Table of Contents – Ultimate Guide to Innistrad Crimson Vow Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 1 - Top Commons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 2 - Top Uncommons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 3 - Guide to Combat Tricks and Removal Cards by Colour
Chapter 4 – Guide to Blood Tokens
Chapter 5 – Limited Deck Archetypes
Welcome all to the Ultimate Guide to Innistrad Crimson Vow Limited and Prerelease. In this last chapter, I’m going to be talking about ten of the Limited Deck Archetypes for Crimson Vow Limited. When I look at the card pool of a full set it can be a little bit daunting to try and figure out which cards will work well together. There are some cards that in a vacuum are designed on their own but there are other cards that are designed to be synergistic and are meant to be played with other cards from the same colour combinations to gain value. Although you can build a deck any way you would like, knowing the main deck archetypes for each colour combination can help guide your picks in a draft or help in building a deck from your sealed pool.
Here is a look at ten of the Limited Deck Archetypes for Crimson Vow Limited and some of the cards you’ll be looking for when building those archetypes.
White/Blue – Azorius Spirit Enchantments
This deck is all about Spirits and Auras working together. In Crimson Vow all the Disturb cards can be cast from your graveyard and returned to the battlefield as Auras. Each Aura has similar if not the same abilities as the creature on the front side of the card. For example Mirrorhall Mimic // Ghastly Mimicry allows you to copy any creature on the battlefield and when you cast it for its Disturb cost, you can attach to any creature, and it will start to make copies of that creature during your upkeep. This allows most of the cards in the Azorius deck to be cast twice giving you more value for your cards. On top of that, there are plenty of Spirits flying around that will help you win the combat battle in the air.
White/Black – Orzhov Life Gain
This deck is all about gaining life to help you stay in the game longer. Incremental life gains throughout the game will start to add up and give you an advantage over your opponent. Panicked Bystander // Cackling Culprit is a splendid example of how you can gain life in small amounts but then use that to your advantage to transform into a 3/5 creature that can help you win the game.
White/Red – Boros Aggro
This deck is all about using spells and creatures to help you win the game fast with a go-wide strategy. The goal is to get a ton of creatures on the battlefield to overwhelm your opponent. Attacking is the name of the game thanks to cards like Creepy Puppeteer giving a smaller creature more power. Grab a few of your smaller creatures and attack for more damage thanks to a card like Arm the Cathars.
White/Green – Selesnya Training
This deck is all about taking creatures that are small to begin with and growing them with +1/+1 counters. This is done in part thanks to some of your creatures having the new Training mechanic. This allows cards like Torens, Fist of the Angels to get a +1/+1 counter when it attacks with another creature with greater power. Once you’ve grown all your creatures they will be too powerful for your opponent to manage.
Blue/Black – Dimir Zombie Exploit
This deck is all about sacrificing smaller creatures or tokens to gain powerful triggers from creatures with the returning Exploit mechanic. Cards like Fell Stinger can be used not only as a powerful 3/2 deathtouch creature, but also can exploit a creature to gain card advantage.
Blue/Red – Izzet Card Advantage
This deck is all about gaining card advantage through spells and creatures. This can be done through noncreature spells like Inspired Idea and Thirst for Discovery. You can also gain card advantage through permanents like the powerful new Eruth, Tormented Prophet. As always Izzet colours bring a ton of noncreature spells to help you along the which include damage spells and counterspells.
Blue/Green – Simic Self-Mill
This deck is all about gaining an advantage by using your graveyard as a resource. There are cards in Simic colours that mill cards into your graveyard at which point you can take advantage of creatures and other cards being there. You can mill blue Disturb cards so you can cast them on future turns. Cards like Vilespawn Spider will allow you to exchange itself for a ton of 1/1 Insect creatures thanks to all the cards you’ve milled into your graveyard.
Black/Red – Rakdos Vampires
This deck is all about the main creature from Crimson Vow, Vampires. This deck wants to create Blood Tokens and use Vampires, simple as that, You can also use cards like Vampire’s Vengeance to clear the battlefield of non-Vampires. This will be an aggressive deck that is also able to use Blood Tokens to filter through its deck.
Black/Green – Golgari Toughness Matters
This deck is all about getting creatures with large toughness. Once you’ve done that you can overtake them in combat scenarios with larger creatures and gaining life. Catapult Fodder // Catapult Captain is a great blocker early in the game and then transforms into a larger creature that can catapult your other high toughness creatures at your opponent for a ton of damage.
Red/Green – Gruul Werewolves
This deck is all about the return of Werewolves. There are still plenty of Werewolves in this set that improve greatly when they are on their Nightbound side. One of the best cards in the set is Avabruck Caretaker // Hollowhenge Huntmaster that can win a game by protecting your permanents and making your creatures larger each combat. There are also some synergistic cards that work well with all Wolf and Werewolf cards like Howling Moon.
Now that you know the Deck Archetypes for Limited you can navigate the first couple of drafts a little easier. Knowing what deck archetypes are available will allow you to make a stronger deck every time. Thanks again for reading Chapter 5 of the Ultimate Guide to Innistrad Crimson Vow Limited and Prerelease. This completes the guide for this set, and I really appreciate you joining me for the ride. If you’ve missed any of the other chapters for this guide, click below to check them out.
Table of Contents – Ultimate Guide to Innistrad Crimson Vow Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 1 - Top Commons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 2 - Top Uncommons for Limited and Prerelease
Chapter 3 - Guide to Combat Tricks and Removal Cards by Colour
Chapter 4 – Guide to Blood Tokens
Chapter 5 – Limited Deck Archetypes
