Mechanics and Gameplay
Like Midnight Hunt, Crimson Vow has a strong lean into tribal play styles. The set includes a both cycle of tribal hate spells and a cycle of tribal support spells. Examples include Parasitic Grasp and Resistance Squad, which target and benefit Humans respectively.
Crimson Vow brings back Transforming Werewolves and Spirits from Midnight Hunt. Along with them comes their associated keywords Day/Nightbound and Disturb.
Humans now mentor each other with the Trainer ability. When a creature with Trainer attacks alongside a creature with higher power, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Zombies gain Exploit, an ability last seen (prior to Crimson Vow) in Modern Horizons (2019). When you play a creature with Exploit, you may sacrifice another creature you control for a benefit.
Vampires now create and interact with Blood Tokens in a variety of ways. Blood Tokens are colourless artifacts with the ability: Pay one mana, discard a card, and sacrifice this artifact to draw a card.
Another new mechanic is Cleave, an alternate casting cost on some cards. If a card is cast for its cleave cost, the player can ignore some words in the rule text. Cleave is mostly found on Instant and Sorcery spells.
For an example of Cleave, check out Path of Peril. A three mana black sorcery Destroy all creatures [with mana value 2 of less]. Pay the Cleave cost (instead of the cast cost) to ignore the bracketed text. This feels like a spin on split cards seen in the Invasion, Dissension and Return to Ravnica sets. The left side provided a low cost spell for early, the right a higher cost, more powerful spell for late game.
Thoughts
Crimson Vow was my second favourite set of 2021 (after Kaldheim). As a big fan of Vampire Tribal that isn't surprising. Check this set out if you enjoy running tribal decks. Especially fans of Vampire, Spirit, and Zombie themed decks. All receive a lot of new cards to fit multiple deck strategies. Like Midnight Hunt, it's fun to draft (I prefer Crimson Vow to Midnight Hunt). The two combined make for a particularly good draft.
In keeping with newer sets, the variant basic lands look fantastic - something for the collectors. As are the multitude of extended art, showcase and variant cards that all look great, and make nice mini collections.
Like Midnight Hunt, Crimson Vow feels like a good set for new players to dive into. The two commander decks released with Crimson Vow give new players four (two from Midnight Hunt) pre-constructed decks to experiment with. If you want to build something completely new, check out the bundles from both sets. Cards from Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow work particularly well together, providing a good pool of cards to work with.
