Kalamax, the Stormsire and Lord Windgrace are both in the Lost Caverns of Ixalan special guest list not the Bloomburrow one as the cards in the special guest slot is unique per set. which lends credence to your observation that wotc is being needlessly criptic with how they share information on the slots in these sets.
the honest reason to change order in packs would be .... to MAKE PEOPLE OPEN FULL PACKS! and not to see all youtubers skip to the rares.... period. Only good reason to randomize cards in boosters wth all ethics staying intact... BETCHA that WoTc hasn't done it for THAT reason though!!!
Wasn't the list card literally the entire reason play booster had the price get bumped up. Special guest should have had 0 effect on the price of the packs since it didnt with masterpieces or what ever the other lotery cards we had previously.
I wish the borderless/extend art/alt art cards just didn't exist. They gum up the visual identity of the game so much and are almost always extremely jarring and unappealing to the eye. I want to go back to when seeing the occasional foil at the table was a novel and interesting experience and that was it
I'm weirdly right down the middle here. I agree that they should never have been in normal packs to begin with, but now that they are they shouldn't have been taken away
@@RedBobcatGamesWhat if it were some kind of "Value" pack, you get no fancy alternative arts but everything you need to draft and play for a cheaper price... hmmm
As someone who already played a few bloomburrow drafts I can confirm that this set feels very well rounded in draft. There definitely are stronger color combinations (raccoons for example seem rather weak), but the focus on two color combinations as archetypes works quite well. A lot of very flavorful vanilla looking cards are very useful in the limited drafting environment, especially common and uncommon ones. (Sonar strike, my beloved Sunshower Druid etc.) So much so that I still remember how I just had to pick three commons as the first three picks of a pack because they provided so much value for the road I intended to take. Something that I normally do not tend to do in drafts. The calamity beast do not really fit into specific decks, because of their creature type and broader mechanical focus. This however is actually a good thing, because as far as I have seen they make excellent bombs in every deck of their respective color. It is always great if one of them hits the battlefield, because it really marks a critical point in that game which is really fitting flavor-wise (Almost like a change of season indead). So all things considered, it is really sad that wizard had to do the silly reduction of rarity in a set which could have otherwise been a 10/10.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - it feels like Bloomburrow was designed by an entirely different team than the past many, many sets, and I can't wait for more sets from them. And also for other teams to learn some lessons from them.
It definitely feels like it was designed by a different team, though personally I'm not sure the other design teams should follow suit. Bloomburrow appears, to me anyway, to be way more creatively empty than even Thunder Junction. It's just "Don Bluth but magic," and that's incredibly boring to me. Especially since it lacks Bluth's signature charm.
I like the world building flavour more than I liked Thunder Junctions though. However, I think IF Thunder Junction was given 3 sets to really tell us a full story it would have been much different
@@RedBobcatGames that's perfectly fair. I was super disappointed in Thunder Junction because it was such a unique setting in the Magic universe and we basically got nothing from it. And I absolutely agree with some additional sets to actually flesh out the plane it'd be much better.
As someone who has been playing for over a decade, my understanding of the contents of a pack are "15 cards, 1 guaranteed rare". I evaluate whether I'm willing to pay what they're charging based on that understanding. Any additional rares/foils/whatever are a bonus, but not expected or factored into the cost.
@@RedBobcatGames I actually enjoy the art cards a lot (I have a button press and turn many of them into buttons), but I don't count it as part of the 15, more part of the bonus. I think the price increase sucks, but also, is to be expected of a large company. It sort of feels like set boosters only ever existed to justify an eventual large, sudden price increase on draft boosters. Also, ever since they introduced collector boosters and started doing a million treatments for cards, I've been waiting for them to quietly put all the cool stuff in the expensive booster and make the cheap booster as boring and utilitarian as possible. Gotta make those $30 boosters worth it.
@@RedBobcatGames At the very least I'd like to see an Oldwalker that was stuck in some kind of alternate dimension or time bubble or something come out and be an antagonist to the Mendwalkers.
As someone who works in manufacturing I'd never assume malice whenever ignorance is just as likely. I mean the QA for Wizards as of late has been questionable at best. I wouldn't assume they're shuffling the packs to hide something. Rather I'd assume their QA is so bad that they just don't care if the order is correct.
With how Hasbro and WotC have been over the last few years, they've shown a pattern of malice. Even their incompetence/ignorance is fueled by malice, reducing costs across the board regardless of the decline of quality.
@@RedBobcatGamesit's just in my experience a company will never do something more complex than they have to because typically more complex = more expensive. The issues with the packs nowadays screams to me trying to squeeze the most amount of profit out with the cheapest printers. Crimping issues, missing cards, miscuts, and misprints seem to be scaling higher and higher. If your QA isn't catching these it's not gonna catch the pack order.
As a Yugioh Refugee…. there is no limit. They recently printed a new card for the blue eyes white dragon deck which released in the western market only at the Quarter Century Secret collector’s rare, rarity which occur approximately only 1 per 2 cases of product. You are only guranteed a rare every 20th pack when opening on the digital master duel client making the game’s mythics cost about 8 dollars each.
@isidoreaerys8745 I was expecting you to say more than 8 dollars at the end there honestly. Some of these Magic Cards can go for like 6 times that, so if I've understood correctly maybe Yugioh's better at this then? (I don't play, so can't really compare)
@@RedBobcatGames it really depends. Yugioh's price market is nearly 100% tournament results driven and hype driven. There collectors market has virtually zero longevity, but whenever a card is "hot" in a meta defining deck, it can go upwards over $100 a copy. Pet decks like blue-eyes don't get hurt as much due to market disinterest in what players consider "suboptimal" decks, but in other cases like the release of a short-printed ultra rare called Bonfire, it was going for $120 per copy in pre-sales before the packs even shipped.
So fun facts i noticed while watching dif youtubers do pack openings (mostly cuz i wanna try building a Bloom cube so i made a spreadsheet writing down the order) The packs do follow the order listed except the non-foil wildcard screws everything up, if your wildcard is a common: your pack wont have 7 commons in a row, it will be 8, same with uncommon: you will have 7com in a row and then 4unc in a row, repeat for Rare/mythic It is still annoying its not following the exact order, but its kinda weird they went with that route Also the first 5 commons you open follow a color cycle, most of the time is U-W-R-B-G (or W-R-B-G-U or.. you get the idea, whatever color you start with, the other 4 color follow the cycle), and then the 6-7th commons just pick whatever, altho i noticed some printings just dont follow this color order so not sure what goes there, if its a country printing thing or some stuff Still bloomburrow is super fun to play sealed/limited but geez, these nerfed pull rates suck, hard
I think the reason cards are moving a bit between packs is mainly due to the "non-foil wildcard" slot. Notice how in all the packs, the commons are all together, the uncommons are all together, and the rare(s) are all together. If the wildcard is common, it will be with the other commons. If the wildcard is uncommon, it will be with the rest of the uncommons, etc. It would probably be kind of weird pulling a pack just to find a rare in between your commons and uncommons or a non-foil common at the back of the pack. Looking at pack 6, there are two rares. This means the non-foil wild is rare, and the amounts are 7C-3U-2R, which are distributed in order of rarity. Looking back to pack 1, there are 8 commons, so the wild is common, and the amounts are 8C-3U-1R, which is also distributed the same way. My assumption is (in addition to it looking odd to have rarities out of order) that they don't have separate sheets for the non-foil wildcards like they probably do for the foils, the basic lands, the special guests, etc. and it is simply more efficient to just keep track of what rarity they need for the wildcard.
@@RedBobcatGames I think they probably prioritized simplicity over detail with the chart. The chart is pretty simple and easy to digest, and probably aimed towards a more general audience than people who pay attention to the order of cards in the packs.
Lorwyn was my favorite set and I like the similar Art and Lore Direction in this set. However the current marketing strategy of Wizards feels scuffed and is not something I am willing to support. Thx for the video Mr. Hands and Cartoon Cat
honestly bloomburrow sealed was one of my favourite events in recent history. The synergies were all super cohesive and worked very well, i got to see a bunch of different styles based of the creature types they chose to build around. the mythics i hit (Baylen and totski) didnt have a major affect on the deck but they were definitely nice to have in the deck.
im pissed off at the rares thing i did not know that, never buying packs again ALSO, i noticed a rule for commander sealed that you are allowed to partner legendaries without partner, while it only is for the prerelease, i think making a hypothetical 4 color partner deck might alleviate the struggles
It’s certainly not a Commander set, the fact that some of the pre gens struggle to fill the 99 with the same creature type. Sadly however it’s full of bulk commons and building a good standard deck consists of a lot of uncommons and higher.
I actually have a commander deck I call draft mander, it's only with cards I've drafted/won in draft and sealed but it took more then one set. It's pretty strong now.
I think the idea behind trying to make a commander deck out if a sealed pool is fun. That being said, I dont really think this proves or disproves that Bloomburrow is or isn't designed for commander because this isn't how people build commander decks. Asking, "Is this set designed for commander?" Is a flawed premise. Some portion of every product is designed to be engaged with by any player of any format the cards are legal in. Commander is just a eternal format that is focused around legendary creatures. So they have increased the number of legends in their products. Packs need to have cards that are desireable to commander players because wotc wants as many people as possible to want to buy their packs of cards. Just like play boosters are designed with both draft and standard cards. Not every card is optimal or desirable in every format. Packs have to cast a wide net to capture the largest audience. Pack don't exsist just to be drafted or for a single constructed format. They exist to sell you random cards so they can sell more packs while people hunt for the specific cards they want. Wotc has figured out how to do that, for better or worse. That being said. I like your videos. Keep it up.
while its Bloomburrow is interesting, for a few reasons, like more support cards for tribes that where less supported, more changelings, and new interresting mechanincs. one thing i find rather more interresting, on the design front, is the fact that the winter art basisc, arent snow lands, but just normal lands. i know kaldheim had snow basics, and snow as a mechanic, but i feel like snow basic lands, should always be standard legal. 90% of the time, snow basics and non-snow basics, play the same, it only if a deck is build with snow in mind that they matter. again, snow feels sooo close to being evergreen, like why is WOTC still printing cards like Inverted Iceberg, without the snow type? i guess thats my point, with the printing of vinter art basics, why isnt this also the set where WOTC announce snow to become a more used mechaninc, printing a card like Inverted Iceberg, with the snow type, would fit flavour wise, sure it would do nothing in terms of mechanincs. but, it would give snow a larger card pool, rather than just kaldheim, the ice-age block, and the few modern horizone cards. and again, we kinda almost just had kaldheim, with snow basics, so now, with winter art lands, that are just basics. it feels weird. that should have been a snow land.
I suppose the argument from a flavour standpoint would be that, it's not a "snow land", it's just a "land that currently has snow on it". Like, the mana the snow would generate isn't there long enough to seep into the land so that it could be used to cast Snow spells?
@@RedBobcatGames bit of feed back then. Really enjoyed that interview that you had! Looking forward to another! Oh and the Quiz are so much fun as well!
Thank you, I like the quizzes too. And I have had some people approach me about interviews because I would like to do another. It's just a case of finding a topic I actually think is worth talking about. I don't want to interview someone just because, you know?
@@RedBobcatGames Suggestion? How about you invite a few people to answer the trivia questions? I feel ya. If you are going to do a thing you want to do it to the best of your abilities
Oh, now that's both a wonderful idea and I think would never happen haha. I'd never sign up for that sort of thing because I'd 100% embarrass myself! Do this channel full time and then get 0% on a magic quiz!
I really hate that they reduced the chance for rare cards in Play Boosters. The fact that all the “booster fun” treatments are also basically missing from (I bought a bungle and had a pre-release and only got one) is very disappointing. This was way better with Set Boosters. It wasn’t as noticeable with thunder junction because of its bonus sheet but it was still there. I love almost every aspect of Bloomburrow but I hate these two things. Also, I’d like to have a mysterious benefactor, too. I hope they keep sending stuff to you!
I did this experiment for fun myself, and the only reason I had a viable deck was the 3 color bunny (Baylen) I pulled in my last pack. However, in my playgroup it did not hold up, for lack of acceleration and token generators. Was it fun still? Yes, it really was. And we have been spoiled by Set Boosters.
Yeah, all sets are commanders. Just look at the three colors commanders, which have a third color out of nowhere for some. There is also the box topper as a three colors commander btw. You are a bit wrong about the two colors being creatured based, they are mechanic based first and creature based second, so you have cards in all two colors that aren't linked to the species. I agree also that they are trying to make the game more and more about collectables with the basic lands full art. But they did say they were going to reduce the number of legendary creatures because of draft players complaining.
Oh yeah, no the box has more than 12 packs in it. I just didn't want to open all of them at once or the video would be like 5 hours long because I never shut up haha
I understand this is just a fun game but I don't think the challenge succeeding or not is really indicative of anything. Even if the set is full of commander designs that are too specific for draft, it wouldn't affect the challenge much besides potentially over representation of 4/5 color legendaries for commander players to want to build around
Okay, so, as someone who's opened way more Bloomburrow than I'd like to admit on the internet, I don't know about the cards being like, shuffled, but I have noticed multiple times, especially in the collector boosters, that the cards are in the pack in reverse order (i.e. commons at the back when you flip the stack over). It's very confusing.
Japanese printed packs are always like that. Why? Who knows. But they're also higher quality than the American printings, and then there's the Belgian printing which is somewhere in-between. But yeah, rare are the front is a sign of a Japanese print run
I think it says on the pack where they were manufactured, but also I think the manufacturers are putting the cards into the pack face down instead of face up. So _technically_ they're in the right order, just facing the wrong way :P
I think the borderless cards etc being in collector's packs is fine... but we should have had a bonus sheet. The Courageous Critters should have been extended to ~80 cards and included commons/uncommons and been in regular packs. This could have HELPED draft too, by printing some tribes matters or changelings. Exactly like OTJ's crime bonus sheet.
Man Bloomburrow does seem like a good set, if only there was a chance for Wizards to learn the right lessons from it instead of what we're actually going to get which is going to be "oh people like cute animals/two colour creature archetypes" Great video as always!
They’re all commander sets and disguise. Commander is the most popular format. Wizards, therefore, is always going to accommodate for commander in every set. They literally can’t afford not to anymore. I’m just sad to see how much damage it’s all done to other eternal formats.
Honestly, the shift in design to support Commander has been less of a problem in eternal formats compared to a Modern Horizons set wiping the slate clean with power creep every 2-3 years.
@@RedBobcatGames - Just keep making your awesome content, I just like this... style? better than the last "cracking packs for commander" video and wanted you to know :) Cheers Bobcat.
@@PaulGaither Oh well thank you very much. I can't promise I won't go back to the old one. I basically do whatever's in my heart each time haha. Not everyone will like every video I make, but before I can make one that will please anyone at all I first need to make one that pleases me
Is that from his blogatog? I haven't seem him say that specifically, and I do try to keep up, he and the rest of WotC just put out SO MUCH STUFF. I'm only an independant, and there's only so many hours in a day, you know?
To be fair that's not the conspiracy. It's over the shuffled pack order of cards. Just like, 3 topics in one in this vid so I spread them out over the thumbnail and title haha
I initially was very skeptical of this set when it was announced, but I’ve completed done a 180. I love this set, I’m pleased with how few legendary creatures there are & how little 3+ colour cards there are. As a mostly commander player, I’ve gotten really bored of every set filled with 40 legendary creatures & a 5 colour creature. I also love this set because frogs. I have over 1,000 copies of poison dart frog
My biggest issue is that having a commander for every kind of deck takes some of the fun out of it honestly. I want to work to pull that jank off, you know?
0:30 I can't tell you how much I hate commander, simply for the fact that there are no pre-cons anymore, yet every single set gets like 4 commander decks, which I don't even to buy even if I want cards in them, because it's buying 1 copy of each card, sure it might be along the archtype I wanted, but at the cost of a significant fraction of what a booster box would cost... I mean why not just buy the box? Even THEN Bloomburrow's bunny precon... has like 2 or 3 rabbits in it. WTF?! The frog precon had more rabbits than the rabbit deck. (or maybe it was one of the others, I looked at the card list several weeks back).
Yeah, I totally agree. It's almost like they want us to buy singles. I'm hoping with that Foundations we get back to precons being a thing for formats other than Commander
I am a proud member of Team Crabs Fun fact- because of the Fallout set (PIP), Crabs are officially in the pantheon of 5C when Red Death, Shipwrecker was made
It's funny, I ripped a box of bloomburrow with my cousin and we split it in half and picked commanders to build 60 card decks and played with 25 life. And it was really fun, although it felt like building a sealed deck with yorion as a companion. Kinda tough to fill in the last slots at the end.
9:12 We had "two color creature archetypes" in Innistrad, way after Lorwyn. But it was only 5 types, not 10, so not as hard to build. Kaldheim also had that to an extent, I believe. And 2 out of the 4 tribes in Ixalan were 2 colors.
Very true. Though weirdly I feel like those sets revolved less around the creatures types for some reason. Innistrad would be a clear example of me being wrong though, but for some reason it just feels different
@@RedBobcatGames Possibly because Innistrad had lots of plot that's relevant to the story, and a theme that wasn't necessarily reliant on the creature types (horror could also be spiders and demons) In BLB, there's little to no main story plot, and the concept of the world is entirely reliant on the creatures. It doesn't feel like the world just "exists" and we're having a set in it; it feels like the world and the set are the same, much like Thunder Junction. It's less organic development, so all that remains is the creatures.
Shout-out to Gossip's Talent [12:08] and Glidedive Duo [16:43] during prerelease. Deal 3 unblockable damage, surveil 1, gain 2 drain 2, and then have a 3/3 flying blocker on defense. That felt good, though far less horrifying than one of my opponents, who could pay 2 generic to put a card from his graveyard on the bottom of his library and then activate a squirrel to tutor that card into his hand if it was a squirrel. Endless value in a format which often ends up a bit grindy. Horrifying to encounter.
I think the order question is mostly a non-issue. Looking at the packs paid out, it seems like it always goes commons -> uncommons -> rares -> mythics (land foil art), which makes sense from the manufacturing perspective of having the cards of the same rarity on the same physical sheet. I suspect the pack contents are determined by a computer (specifically the SG inclusion and wildcard) and then that number of each rarity are drawn into the pack. The net result is the first 6 are always common, and the last 3 are always land foil art. The middle gets bumped one way or the other by the wildcard placement, with the SG also potentially moving it one slot (one card from the common end going to the mythic end). All in all i think its relatively easy to know what your slots were if youre familiar with whats supposed to be in them, i just think for consumer transparency the slot structure should listed on the packaging (imo it should be legally required for any "blind" product, but thats its own can of worms).
Yeah, you're probably right looking at it. I just think it's weird they'd go out of their way to make a graph talking whats in what slot and then not stick to it. Like, if they hadn't made the graph I doubt I'd ever have questioned it
Thunder Junction really seemed to suffer from The Big Score collapsing into the main set. Legends like Obeka, Eriette and Riku are fun build arounds for Commander that remind me of the Aftermath legends, but they’re next to useless in draft because they have no support in the draft environment. It’s a real shame because OTJ has been the set I’ve had the most fun with this year.
It appears that they put the non-foil wildcard (#13) among the other similar cards (e.g. with the commons if it is common, with the uncommons when uncommon). This is a nice feature for quickly looking through the cards while drafting. I assume that is why they do it like this here. I wonder if it would be in the proper slot if it was from the list.
Mate, I deep-dived the internet to figure out the rarities of each slot..., I had 6 Commons, 1 Mythic Rare, 1 Rare from the Wildcard slot, and - hear me out - 4 Uncommons. No Special Guests. The order of the cards was consistent, but this was the only thing that baffled me, as apparently, this pull should be impossible
I actually got multiple extended arts and showcase cards during pre release and then again from a bundle, so either I'm really lucky or you're really unlucky.
hello i've never written a comment onto this channel, and often i dont comment. But sincerely i feel like when they designed this set they really tried, the theme is enchanting and the cards are well balanced from one another, instead of other sets where the cards are seemingly put together without any particular criteria. also nice video i enjoy it
Well thank you very much. I'm also a fan of the set, just have some grumbles about the stuff surrounding the set. Also thank you for the comment, I also appriciate hearing the feedback!
Well, as a Commander only player I wanna get my Commander cards from somewhere. Over here where I play in Germany no one drafts. Aside from prerelease events no one actually gives a shit about drafting. The amount of drafts that happened in my LGS where people play at least twice a week with long Commander/Pioneer/Modern nights are... 6 or so? in 2024. And mind you this is a huge store. So yeah, I'm more upset my proper Set boosters are gone. Now I gotta buy a shittier set booster that's got more useless garbage in it so it can be drafted... yay
I'm conflicted, because I would almost wish any cost be paid to the detriment of all other aspects of the game in order to get enough cards to make a good playable 100% rabbits themed EDH deck. We're still not there yet imo. It'll be interesting to see if and how future sets trickle in some of the typal creatures from this set and seeing if they work in the archetypes. Claim Jumper was the last Rabbit, and it's a Land Tax type white land catch up card. With rabbits being in white green, I didn't see as many chances to "catch up" on land when your other color is *the* ramp color. Before Bloomburrow there were maybe four or five playable rabbit cards that worked in a go-wide strategy. Oh well, glad that monkey's paw wish didn't backfire over everyone else's enjoyment of the game, anyway.
They've made a bit of noise about how Duskmourn and Bloomburrow are releasing so close to each other, and they've kind of implied they're to be drafted together. So maybe we'll see more there? But also that might all just be sly marketing to get people to buy the next set
Play boosters are not "designed for draft". They collapsed non collector boosters into a single product, so that while it is draftable, it's also for players of other formats.
Well, I guess you're not wrong. But also "Designed for draft" and "draftable" is basically the same when you consider they do have to consider the draft environment when putting the packs together. Did they design them well? Well, that's a different conversation all together
@@RedBobcatGamesWotC has designed packs with draft in mind since draft became a format, which is why packs contain so much draft chaff. They tried separating draft into its own product and it was a disaster. You can still buy draft boosters for below cost from 5 years ago. While inelegant, serving multiple customer types with one product does keep costs down, and this is good for everyone, even with the occasional draft dud or chaff card outside of draft.
2:35 "The order of the cards changed from pack to pack" YES, I noticed that, but something else too, I bought 2 play boooster boxes of bloomburrow and they were ordered differently, but also the cardstock itself was different on the foils, some were like previous set thin and already curling up, and the other box had some that felt slightly thicker. They might have changed their printing methods, or maybe does Wizards have multiple factories where the printing process or card stock are slightly different? Maybe they've taken action about everyone complaining about the foils always curling themselves and some are before and after a change. (or maybe not?) I hope it was an intentional change, because it sucks that foils tend to curl up like that.
Glad it's not just me! I know they do use different factories between different regions. So for instance some cards are printed in Japan, but have no idea if they then ship those as regular sets to other parts of the world
@@RedBobcatGames This made me look, I got a box of Capena that says made in Japan, Theros USA, Bloomburrow USA, Theros Beyond Death Japan. I don't know if that holds true for other boxes in the same sets. I haven't kept all the boxes.
Yea, i opened a whole box and even though i got pretty much everything i wanted, it was wild that in some packs, i felt that i got ripped off! One i opened had a Rai, Cracking Wit TOKEN and ZERO rares.
@@RedBobcatGames I wish they did 2 or 3 full size draftable sets per block, rather than the 1 full size 2 mini it was originally. I never liked the smaller sets, because they couldn't really be drafted alone since they didn't have enough variety, but drafting from multiple sets adds too much variety imo.
Yeah, I'd be down for that. Though I'd want some kind of synergy between sets. I can't quite remember what it was now, but I remember being disappointed in how vampires from MID didn't play well with the ones from VOW
If the contents match what WotC says should be in the pack, then I'm not pressed about the order. I get it's supposed to add to the fun of cracking packs, but in the end, if the content lines up, I'm good.
I mean, I would agree. But why go out of their way to tell us one thing and then do another? If they'd have never made that graph, I never would have questioned it, you know?
I don't have an issue with commander cards in ither sets... but I do have a problem that they're _specifically_ commander cards. At that point, just print actual commander packs or get rid of the "commander only" restrictions, and ban specific cards that require commanders to be more functional than a drink coaster EDIT: Commander Burrow, but they don't give you enough to build the deck
12:05 I disagree only because Caretaker’s talent is an auto include in many of my decks but the flavor clashes with all of them. Random cutesy precious moments rabbit card buffing up my tokens on top of being White’s best draw engine to date, turning your Smothering tithes into Rhystic studies.
We also get commander version of the sets that include cards that could be in the normal set, but aren't, and aren't legendary, like Jacked Rabbit for example, why is that not just in the set? Why did I have buy it as singles? It's not legendary, and it makes tokens, which is supposed to be the very thing the bunny archetype is all about. So they take out cards that could have fit in the main set, to make it impossible to every pull one from a regular booster pack.
In commander draft, with the latest itteration of the rules, the deck only needs to be 60 cards, the singleton rule is not in play, and all single color legendary creatures counts as having partner. Might still not be enough for a decent deck from 12 packs, but at least a legal one
True, though I'm not sure how people would feel if I rocked up to a commander table with a draft deck. Not that i would do that anyway honestly, that draft deck would probably be terrible in comparison
I think this is one of the many sets that I actually genuinely liked. Granted the Legends we have do have the presence of traditional fantasy. But this is a weird one…..there’s EDH bait cards…but it’s been toned down. Is this them holding theirselves back? Will Duskmourn be similar? Well as you say: Will see.
45:00. Yea. It’s absolutely scandalous to me that in a game of Sealed which I payed Money to compete in on MTGArena I pulled a mythic with a clause which read “for each time you have cast your commander this game” making the card an absolutely useless overcosted vanilla. The very least they could do is disable those cards for the limited formats I think these people might simply be idiots.
Oh wow, what card was it? That's hilariously bad. That's overtly awful. There's no clearer indication that something is wrong than things like that! Madness!
Can't speak for everyone else, but I picked it because it's 1/3 of a box and that just sort of felt about right. Draft is usually 3 boosters, so I think people like me tend to consider packs in denominations of 3s
I'm pretty sure all sets are commander sets to some extent since it's the most common format. I actually played with the Family Matters and the squirl precons and they're really fun, but it's unfortunate that the squirl deck plays way more like a token / aristocrat's deck than a squirrel tribal. It feels a bit like a "fixed" Lowryn, since that set just worked with existing tribes or made a new tribe that'll likely never get support again (Kithkin) or get mediocre support (scarecrows).
@@RedBobcatGames The difference with the squirrel precon deck is there's like literally a handful of squirrels and then non-squirrels that don't generate squirrel tokens. The family matters deck is fine since it isn't really implied to be tied to one tribe. The deck is fine enough, just a bit jarring.
didn''t know about the nerfed rare appaerance rates until this video, that feels really scummy on wotc's part, inflating the cost of draft boosters and justifing it by making them psudeo set boosters and then cutting the chance of getting extra rares after the fact.
I mean, Draft decks are 30% smaller than normal decks. So if you made this Commander draft deck 30% smaller it kind of works. still not spectacularly fun obviously. you'll still have to basically just take every card in your commander color, but it would still be a deck. 40ish spells and 30ish lands.
Lol I think this might be an actually good idea, fun format. Often in drafts I stumble upon a valuable legend and convince myself I can “build around” it. And then only draw it in one game. Commander draft sounds awesome.
I think if we do this we should keep that Legendary Creatures All Have Partner rule they use for the Baulder's Gate commander drafts and what not, but yeah I like the idea
the honest reason to change order in packs would be .... to MAKE PEOPLE OPEN FULL PACKS! and not to see all youtubers skip to the rares.... period. Only good reason to randomize cards in boosters wth all ethics staying intact... BETCHA that WoTc hasn't done it for THAT reason though!!!
It saddens me how terrible this set is from a financial standpoint. I love the art but it’s hard to rationalize buying a $120 box when I’m only gonna pull $40 in value
Yeah, I feel that. My approach to magic has always been not to worry about the financial side of it. Buy a box because i want to play it, and that way any value is a bonus after thought which is always an upside
Didn’t the collector boosters have commander cards in them? I wonder if you did the same experiment with collector boosters what the outcome would be. … maybe you were on the right lines, but if someone wanted to do it they would just have to pay a lot more for the pleasure.
I honestly have no idea. Next week I'm building an actual commander deck, then it's me complaining about Alchemy. Then a quiz! Not sure what comes after that really
@@RedBobcatGames Hm. So you now have what, 24 packs of bloomburrow you don't need and that didn't cost you anything? Have you considered finding a home for them maybe?
I dunno if your crazy i got a box for the set and got quite alot of multi colored cards and a decent few alternate art i do know the anime and critter cards come out of collectors and even then the potential is slim
if you ever do another pack opening, for whatever reason, why not mix it up a bit and instead of starting with the first pack, start somewhere else, say with the fifth pack instead? just to see what happens!
@@RedBobcatGames It can actually be surprisingly effective, I do this whenever I search for something lost: instead of randomly looking and always ENDING the search at whatever place the thing I was looking for was, I try to START the very search there. It becomes far more effective that way... :p
@@RedBobcatGames That mistake cost me my relationship... searching on when I've actually found it already. At least I've realized my errors and changed if a new opportunity ever arises. (sorry if this comment took a more serious turn all of a sudden. but it just kind of hit the nail. Guess one lives and learns.)
@@RedBobcatGames it doesn't ever take too long to queue up on arena. I enjoy it because it has more variance than standard, you have more options, and you can spend fewer wildcards to craft any given deck. Unfortunately though it's unranked so it doesn't help for the monthly tier reward system
hope you enjoy. The interface looks like it's out of the 90's and it costs real money to open an account. Post an updated guide on how to get started and I might decide to make one too. I hear that penny dreadful is a sick format
I didn't have to pay to start an account in fairness, just host matches. But yeah once I get my head around it I may do a video on it. It does seem a bit... crusty
The playbooster are the worst thing its collector booster or nothing. I cant stress this enough buy singles or proxy cards stop supporting this bs. The secret lairs being allowed to be bought by scalpers and sold for crazy prices on the market is killing the game for alot of players they reprint everything. And let's be truthful every product they have been making has been focused on commander or modern thats all they care about.
Why Collector Boosters then? Because of the resale value? I avoid them because they're such a crazy amount of money for the same or less cardboard. Don't think I've ever opened one honestly
@@RedBobcatGames well the pull rates in play booster are the worst so if your not buying collector boosters you basically get shit pulls all I was saying about them
@@RedBobcatGames just trust me play boosters are the far worse vaule in the end. It used to be set booster boxes where you could get some good value but now the play booster have the same pull rates if not worse then draft packs. And the special guest slots and no chance for the hit cards in the play boosters so you won't be pulling raised foils or any of the hit cards from the set in the fancy arts.
@@thiccboicory9964 Fair points. I just can't get on board with the price of them. I understand you could make it back in resale, but I look at the two packs and ones 3/4 times the cost? No thanks, you know?
@@RedBobcatGames trust me I agree I proxy everything nowadays man I can't afford the game I love anymore otherwise. Trsut me I get it the cost is crazy to say the least
Kalamax, the Stormsire and Lord Windgrace are both in the Lost Caverns of Ixalan special guest list not the Bloomburrow one as the cards in the special guest slot is unique per set. which lends credence to your observation that wotc is being needlessly criptic with how they share information on the slots in these sets.
Oh god damn, you're right. Jesus, this. THIS is what I was talking about!
@@RedBobcatGames I don't know if special guests are the same in promo packs and play boosters or not, but I got otj Jace as a guest in my promo.
Oh nice. I didn't see anything like that in these packs
the honest reason to change order in packs would be .... to MAKE PEOPLE OPEN FULL PACKS! and not to see all youtubers skip to the rares.... period. Only good reason to randomize cards in boosters wth all ethics staying intact... BETCHA that WoTc hasn't done it for THAT reason though!!!
Yeah, you make a good point. I have no idea what they're thinking honestly
Play boosters are just draft boosters at higher cost now. Fewer rares, and no more list cards. Special guests appear super rarely.
And with less cards in them too
I can't believe I miss the list.
Wasn't the list card literally the entire reason play booster had the price get bumped up. Special guest should have had 0 effect on the price of the packs since it didnt with masterpieces or what ever the other lotery cards we had previously.
Well, that and the whole Set Booster Extra Rare thing
the fact borderless and extended card arts are exclusive to collectors pack is such a bullshit in my opinion
I disagree. Fancy art should be where value lies in MtG, not in the expensive op collectables themselves.
I wish the borderless/extend art/alt art cards just didn't exist. They gum up the visual identity of the game so much and are almost always extremely jarring and unappealing to the eye. I want to go back to when seeing the occasional foil at the table was a novel and interesting experience and that was it
I'm weirdly right down the middle here. I agree that they should never have been in normal packs to begin with, but now that they are they shouldn't have been taken away
@@RedBobcatGames Especially not without reducing the price of the pack.
@@RedBobcatGamesWhat if it were some kind of "Value" pack, you get no fancy alternative arts but everything you need to draft and play for a cheaper price... hmmm
As someone who already played a few bloomburrow drafts I can confirm that this set feels very well rounded in draft.
There definitely are stronger color combinations (raccoons for example seem rather weak), but the focus on two color combinations as archetypes works quite well. A lot of very flavorful vanilla looking cards are very useful in the limited drafting environment, especially common and uncommon ones. (Sonar strike, my beloved Sunshower Druid etc.) So much so that I still remember how I just had to pick three commons as the first three picks of a pack because they provided so much value for the road I intended to take. Something that I normally do not tend to do in drafts.
The calamity beast do not really fit into specific decks, because of their creature type and broader mechanical focus. This however is actually a good thing, because as far as I have seen they make excellent bombs in every deck of their respective color. It is always great if one of them hits the battlefield, because it really marks a critical point in that game which is really fitting flavor-wise (Almost like a change of season indead).
So all things considered, it is really sad that wizard had to do the silly reduction of rarity in a set which could have otherwise been a 10/10.
That's all good to hear. I spent so long making this video I haven't actually drafted any Bloomburrow yet haha
I've said it before and I'll say it again - it feels like Bloomburrow was designed by an entirely different team than the past many, many sets, and I can't wait for more sets from them. And also for other teams to learn some lessons from them.
Oh yeah, you might be right on that one actually. That'll be interesting to think about going forward. I wonder how Duskmourn will compare
It definitely feels like it was designed by a different team, though personally I'm not sure the other design teams should follow suit. Bloomburrow appears, to me anyway, to be way more creatively empty than even Thunder Junction. It's just "Don Bluth but magic," and that's incredibly boring to me.
Especially since it lacks Bluth's signature charm.
I like the world building flavour more than I liked Thunder Junctions though. However, I think IF Thunder Junction was given 3 sets to really tell us a full story it would have been much different
@@RedBobcatGames that's perfectly fair. I was super disappointed in Thunder Junction because it was such a unique setting in the Magic universe and we basically got nothing from it.
And I absolutely agree with some additional sets to actually flesh out the plane it'd be much better.
I think more time with world building would have meant less need to rely on pun and meme cards too, so yeah would have been a bonus all round really
As someone who has been playing for over a decade, my understanding of the contents of a pack are "15 cards, 1 guaranteed rare". I evaluate whether I'm willing to pay what they're charging based on that understanding. Any additional rares/foils/whatever are a bonus, but not expected or factored into the cost.
Do you count the art / token cards as one of the 15? And what's your thoughts on the price increase with Play Boosters?
@@RedBobcatGames art and token are beautiful, but worthless (maybe some token, though)
Yeah I agree. I wish they were just another card. I'd even take another common
@@RedBobcatGames WotC took out a card
so the pack is 14 cards and ... something
no more 15
_shrinkflation_
@@RedBobcatGames I actually enjoy the art cards a lot (I have a button press and turn many of them into buttons), but I don't count it as part of the 15, more part of the bonus.
I think the price increase sucks, but also, is to be expected of a large company. It sort of feels like set boosters only ever existed to justify an eventual large, sudden price increase on draft boosters.
Also, ever since they introduced collector boosters and started doing a million treatments for cards, I've been waiting for them to quietly put all the cool stuff in the expensive booster and make the cheap booster as boring and utilitarian as possible. Gotta make those $30 boosters worth it.
In the blind eternities, straight up mending it. And by it haha, lets just say, my planeswakers
I wonder if we'll ever go back to pre-mending level Planeswalkers?
@@RedBobcatGames At the very least I'd like to see an Oldwalker that was stuck in some kind of alternate dimension or time bubble or something come out and be an antagonist to the Mendwalkers.
That would be fun. Magic does need a new big villain I feel before we run the risk of waking up Nicol Bolas or the Eldrazi again
"Mr.Hands" caused 12 points of psychic damage bro
I'll let him know
As someone who works in manufacturing I'd never assume malice whenever ignorance is just as likely.
I mean the QA for Wizards as of late has been questionable at best. I wouldn't assume they're shuffling the packs to hide something. Rather I'd assume their QA is so bad that they just don't care if the order is correct.
Fair. Much fairer than me, certainly
If they want us to not expect malice then they shouldn’t give us a detailed order they should be in and then do everything else maliciously
With how Hasbro and WotC have been over the last few years, they've shown a pattern of malice. Even their incompetence/ignorance is fueled by malice, reducing costs across the board regardless of the decline of quality.
@@RedBobcatGamesit's just in my experience a company will never do something more complex than they have to because typically more complex = more expensive.
The issues with the packs nowadays screams to me trying to squeeze the most amount of profit out with the cheapest printers. Crimping issues, missing cards, miscuts, and misprints seem to be scaling higher and higher. If your QA isn't catching these it's not gonna catch the pack order.
Very true
The question stands, how much more confusing and consumer unfriendly MTG could get, until people stop buying it.
I guess time will tell
As a Yugioh Refugee…. there is no limit.
They recently printed a new card for the blue eyes white dragon deck which released in the western market only at the Quarter Century Secret collector’s rare, rarity which occur approximately only 1 per 2 cases of product.
You are only guranteed a rare every 20th pack when opening on the digital master duel client making the game’s mythics cost about 8 dollars each.
@isidoreaerys8745 I was expecting you to say more than 8 dollars at the end there honestly. Some of these Magic Cards can go for like 6 times that, so if I've understood correctly maybe Yugioh's better at this then? (I don't play, so can't really compare)
@@RedBobcatGames it really depends. Yugioh's price market is nearly 100% tournament results driven and hype driven. There collectors market has virtually zero longevity, but whenever a card is "hot" in a meta defining deck, it can go upwards over $100 a copy. Pet decks like blue-eyes don't get hurt as much due to market disinterest in what players consider "suboptimal" decks, but in other cases like the release of a short-printed ultra rare called Bonfire, it was going for $120 per copy in pre-sales before the packs even shipped.
Oof, yeah okay. At least the way Wizard's does it most cards get a version that's a bit cheaper
So fun facts i noticed while watching dif youtubers do pack openings (mostly cuz i wanna try building a Bloom cube so i made a spreadsheet writing down the order)
The packs do follow the order listed except the non-foil wildcard screws everything up, if your wildcard is a common: your pack wont have 7 commons in a row, it will be 8, same with uncommon: you will have 7com in a row and then 4unc in a row, repeat for Rare/mythic
It is still annoying its not following the exact order, but its kinda weird they went with that route
Also the first 5 commons you open follow a color cycle, most of the time is U-W-R-B-G (or W-R-B-G-U or.. you get the idea, whatever color you start with, the other 4 color follow the cycle), and then the 6-7th commons just pick whatever, altho i noticed some printings just dont follow this color order so not sure what goes there, if its a country printing thing or some stuff
Still bloomburrow is super fun to play sealed/limited but geez, these nerfed pull rates suck, hard
Thanks for taking the time to analyze the pack order! It's nice to see a positive analysis instead of negative assumptions for a change.
Yeah, I agree. This comment rocks. Thanks for sharing
I think the reason cards are moving a bit between packs is mainly due to the "non-foil wildcard" slot. Notice how in all the packs, the commons are all together, the uncommons are all together, and the rare(s) are all together. If the wildcard is common, it will be with the other commons. If the wildcard is uncommon, it will be with the rest of the uncommons, etc. It would probably be kind of weird pulling a pack just to find a rare in between your commons and uncommons or a non-foil common at the back of the pack.
Looking at pack 6, there are two rares. This means the non-foil wild is rare, and the amounts are 7C-3U-2R, which are distributed in order of rarity.
Looking back to pack 1, there are 8 commons, so the wild is common, and the amounts are 8C-3U-1R, which is also distributed the same way.
My assumption is (in addition to it looking odd to have rarities out of order) that they don't have separate sheets for the non-foil wildcards like they probably do for the foils, the basic lands, the special guests, etc. and it is simply more efficient to just keep track of what rarity they need for the wildcard.
I mean, if that's the case I wonder why they wouldn't just say it and instead set up a whole chart that's clearly incorrect
@@RedBobcatGames I think they probably prioritized simplicity over detail with the chart. The chart is pretty simple and easy to digest, and probably aimed towards a more general audience than people who pay attention to the order of cards in the packs.
Yeah, you may very well be correct
Lorwyn was my favorite set and I like the similar Art and Lore Direction in this set.
However the current marketing strategy of Wizards feels scuffed and is not something I am willing to support.
Thx for the video Mr. Hands and Cartoon Cat
You are more than welcome, and I'll let Hands know you said so too
honestly bloomburrow sealed was one of my favourite events in recent history. The synergies were all super cohesive and worked very well, i got to see a bunch of different styles based of the creature types they chose to build around. the mythics i hit (Baylen and totski) didnt have a major affect on the deck but they were definitely nice to have in the deck.
This is really good to hear. Makes me like Bloomburrow a bit more
im pissed off at the rares thing i did not know that, never buying packs again
ALSO, i noticed a rule for commander sealed that you are allowed to partner legendaries without partner, while it only is for the prerelease, i think making a hypothetical 4 color partner deck might alleviate the struggles
Ooooh, that's not a bad idea. Though may not make for a fair comparison if I do one of these again with another set now
It’s certainly not a Commander set, the fact that some of the pre gens struggle to fill the 99 with the same creature type.
Sadly however it’s full of bulk commons and building a good standard deck consists of a lot of uncommons and higher.
Yeah that does seem to be the case. And I'm glad honestly
I actually have a commander deck I call draft mander, it's only with cards I've drafted/won in draft and sealed but it took more then one set. It's pretty strong now.
Oh that's a lot of fun
I think the idea behind trying to make a commander deck out if a sealed pool is fun. That being said, I dont really think this proves or disproves that Bloomburrow is or isn't designed for commander because this isn't how people build commander decks. Asking, "Is this set designed for commander?" Is a flawed premise. Some portion of every product is designed to be engaged with by any player of any format the cards are legal in. Commander is just a eternal format that is focused around legendary creatures. So they have increased the number of legends in their products. Packs need to have cards that are desireable to commander players because wotc wants as many people as possible to want to buy their packs of cards. Just like play boosters are designed with both draft and standard cards. Not every card is optimal or desirable in every format. Packs have to cast a wide net to capture the largest audience. Pack don't exsist just to be drafted or for a single constructed format. They exist to sell you random cards so they can sell more packs while people hunt for the specific cards they want. Wotc has figured out how to do that, for better or worse.
That being said. I like your videos. Keep it up.
Good points, and thank you very much!
The good news is it’s only going to get worse from here
Hooray!
while its Bloomburrow is interesting, for a few reasons, like more support cards for tribes that where less supported, more changelings, and new interresting mechanincs. one thing i find rather more interresting, on the design front, is the fact that the winter art basisc, arent snow lands, but just normal lands. i know kaldheim had snow basics, and snow as a mechanic, but i feel like snow basic lands, should always be standard legal. 90% of the time, snow basics and non-snow basics, play the same, it only if a deck is build with snow in mind that they matter.
again, snow feels sooo close to being evergreen, like why is WOTC still printing cards like Inverted Iceberg, without the snow type?
i guess thats my point, with the printing of vinter art basics, why isnt this also the set where WOTC announce snow to become a more used mechaninc, printing a card like Inverted Iceberg, with the snow type, would fit flavour wise, sure it would do nothing in terms of mechanincs. but, it would give snow a larger card pool, rather than just kaldheim, the ice-age block, and the few modern horizone cards. and again, we kinda almost just had kaldheim, with snow basics, so now, with winter art lands, that are just basics. it feels weird. that should have been a snow land.
I suppose the argument from a flavour standpoint would be that, it's not a "snow land", it's just a "land that currently has snow on it". Like, the mana the snow would generate isn't there long enough to seep into the land so that it could be used to cast Snow spells?
@@RedBobcatGames good point.
Thank you. I'm a total nerd for stuff like this
What I really enjoy about Red Cat is that he mixes things up. One time it’s a quiz, next time it’s an interview, always keeping it new and exciting!
Haven't done an interview in a bit, but next week it's a decktech (kinda)
@@RedBobcatGames bit of feed back then. Really enjoyed that interview that you had! Looking forward to another! Oh and the Quiz are so much fun as well!
Thank you, I like the quizzes too. And I have had some people approach me about interviews because I would like to do another. It's just a case of finding a topic I actually think is worth talking about. I don't want to interview someone just because, you know?
@@RedBobcatGames Suggestion? How about you invite a few people to answer the trivia questions?
I feel ya. If you are going to do a thing you want to do it to the best of your abilities
Oh, now that's both a wonderful idea and I think would never happen haha. I'd never sign up for that sort of thing because I'd 100% embarrass myself! Do this channel full time and then get 0% on a magic quiz!
I really hate that they reduced the chance for rare cards in Play Boosters. The fact that all the “booster fun” treatments are also basically missing from (I bought a bungle and had a pre-release and only got one) is very disappointing. This was way better with Set Boosters. It wasn’t as noticeable with thunder junction because of its bonus sheet but it was still there. I love almost every aspect of Bloomburrow but I hate these two things.
Also, I’d like to have a mysterious benefactor, too. I hope they keep sending stuff to you!
I hope so too haha
I like all the Red Bobcat's videos
Thank you!
I did this experiment for fun myself, and the only reason I had a viable deck was the 3 color bunny (Baylen) I pulled in my last pack. However, in my playgroup it did not hold up, for lack of acceleration and token generators. Was it fun still? Yes, it really was. And we have been spoiled by Set Boosters.
Oh that's cool. Yeah, I can't imagine the decks will do well. But if everyone did it, then maybe it would work out. Expensive way to play though lol
Yeah, all sets are commanders. Just look at the three colors commanders, which have a third color out of nowhere for some. There is also the box topper as a three colors commander btw. You are a bit wrong about the two colors being creatured based, they are mechanic based first and creature based second, so you have cards in all two colors that aren't linked to the species.
I agree also that they are trying to make the game more and more about collectables with the basic lands full art. But they did say they were going to reduce the number of legendary creatures because of draft players complaining.
Well that's good. I actually didn't see that, do you know where they said it?
A box of 12 boosters? Back in the day (2005 or so), the boxes held 36 packs! WHAT
Oh yeah, no the box has more than 12 packs in it. I just didn't want to open all of them at once or the video would be like 5 hours long because I never shut up haha
I understand this is just a fun game but I don't think the challenge succeeding or not is really indicative of anything. Even if the set is full of commander designs that are too specific for draft, it wouldn't affect the challenge much besides potentially over representation of 4/5 color legendaries for commander players to want to build around
Fair. Do you think you'd say the same about a draftable commander set, like that Baulders gate one?
I don't like lands having specific rates for its variants, but I do love the art of them and it goes well with the seting and lore of the set
Just a shame if you want all the winter lands they're going to cost a bunch of money now...
Okay, so, as someone who's opened way more Bloomburrow than I'd like to admit on the internet, I don't know about the cards being like, shuffled, but I have noticed multiple times, especially in the collector boosters, that the cards are in the pack in reverse order (i.e. commons at the back when you flip the stack over). It's very confusing.
Hmm, that's weird. I wonder what's going on there
Japanese printed packs are always like that. Why? Who knows. But they're also higher quality than the American printings, and then there's the Belgian printing which is somewhere in-between. But yeah, rare are the front is a sign of a Japanese print run
Huh, that's interesting. I wonder what these were
I think it says on the pack where they were manufactured, but also I think the manufacturers are putting the cards into the pack face down instead of face up. So _technically_ they're in the right order, just facing the wrong way :P
Haha, fair
The casual cut at the second rare's drop-rate from 37% to 23% is... they've reinvented draft boosters!
But not reinvented the price
Every set since M14 has been a Commander set in disguise.
Pretty much my theory going into this too
I think the borderless cards etc being in collector's packs is fine... but we should have had a bonus sheet. The Courageous Critters should have been extended to ~80 cards and included commons/uncommons and been in regular packs. This could have HELPED draft too, by printing some tribes matters or changelings. Exactly like OTJ's crime bonus sheet.
Is that the one that's got all the planeswalkers as animals on it? I'd have liked to have seen one of those opened honestly
Man Bloomburrow does seem like a good set, if only there was a chance for Wizards to learn the right lessons from it instead of what we're actually going to get which is going to be "oh people like cute animals/two colour creature archetypes"
Great video as always!
Why thank you very much, and I fear you may be right there
They’re all commander sets and disguise. Commander is the most popular format. Wizards, therefore, is always going to accommodate for commander in every set. They literally can’t afford not to anymore. I’m just sad to see how much damage it’s all done to other eternal formats.
I mean, I think they could afford not too if they didn't have to keep the rest of Hasbro afloat honestly
Honestly, the shift in design to support Commander has been less of a problem in eternal formats compared to a Modern Horizons set wiping the slate clean with power creep every 2-3 years.
Yeah, I'm not a modern player but that would REALLY annoy me in a non-rotating format
Ok, Bloomer. ❤
Haha, nice
I like "Is it a commander set in disguise" versus the approach the last time... which I had commented on. :)
I try and mix it up a bunch, you know?
@@RedBobcatGames - Just keep making your awesome content, I just like this... style? better than the last "cracking packs for commander" video and wanted you to know :) Cheers Bobcat.
@@PaulGaither Oh well thank you very much. I can't promise I won't go back to the old one. I basically do whatever's in my heart each time haha. Not everyone will like every video I make, but before I can make one that will please anyone at all I first need to make one that pleases me
Mark Rosewater openly admits that Magic is designed primarily around commander and limited these days
Is that from his blogatog? I haven't seem him say that specifically, and I do try to keep up, he and the rest of WotC just put out SO MUCH STUFF. I'm only an independant, and there's only so many hours in a day, you know?
It's not a conspiracy to say that *every* set is (not-so-) secretly a Commander set these days.
To be fair that's not the conspiracy. It's over the shuffled pack order of cards. Just like, 3 topics in one in this vid so I spread them out over the thumbnail and title haha
If I buy only singles from my lgs, every card can be mythic or rare!
Probably the best way to go about it honestly
I initially was very skeptical of this set when it was announced, but I’ve completed done a 180. I love this set, I’m pleased with how few legendary creatures there are & how little 3+ colour cards there are. As a mostly commander player, I’ve gotten really bored of every set filled with 40 legendary creatures & a 5 colour creature. I also love this set because frogs. I have over 1,000 copies of poison dart frog
My biggest issue is that having a commander for every kind of deck takes some of the fun out of it honestly. I want to work to pull that jank off, you know?
I'd be curious to see what 40-card Draft sets you'd build with the cards you drew in your packs.
I was thinking similar. I may do something like that when i open the rest of the packs
0:30 I can't tell you how much I hate commander, simply for the fact that there are no pre-cons anymore, yet every single set gets like 4 commander decks, which I don't even to buy even if I want cards in them, because it's buying 1 copy of each card, sure it might be along the archtype I wanted, but at the cost of a significant fraction of what a booster box would cost... I mean why not just buy the box? Even THEN Bloomburrow's bunny precon... has like 2 or 3 rabbits in it. WTF?! The frog precon had more rabbits than the rabbit deck. (or maybe it was one of the others, I looked at the card list several weeks back).
Yeah, I totally agree. It's almost like they want us to buy singles. I'm hoping with that Foundations we get back to precons being a thing for formats other than Commander
To the question, "is this set, ________, for commander?" Then answer is nowadays always, "this was the first thing they had in mind"
Pretty much what I assumed too, but honestly seeing it opened I'm not so sure now
I am a proud member of Team Crabs
Fun fact- because of the Fallout set (PIP), Crabs are officially in the pantheon of 5C when Red Death, Shipwrecker was made
God bless Ripide Crab. (Though can our team have a new name please?)
@@RedBobcatGames how about "Crustacean Gang"?
That's got a different, more acceptable vibe I think
It's funny, I ripped a box of bloomburrow with my cousin and we split it in half and picked commanders to build 60 card decks and played with 25 life. And it was really fun, although it felt like building a sealed deck with yorion as a companion. Kinda tough to fill in the last slots at the end.
Yeah, I still haven't really looked at the rest of the cards from the set yet so not sure it's actually even possible in two colours
The Cards are not shuffled, they are just ofset by 1. when you get a second rare, the order lines up
I see what you're saying. Just not in line with that chart they put out. Weird they'd go out of their way to make it and then have it be wrong
9:12
We had "two color creature archetypes" in Innistrad, way after Lorwyn. But it was only 5 types, not 10, so not as hard to build.
Kaldheim also had that to an extent, I believe. And 2 out of the 4 tribes in Ixalan were 2 colors.
Very true. Though weirdly I feel like those sets revolved less around the creatures types for some reason. Innistrad would be a clear example of me being wrong though, but for some reason it just feels different
@@RedBobcatGames Possibly because Innistrad had lots of plot that's relevant to the story, and a theme that wasn't necessarily reliant on the creature types (horror could also be spiders and demons)
In BLB, there's little to no main story plot, and the concept of the world is entirely reliant on the creatures. It doesn't feel like the world just "exists" and we're having a set in it; it feels like the world and the set are the same, much like Thunder Junction.
It's less organic development, so all that remains is the creatures.
I sort of dropped off from the story when it started to just become about Ral chasing Jace again
Interested in a full box commander deck as well. Also the guaranteed box topper commander might be intended for this
Oh that's a thought. Didn't get a box topper here though (unless Mr Hands robbed me)
Shout-out to Gossip's Talent [12:08] and Glidedive Duo [16:43] during prerelease. Deal 3 unblockable damage, surveil 1, gain 2 drain 2, and then have a 3/3 flying blocker on defense. That felt good, though far less horrifying than one of my opponents, who could pay 2 generic to put a card from his graveyard on the bottom of his library and then activate a squirrel to tutor that card into his hand if it was a squirrel. Endless value in a format which often ends up a bit grindy. Horrifying to encounter.
Sounds fun though. I do hope I get to draft this at some point
I think the order question is mostly a non-issue. Looking at the packs paid out, it seems like it always goes commons -> uncommons -> rares -> mythics (land foil art), which makes sense from the manufacturing perspective of having the cards of the same rarity on the same physical sheet. I suspect the pack contents are determined by a computer (specifically the SG inclusion and wildcard) and then that number of each rarity are drawn into the pack.
The net result is the first 6 are always common, and the last 3 are always land foil art. The middle gets bumped one way or the other by the wildcard placement, with the SG also potentially moving it one slot (one card from the common end going to the mythic end).
All in all i think its relatively easy to know what your slots were if youre familiar with whats supposed to be in them, i just think for consumer transparency the slot structure should listed on the packaging (imo it should be legally required for any "blind" product, but thats its own can of worms).
Yeah, you're probably right looking at it. I just think it's weird they'd go out of their way to make a graph talking whats in what slot and then not stick to it. Like, if they hadn't made the graph I doubt I'd ever have questioned it
Gossips talent is clearly a commander card because it goes in my commander deck :3
Oh god damn. I tried to build a commander deck out of all of these cards! That means...
Yes, Bloomburrow is a commander set in disguise, just look at how many legendary cards there are in that set.
Fair, though they didn't feel as intrusive as they did when I opened up Thunder Junction packs honestly
Thunder Junction really seemed to suffer from The Big Score collapsing into the main set. Legends like Obeka, Eriette and Riku are fun build arounds for Commander that remind me of the Aftermath legends, but they’re next to useless in draft because they have no support in the draft environment. It’s a real shame because OTJ has been the set I’ve had the most fun with this year.
You know when I did the Commander Scramble for OTJ I didn't consider the fact a lot of those cards weren't originally planned for the main set
I’m not sure if it’s ever been 100% confirmed since all the legends have the OTJ set symbol, but it’s been a hunch haha
Would make a lot of sense
It appears that they put the non-foil wildcard (#13) among the other similar cards (e.g. with the commons if it is common, with the uncommons when uncommon). This is a nice feature for quickly looking through the cards while drafting. I assume that is why they do it like this here. I wonder if it would be in the proper slot if it was from the list.
That does seem to be the case, but why go out of their way to make that chart just for it to be wrong? I'd never have questioned it otherwise. Weird
this set slaps for standard and modern i hard disagree w the title youre just wrong
Well the title is a question. I'm not sure if you watched the video but I basically came to the same conclusion
Mate, I deep-dived the internet to figure out the rarities of each slot..., I had 6 Commons, 1 Mythic Rare, 1 Rare from the Wildcard slot, and - hear me out - 4 Uncommons. No Special Guests.
The order of the cards was consistent, but this was the only thing that baffled me, as apparently, this pull should be impossible
I have no idea what's going on then haha
I actually got multiple extended arts and showcase cards during pre release and then again from a bundle, so either I'm really lucky or you're really unlucky.
Okay, well that's good to know at least. I thought maybe they'd taken them out completely. Maybe Mr. Hands just robbed me?
Everyone I have watched has been saying to get a good commander experience it's in the collector boosters, not the play boosters this time around.
Those packs are a bit expensive for my taste. But I honestly feel the same about Play Boosters too
hello i've never written a comment onto this channel, and often i dont comment. But sincerely i feel like when they designed this set they really tried, the theme is enchanting and the cards are well balanced from one another, instead of other sets where the cards are seemingly put together without any particular criteria. also nice video i enjoy it
Well thank you very much. I'm also a fan of the set, just have some grumbles about the stuff surrounding the set. Also thank you for the comment, I also appriciate hearing the feedback!
Well, as a Commander only player I wanna get my Commander cards from somewhere.
Over here where I play in Germany no one drafts.
Aside from prerelease events no one actually gives a shit about drafting. The amount of drafts that happened in my LGS where people play at least twice a week with long Commander/Pioneer/Modern nights are... 6 or so? in 2024. And mind you this is a huge store.
So yeah, I'm more upset my proper Set boosters are gone. Now I gotta buy a shittier set booster that's got more useless garbage in it so it can be drafted... yay
That's completely valid. I don't think they should have merged the packs. Especially now they've introduced "Value Boosters"
I'm conflicted, because I would almost wish any cost be paid to the detriment of all other aspects of the game in order to get enough cards to make a good playable 100% rabbits themed EDH deck. We're still not there yet imo.
It'll be interesting to see if and how future sets trickle in some of the typal creatures from this set and seeing if they work in the archetypes. Claim Jumper was the last Rabbit, and it's a Land Tax type white land catch up card. With rabbits being in white green, I didn't see as many chances to "catch up" on land when your other color is *the* ramp color. Before Bloomburrow there were maybe four or five playable rabbit cards that worked in a go-wide strategy.
Oh well, glad that monkey's paw wish didn't backfire over everyone else's enjoyment of the game, anyway.
They've made a bit of noise about how Duskmourn and Bloomburrow are releasing so close to each other, and they've kind of implied they're to be drafted together. So maybe we'll see more there? But also that might all just be sly marketing to get people to buy the next set
I really like Bloomburrow. I love the art. I love the mechanics. And I love Liliana Vess as a bunny.
I actually haven't seen the art for that card yet. I envision two ways they could have gone about it...
@@RedBobcatGames Oh it’s pretty awesome. Not a sexy bunny, but definitely a powerful looking bunny.
Is it weird I'm disappointed?
@@RedBobcatGames no, a sexy bunny would have been, erm…… well you know.
Yeah... yeah....
Play boosters are not "designed for draft". They collapsed non collector boosters into a single product, so that while it is draftable, it's also for players of other formats.
Well, I guess you're not wrong. But also "Designed for draft" and "draftable" is basically the same when you consider they do have to consider the draft environment when putting the packs together. Did they design them well? Well, that's a different conversation all together
@@RedBobcatGamesWotC has designed packs with draft in mind since draft became a format, which is why packs contain so much draft chaff. They tried separating draft into its own product and it was a disaster. You can still buy draft boosters for below cost from 5 years ago. While inelegant, serving multiple customer types with one product does keep costs down, and this is good for everyone, even with the occasional draft dud or chaff card outside of draft.
I hear you, and I agree on all but the being good for everyone part. Play boosters came with a price hike, and that's not good for many people
2:35 "The order of the cards changed from pack to pack" YES, I noticed that, but something else too, I bought 2 play boooster boxes of bloomburrow and they were ordered differently, but also the cardstock itself was different on the foils, some were like previous set thin and already curling up, and the other box had some that felt slightly thicker. They might have changed their printing methods, or maybe does Wizards have multiple factories where the printing process or card stock are slightly different? Maybe they've taken action about everyone complaining about the foils always curling themselves and some are before and after a change. (or maybe not?) I hope it was an intentional change, because it sucks that foils tend to curl up like that.
Glad it's not just me! I know they do use different factories between different regions. So for instance some cards are printed in Japan, but have no idea if they then ship those as regular sets to other parts of the world
@@RedBobcatGames This made me look, I got a box of Capena that says made in Japan, Theros USA, Bloomburrow USA, Theros Beyond Death Japan.
I don't know if that holds true for other boxes in the same sets. I haven't kept all the boxes.
That is very interesting. I would have assumed boxes printed in Japan would have been distributed in Japan
Yea, i opened a whole box and even though i got pretty much everything i wanted, it was wild that in some packs, i felt that i got ripped off! One i opened had a Rai, Cracking Wit TOKEN and ZERO rares.
Oh excellent stuff. I bet you were thrilled. This sort of thing will really affect how customers look at their products
honestly this is the first set that made me mad they arent doing blocks anymore
I say it in the comments of every video. They should bring back 3 set blocks
@@RedBobcatGames I wish they did 2 or 3 full size draftable sets per block, rather than the 1 full size 2 mini it was originally. I never liked the smaller sets, because they couldn't really be drafted alone since they didn't have enough variety, but drafting from multiple sets adds too much variety imo.
Yeah, I'd be down for that. Though I'd want some kind of synergy between sets. I can't quite remember what it was now, but I remember being disappointed in how vampires from MID didn't play well with the ones from VOW
If the contents match what WotC says should be in the pack, then I'm not pressed about the order. I get it's supposed to add to the fun of cracking packs, but in the end, if the content lines up, I'm good.
I mean, I would agree. But why go out of their way to tell us one thing and then do another? If they'd have never made that graph, I never would have questioned it, you know?
I don't have an issue with commander cards in ither sets... but I do have a problem that they're _specifically_ commander cards. At that point, just print actual commander packs or get rid of the "commander only" restrictions, and ban specific cards that require commanders to be more functional than a drink coaster
EDIT: Commander Burrow, but they don't give you enough to build the deck
Yeah, I feel you
10:14 the calamity beast are not the baddie of the set btw
Are they not? I only got to episode 4 and sort of phased out because it was becoming the "Ral finds Jace show" and my eyes glazed over
The real conspiracy is that play booster boxes are now 150 dollar draft booster boxes since they reduced drop rates on rares.
Oh yeah, I think my very first video explored basically exactly that
12:05 I disagree only because Caretaker’s talent is an auto include in many of my decks but the flavor clashes with all of them.
Random cutesy precious moments rabbit card buffing up my tokens on top of being White’s best draw engine to date, turning your Smothering tithes into Rhystic studies.
Yeah, to be fair I hadn't considered these cards in the wider context of magic. I'll mull this one over
We also get commander version of the sets that include cards that could be in the normal set, but aren't, and aren't legendary, like Jacked Rabbit for example, why is that not just in the set? Why did I have buy it as singles? It's not legendary, and it makes tokens, which is supposed to be the very thing the bunny archetype is all about. So they take out cards that could have fit in the main set, to make it impossible to every pull one from a regular booster pack.
I honestly don't understand what they're approach is lately
Buying singles has always just been a better idea to build an actual deck. Packs are more for draft and people hoping to get lucky
Yeah, pretty much
In commander draft, with the latest itteration of the rules, the deck only needs to be 60 cards, the singleton rule is not in play, and all single color legendary creatures counts as having partner.
Might still not be enough for a decent deck from 12 packs, but at least a legal one
True, though I'm not sure how people would feel if I rocked up to a commander table with a draft deck. Not that i would do that anyway honestly, that draft deck would probably be terrible in comparison
@@RedBobcatGames Would be fine, if everyone in the pod had constructed the decks in the same way tho
Very true again. Expensive way to do it, but could be very fun!
isnt every set for commander since like 4 years ago?
Pretty much my expectations going into this, yeah
I wish they brought back set and draft boosters, I despise the new play boosters
Oh 100% agree
Thrill me.
I'm not sure I'm ever really thrilling to be honest
@@RedBobcatGames No, I was thrilled. A proper experiment with a conclusion I was glad to reach.
@@dendostar5436 Awesome! I was a little worried people wouldn't enjoy this one so I'm glad to hear the feedback. Thank you
thats the neat part they all are
True
I think this is one of the many sets that I actually genuinely liked. Granted the Legends we have do have the presence of traditional fantasy. But this is a weird one…..there’s EDH bait cards…but it’s been toned down. Is this them holding theirselves back? Will Duskmourn be similar? Well as you say: Will see.
I mean I hope so. I don't mind commander cards, just in the right places
45:00.
Yea. It’s absolutely scandalous to me that in a game of Sealed which I payed Money to compete in on MTGArena I pulled a mythic with a clause which read “for each time you have cast your commander this game” making the card an absolutely useless overcosted vanilla.
The very least they could do is disable those cards for the limited formats I think these people might simply be idiots.
Oh wow, what card was it? That's hilariously bad. That's overtly awful. There's no clearer indication that something is wrong than things like that! Madness!
Why do you only open 12 packs for things like this? Where does that number come from?
Can't speak for everyone else, but I picked it because it's 1/3 of a box and that just sort of felt about right. Draft is usually 3 boosters, so I think people like me tend to consider packs in denominations of 3s
I'm pretty sure all sets are commander sets to some extent since it's the most common format. I actually played with the Family Matters and the squirl precons and they're really fun, but it's unfortunate that the squirl deck plays way more like a token / aristocrat's deck than a squirrel tribal. It feels a bit like a "fixed" Lowryn, since that set just worked with existing tribes or made a new tribe that'll likely never get support again (Kithkin) or get mediocre support (scarecrows).
From what I've seen most decks seem to be token decks with Bloomburrow
@@RedBobcatGames The difference with the squirrel precon deck is there's like literally a handful of squirrels and then non-squirrels that don't generate squirrel tokens. The family matters deck is fine since it isn't really implied to be tied to one tribe. The deck is fine enough, just a bit jarring.
Right, they did something similar with their Gofy deck recently that didn't have Tarmo in it. Madness
Wizards realized they ruined standard and modern so much everyone started playing commander, so they now focus on that and start ruining it as well.
Yeah pretty much
didn''t know about the nerfed rare appaerance rates until this video, that feels really scummy on wotc's part, inflating the cost of draft boosters and justifing it by making them psudeo set boosters and then cutting the chance of getting extra rares after the fact.
Yup, it sucks
Good video
Thank you very much
I mean, Draft decks are 30% smaller than normal decks. So if you made this Commander draft deck 30% smaller it kind of works. still not spectacularly fun obviously. you'll still have to basically just take every card in your commander color, but it would still be a deck. 40ish spells and 30ish lands.
Lol I think this might be an actually good idea, fun format.
Often in drafts I stumble upon a valuable legend and convince myself I can “build around” it. And then only draw it in one game.
Commander draft sounds awesome.
I think if we do this we should keep that Legendary Creatures All Have Partner rule they use for the Baulder's Gate commander drafts and what not, but yeah I like the idea
dude you got 6,66 K subs !!! Amazing devilish count !
Mark of the Beast0 haha
I thought Mr hands died years ago
They're unrelated thankfully
the honest reason to change order in packs would be .... to MAKE PEOPLE OPEN FULL PACKS! and not to see all youtubers skip to the rares.... period. Only good reason to randomize cards in boosters wth all ethics staying intact... BETCHA that WoTc hasn't done it for THAT reason though!!!
Oh that's interesting. Maybe it's to help people who open packs, as all the rares seem to be gathered at the back
It saddens me how terrible this set is from a financial standpoint. I love the art but it’s hard to rationalize buying a $120 box when I’m only gonna pull $40 in value
Yeah, I feel that. My approach to magic has always been not to worry about the financial side of it. Buy a box because i want to play it, and that way any value is a bonus after thought which is always an upside
Can you reach 100 if you count the cards you got in doubles/triples?
Oh easy, but that feels like cheating to me
Didn’t the collector boosters have commander cards in them? I wonder if you did the same experiment with collector boosters what the outcome would be.
… maybe you were on the right lines, but if someone wanted to do it they would just have to pay a lot more for the pleasure.
Dibs not me! (Unless I get sent it for free of course)
To Mr. Hands…
Will you go out on a date with me? 😊
I'll pass the message on
Are you going to build a Standard deck from the same 12 packs next time?
I honestly have no idea. Next week I'm building an actual commander deck, then it's me complaining about Alchemy. Then a quiz! Not sure what comes after that really
@@RedBobcatGames Hm. So you now have what, 24 packs of bloomburrow you don't need and that didn't cost you anything? Have you considered finding a home for them maybe?
Well I'll probably do another video with them I suspect. Bloomburrow's quite a fun looking set. It'll just have to be next month if / when i do
I dunno if your crazy i got a box for the set and got quite alot of multi colored cards and a decent few alternate art i do know the anime and critter cards come out of collectors and even then the potential is slim
Maybe these were just some unlucky packs?
@@RedBobcatGames or emerkul is involved
Oh I wish! My favourite of the Titans
60 card Brawl!!!
Yeah, but that feels a bit too easy to achieve. I'd want to do it with less packs if it were brawl
if you ever do another pack opening, for whatever reason, why not mix it up a bit and instead of starting with the first pack, start somewhere else, say with the fifth pack instead? just to see what happens!
Interesting, though I worry this would upset the balance of the universe
@@RedBobcatGames It can actually be surprisingly effective, I do this whenever I search for something lost: instead of randomly looking and always ENDING the search at whatever place the thing I was looking for was, I try to START the very search there. It becomes far more effective that way... :p
Ahh, see that's better than how I do it. Once I've found the thing I keep searching anyway
@@RedBobcatGames That mistake cost me my relationship... searching on when I've actually found it already. At least I've realized my errors and changed if a new opportunity ever arises.
(sorry if this comment took a more serious turn all of a sudden. but it just kind of hit the nail. Guess one lives and learns.)
Yeah my dude, life will hit you like that sometimes. We've all got similar stories, I'm sure
You could change it to how many packs does it take to make a commander deck. Maybe a different funner video next time
Or just keep going if the set fails. Great video 👍
Oh yeah, that's a good idea. A lot more work for Mr Hands maybe, but that's not my problem haha
Well, standard brawl is a thing. Isn't it? Okay, guess it's not.
I never considered brawl to be fair. I'm not sure how many people play it honestly
@@RedBobcatGames it doesn't ever take too long to queue up on arena. I enjoy it because it has more variance than standard, you have more options, and you can spend fewer wildcards to craft any given deck. Unfortunately though it's unranked so it doesn't help for the monthly tier reward system
Fair. I've never been a massive fan of arena. I did try it, but it wasn't for me. I just downloaded MTGO though, so maybe that'll be different
hope you enjoy. The interface looks like it's out of the 90's and it costs real money to open an account. Post an updated guide on how to get started and I might decide to make one too. I hear that penny dreadful is a sick format
I didn't have to pay to start an account in fairness, just host matches. But yeah once I get my head around it I may do a video on it. It does seem a bit... crusty
Who tries to build Commander decks this way? EDH uses all sets, there's isn't a Limited EDH format. Feels like you're scrapping for video ideas.
This is more a "Let's open some packs and do a fun thing with it" video than a "Let's build a commander deck" video. That's next week
The playbooster are the worst thing its collector booster or nothing. I cant stress this enough buy singles or proxy cards stop supporting this bs. The secret lairs being allowed to be bought by scalpers and sold for crazy prices on the market is killing the game for alot of players they reprint everything. And let's be truthful every product they have been making has been focused on commander or modern thats all they care about.
Why Collector Boosters then? Because of the resale value? I avoid them because they're such a crazy amount of money for the same or less cardboard. Don't think I've ever opened one honestly
@@RedBobcatGames well the pull rates in play booster are the worst so if your not buying collector boosters you basically get shit pulls all I was saying about them
@@RedBobcatGames just trust me play boosters are the far worse vaule in the end. It used to be set booster boxes where you could get some good value but now the play booster have the same pull rates if not worse then draft packs. And the special guest slots and no chance for the hit cards in the play boosters so you won't be pulling raised foils or any of the hit cards from the set in the fancy arts.
@@thiccboicory9964 Fair points. I just can't get on board with the price of them. I understand you could make it back in resale, but I look at the two packs and ones 3/4 times the cost? No thanks, you know?
@@RedBobcatGames trust me I agree I proxy everything nowadays man I can't afford the game I love anymore otherwise. Trsut me I get it the cost is crazy to say the least