Bloomburrow is quite possibly one of the biggest successes of modern-day Magic.

The set's world features tons of small, anthropomorphic animals going on adventures, getting into mischief, or just going about their lives. It's not unlike, say, Redwall or The Secret of NIMH.

Given the passionate following for those stories and others like them, it's no wonder that the set was such a hit. Thanks to its cute, fuzzy appeal, it even attracted a whole host of new fans to the game.

Bloomburrow brought more than phenomenal flavor; it was also fantastic due to the wide swath of truly outstanding cards we got with the release. That strength carries over to the set's 22 Mythic Rares, which are especially impressive.

Today, I'm ranking all of them, including a pair of standout Legendary Creatures from the Starter Set.

22. Season of the Bold

Season of the Bold does a lot of neat things, but none of them are done particularly well. For example, creating a bunch of Treasures can be nice, but paying five mana just to get five mana is always underwhelming.

Additionally, the final mode of dealing damage sounds nice, but only hitting Creatures makes it a tough sell.

The only mode that's potentially viable is the Exile effect. However, if you're getting four cards at most and a Treasure, then this just feels like a tremendously weak Mythic Rare.

21. Byrke, Long Ear of the Law

Byrke, Long Ear of the Law doesn't fair much better than Season of the Bold. Byrke requires quite a lot of mana to only dish out two counters and then simply die to your opponent.

Despite this, if you can both have it stick around and build around it with other +1/+1 counter effects, then you can find yourself dealing some massive damage with it quickly.

As far as Starter Deck exclusive cards go, this one is pretty solid, but it feels underwhelming against a fairly strong power level among Mythics in Bloomburrow.

20. Hugs, Grisly Guardian

Hugs, Grisly Guardian is a great example of why Season of the Bold feels so underwhelming. Why limit yourself to only four cards when you can ramp into playing a ton of cards, get a Creature out of the deal, and be able to play some extra Lands as well?

Hugs might not be a serious contender at the end of the day, but it's still great at doing one very specific thing in a short burst.

19. Season of Loss

Season of Loss is far more difficult to build around effectively compared to other cards in the Season cycle, but the abilities are substantially more impactful than the first card on our list.

If you don't have any Creatures, making your opponents sacrifice five apiece is huge. If you do have Creatures on the board, then you can set yourself up to draw plenty of cards out of the exchange as well.

Best of all, though, if you have a graveyard full of Creatures, you can absolutely decimate your opponents' life totals.

This is very much a Commander and Cube only card at the end of the day, but you can see how good the cards here can be even at the lower end of this list.

18. Warren Warleader

I've been around long enough that I remember how awesome Hero of Bladehold was once upon a time. Warren Warleader is sometimes better, sometimes worse.

Hero of Bladehold did both token creation and power-ups, allowing for you to engage in some serious attacks. Warren Warleader, by comparison, only lets you do one or the other, though if you make the Offspring token, you can do both.

The powerful swings this card generates make it good enough to be a Limited bomb but, beyond that, there are typically just better options available to you. For my money, Hero of Bladehold is much better than this on average, and that card predates this one by well over a decade.

17. Season of the Burrow

If you want to make a bunch of tokens, though, Season of the Burrow is a great way to do it. If you want, you can cast it and just make five 1/1 tokens. That's not the best, but not the worst either.

The real power here, as with many of the Season cards, is the flexibility. You can make tokens, exile problematic permanents, or returning a small-to-medium Creature and make it perpetually Indestructible.

There's a lot of solid stuff that makes it pretty decent, though not necessarily top-tier among the Season spells.

16. The Infamous Cruelclaw

As soon as it previewed, The Infamous Cruelclaw got a number of players very excited. There were rumblings that you could play it in such a way that you could manipulate your deck and cheat something like an Atraxa, Grand Unifier into play. People wondered about its impact on older formats. Could you cast a free Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and win the game?

None of this ended up happening in Competitive Constructed play, but it was a fun bit of theorycrafting that proved it was an interesting design.

While it didn't make the cut in 60 card play, it did find many homes in Commander for its ability to cheat big cards into play with ease.

15. Eluge, the Shoreless Sea

What's cool about Eluge, the Shoreless Sea is that you can use it to shut down problematic Lands on your opponent's board or do it on your own to fuel Eluge's abilities.

Thanks to those abilities, you don't get quite as much value if you go after your opponents' Lands, which incentivizes you to not be cruel to your opponents.

Best of all, though, Eluge will also make your Instants and Sorceries much cheaper, allowing you to get up to a lot of nonsense in the process. Just imagine getting to cast a ton of extra spells for free every turn.

This has made Eluge, the Shoreless Sea into one heck of a Commander all-star, even if it doesn't see very much Constructed play.

14. Stormsplitter

Stormsplitter is a fun and interesting take on the Storm mechanic without using it by name.

Rather than copying your spell for every other spell cast during the turn, it copies itself whenever you cast an Instant or Sorcery. The more you cast, the more exponential the copying becomes.

This has allowed Stormsplitter to become a solid finisher in Otter Combo decks in Standard once you establish your loop. This also makes it a modest player in Commander where it can do more over time rather than in one burst the way most Storm cards act.

13. Season of Weaving

Season of Weaving is really sweet if you simply play it as a Commander card. Drawing a bunch and creating copies of Artifacts and/or Creatures is great value on its own. If you really need to, you can do a bouncing board wipe in a pinch.

What might surprise you, though, is the fact that this card also found itself to be a big player in Standard for a time. Prior to the banning of Abuelo's Awakening, Azorius Omniscience players would use this alongside Invasion of Arcavios.

Together, they allowed you to make a token copy of Omniscience, bounce the Invasion back to your hand, and then replay it to get back Season of Weaving to create a loop. Eventually, you would find a card out of your deck that would allow you to defeat your opponent one way or another to end the game.

12. Kitsa, Otterball Elite

Here is another card that's made a minor splash in Standard as a one-of or two-of in select decks. Kitsa, Otterball Elite has barely shown up recently but, that's fine, it's got a great set of abilities for Commander.

Looting by itself is pretty worthwhile, especially since you can attack with Kitsa first. The real power, though, is getting Kitsa big enough that you can land a big Prowess-fueled attack only to copy a massive spell afterwards and demolish your opponents in the process.

11. Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest

Commander players love a big ol' Dragon with a sweet effect, which made Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest an instant favorite in the format.

After all, you're playing with no shortage of big Creatures, making it super easy to generate plenty of value and chip away at all your opponents' life totals.

Perhaps more notable, though, is the card's recent impact on Standard as well. Boros Dragons has popped up a modest amount in recent months thanks to the printing of Momo, Friendly Flier as one of the deck's top-end cards. That's given Dragonhawk quite a bit of shine since it released.

10. Helga, Skittish Seer

Breaking ino the top ten, it's Helga, Skittish Seer. She gets a solid shoutout here mostly because she's one of the most popular Commanders in the format.

According to EDHREC, she has cracked the top 100 Commanders list, solidifying her status as a popular card. After all, who doesn't love getting tons of value just for casting big spells?

Despite this popularity in the Command Zone, Helga sees very little play anywhere else. She's unpopular in the 99 and rarely sees Competitive play.

9. Bria, Riptide Rogue

Bria, Riptide Rogue is substantially better than the other Starter Deck exclusive Mythic for this set.

Otters as a Creature type have become beloved by players, in no small part thanks to their prevalence in Competitive Magic. Giving all your Creatures Prowess is huge if you build your deck around it, and even more when the same card allows them to become unblockable as you cast more spells.

All of this has made Bria not only a well-loved critter, but a shockingly expensive card as well thanks to its one printing so far.

8. Maha, Its Feathers Night

Humility-style effects are extremely powerful and are mainstays in Commander. While we'll never see another true Humility again thanks to the rule headaches they cause, the Tempest classic can still inspire cards like this one.

Maha, Its Feathers Night has seen play virtually nowhere other than Commander, but it became a bona fide staple of the format nearly immediately upon release.

Not only that, but it became quite widely feared, as it would make all their Creatures vulnerable to the slightest damage. It's a devastating card.

7. Rottenmouth Viper

Rottenmouth Viper provides an extremely aspirational design. It's a huge threat that's not bad to play for its base cost but it is much better if you can sacrifice plenty of permanents to cast it cheaply.

Since many decks love to sacrifice things, that should make it easy to get this on the battlefield for three mana or less.

Once it is on the battlefield, it goes to town on opponents' life totals and boards fast. The more opportunities you get to attack with it, the more devastating it becomes. Though it's rarely the best thing you can be doing in most games, it's a fun way to try going for the win in both Constructed and Commander.

6. Season of Gathering

Season of Gathering is a heavy-hitting card in Commander; it's easily one of the best cards in the set for the format. You can create a massive Overrun effect, blow up tons of Artifacts and/or Enchantments, or draw a ton of cards based on the power of your biggest Creature.

Every one of these modes is a classic of the format. You can probably think of lots of cards that do all of this in different ways, but few offer you the level of choice and flexibility this does.

That diversity is sure to make it one of the best-in-class options that Green Commander decks will want for years to come.

5. Glarb, Calamity's Augur

It might seem a bit weird to have Glarb, Calamity's Augur so high on this list. After all, it ranks in the middle of the pack for the 99 per EDHREC and is a fringe player at best in select Standard decks.

However, he's here because he's in EDHREC's top 50 Commanders list. As of the time of writing, he ranks at 46, because players love getting to just play stuff off the top of the deck and build whatever good-stuff they can.

That's a little harder to make work inside of a deck rather than at its helm but still adds up to being one of the sweetest Mythic Rares of Bloomburrow.

4. Lumra, Bellow of the Woods

Lumra, Bellow of the Woods is easily the most popular Mythic Rare of the set for Commander. In just about any Green deck, she returns tons of Lands from your graveyard back to the battlefield and gets huge in all kinds of Ramp decks.

While Lumra's far more popular in the 99, she's no slouch in the Command Zone where you can build around the ability far more effectively.

This card's not just a Casual all-star, though. It's been a strong player in the Pioneer Scapeshift combo deck that loops copies of Lumra and Aftermath Analyst much like Amulet Titan does in Modern. Some copies of Amulet Titan have used it as well, and it's even shown up a little in Standard too.

Many of the Constructed showings are a bit fringe, but there's no denying one simple fact: Lumra rules.

3. Ral, Crackling Wit

If Bria, Riptide Rogue was a solid example of what's so great about Otters, Ral, Crackling Wit is a perfect one.

This version of everyone's favorite Izzet Planeswalker isn't just aesthetically awesome. Given enough time, Ral absolutely drowns your opponent in a deluge of Otter tokens. In a pinch, you can also use him to sift through your library to find the gas you really need in the moment.

Best of all, though, is how Ral's static ability allows you to very easily activate the ultimate. You haven't lived until you've cast Stock Up with Storm count at four.

This multifaceted gameplay has made Ral, Crackling Wit a huge player in Standard and a minor player in other Constructed formats. It's even become a fan favorite in Commander - a format known for being hostile to Planeswalkers.

All that makes him easily one of the best Mythic Rares Bloomburrow has to offer.

2. Ygra, Eater of All

Right around the time Bloomburrow was released, Pioneer was making a modest splash in the Competitive scene. With Pioneer Regional Championships and associated Qualifiers happening, the format was at the forefront of many players' minds.

A very popular deck in the format had long been various flavors of Rakdos () and Jund () Sacrifice. These decks would use Cauldron Familiar and Witch's Oven to establish a slow loop. Mayhem Devil would also frequently be used to speed up this kill line.

Bloomburrow gave the deck two powerful cards in Ygra, Eater of All and Scavenger's Talent. With an active Ygra and two Cauldron Familiars, you could infinitely sacrifice your Cauldron Familiars to reanimate the other copy for a quick kill.

Scavenger's Talent would allow you to reanimate Ygra to go off with the combo, turning Ygra, Eater of All into a major player in the process.

1. Beza, the Bounding Spring

No Mythic Rare from Bloomburrow has had quite the Competitive pedigree that Beza, the Bounding Spring has seen.

This powerful Creature provides Control decks a way to stabilize against Aggro strategies with ease. Not only does it reliably make a couple small 1/1 Fish tokens and gain you some life, but it might even draw you a card and make a Treasure as well. All that comes on a huge 4/5 body for only four mana.

There was a time when Timely Reinforcements would see play to help provide this kind of stabilization. Instead, we now get Beza who puts that classic card to absolute shame.

No Control deck in Standard or Pioneer in the Bloomburrow era should be without it.

Paige Smith

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