Crimson Vow

Crimson Vows Set Booster box opening

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

With each new Magic set, the boys and I typically buy a booster box and split it. Most of the time, it is purely an excuse to crack packs of the new cards. Rarely have we tried to draft (3 is not a good number for draft as anyone will tell you) and a few times we have set aside some packs for some limited play. But it really is about the new cards.

This time around, Christian opted out of the box to save his money for some upcoming video games. Noah still wanted to go ahead so we ordered a Set Booster box. Today, we picked it up at our LGS and shortly after settled in at the games table for the traditional pack opening frenzy.

We opened the box and we each in turn picked packs until we each had fifteen in front of us. My first pack yielded a Henrika Domnathi, a card I was keen on pulling. It was a good start! Shortly after, I hit the pack of packs: It yielded a Sorin the Mirthless, a Cemetery Desecrator and a Niv-Mizzet Reborn in The List slot. And that was not quite all as there were an additional two rares, a Thundering Mightmare and a Voldaren Bloodcaster in the pack as well.

Maybe not the highest value pulls ever but definitely a pack that will be remembered for a long time!

While Noah is normally the one with the luck, Crimson Vow will go down as one of my luckiest boxes ever. By the time the table was covered in pack wrappers, I had a total of eight mythics. The other standout cards were Necroduality, a showcase art Jacob Hauken, Inspector (which I traded to Noah for his Vampires and Blood tokens deck), a Chandra, Dressed to Kill, and a Savior of Ollenbock.

Among the rares, the highlights were the Sundown Pass, an Ascendant Packleader, an Ulvenwald Oddity, and a Voldaren Estate (traded to Noah). All possible options for my Commander decks.

Noah will probably not remember this box with quite the same fondness. He came away with but a single Mythic, a Wedding Ring (which got traded for my Jacob Hauken). But, as per our box opening rules, the one with the fewest mythics gets the Buy-a-Box promos so Noah picked up the Castle Dracula as well as a Harker’s Journal.

Now Christian is circling as there are a few cards he’s looking to add to his Scarab God Commander deck…

Crimson Vow Pre-release recap

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Only two months after the (much fun) Midnight Fun pre-release, it was Crimson Vow’s turn. As usual, both boys and I were onboard to make our way down to the LGS to play with the new cards. Unfortunately, due to some scheduling conflicts, there was no trip to North to Exile this time around.

Fortunately, Face to Face is not far away. With some restrictions still in place, as soon as registration was open, our names were on the list.

We made our way down Saturday morning and were cracking new packs before long. My pool was underwhelming. Aside from the disappointing absence of mythics (I had hoped for a Faithbound Judge or Avabruck Caretaker in particular), I found that there was nothing inspiring.

White was strong with spirit creatures but lacked in the spells area. Blue and black did not inspire me. Red and green had a decent but not overwhelming synergy. I decided to splash in some white to add Voice of the Blessed.

My first game proved that the deck was ill-tuned. It felt all over the place and did not address the threats coming at me. I went down quickly. My opponent was kind enough to offer to take a look through my deck and made a few recommendations. Voice of the Blessed made a quick exit as a WW in a splash colour simply would never work (I should have known better).

My tuned up deck allowed me to wrap up with 1-2 record. Christian went 2-1 while Noah joined me with a 1-2 record as well. No mythics for him as well.