After the events of Midnight Hunt, it's time for us to delve back into the eternal night of Innistrad and take a prowl around the stalking grounds of the Voldaren estate for we've heard that the preparations for a grand wedding is underway, and you wouldn't want to miss the festivities with these children of the night!

In Crimson Vow, we shift our focus from werewolves to vampires, and we get a whole heaping dose of these stylish blood-craving socialites in the set in additions to other creatures that go bump in the night! Let us take you for a quick tour of what to expect in this gorgeous Victorian-esque, Dracula inspired set! If  the lore behind these Bram Stoker inspired entities pique your interest, or you love brooding vampire slayers like Van Helsing, or just like twilight in general, this is the set for you!

From the four prominent vampire families in Innistrad, we are graced by the leaders of the 4 major vampiric houses of Innistrad and boy oh boy, are things going to get bloody on this special day.


Vampires love blood

Crimson Vow introduces a whole slew of vampires new and old and a new token in the form of Blood tokens. Blood tokens are colorless artifact tokens with "{1}, {T}, Discard a card, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card." and seem to continue the trend of vampires and madness (Being able to play cards via an alternate cost when discarded) type of effects. These tokens allow players to cycle through their deck when needed, help facilitate graveyard based strategies, and also help certain vampires in the set trigger abilities like leeching life and immortality.

In addition to our cold blooded friends, we also have more friends from the other side who can't wait to do a little mischief of their own! Whether they are stuck in the plane of the living, or being summoned from death and beyond, if you want to go soul searching on Innistrad, you won't have to look very far at all.


They're here to disturb the living...

Don't we all love the quintessential spooky boys and girls of the horror genre? These spirits are here for a little visit, and they don't really mean to disturb... or do they? Following the latest trends from Midnight Hunt, these stylish spectres are here to party and give off some bad juju if your party ain't cool enough, so better bring your best jokes or your exorcism tools, or get ready to be disturbed with some curses!



By paying the disturb cost on the front side of these cards, they returns from your graveyard transformed and ready to inflict various boons and ailments on friend and foe in the form of auras, but once they leave the field after being played by this mechanic, they go bye bye into the afterlife in the exile pile! This has some neat synergy with cards that require a discard cost *Winkbloodtokenwink*, or just give added value by virtue of being a second card when sent to the graveyard!  Decks that want access to more enchantments also stand to benefit from these cards in the later stages of the game! 

But we aren't nearly done yet, as we add another contender to the trifecta of terror! If you haven't heard the shambling outside in the streets or the ghastly moans of these fallen spookies, get ready for the door crashing reappearance of Zombies are they are bringing exploit back.


Need a hand? Or maybe an entire creature?

The zombies have learnt that zombies together strong, and they are back for blood as they trample over both the living and the dead. Exploit allows the cards to gain powerful abilities if a sufficient sacrifice of one whole creature was made and the blood gods have been pleased. Afterall, there is nothing like a little blood ritual to get your destructive juices flowing!

With all these skittering ghouls around in the pitch black eternal night, are there any who would still stand up against the darkness after the fall of Avacyn? Fortunately for us, there are still people who train and fight for a brighter tomorrow.

 
100 sit ups, push ups, squats and a 10km run. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

If you've ever felt the need to go even further beyond, training is what you need. Every great hero begins as an apprentice and needs a good mentor to fully bring out their potential! This is where training shines as whenever a creature with training attacks alongside a creature of greater power, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on the creature with training, making them stronger, slowly but surely, each time they enter battle alongside stronger allies! 

But what good is all the training in the world if you don't have the street smarts to go with it? Sometimes, in addition to training hard, you've got to train smart, cut a few corners here and there, and find loopholes that increase your chances of winning. 

 
If there is no path forward, just cleave a way through.

Did we mention to cut corners? We meant cut some card text actually. With the new cleave mechanic, you get to shave away at some text that might be holding you back from greatness. Want to draw 5000 cards from your scute swarm mob? Cleave. Need a tutor effect? Just cleave. Want to take an extra turn without losing at the end of that turn after turn after turn in your Izzet Goldspan Epiphany deck? We cleave again. 

Cleave is primarily found on instant and sorcery cards for now and it offers you an alternative cleave cost, to which if paid, lets you ignore the bracketed card text on the card. This lets you play around possibly detrimental effects in order to receive the boons of such cards with no drawback if you have the resources to pay for it! 

And rounding out our lead cast of heroes with the Planeswalkers from this set and they are dressed to impress, or kill, in Chandra's and Kaya's case. Even on his granddad's wedding night, poor ol' Sorin just can't catch a break, trouble and misery does love company afterall.



We're just missing a werewolf to form the new cast of Twilight.

And of course, the pièce de résistance of the set - The alternate art Dracula Series cards. Bringing the series to life card by card and giving Dracula fans everywhere some delicious neck biting fan-service. Playing a vampire themed deck has never been this close to the source till today!



With all that said and done, we hope that everyone will enjoy all the beautiful and powerful cards that Crimson Vow has to offer once they are released tomorrow! We know we will, and we await your arrival to the grand stage that the new Mrs. Markov has set for us.