Baylen, the Haymaker – Bloomburrow
Date Reviewed: Sept. 6, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.53
Casual: 4.75
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.50
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
On a first reading, Baylen reminded me of Staff of Domination: provide enough of a second resource to pay the costs, and you can do almost anything. We’re primed to look for things that generate excessive amounts of mana, and doing something similar for tokens may require a little more thinking, but you don’t actually need to go infinite to get Baylen’s benefits. Even just one or two activations of the supposedly less threatening abilities can put you out of sight when used right. And that’s before accounting that when you’re playing with Bloomburrow cards, it’s almost hard to avoid generating tokens; or that all those red cards where you might be getting tired of reading about Treasure tokens look very different in this context, as does anything that creates a seemingly tacked-on 1/1.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 5
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
The surfeit of tokens in Bloomburrow sometimes pays off interestingly, and Baylen, the Haymaker is maybe a bit more…direct a pay-off. You can tap any tokens for one of their three abilities, and all three of them certainly have their upshots. Mana acceleration, card draw, and powering up are all ways to force a game forward, and so long as you have some tokens, Baylen can spring to work immediately. While I think their best home is Commander, since it’s harder to keep something dead there, there could be a home for Baylen in Standard, able to help refuel and push for game in one package.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 4.5
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
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