Oh no! It’s Halloween and we haven’t had our Bloomburrow or Duskmourn Elves All The Way Down review? That won’t do.

Bloomburrow was a weird set for Elf fans. We had a bunch of Elfy things happening, but being done by small woodland critters without a single Elf in sight. Regardless of this lack of Elves, we still have some cards worth talking about, so let’s do that.

As always, this review focuses exclusively on a card’s application in Elves decks across Magic‘s many formats. If you think there’s a cool card for your Frogs deck in Standard (like the one that took over the stream for one week), this isn’t the review for that. (That card’s still cool though, whatever it is.) The rating given at the end of each entry is out of five Trees and applies to whichever format the card suits best.

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The… Elves?

Keen-Eyed Curator

Bloomburrow brings us an interesting variation on Scavenging Ooze. It’s always good to have access to this kind of card in any format, especially as a silver bullet in a deck that can search for it. However, Keen-Eyed Curator will almost certainly not exist in format without access to Scavenging Ooze. That makes it worth comparing them directly to work out when we should be playing which one.

Scavenging Ooze’s pros include:

• An easy starting mana cost of one and a Green compared to two Green.
• Life gain whenever the ooze eats a creature card.
• It (potentially) gets bigger one activation at a time.
• No maximum to how big it can get.

Keen-Eyed Curator’s pros include:

• A larger starting body at 3/3.
• A less colour-intensive activated ability – taking generic mana rather than Green.
• The ability to get large when eating things other than creatures.
• Trample (eventually).

Comparing the two, we can see that the metagame and build of the Elf deck in question will determine which option is better. If lifegain matters, Scooze wins out. If you’re in lots of different colours, the generic activation of Curator pulls ahead. All in all, I’d keep this new option from Bloomburrow in mind whenever you’re considering Scavenging Ooze for a deck or sideboard and choose on a case-by-case basis.

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Wandertale Mentor

When Bloomburrow first released, it was suggested we try out Wandertale Mentor on stream. The idea was that it could be a mana dork that didn’t die to Orcish Bowmasters, could add more than just Green and grow as the game went on.

The biggest issue with the Mentor was the Red in the casting cost. Sure, it’s nice to get to attack with a 4/4 or 5/5 creature when you no longer need a mana dork. However, in Modern, where we were testing it, a two-mana creature really needs to do more to keep up.

It doesn’t help that Mentor isn’t a Raccoon Druid, so you can’t even get overlap on creature types for Cavern of Souls.

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Everything Else

Dawn’s Truce

Dawn’s Truce is Bloomburrow‘s take on a Heroic Intervention style card. Unfortunately, to get the full boardwipe protection, you have to give your opponent an extra card. So, what do you get in return? Well, YOU get Hexproof, regardless of whether you gifted a card or not. This gives you potential counterplay against Burn decks or a bunch of Valakut triggers.

Overall, Heroic Intervention will generally do what we need more often. However, it’s worth at least being aware of Dawn’s Truce as an option in that sideboard slot. To be honest, I’m playing these effects a lot less often these days. They’re not completely gone, however.

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Three Tree City

During Bloomburrow spoiler season, a lot of people were excited for Three Tree City. I can see the appeal. The dream of tapping it for ten additional mana and Ezuri’ing your opponent into the dust is everything an Elf player wants.

However, modern games of competitive Magic don’t really go in that direction any more. If you’ve got that large a board with Elves, you’re probably already winning, so the extra mana doesn’t help. What Elves really need is help in the match-ups where you have 1-2 Elves on board. As a result, Three Tree City doesn’t have a chance in formats like Modern or Legacy.

If your local Modern scene is a place where Three Tree City is good, then I’m very jealous and would love to get to play there.

Don’t let all this stop you from running the City in your Commander decks. To be honest, over in EDH, all bets are off and you can find those boardstates where this is good.

For Commander:

Everywhere else:

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Parting Thoughts

Yet another short review. We haven’t been getting that many Elves recently, to be honest. Despite this, I really like Bloomburrow. The set feels much more like a classic Magic set of exploring a new setting like Innistrad or Khans of Tarkir. I do also enjoy the creature shenanigans that the set provides, even if it’s Frogs doing it rather than Elves.

Looking forward, we’ve had some unfortunate news. Our return to Lorwyn has been pushed back into 2026. So, we have to wait even longer to get to the plane that could be Elves’ salvation. Luckily, Magic Foundations spoilers are in full swing and it looks like we’re getting some classic Elves back. We might even be going back to Standard sooner than expected.

As always, I’ve been trying out some Bloomburrow cards on stream, so if you want to see some of them in action, head over on a Thursday evening (UK time). Always happy for new viewers in chat to talk about these new cards with. If you’re interested in previous sets, you can find all of our older Elves All The Way Down reviews here.