Before Bloomburrow, many animals only had a handful of cards. Now, they're getting a boost to their numbers.
When Bloomburrow comes out at the end of the month, it is going to drastically change the number of animal/animalfolk cards out there.
Some already have a bunch. Frogs, for example, have had 43 cards coming into Bloomburrow. Foxes have 46. Birds? 367. Lizards are at 143. Bats have 32, and so on.
Some of the animals, though, are a bit more rare. Squirrels have had 15 over the years. Rabbits have had 12. Two new ones (so far) are being introduced: Weasel and Skunk. But pretty much the rarest becoming one of the main animals of Bloomburrow are otters.
Before Bloomburrow there were only six otters. On the beeble scale they were even given a 5/10, meaning that they needed the right place to bring them back, which, looking at Bloomburrow, makes sense.
Otters, to be fair, were a later addition in Magic. The type never even had their own cards until Ikoria in 2020. The first card, Lutri the Spellchaser, pretty much a forerunner to what we'd be seeing in Bloomburrow, was even banned shortly after being released. Thanks to it being spoiled early, it was banned in Commander almost right off the bat.
Others that came after were few and far between, meaning that Bloomburrow is going to at least double the amount. Right now, two are known: otter form Ral and then Bria, Riptide Rogue -- the latter of whom will be featured in the "Otter Limits" half of the set's starter kit. Of course, many expansions often greatly bump up the number of cards that creature has been on, especially rarer ones.
But considering just how many not many used creature types are in Bloomburrow, and not to mention the expansion that will follow, animal cards are going to see a huge bump up in the next year. And like other focused expansions in the past, all animal decks and strategies are probably going to be a lot more normal in the future - including some never seen before. The magic creators even confirmed this in the latest Magic podcast.
We already saw both otter and rabbit decks being a thing through the starter decks. And for tournaments in the future, it may not be so far-fetched to see something like an otter deck leading someone to victory. That is a major possibility.
