Perch Protection – Bloomburrow Commander
Date Reviewed: August 16, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 2.63
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 5.00
Multiplayer: 4.50
Commander [EDH]: 4.50
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
It’s so easy to lose yourself in that long stretch of text, and/or the apparent disadvantage of letting your opponent draw a card, and forget that this card also creates eight power worth of creatures over four tokens at instant speed. Personally, I don’t think of it as just a second Teferi’s Protection; I think of it as a card you use to ambush your opponents and win races unexpectedly. An extra card does nothing if your opponents can’t affect you or anything you control. That is, of course, the best case scenario, and there will be many times that it won’t quite line up right, but the times that it does, you’ll win in spectacular fashion. We all need to be careful about assessing Bloomburrow‘s gift mechanic: it’s easy to fall into the trap of needing to wring maximum value out of every spell no matter what and forget that you don’t need to promise a gift every time you cast such a card. Some of them are good even if you don’t, and Perch Protection is a great example of that.
Constructed: 2.5 (it doesn’t read like a typical Legacy card, but strange things happen)
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
Scores reflect Perch Protection’s legality in Legacy and Vintage. I’ll include a Limited score, because I’m not sure how Play Boosters apportion the Commander subset cards.
The most eye-catching part of Perch Protection is that top line of text: “gift an extra turn”. That’s right, Perch Protection’s gift-giving is a massive swing, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Giving a gift also turns part of this card into Teferi’s Protection, which will usually guarantee you live to see a next turn…and, notably, the protection lasts until you start your next turn, so this theoretically means you can let an opponent beat up on everyone else before swooping in for the kill.
Speaking of swooping, Perch Protection’s “actual” effect is making four decently-sized birds, and it’s pretty reasonable! Six mana for eight evasive power in the “go wide” color represents clear and present danger that needs to be answered…and they phase out with the rest of your stuff if that part of this spell is triggered. So, in effect, it’s Teferi’s Protection that tries to put you in a better position to push for lethal when your turn comes around, a sort of setting up of offense while playing defense.
Perch Protection is high-risk, high-reward. There are times where handing an extra turn over ay cost you the game, because this doesn’t keep opponents from winning outright…and, s always, giving one more turn can make for a board you can’t swing back through. That said, as far as spells that let you weather the storm go, this one may well be one of the best at enabling you to actually win. Six mana makes this a very hard sell in Legacy, but it can sometimes win you a game, so use with caution.
Constructed: 2.75 (I can see someone trying to make it work)
Casual: 4
Limited: 5 (play this for the birds)
Multiplayer: 4.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
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