How to get started with MTG Bloomburrow – the cutest expansion yet
Header art by Narendra Bintara Adi
Chances are that you’ve at least heard of Magic the Gathering. MTG, as it is known, is not only the card game that inspired the Pokémon TCG, but it’s what Stranger Things was going to be based around before the writers realised it didn’t work out, time wise. Instead they went with Dungeons and Dragons, a franchise that is not only closely linked, but owned by the same company, Wizards of the Coast (a subsidiary of Hasbro).
Until recently, MTG has relied heavily on the wizards (obviously), witches, knights, demons and so on that you would come across in D&D. Over the past few years the Universes Beyond supplementary product has expanded to crossover with other IPs. Starting with The Walking Dead and Warhammer 40k, this has expanded to cover everything from My Little Pony to Fallout, Transformers to Monty Python.
Image credit: Wizards of the Coast with art by Stephen Andrade
Yes, there is even a D&D set and a bunch of Stranger Things promos. This year saw the release of an Assassin’s Creed set (it was bad) and next year sees the release of a Final Fantasy set (which we hope will be amazing).
But before all that, we have the upcoming set Bloomburrow, which does away with all that high fantasy stuff and simply asks ‘What if Magic, but Watership Down?’
The elevator pitch for MTG is that you’re a Planeswalker that travels between planes of existence. Wherever you go, you fight other Planeswalkers using your deck of cards, wielding powerful magic and summoning the local denizens to your side. Sometimes that’s a knight or a demon you call on, sometimes it’s Optimus Prime.
This time, we’re heading to Bloomburrow, a plane where there are no humans: everything is a bat, a bunny, an otter or something else. And yes, it is heckin’ adorable. We’ll be here for a few months, before moving to the 80s horror-themed world of Duskmourn on 27 September.
Image credit: Wizards of the Coast with art by Aldo Dominquez, Cory Godbey
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