attempt to give the archetype a clear path to victory. By slapping this on a creature and casting a bunch of spells, that creature (and hopefully a few other good creatures that trigger of noncreature spells) can pop off and win the game in a dazzling fashion. I think this is modestly balanced, if not a bit conservative, in Limited. The problem is I can imagine this being absurd when really built around (I can see Vivi
commander players salivating over this as I speak). That is to say, this is a fairly polarized card by its design, and doesn't have as many knobs to tune as I would like. Luckily, it can be fizzled by creature removal, which I think is pretty important. Despite the obvious risks, I think it's pretty fun and want to try it out, but I'm willing to be wrong here.
Signpost Uncommons - Summer
Moving on to summer (which as a reminder are 4-power Midrange and Untap Value), the signposts are:
Clearly, both of these play very nicely with the Summer mechanic, Sunbathe
. The archetype is more focused on building up a lot of guys to exactly 4 power, which Beachside Brutes clearly rewards you for. It also plays nicely with big mana dorks and stuff like Vehicles (which I've included at least of in the set so far, and might add more of). The burn potential is clearly very high, but I think there are enough hoops that it's acceptable. I love the art and flavor text I put on this one as well, just really feels right for the design.
Sunshade Cleric is just a great value engine in the archetype which ideally wants the game to go long. Notice that it triggers regardless of how many creatures got +1/+1 counters, so it supports the "go-tall" strategy of this archetype quite well. Small note, I tried my absolute best to track down the true source of this art, as I suspect that Pinterest user is not it, but had no luck. If any internet sleuths figure that out, please let me know and I will fix it!
Overall, not as much to say about these. I think they serve their purpose and drive forward a Sunbathe-centric game plan in a way I like.
Signpost Uncommons - Autumn
Next up is Autumn (with Recursion Midrange and Go Wide Tokens) and the signposts for these archetypes are:
Love that I was able to make a low rarity callback to Cruelclaw on the uncommon, as he was one of the original set's most memorable characters (who you can certainly expect to see more of in this set). Cruelclaw's Cadre itself is a pretty rock solid evasive beater that also lets you trade out your lower value material for more attractive stuff you've lost. It has a fairly similar shape to stuff we've seen on cards before (such as Interceptor Mechan
). Making it a repeatable recursion engine carries some risks, of course, but I think there are real enough costs to doing it a lot that it won't get repetitive or overbearing.
I think Passionate Laborer is just a really fun card that I kind of wish was real. I just love "toolboxy" cards like this which reward proactivity. It's not hard to see how this works really well with Harvest, but it also rewards stuff like trading off or playing a fetch land. I also like the "get two, choose one" aspect as I believe it adds some nice, interesting tension to the design. And it plays well with "cast from exile synergy" within the set, which already plays well with Flower tokens
that are also easy to come by in .
As a side note, you may notice Passionate Laborer has the Rebel subtype. The lore reason for this is I imagine in the background of this set's story, there is civil unrest brewing in Fountainport as a result of the power vacuum left by Glarb's sudden disappearance, and some citizens are rallying for substantial change as a result of the blatant corruption that was uncovered in the original set's story. And of course, it's always fun to give Rebel typal more toys to play with. Not a major theme of the set by any means, but a fun little nod.
Signpost Uncommons - Winter
Let's slow things down a bit by moving into the control-centric signposts for Winter (these archetypes are Snow Control and Hibernate Value) which are:
Follower of Calamity is a nice passive value engine for dedicated snow decks while also playing defense very well, exactly what a control deck likes to see. I know it's a bit strange to have Snow typal as a splash in a non-snow set, but don't worry there will be plenty of supoort for it in the set. As I mentioned in a previous post, it's easy to create a critical mass of snow cards that are still perfectly playable in archetypes that don't care about the label (similar to how Lessons were handled in TLA). It's notable that this card also cares about snow cards being put into the graveyard from anywhere, which triggers off stuff dying and also plays well with self-mill effects meant to synergize with Hibernate cards.
Speaking of which, Exacting Preparation does just this that! It's certainly a Golgari card, and provides self-mill at a rate a bit above other uncommons, but not to an absurd degree. The triggered ability on this is fairly tame as a result, but is obviously meant to enable reanimation effects like Hibernate. A bit generic, but should be a good workhorse design that helps graveyard centric decks draw out games in their favor while still ensuring they build towards a definitive win.
Signpost Uncommons - Balance
And finally, we've got our signposts for the Balance archetypes (which are Gift Tempo and Equinox Control):
Three Tree Stalwart is meant to be a fairly threatening beater that can also close out board-stalled games. It's arguable the stats on this are a bit pushed, especially since it has an overrun stapled on, but I think the knobs are there and I like erring on the side of making cards which actually end the game good. Since tends to give your opponent material by gifting, I wanted an overrun effect of some kind to reward that tempo you've built up and the Equinox-esque condition for the activation just seemed right.
Petulant Hare is also an efficient card, but for fairly different reasons. You may read its attack trigger and get a bit freaked out, but I think it's worth remembering that these are both only valuable as catch-up abilities. Since is a control archetype, I wanted to give it a durable body which allows it to stay in the game and help turn on Equinox abilities. The life payment is an additional balance knob on this, but also plays into a big part of this archetype which is trying to control life totals carefully to enable certain threshold effects.
I'm a little iffy on both of these design-wise and I think its indicative of the tight-rope walk you have to perform for a mechanic like Equinox. It's such a contextual mechanic that is tricky to balance due to the wide array of outcomes within a single game and how dependent it is on the shape of the environment. It's very tricky, which is why I'm considering a minor rework to make the designs less finicky. That said, I would expect these designs to survive such a change relatively unharmed as I don't expect to change the core of the archetypes, just the reliability.
Mythic Rare Cycle - The Heralds
To round this post out, I'm going to discuss a high-rarity cycle which are meant to be Avatars of the seasons as a whole. I might do separate post going into the story skeleton in detail at some point, but I'll describe just enough here to give context for these designs. The core idea is that the seasonal dynamics in Bloomburrow are fundamentally out of whack. The Calamity Beasts which drive the seasons are actually corrupted forms of entities previously known as the Heralds, who were good-natured and sentient. A lot happens in-between, but the final outcome is the heroes save the day and some of them become new Heralds, bringing balance back to the valley. Here are the cards meant to represent that:
I won't go into tons of detail on these, but hopefully it's clear how these are meant to play well with the flagship mechanic associated with each of the seasonal archetypes. Obviously, these are mostly meant to be fun and engaging build-arounds in the context of something like Commander. Where possible, since a lot of these are returning characters, I've tried to have these designs nod towards the original in some way. For instance, Zinnia can essentially make Offspring tokens as one of their abilities which is a nod to their original design
, and Mabel caring about modified creatures goes well with her first ability while also incidentally synergizing with a lot of Valiant effects from the original set.
Really excited to share some higher rarity designs as I've mostly just shown draft-centric ones up to this point. Hopefully, this gives you a better idea about some of the creativity that goes into the more "aspirational" designs in the set. If you have any feedback on any of the designs shown here, I'd love to hear it, as always. See you next time!