MTG Bloomburrow is a special expansion that takes us to a new plane filled with some of the smallest heroes Magic has ever seen. The Valley’s anthropomorphic critters are focused on gathering resources and working together to fend off predatory Calamity beasts. Wizards of the Coast even tapped artist David Petersen (creator of the Eisner-winning “Mouse Guard” graphic novels) to help bring the world of Bloomburrow to life.

This new plane has some interesting mechanics that will be a lot of fun to explore. Some of these are new, but others are already familiar to players from past sets. For example, the critter-centric raccoonfolk have an ability that allows them to forage through their own graveyard and Food tokens to find cards that would be useful to their owners. This can be a powerful tool for raccoonfolk decks, but it can also lead to some messy situations.

One of the other new mechanics is Rottenmouth Viper, a 6/6 creature that gets Blight counters each time it enters the battlefield or attacks, making it harder for opponents to keep up with its health. Then there’s Marigold Knight, a 6/5 creature that’s hard to block while attacking. The Valley’s critters have a ton of creature abilities that give them more than just strength and damage, though.

As usual, some of these creature abilities are quite simple, while others have more complicated rules. The raccoonfolk’s foraging ability, for instance, only triggers when you’ve spent an amount of mana in total on casting spells during your turn, and it can only be done once per turn. The frogfolk’s second ability only checks the power and toughness of a creature when it enters the battlefield, which means it won’t care if that creature gains or loses counters from other effects.

In addition to these creatures, MTG Bloomburrow has several new mechanics. These include Forage, which gives a variety of benefits to raccoonfolk that make use of their graveyard and Food tokens, as well as Valiant, an ability that triggers off many different spells and abilities. Other mechanics in the set include a new way to cast a creature spell if you haven’t paid its Offspring cost, and three-card draw when you exile a card from your graveyard or sacrifice a Food token.

Finally, this set includes Imagine: Critters, a special variant that takes past planeswalkers and imagines them as critter-themed versions of themselves. Jace the Mind Sculptor and Tamiyo, Field Researcher are just two examples. This is the first set to feature these unique variants since Magic: The Gathering—The Gathering 2023—and it’s sure to add a fun twist to any game of MTG. You can pick up your copy of MTG Bloomburrow on August 2 when it hits stores around the world. Until then, check out the latest news and preorder info here!