Historic Set Review: Innistrad Crimson Vow

The new set, Innistrad: Crimsonm Vow launches on Magic Arena today, and I'll mention its most interesting cards for Historic!

Overall, the new set is weak for Historic and doesn't bring much, which is normal for an eternal format that receives 2000 cards a year. The more cards are added, the lesser the influence of new features in the format.

Hallowed Haunting seems to fit in well with Selesnya Enchantress as an alternative to Sigil of the Empty Throne. Although it doesn't make 4/4 Angels right away, it's fairly easy to make the Spirit tokens much larger in one or two turns.

Voice of the Blessed comes as a great payoff for the Selesnya Lifegain Combo for its evasion when it has 4 or more +1/+1 counters, unlocking the board more easily and making the deck less dependent on the Scurry Oak + Heliod, Sun-Crowned combo.

*Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is not covered in the article because it has been in the format for some time.

Wash Away seems to me as the only minimally viable blue card for the format because it counters spells coming from the graveyard for 1 mana, yet I think it's too specific and shouldn't see too much play.

Bloodvial Purveyor is a bit slow for the format, but it can be a good top curve for Mono Black Aggro alongside Rankle, Master of Pranks because, despite not having Haste, it doesn't die for most of the most played removals today.

Demonic Bargain is definitely a combo card.

Matches with auto-mill and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Demonic Pact or any two-piece combo. The problem with this card with Pact is to end up exiling some win condition, but with Jace, Thassa's Oracle, Fae of Wishes and the Pact itself, it doesn't seem so scary.

Graf Reaver can be a good two-drop for Mono Black to press the board and still be able to destroy a planeswalker when it enters the battlefield. Currently, I don't see many two-drops better than him in the format.

Alchemist's Gambit follows the same idea as the analysis for Standard. If you have a red aggressive deck, attack with creatures, decimate the opposing board and/or life totals, you can use it to play another turn right away to finish. I think it's a good card to use 1 or 2 copies in Mono Red Madness and Gruul.

Chandra, Dressed to Kill has 3 relevant abilities that generate card advantage, mana or damage. Her problem is that she's worse than Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Chandra, Acolyte of Flame which will likely continue seeing play without making room for the new planeswalker.

Manaform Hellkite is a bizarre card because it is so strong. I don't know if it's going to see play in the format, but its ceiling in Historic is very high because it can attack with multiple 1/1 or 2/2 tokens in one turn, or simply create 5/5 or larger tokens every turn. Other than that, you only need to cast the spell, it doesn't need to resolve!

Cemetery Prowler is a good target for Collected Company because it has an effect when it enters the battlefield, when it attacks, and has a good body that doesn't die for Lightning Helix. However, I don't think it's better than Scavenging Ooze, the creature that occupies the graveyard hate slot.

Dig Up looks pretty good for decks like Sultai Ultimatum, Golgari and Jund Citadel and other BGx combo archetypes. Imagine how wonderful to have Jund Citadel tutoring Bolas's Citadel for 4 mana and ensure they win the game next turn! I think the mentioned decks benefit a lot from this card, being able to test 1 to 3 copies depending on how much you want to get the combo pieces in the deck.

Eruth, Tormented Prophet has the potential to play in combo decks that can generate infinite mana and draw cards (hey Paradox Engine !) to win in one turn. She's not good at Izzet Phoenix because the deck's purpose is not to need too much mana to develop its turns and cast cheap spells to reanimate Arclight Phoenix and, if it's exiled, we lose the main card of the deck.

Torens, Fist of the Angels is a good three-drop for Selesnya Humans, the problem is that the three-mana slots of the deck is jammed with superb cards like Elite Spellbinder, Skyclave Apparition, Ranger-Captain of Eos among others. The new creature focuses more on advancing your game than interacting with opponents, which makes it a little worse, but I still think it's testable because it combines so much with the human theme.

Regarding the lands, two-color decks will definitely run the new duals, and three-color decks might use some copies.

As said before, for each Standard set that enters the format, its impact is smaller due to the number of cards available, so Crimson Vow will not change Historic too much and bring few new features, as Midnight Hunt did.

That's all for today!