Bloomburrow Commander Decks: Are They Worth It?

Last updated on July 31, 2024

Tamiyo, Field Researcher | Illustration by Justin Gerard

It’s time for Bloomburrow! I don’t know what the hype is like in your local area, but the players around me have all been buzzing over this MTG set for months.

Today, we’re going to do a deep dive into the contents of the four new Commander preconstructed decks that arrive with Bloomburrow. Let’s jump right into it!

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck Bundle - Includes All 4 Decks (Animated Army, Family Matters, Peace Offering, and Squirreled Away)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Fight beside adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
• GET ALL 4 BLOOMBURROW COMMANDER DECKS—Make trash and smash with Animated Army, make offspring and go wide with Family Matters, make friends and then end them with Peace Offering, or hoard tokens to defeat your enemies with an army of squirrels with Squirreled Away
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCING 40 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
• COLLECT SPECIAL TREATMENT CARDS—Each deck also comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack containing 2 cards from the Bloomburrow set, including 1 alt-border Rare or Mythic Rare and at least 1 Traditional Foil card

$149.99

Buy on Amazon

All About Bloomburrow Commander

Arthur, Marigold Knight | Illustration by Steven Belledin

What Is Bloomburrow Commander?

Bloomburrow is the latest Standard-legal Magic set, triggering this year’s Standard rotation. Along with it, we’re getting four brand-new Commander decks showcasing some of Bloomburrow’s main themes. We have the red/green Animated Army precon, the white/blue/red Family Matters deck, the white/blue/green Peace Offering deck, and the black/green Squirreled Away deck. Each deck comes with the following:

Best for cEDH

-

Most Fun

Top pick

Best Value

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Animated Army (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Family Matters (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Peace Offering (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Squirreled Away (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$43.09

$39.89

$44.78

$64.45

-

-

-

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Best for cEDH

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Animated Army (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$43.09

-

Buy on Amazon

-

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Family Matters (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$39.89

Buy on Amazon

Most Fun

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Peace Offering (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$44.78

-

Buy on Amazon

Top pick

Best Value

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Squirreled Away (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$64.45

-

Buy on Amazon

• 1 Ready-to-play 100-card deck, including:
  • 1 Borderless traditional foil face commander card
  • 1 Traditional foil alternate commander card
  • 1 Borderless traditional foil Imagine: Courageous Critters card
  • 10 New-to-Magic cards
• 1 Bloomburrow Collector Booster Sample Pack
• 10 Non-foil double-sided tokens
• 1 Deck box (can hold 100 sleeved cards)
• 1 Life wheel
• 1 Strategy insert

Bloomburrow Commander decks are available to buy from your local WPN store as of prerelease weekend (July 26th-28th) and at all retailers after the official release on August 2nd.

How Does Bloomburrow Commander Compare to Other Commander Products?

The most notable thing about Bloomburrow Commander decks is their uniqueness. We’ve never had a squirrel precon before. We’ve had one or two “group hug” decks, but we haven’t had any for quite some time. Bloomburrow is a wonderful setting, and between the new cards and the Bloomburrow-style art reprints, these decks perfectly encapsulate the themes of this Magic plane.

Another fantastic addition to these EDH decks is that each one comes with its own Imagine: Courageous Critters card in traditional foil. On Bloomburrow, everything's an animal. There are no humans of any kind. In fact, anyone who isn’t an animal is transformed into one if they travel there. The Bloomburrow‘s Collector boosters feature 20 reprints of classic creatures and planeswalkers, reimagined as adorable animals. There are an additional four that are exclusive to these Commander decks, one in each.

Should I Buy Bloomburrow Commander?

I think the Imagine: Courageous Critters inclusions in these decks, which you can’t get in any other product, are a big reason to buy these precons.

These decks have a few issues, as some of their themes aren’t supported strongly enough. There just aren’t enough squirrels in the game for a precon built around this creature type. Similarly, with so few cards from the main set appearing in these decks, themes like offspring and expend are spread way too thin.

All that said, these decks look incredibly fun to play, and even the less focused themes work with some simple upgrades. If there’s a theme here that looks interesting to you, I’d absolutely go for it.

Animated Army

Commander, Theme, and Strategy

This deck's Gruul commander is Bello, Bard of the Brambles. This legendary raccoon bard turns all your artifacts and enchantments into 4/4 indestructible creatures, assuming they have a mana value of 4 or greater. This plays right into the expend mechanic from the main set, which encourages you to spend at least 4 mana each turn.

There are a lot of cards in Animated Army that this works great with, like Thickest in the Thicket, which can target itself with its own enters ability. Then you can attack with an 8/8 indestructible creature and probably draw two free cards in your end step.

Animated Army's alternate commander is Wildsear, Scouring Maw. This elemental wolf gives enchantment spells that you cast from your hand cascade. There are only 13 enchantments in this deck, so this feels like it’d be more at home in a deck with a heavier enchantment focus, or as the commander of its own purpose-built deck.

The general strategy of the deck starts with mana acceleration. The deck has 14 2-drops which accelerate you to 4 mana on turn 3, plus the usual Sol Ring of course. From there, the deck features several impactful permanents starting at 4 mana. With Bello in play, nearly everything you cast will be a creature, and many of them will have haste and indestructible. It seems like once you’ve ramped into your 4-drops, you’ll be playing aggressively and attacking your opponents as often as possible. From my experience, aggro decks don’t perform all too well at a Commander table, but it looks like Animated Army has quite a bit of extra play to it that might turn that around.

Notable Cards: Reprints and $$

The first notable card isn’t a pricey one, but the Imagine: Courageous Critters Domri, Anarch of Bolas is really cool and only available in this deck.

Beyond that, there don’t seem to be a great deal of valuable reprints. Tendershoot Dryad and Grothama, All-Devouring clock in at about $11 and $9 respectively and are getting their first ever reprints in this deck.

The same is true for the $5 Bootleggers' Stash and Kodama of the East Tree and the $2 Esika's Chariot. Finally, although Greater Good has had many reprints, it still carries a price tag of around $10.

The Verdict

Overall, Animated Army looks like a reasonable, though not wholly original take on Gruul (). There’s a reasonable amount of value and an interesting strategy that I’m sure will appeal to many. I think it could do with some upgrading, particularly with some of the raccoons from the main set. To me, it’s the least interesting of the four decks.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Animated Army (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
• BRING THE TABLE TO LIFE—Make trash and smash all who stand in your way with the Racoon Bard, Bello, at your side. One critter’s trash is another one’s treasure.
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Animated Army Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$43.09

Buy on Amazon

Family Matters

Commander, Theme, and Strategy

This deck is headlined by bird bard Zinnia, Valley's Voice. The theme is clear from this Jeskai commander’s design; Family Matters is a deck built around the offspring mechanic. Zinnia gives this ability to every creature, so the deck is full of creatures with powerful enters triggers with a subtheme of creatures that have a base power of 1.

The alternate commander for Family Matters is the wonderfully adorable Arthur, Marigold Knight. Since we’re taking advantage of offspring, this deck can go wide and get into combat. Arthur takes this theme and goes with it, behaving very similarly to Winota, Joiner of Forces. Each attack with Arthur gets you a new creature and presumably a new triggered ability to advance your position. Given my love of enters triggers, as my Vannifar deck guide shows, this is a strategy that really speaks to me, though I don’t know if it’s better than Zinnia’s theme.

The general strategy of Family Matters, regardless of your choice of commander, is to start by going wide. There are a lot of cheap creatures in the deck that cost 3 or less. If Zinnia is your 3-drop, you can follow up on successive turns with offspring costs paid on your 2s and 3s. You should have a full board of creatures in no time at all, although there seems to be very little to reward you for that. But each creature that you play gives you an incremental advantage, so even if you fall victim to a board wipe, it should be easy for you to recover.

Notable Cards: Reprints and $$

This deck contains two very notable reprints, the $12 Helm of the Host and the $10 Luminous Broodmoth, which also gets a cool variant in the Imagine: Courageous Critters in Bloomburrow.

There are also a couple of $5 reprints in Curiosity Crafter and Commander all-star Combat Celebrant. Pollywog Prodigy also commands an impressive $11 price tag prior to release. And of course, there’s the alternate art of Elspeth, Sun's Champion to pick up.

The Verdict

Family Matters is definitely a deck that speaks to me. I’d have liked to see a Panharmonicon reprint or something like that. Overall, it just feels like there’s a lot of good stuff going on, but not enough reward. Zinnia seems like the reward, but then Family Matters seems to be too focused on the commander sticking around, and that isn’t guaranteed to happen. It’s a very good start, but this feels a lot like a deck in dire need of upgrades.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Family Matters (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
• PREPARE FOR A SPECIAL DELIVERY—Jovial troubadour Zinnia delivers the pain, plus a whole litter of offspring to overwhelm your opponents.
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Family Matters Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$39.89

Buy on Amazon

Peace Offering

Commander, Theme, and Strategy

Peace Offering is headlined by the glorious group hug commander Ms. Bumbleflower.

Your objective isn’t to try and win, but to play effects that benefit other players at the table, often while benefiting you, too. Your Bant commander lets an opponent draw a card every time you cast a spell, while you get to draw two cards on your second spell cast. You also have Bloomburrow‘s gift mechanic, allowing you to give lovely gifts to each of your opponents. I think this is my favorite commander of the bunch. I like sitting back and letting everyone else do their own thing while I hatch my plot in secret.

Peace Offering's backup commander is Mr. Foxglove, who lets you draw cards so that your hand size matches that of one of your opponent’s. I don’t think it’s quite at its best here because there’s a lot of potential in its secondary ability of cheating out a large creature or two, yet there’s nothing worth cheating out in this deck. I think Mr. Foxglove could be a great commander in its own right, but it feels a bit lackluster here.

Your strategy with Peace Offering is going to be unlike any other deck. You want to advance your own board, but a lot of what you do should be to pick sides on the table and help out the players you want to help out. Keep drawing cards, get everyone else to draw cards, and hopefully, you can all have a fun game.

Notable Cards: Reprints and $$

The Peace Offering precon contains the best alternate art planeswalker in Tamiyo, Field Researcher, which would be an easy $5 card even without considering the cool artwork.

Other than that, the only big, notable reprint is the $11 Kalonian Hydra. Sadly, this looks like the least valuable of the four decks, so it might not be for you if that’s what you’re looking for. The uniqueness of that Tamiyo has me sold, though.

The Verdict

Peace Offering looks like a really cool deck, easily my favorite Bloomburrow EDH precon. I’ve never built a group hug deck, but this might have to be a deck I pick up and add to the collection. Plus, you get a copy of Tempt with Bunnies, so how can you possibly go wrong?

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Peace Offering (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
• KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS—Win friends and influence players with Ms. Bumbleflower, building up +1/+1 counters along the way, then watch the table crumble under your kindness!
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Peace Offering Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$44.78

Buy on Amazon

Squirreled Away

Commander, Theme, and Strategy

The Golgari commander for this final precon is Hazel of the Rootbloom, and it’s a token generating machine! It can create two Squirrel tokens each turn, then use those tokens to add a ton of mana.

Squirreled Away's theme isn’t so much squirrels as various kinds of tokens. We have rats, spiders, Food tokens, Treasure tokens, in fact anything that would be at home in a Swarmyard. I do love token commanders, even if it’s a bit of a letdown that this isn’t more focused on squirrels.

Squirreled Away's backup commander is The Odd Acorn Gang, a much more focused squirrel commander. You can use these little guys to draw potentially three cards per turn by attacking each opponent during the combat phase. I think there’s not enough squirrels in Squirreled Away to really capitalize on The Odd Acorn Gang, but I’m sure this would shine in a purpose-built deck.

The strategy for the Squirreled Away Commander precon is simple enough. You need to spam as many tokens as possible and take advantage of the many payoffs you have access to. Once you have a big board, you can use End-Raze Forerunners to make a big swing, you can use Skullclamp to cash in tokens for more resources, and so much more. There are tons of recognizable token payoffs in this deck, so just make the tokens and find something to pay you off for them.

Notable Cards: Reprints and $$

This is the deck with the most valuable reprints of them all. There’s of course the new alternate art Garruk, Cursed Huntsman, but the hits keep on coming.

$10 on Chatterfang, Squirrel General, $6 for Toski, Bearer of Secrets, another $10 for Beledros Witherbloom, $6 for Skullclamp, $6 for Second Harvest, $4 for Maskwood Nexus, and even $13 for Swarmyard.

I’m not even done. On top of all of that, there’s even the first reprint of Saw in Half, a card that was previously exclusive to Unfinity and begs a $12 price tag.

The Verdict

There’s a lot to like from Squirreled Away. New squirrels, valuable reprints. But overall, this is massively disappointing. We were promised the first-ever squirrel Commander precon, and instead, we were given a tokens deck with some squirrels in it.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Squirreled Away (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes.
• SQUIRRELS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN—Stock up on tokens, then spend your hoard to clean house with an army of squirrels
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless.)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Squirreled Away Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$64.45

Buy on Amazon

The Best Bloomburrow Commander Deck

For Value

Squirreled Away is clearly the best Bloomburrow Commander precon for value. There are a ton of great reprints, and the new cards are also going to be highly sought after. In particular, cards like Saw in Half, Beledros Witherbloom, and Chatterfang, Squirrel General stand out as pricey cards that have been reprinted for the first time in this precon. It’s also worth noting the Tamiyo, Field Researcher in the Peace Offering deck is the best of the new alternate art planeswalkers and might end up fetching a nice price on its own. And the face commander itself, Hazel of the Rootbloom, is among the most expensive cards from Bloomburrow.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Squirreled Away (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes.
• SQUIRRELS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN—Stock up on tokens, then spend your hoard to clean house with an army of squirrels
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless.)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Squirreled Away Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$64.45

Buy on Amazon

For Competitive EDH

By its very nature, no preconstructed deck is ever going to match up to a cEDH deck. For my money, Animated Army is probably the Bloomburrow precon that has a strategy best suited to competitive play. It’s got a nice, clean play pattern that can be fast, aggressive, and above all else, powerful, and Bello, Bard of the Brambles looks like one of the strongest commanders from Bloomburrow as a whole.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Animated Army (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
• BRING THE TABLE TO LIFE—Make trash and smash all who stand in your way with the Racoon Bard, Bello, at your side. One critter’s trash is another one’s treasure.
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Animated Army Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$43.09

Buy on Amazon

For Fun

I think the most fun to be had is with the Peaceful Offering precon. I might just be speaking for myself, but I find it a lot of fun to sit back and allow everyone to do their own thing before swooping in with a big swing in my favor. This group hug style deck accomplishes this with ease. Though of course, with all four decks playing out very differently, maybe one will match your own personal play style a lot more.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Peace Offering (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

• TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
• KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS—Win friends and influence players with Ms. Bumbleflower, building up +1/+1 counters along the way, then watch the table crumble under your kindness!
• EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Peace Offering Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

$44.78

Buy on Amazon

Commanding Conclusion

The Odd Acorn Gang | Illustration by Omar Rayyan

Which of these Bloomburrow decks are you most excited to play with? Will you be purchasing any of them for yourself? Let us know on our socials!

Best for cEDH

-

Most Fun

Top pick

Best Value

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Animated Army (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Family Matters (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Peace Offering (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Squirreled Away (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$43.09

$39.89

$44.78

$64.45

-

-

-

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Best for cEDH

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Animated Army (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$43.09

-

Buy on Amazon

-

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Family Matters (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$39.89

Buy on Amazon

Most Fun

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Peace Offering (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$44.78

-

Buy on Amazon

Top pick

Best Value

Magic: The Gathering Bloomburrow Commander Deck - Squirreled Away (100-Card Deck, 2-Card Collector Booster Sample Pack + Accessories)

$64.45

-

Buy on Amazon

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