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Author: j2sjosh · November 15, 2021

The vampire wedding we've been waiting for is finally here, and it's time to sit down and reflect on what we learned in the first few days of the new series! Although years of experience have given us a good understanding of how cards are played, we really have to understand how they play in a new environment to truly master them.

Here are the cards that performed above or below expectations in VOW, or as I want to say, it’s time to see how big of a mistake we made in the preview season. The ratings in our limited rating list have also been updated:

The ability of Bloodsworn Squire sounds good on paper, but maintaining two mana is a considerable cost for an ability that both costs you a card and is easy to use. This will allow you to play Mountain Giant without any additional value, which is ridiculously behind the curve in 2021.

Even if you do manage to turn it into a bloodsworn knight, your creature will suddenly be vulnerable to accidental graveyard hatred. Most importantly, the best removal spell in this format gives -X/-X, which completely invalidates the immortal. I can continue, but in general, don't use this card unless you make a serious mistake in your draft.

I can understand why people think that continuous card dominance barriers look good for aggressive decks. The problem is that this is the textbook's definition of winning more cards. If you fall behind, it will never do anything. If you are ahead on the boat, then any other coordinated triple drop is most likely to get the job done, if not better than the hospitality curse.

Even if it is combined in some way and you are harmed by the curse, you will eventually get the card from your opponent's library. Cards of the same color and not synergistic with your plan will be worse than random cards in your own deck. I appreciate the hospitable experiment, but I will leave this curse to others.

Estwald Shieldbasher seems to be a key part of Serenia's training deck. Unfortunately, these cards are not suitable for that deck. Although this is a reliable card in itself, it is difficult to find a suitable home in Crimson Vow.

The biggest drawback of this card is that it will die in three different, heavily used, one mana removal spells. In the current format defined as using all mana per round, the rhythm from losing four points of mana to one mana spell is usually too large to recover.

I'm skeptical about Investigator's Journal's entry into this format, but many people think that the colorless draw will have a place in the Crimson Oath without all the card advantages of organ hoarders and rotten derivatives. The main problem is that the blood mark flows like water, and when everyone can filter out their excess land, the direct advantage doesn't make much sense.

Rest in peace seems to be the card advantage of Serenia's human deck and a repeatable source of life. Unfortunately, this is just another victim of the deck and cannot align well with other formats. Even if you do manage to collect all the cards for the deck, closing the four horns and doing nothing is the only way to lose the game.

The mischievous Catgeist ran into the problem that the limited decks are too efficient today. Each deck will deal with some issues early, so you rarely can slip in due to damage and get free cards. In a world full of larger creatures and cards, as a 2 mana 1/1 opponent, your opponent actively wants to weigh the trade-offs, which will lead to a sad kitten.

The only real chance is when the cat returns and manages to land on an escaping creature. The main disadvantage is that it becomes a target for immediate removal, and since you usually have to replace the cat for nothing, it makes you easily killed. Usually you will wait for an aura like this until you have a vacancy so that you can at least even draw a card, but in this case, you might end up losing it due to accidental graveyard hatred. 

Poor Mulch showed up a group too late. In Midnight Hunt, this will be a true powerhouse, dumping piles of value into your graveyard while making sure that you continue to hit your land and drop.

Unfortunately, Crimson Vow did not flashback, and the interference was limited to the halo. Except for some random cards like Bramble Wurm, you don't get much value from self-grinding. The only time to really play this is if you have one of the expensive bombs like Hullbreaker Horror, you need to hit the ground and drop it.

Most people think that Biolume Egg is a good card, but it has performed significantly better than expected so far. Obviously you should only play this in a deck with a sacrifice exit, but any deck that can hatch it should catch it as soon as possible.

The divination of the egg dropped in the third round allows you to make perfect use of it. These four toughnesses are almost impossible to attack in the early game, and it feels very good when your attack throws 4/4 for free.

The exploit deck relies heavily on synergy, and when you get all the pieces, you feel very unfair. The strange thing is that Dimir's poor performance actually helps build this deck because you are more likely to get everything you need.

After entering the Scarlet Oath, Bloodtithe Harvester seems to be an unusual great signpost. On the contrary, it is the best rare in the entire series. In fact, its hand winning percentage ranks fifth among all games, including rare and mythical. That's just a straight banana.

Why is it so good? In any case, it will bring some value higher than the rate of two dropped creatures. This extra value is much better than expected, and the blood mark feels like you throw about half a card for free.

The most important thing is that after you hit a few times, you can usually sacrifice your two drops to kill their biggest creatures while still preparing all the delicious blood.

Diregraf Scavenger looks like a card that gets eliminated occasionally because its mana is too expensive for its statistics, or it needs a creature in the yard to gain value. I can personally guarantee that I have played five of them in a deck and it feels great.

The effect of this card is far more than it seems. Whether the opponent is playing jamming creatures or recursion, being able to snipe cards from the opponent's yard is very valuable. Just like the vampire laying eggs we saw in AFR, Drain 2 is nothing to sneeze. 

The rest ⅔ Death Touch performs well on the board, negating 2/2 seconds or in exchange for better creatures.

Edgar's Awakening looks like your typical five mana zombie effect, except for the presence of blood marks, which is exactly what it looks like. Being able to sacrifice a drop of blood, use it to draw a card, and pay a "crazy" fee to return the creature you want to hand is a powerful ability.

Even playing it just for its basic cost is not a bad failure case, in a format full of bombs and in-game effect creatures. Drink coffee because I am ready to make this awakening part of any black deck that can produce blood derivatives.

Falkenrath Celebrants are expected to be your factories, with one or two of them as curvy top hats. One thing that makes it stand out from the other members of the vampire party is that it evades both Abrad and the bolt of flame blessing. A threat on 4/4 will usually cause your opponent to make a bad double cover and then be blown up by the same spell.

Another benefit of Celebrants is that they will bring party gifts, two attached blood markers, to ensure that the next pair of land you draw is directly filtered into gas, so that the celebration will last all night.

Snarling Wolf is a good example of why it is so important to treat each series as its own entity. Everyone (including me) regrets this reprint and wants to know why Wizards included it in the VOW after the MID failed.

Even if you look at it in the context of the Scarlet Oath, you would think that using three one-mana removal spells to solve this problem, it would be just as bad. This is a situation where green and red hatred get more support than MID. It allows early pressure, even if they do answer, they will not answer your other quick threats.

Another course where we did not learn the correct scoring series mechanism. When everyone thought Devious Cover-Up would be better, we seemed to have just experienced this through Flip the Switch. History only repeats itself on Siphon Essence and Syncopate, because the value of using the counter to get free is once again underestimated.

In a tournament system full of bombs, efficient creatures, and inefficient removal, the disadvantage of only hitting creatures or planeswalkers is not as important as you might think.

We really need to break the bad habit of assuming that all drops are within a limited range. The Minister of Travel is the ultimate team player, he will do a lot of small things to bring you to victory.

Every round of free life does not seem to be a big deal, but the more effective the form, the more important the accidental life. With powerful life gain triggers such as Markov Purifiers or Restless Blood Seekers, it will soon become more than accidental.

It even performs well in training, providing you with extra motivation to motivate your team. I have seen these things happen too late, and I suggest not to slam your door when the Minister of Travel comes knocking on the door.

Thank you for reading, and hope this will help you adjust your expectations when drafting the Scarlet Oath.

Go out now, crack those bags, and party like the sun will never appear!

Josh is a member of the elite limited team The Draft Lab and the host of The Draft Lab Podcast. Before some of you were born, he was indeed eligible to participate in professional tournaments, national tournaments and world tournaments. After the Magic interrupted playing cards and went to medical school, he has ruled Arena with a Bo3 winning rate of over 80% and ranked first in Mythic.

When I saw that Snarling Wolf was rated 1 in the previous article, I remembered how this creature performed in MID.

"We really need to break the bad habit of assuming that all drops are within a limited range."

Please do not! In this way, I can easily win at the beginning of the format before everyone and their dog figure it out, and then I start to score 0-3 🙂

But stop joking, yes, you are right, I don't know where this comes from, but it's totally crazy. On the day when I was still used to reading LSV scores, I was always looking for "criminally underrated 1-drop" because there was at least one in any group.

Having said that, I don't like Minister that much...not the card itself, it's good, but so far, I'm very disappointed with white overall. Maybe this is just a fluke, but my results so far are bad (even in BW, this may still be the best white deck).

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