Welcome back to Innistrad: Crimson Vow First Impressions week!
All week long, various members of the SCG Staff will share their thoughts on the Top 5 Innistrad: Crimson Vow cards in each format. On Monday, we kicked things off with Standard. Today we’ll knock out Historic, and Friday will be Modern. To add a little fun to the mix, a scoring system has been put in place so that we can get an idea of what card ranked in what place in the aggregate to close out each article. The scoring system is as follows:
- 1st — 5 points
- 2nd — 4 points
- 3rd — 3 points
- 4th — 2 points
- 5th — 1 point
Today, we begin things with Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir champion, Ari Lax!
Ari Lax
- Mulch
- Voice of the Blessed
- Cemetery Gatekeeper
- Concealing Curtains
- Welcoming Vampire
Historic is a pretty easy format to rank cards for. Is the card good in a deck with 30 creatures? What about a deck with 30 spells? What about a deck with Thoughtseize? If it sounds like it checks one of those boxes, the card is probably a good bet for Historic.
Okay, maybe Mulch doesn’t quite hit any of those, but it’s a great graveyard enabler in a format building towards some strong synergies there. It’s the most uniquely powerful effect in the set, so it gets my top spot with ease because it could easily change those core categories of the format.
Voice of the Blessed and Welcoming Vampire are there for the 30-creature decks. Voice of the Blessed is a huge push for Heliod, Sun-Crowned strategies, both as added redundency with Ajani’s Pridemate and as a big devotion push for the Thassa, God of the Sea battling creature mode on Heliod. Welcoming Vampire seems custom-fit for the various Collected Company decks in the format, allowing them to churn through interaction.
To continue to bring the same points about Concealing Curtains being great I’ve made in multiple other pieces of content, it’s a really good threat for Lurrus of the Dream-Den decks with Thoughtseize. Layering the disruption with your threats and reducing your exposure to graveyard hate is a big gain for something like Rakdos Arcanist (Lurrus) or a theoretical Mono-Black deck.
What about Cemetery Gatekeeper? It’s not quite a card for the 30-spell or 30-creature decks, but wow it is good against both of those strategies. Mono-Red Aggro has been a profitable strategy for people in recent Arena Opens, and Cemetery Gatekeeper feels like an easy addition to that deck. It isn’t quite Eidolon of the Great Revel, but it does a darn good impression of that card.
Dom Harvey
- Voice of the Blessed
- Hullbreaker Horror
- Concealing Curtains
- Graf Reaver
- Anje, Maid of Dishonor
I don’t think there are any sure bets from this set for Historic. I’ve picked five of my favourite wildcards instead.
Voice of the Blessed is yet another Ajani’s Pridemate for an archetype that didn’t need more of those, but its more restrictive mana cost is actually a blessing for a deck aiming to reach enough devotion to animate Heliod, Sun-Crowned. It’s not the most powerful card here in the abstract but is a clear hit for a popular deck.
Hullbreaker Horror fits into the role occupied by Niv-Mizzet, Parun or Nezahal, Primal Tide as an uncounterable finisher against other blue decks or a possible payoff for Indomitable Creativity (that you can realistically cast now that many of those decks have adopted Unexpected Windfall as well).
Concealing Curtains isn’t a unique effect in a Thoughtseize + Inquisition of Kozilek format, but it works so well with Lurrus of the Dream-Den that I think it can break through regardless.
Graf Reaver gives the various small creature decks a clean answer to planeswalkers like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria that let control decks compete with your otherwise overpowering card advantage engines. Reaver is not just compatible with Lurrus — important for this new crop of Golgari Food decks — but works perfectly with it. If there are no targets for it to shoot down, it’s still an above-rate two-drop that can apply pressure.
Anje, Maid of Dishonor has enough going on to merit consideration in larger sacrifice decks but may be the four-drop Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord needs for Historic if the other red Vampires pull their weight.
Shaheen Soorani
- Stormcarved Coast
- Dreamroot Cascade
- Lantern of the Lost
- Ascendant Packleader
- Deathcap Glade
Innistrad: Crimson Vow has a robust selection for Standard playable cards; however, it falls short in the older formats. That is the ideal scenario for any new set, as injecting too many new cards into Historic, Modern, and Legacy typically has detrimental effects on their respective metagames. Even if those formats survive the increased power creep, if cards are broken in older formats, they will likely ravage the Standard ecosystem. This set is impressing me with the balance, which explains why my Historic Top 5 may seem lackluster.
The lands are going to improve the format that has struggled to cast spells without fetchlands. Dreamroot Cascade and Stormcarved Coast are likely the two biggest winners, but I would not be surprised to see the entire cycle in competitive play. I have Deathcap Glade in a distant third, as the other two-color combinations have hungrier manabases. For the others, it depends on what the new metagame produces, with enhanced manabases in existing archetypes and/or new options now possible with the fixing. The other two cards in my Top 5 are likely to see play as the set releases.
I love Ascendant Packleader as another great one-drop for green-based aggro decks. They are few and farther between than we see in Standard, but they still exist. Each time a potential upgrade like this pops up, it garners interest from those of us who live to defeat the aggro folks. Decks like Mono-Black and Mono-White Aggro provide good competition for that space; however, green has been known to toss in some red and can go bigger than the rest. I’m not sure that Ascendant Packleader has what it takes to be Historic strong, but I wouldn’t count it out.
Outside of the aggro one-drop and lands Innistrad: Crimson Vow is bringing to Historic, Lantern of the Lost is a sweet graveyard hate card in my Top 5. It has some immediate payoff, exiling a card upon arrival onto the battlefield. After that, it takes out the rest of the graveyard threats, while replacing itself with a card. I’m very happy that more of these exist to give players options and Historic welcomes the hate diversity. There’s no shortage of decks that return threats to the battlefield from the graveyard in the format, which creates a high demand for this type of effect to save the day. Although the lands are my top bets for breakout cards, plan on seeing a ton of sideboards out there utilize Lantern of the Lost right when the set hits the shelves.
And now, without further ado, the SCG Staff’s Top 5 Innistrad: Crimson Vow cards for Historic are…
T-5. Graf Reaver and Ascendant Packleader — 2 points
T-4. Cemetery Gatekeeper and Lantern of the Lost — 3 points
T-3. Hullbreaker Horror and Dreamroot Cascade — 4 points
T-2. Mulch, Concealing Curtains, and Stormcarved Coast — 5 points
1. Voice of the Blessed — 9 points
Cya back here Friday for our thoughts on Innistrad: Crimson Vow’s impact on Modern!