![]() ![]() Selesnya ( ) humans is generally aggressive just like Boros but probably gets even more leverage out of +1/+0 for training bumps.Good 1-drops are valuable in aggro decks and this is clearly a better card than Voldaren Epicure or Unholy Officiant. This is a cheap and aggressive creature that helps you trade up/race in Boros ( ) aggro.If you can connect with whatever creature you’re pumping, this is gain-1/deal-1 each turn which is much better than most 1-drops. This card is closer to Healer's Hawk than it may appear and has generally overperformed most player’s expectations (myself included).Rather than reviewing every common in the set, I wanted to contextualize a few into the larger picture of how they fit into 2-color archetypes. Syphon Essence | Illustration by Sean Murray One positive aspect of this theme is that the engine cards are all individually reasonable and lots of decent cards happen to be toughness-slanted. These cards all leverage the normally terrible Unhallowed Phalanx to fantastic effect (13/13, deal 13, gain 13 life, or 13/13 again). This is a powerful but narrow theme that’s mostly limited to four payoffs: Ancient Lumberknot, Catapult Fodder, Flourishing Hunter, and (surprisingly) Geralf, Visionary Stitcher. Balancing fodder creatures, exploit creatures, and targets for Repository Skaab is tricky and not always doable. One exploit card that’s been somewhat difficult to play for me is Repository Skaab. Exploit can also be valuable against enchantment-based removal like Sigarda's Imprisonment and Fear of Death. There are also some uncommons like Undead Butler and Biolume Egg that make for even better fodder. ExploitĮxploit‘s basic gameplay loop in VOW is to play a Persistent Specimen, Lantern Bearer, Wretched Throng, or Doomed Dissenter and then sacrifice it to any of nine exploit cards for value. An exception to this would be if you need to hit an out for lethal or to answer something broken like Toxrill, the Corrosive, in which case throwing away decent cards for your one of Hero's Downfall becomes a must.ĭiminishing returns on Blood tokens matters far less when you have payoffs like Restless Bloodseeker, Anje, Maid of Dishonor, Voldaren Bloodcaster, and Wedding Security. This is because once you’ve addressed land/spell count imbalances through rummaging, you likely won’t want to trade spells you have for random cards. I could even see 19 lands being justifiable with enough cards like Grisly Ritual.Īnother aspect of Blood worth noting is that it has some diminishing returns on its own. I’ve played 18 lands already in Sealed and been very pleased with it. You’d prefer to discard extra lands to Blood tokens rather than extra spells, which means that decks with high Blood counts should play 17 lands at minimum and never 16 or less. As a “rummaging” mechanic that costs to activate, Blood’s play pattern plays better with more mana than less. It appears almost entirely on Rakdos ( ) cards with a few small exceptions ( Syphon Essence and Sigarda's Imprisonment plus two rares). Blood Tokensīlood is the set’s main smoothing mechanic. This important change informs a lot of smaller deckbuilding decisions in Azorius shells, making cards like Supernatural Rescue and Wanderlight Spirit better than they may appear. Most Azorius decks in Crimson Vow want to race their opponent with fliers/bounce spells while Midnight Hunt Azorius was much more capable of holding down the ground and translating trades into incremental advantages. Transformed disturb cards being auras instead of creatures has the predicted effect of making Azorius ( ) into a more aggressive color pair than it was. Practical ways to mitigate this are pump spells and equipment, as well cards like Gryffwing Cavalry and Estwald Shieldbasher which were clearly printed with training in mind. It can be difficult to attack favorably with cards like Hopeful Initiate and Parish-Blade Trainee unless your opponent stumbles. Training mostly played out a bit worse than I expected. If you aren’t familiar with the basics of the format, please read this thread first! Training I want to go over some overarching concepts to the format to get us started. Restless Bloodseeker | Illustration by Justyna Gil ![]()
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