Top 5 Innistrad: Crimson Vow cards for Modern

With Innistrad: Crimson Vow, we were presented with a (old) new venture from Wizards: releasing sister sets, giving us access to more cards and mechanics, but without causing a great disparity of themes with what we already have in Standard. Now, the impact of this set for Modern is another story.

I must confess, Midnight Hunt had more obvious decisions on what to put on a card ranking. The cards from this last set spoke very well with the mechanics in vogue at Modern at the time they were released, working as enhancers for such strategies.

In Crimson Vow, however, we had less evidence of how the cards will interact with the format, and I needed to evaluate the cards in the set multiple times.

Good cards were chosen and definitely Crimson Vow's impact on Modern will be felt like a vampire bite on the neck. To all the creatures of the night reading this gruesome, dark text, I present you the five best cards for your favorite format, Modern.

This card had what it takes to be the best tribal card we've seen in years for Modern, so maybe that's why Wizards' R&D team made it as ugly as lying to your dentist that you floss.

Cloaked Cadet has two monumental flaws, its cost and the limitation that its ability can only be activated once per turn. Normally, one of the demerits would be offset by a quality, but that's not what happened here.

The worst of the two is, amazingly, the cost. With a mana value of 5, Cloaked Cadet cannot sustain itself in a competitive human deck, which uses very few lands and low-cost creatures to maximize the aggressiveness. In a standard deck from this tribe, its ability to activate only once per turn is a fair balance. With Thalia's Lieutenant and, most importantly, Champion of the Parish gaining plenty of +1/+1 counters, Cloaked Cadet would still be a huge boost despite its limitations. Unfortunately, its steep cost will prevent this card from seeing play.

As much as this creature is my favorite on the set, we must admit that Manaform Hellkite is poorly positioned in the current metagame.

The rampant and overwhelming presence of Lurrus of the Dream-Den in the meta favors low-curve decks, deciding games in their early stages, and as a result, higher cost cards end up being forgotten or entering the unplayable world.

In a world without Lurrus, Manaform Hellkite would be a monster. Endowed with good stats and able to enter mid-game to late game, he can still create several tokens that, in the right deck, are capable to generate an immeasurable value.

In the right deck, he can generate a Tempo effect, in which you can use non-creature spells during your turn to increase damage numbers, or use those spells instantly on your opponent's turn to create surprise blockers and force negative exchanges.

Furthermore, its effect is essential for both attack and defense, its cost is affordable and its color interacts well with the decks in which it is proposed, but unfortunately, the current scenario does not allow its development, depriving us of company of a card that had everything necessary to be a staple.

Headless Rider is everything a tribal deck wants. In addition to having a really cool art, the card grants us the ability to replace creatures lost through combat and removals. Representing the ability of zombies to rise from their pits, this creature activates its ability whenever a non-Token creature dies, meaning it can make a player recover in front of a sweeper.

Headless Rider has a head start when compared to some creatures from the same set that create Tokens — its lack of the “legendary” supertype. Multiple copies of it can be put into play at the same time, leading to a situation where each creature dying leads to multiple triggers creating tokens.

Unfortunately, the creature's low toughness leads to fewer cases in which it's useful, and the Zombie Tribal deck, for now, isn't in a favorable position in the Metagame, even though it's getting more tools.

Still, it's encouraging to see the archetype taking shape day after day, until it grows and becomes a presence in the format.

Torens, Fist of the Angels is the flip side when compared to Headless Rider. While one creates tokens when creatures die, Torens creates them when a creature is cast, meaning that even if it is countered, a creature token will come into play.

Also, both Torens and his tokens have the Training mechanic, which lets you put +1/+1 counters when attacking with a creature with greater power. So, it makes a lot of sense that when combined with Thalia's Lieutenant and Champion of the Parish we have a dangerous presence at the board in Torens. Both are creatures that grow when humans enter the battlefield, with this ability triggering twice thanks to Torens we will always ensure they grow big enough to activate ourTraining ability and their tokens.

Torens, Fist of the Angels, is everything a deck that relies on creatures could want, human or non-human. Also, when we think specifically about human-type creature decks, Torens has the ability to revitalize the gameplay of the archetype, creating even faster paths and helping it better deal with some threats.

Although the entire Cemetery mythic cycle is pretty cool, and much better than the Adversaries cycle in the last set, this one stands out the most.

Activating not only when it enters the battlefield, but also on each attack it makes, Cemetery Illuminator will easily select and stack different card types in exile, which can be cast from the top of your deck once per turn. The big catch to this effect is that "once per turn" can also refer to your opponents' turns through card with Flash and Instants.

To improve, the cast card comes from the top of your library, essentially making it an extra card in your hand, which cannot be discarded. Or multiple extra cards, when we consider the idea of ​​using more than one copy on the field at the same time.

With the ability to serve on Control decks and even more elaborate Spirit decks, and acting as a way to access more of these creatures, Cemetery Illuminator is, for me, the best creature in the set.

It's been so long since I've been this excited about a Chandra. Chandra, Dressed to Kill has several qualities that allow it to be well positioned in the current Metagame.

With a very affordable cost, it can quickly enter the battlefield on early turns and serve as a Ramp in the next turns, allowing for greater flexibility, and its damage is appropriate to activate Skewer the Critics, which would virtually be cast for free.

In addition, she has another +1 ability, helping to increase her loyalty. Separating the top card from the deck, we return to the argument of what makes Cemetery Illuminator good, its ability to turn the top of the deck into an extra hand card, free of anything that might interact with them.

Finally, we have the ultimate, which, following the logic of the last paragraph, essentially gives you five more cards in your hand, in addition to being able to damage your opponent until the end of the game according to your plays. It's a little tricky to achieve, but highly rewarding.

In the end, this planeswalker's package allows its fast entry and high performance, with card advantage, damage and extra mana, in addition to an ability that can end games. Chandra really came dressed to kill, and it's Innistrad: Crimson Vow's best card for Modern.

On top of that, we know that Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is without a doubt a Modern staple and deserves some prominence. Unfortunately, in this Top 5 we only cover the new cards in the set, but she deserves to be remembered in whatever format she sees play, be it Modern, Historic and Legacy, even in Standard now.

That's all for today!