Friday’s Preview Panel from MagicCon: Chicago gave Magic: The Gathering players a first look at the next four sets, featuring previews from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Assassin’s Creed, Modern Horizons 3, and Bloomburrow. One set looks to stand out in hype from players — the all animal-based set of Bloomburrow coming in August.
Bloomburrow will be the second plane in MTG history that doesn’t include Humans, the first being Lorwyn. Mark Rosewater, Magic’s Head Designer, said during the panel that each of the 10 two-color pairs is assigned an animal type that gives each pair a light typal theme when drafting. Aaron Forsythe, Vice President of Design for Magic, tipped off players to look through recent Standard sets to see the other Mice that shows R&D sprinkled in creature types of the upcoming types for potential Standard decks. Rosewater echoed this thought, encouraging players to look through the color pairs and attempt to predict what the creature types will be in Bloomburrow.
So, today we are attempting to solve the 10 creature types and their color pairs.
Mice
Rosewater confirmed red and white will feature Mice after Mabel, Heir to Cragflame was previewed.
Mabel clearly is the lord for Mice, giving other Mice you control +1/+1. Plenty of Mice show up in cards in recent Standard sets to bolster a potential Mice deck.
Rabbits
Rabbits are a confirmed type in Bloomburrow from a preview image of Finneas, Ace Archer.
Rabbits appear to be the type for green and white as most of the previous Rabbits in Standard sets fall in those two colors. One of the front-facing creatures from the Bloomburrow Starter Kit — Byrke, Long Ear of the Law — also happens to be a Rabbit Soldier.
While there is one red Rabbit from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Rabbit Battery, that set will rotate out of Standard in the autumn of 2024. The three other Rabbits that will remain in the format are white and green.
Otters
Otters look to be the creature type for red and blue thanks to a couple of sources from the preview panel. Ral, Crackling Wit is an anthropomorphized version of the planeswalker Ral.
The Starter Kit also shows off a legendary blue and red Otter Rogue — Bria, Riptide Rogue.
Two Otters were included in Wilds of Eldraine, both being blue with adventures that touched red and green.
Frogs
Frogs are another confirmed type in Bloomburrow, but the color identity for them isn’t verified even though they most likely are either green and blue or green and black.
The art for Glarb, Calamity’s Augur was unveiled in the panel and another frog shows up in the bottom left of an illustration depicting many of the animals on the plane.
Frogs also show up on the Collector Booster display packaging.
All Frogs from recent Standard sets have been green, but they also venture into black, blue, and even white (in the case of Thalia and the Gitrog Monster, though the white is clearly meant for Thalia in this instance). Frogs even pop up as artifact creatures in the form of Papercraft Decoy and Halo Hopper.
Of these six Frogs, Grolnok and Papercraft Decoy will rotate out of Standard in the autumn of 2024.
Bats
Bats are a religious group on Bloomburrow and the cleric Zoraline, Cosmos Caller is important enough to have its card art revealed and appear in the group shot used above.
The color pair for Bats wasn’t revealed, but the main possibilities would be black and white or black and blue, with white and black getting the nod here due to its association with Clerics in past sets. The Lost Caverns of Ixalan featured three Bats: Deep-Cavern Bat, Ruin-Lurker Bat, and a Bat God — Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal.
Courier Bat will rotate out of Standard with Innistrad: Crimson Vow, but Voidwing Hybrid shows a blue and black Bat from Phyrexia: All Will Be One, leaving the door open for Bats to be the type for blue and black.
Raccoons
While Raccoons weren’t mentioned by name from any of the panelists on Friday, they do appear a handful of times in recent Standard sets and look to be a potential theme for the red and green commander deck from Bloomburrow — Animated Army.
The image of the Raccoon wielding a staff with a Hedron is quite the hint, along with the phrase “Make Trash, Do Smash” on the front of the packaging. No other art from the preview panel depicts a Raccoon, so it might be a clever misdirect, but the five Standard-legal Raccoons all happen to land in green and red.
Again, Streets of New Capenna is one of the sets rotating from Standard later this year, so that removes the only black Raccoon (Masked Bandits) and Cabaretti Initiate, who happens to include white in its activated ability cost.
Rats
If Bats do turn out to be the type for white and black, Rats would likely be the type for blue and black. While Rats don’t appear in any of the Bloomburrow preview art so far, it would echo the themes of Wilds of Eldraine where Mice and Rats show up as somewhat opposing forces of Rodentia.
There are a bunch of Rats in Standard already thanks to Rat Ninjas from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and the Rats from Wilds of Eldraine. Though the Rat Ninjas will leave Standard with rotation, Phyrexian Rats from Phyrexia: All Will Be One can replace them — there are even Rats from The Brothers’ War, March of the Machine, and March of the Machine: The Aftermath.
Nashi, Moon’s Legacy shows a Rat in blue and black that will stay in Standard through rotation, while Silver-Fur Master will rotate out along with Greasefang, Okiba Boss — the only black and white Rat currently in Standard.
Badgers
Badgers were mentioned on the stream with the previewing of Hugs, Grisley Guardian, but much still remains up in the air with the creature type.
Hugs is described as an old Badger Warrior, but little else is known of the creature type. The colors in the background of Hugs’ art make it look like Badgers could be the black and green creature type. This would line up with the only Standard-legal Badger being Bog Badger from Dominaria United — a green creature with a black kicker ability.
Other Badgers from Magic’s past all have been green or red, though the red Badgers have been Rock Badger from Mercadian Masques (which was originally a Beast) and Surly Badgersaur from Commander 2020.
One strike against Badgers being the creature type for black and green could be the Squirreled Away commander deck, but a lack of Squirrels in Standard might mean that theme is only used for the commander deck.
Birds
The final two creature types have the biggest question marks surrounding them. Birds are not mentioned in the preview panel, but the art for the Family Matters commander deck sure looks to focus on a creature of the avian variety.
The Family Matters deck is red, white, and blue and the packaging features a feathered friend with a beak playing a lute. As we know red and white are Mice, and red and blue are Otters, the remaining color pair of blue and white could correspond to Birds. 18 of the 25 Birds in Standard are blue and eight of them are white. Of course, Birds show up in all colors, but the overwhelming majority appear in blue and white.
Lizards?
If all of the above-listed creature types are correct, that would leave red and black as the last color pair. The issue is the final creature type is a mystery. One remaining piece of art that was revealed but glossed over in the preview panel depicts a scaly creature name Gev, Scaled Scorch.
There are only four Lizards in Standard at the moment and two of them are green.
With one of the red Lizards leaving Standard with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, we can speculate on other possible creature types for red and black.
Insects?
Many insects are technically scaled, so Gev might be their representative. This is a stretch as Gev resembles a Lizard or even a Dinosaur, but take a look at how many Insects appear in red and black before discounting the idea.
There are a handful of Insects that will remain in Standard after rotation, mostly in black, though Krenko’s Buzzcrusher gives red one even if it is an artifact creature.
Dogs?
This last possibility uses no evidence from the preview panel for Bloomburrow, but leans heavily into Dogs being a fan-favorite creature type that also happens to have a couple appear in red and black as of late.
Dogs are the biggest stretch in this article, even more so as one would expect the preview panel to show off some art of Dogs if they were involved in the story, but it did line up as one of the few animal creature types fitting both red and black.
Do keep in mind all of these ideas are predictions and the only confirmed type by color pair is Mice. While many of the types and color pairs make sense and have some evidence leading to their identity, Bloomburrow is still many months away.
What of these predictions do you believe are correct? Do any of the types need to be shifted to another color? Let us know in the comments or replies on social media.
