My purchase Innistrad: Crimson Vow set booster box was a failure, in terms of individual card value. I knew that it was a risk, given that the demand for the Standard cards was still quite low as the physical tournaments were not back on 100%. Still, I pushed through the order as I have wanted to open packs and maybe because of having it as content on my Youtube channel. I made a two-part video of the Set Booster Box opening and you can view part 1 here and part 2 here.

Anywho, this purchase of the Draft booster box was from a good friend in Manila and also a well-known player back in his day: Mr. Caesar Famorcan. Now, he owns a hobby shop with an awesome name. That is the UltraElectroMagnetic Shop located in Shoppers Gym, Sta. Lucia Mall. You can also check on his FB group for card postings, & sealed product updates.

As for the Innistrad: Crimson Vow Draft Booster Box Opening, I have uploaded it days ago and you can check it out below to see if I opened some good card value on the first half of the box.

It may have taken a while, but I am happy to finally do a booster unboxing of the Magic: the Gathering Innistrad: Crimson Vow Set Booster box which I bought from our local MTG store ProReis place. The good thing was he allowed me to add me on the second batch of orders from the main distributor on this product as I failed to notify him when the 1st batch of orders was announced.

Anywho, I did the unboxing into two parts with 15 set booster packs each. The latter part will also have the opening of the showcase card included in the box.

Here below is the first part of the Magic: the Gathering Innistrad: Crimson Vow Set Booster box opening uploaded on my Youtube Channel.

Last week, I decided to order online a Prerelease Pack of the recent Magic: the Gathering set Innistrad: Crimson Vow. That is because of the rescheduled PR event in our area which is supposedly scheduled within the week after the Crimson Vow products arrived in our local gamestore.

As much as I would like to play in a Prerelease event face-to-face, it seemed that our other local players are still wary of the virus and the health protocols that might not be observed at all times during the course of the tournament. Anywho, I have heard that our TO Rei has set the date this coming Saturday, December 11th, for the local Crimson Vow Prerelease event.

Back to the online order purchase, it arrived about five days later and the product also includes two set boosters. Check out my unboxing video.

For my previous MTG Products unboxing, you can check those here.

For today’s Magic: the Gathering deck feature blog post, we delve more into the aggro decks in the Standard format as to what the new cards from the Innistrad: Crimson Vow set have influenced their builds. This is also about how they deal with other decks in the metagame in winning with their game plan.

The aggro deck of choice this time is Mono-Black Zombies Aggro. As I have recalled, the last time that it was a top-tier deck built in the format was back in Amonkhet Standard. We try to compare the power level of this decklist below.

Reference: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=33498&d=455281&f=ST

The ideal one-drop here is Champion of the Perished which gets to pump as you have more Zombies enter the battlefield. This is partnered with Shambling Ghast, the role is more of a utility critter that you can sac for Deadly Dispute and Eaten Alive and also can battle trade for random X/2s or X/1s.

A playset of Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia is another Zombie token generator that also benefits the Champion and your sacrifice spells mentioned above. Archghoul of Thraben, Fell Stinger, and Headless Rider are your three-drops that make sure your board is consistently filled despite the expected spot removals and creature trades from opponents.

The Zombie Dragon Ebondeath, Dracolich goes with the advantage of evasion and resiliency. It can also trade with Goldspan Dragons and the Flash ability means that you can cast it at the end of opponents’ turns provided the condition is fulfilled and then attack during your turn.

Tainted Adversary is basically a five-drop for it to generate card advantage with its mana sink ability. It can also fill the role of a two-drop if needed for an aggressive start. The Deathtouch bonus can get it to trade with bigger Green or White creatures.

The spell choices here are pretty basic for the Black creature deck build. What is interesting is the single copy of The Meathook Massacre that can be useful in wiping out an opponent’s aggro in dire situations or a siphon card against control decks.

As for the sideboard, the two basic strategies are for dealing with control and other aggro decks. Discard spells work well in disrupting the control gameplan and taking out their mass removal with Duress. Ray of Enfeeblement is against the Mono-White Aggro deck which is currently the top choice deck under this archetype category.

Overall, I can suggest this deck for your next Standard tournament whether locally or online as it is well-built based on the main deck and sideboard against the current metagame. There are several MTG Arena of this deck where you can check on its actual gameplay for reference.

That is a wrap for now. Until next time and thanks for reading.

As each day passes, new Innistrad: Crimson Vow cards are being previewed from various sources online, and I get myself thinking of the possible deck ideas that can be brewed from these new cards. Current decks in the Standard metagame will surely get a new gear to use, whereas possible deck archetypes that were identified before may become a decent deck build with the inclusion of the new set. One deck in mind is the Zombies tribal. The new card components from the upcoming set will get us a preview as to how the Zombies deck build will be. These notable cards are the following:

Necroduality – each nontoken Zombies you control that enters the battlefield gets a token copy and twice the value if it has etb effects. That is on Zombie spells or reanimation effects to get your Zombie creatures back from the grave, as its basic definition means. The only issue here is you get to be tapped out on your fourth turn without doing anything, given that the deck build usually is aggro so you had to maintain your creature curve early.

Archghoul of Thraben – This three-drop’s conditional gas when your Zombie is destroyed is a good card advantage for matchups with lots of removal spells. It may sound conditional as it can miss at times but it depends now on the card composition in your deck if you go with a purely Zombie tribal build.

Geralf, Visionary Stitcher – What is worse than facing a horde of Zombies? Seeing them fly. That sounds absurd in a sense, but this new card version of Geralf takes your Zombie dudes to the next level of height. The passive ability to grant them flight lets you push through big toughness blockers and at times may lead to an alpha strike attack. What Geralf also offers is the sacrifice ability of a nontoken creature your control into an X/X Zombie creature token with X equal to the toughness of the sacrificed creature.

I might have a second part on this as the spoilers for Innistrad: Crimson Vow progresses in the coming days. To conclude today’s blog post, I am certain that a Dimir Zombie tribal deck will have its fully functional build as the new set enters Standard. Will it be competitive enough for the metagame? We will find out.

The Magic: the Gathering’s upcoming set, Innistriad: Crimson Vow card spoilers has finally started. Yes, two or three days late since I posted about this and I apologize due to the hectic schedule at the office. I just got to check the cards posted on various Social media platforms but I already had several ideas in mind as to how to utilize them in the current deck archetypes in Standard. Anyhow, today’s card preview may become White’s new arsenal that hits two birds with one stone.

Check out Cemetery Protector.

Reference: http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoiler/cemetery-protector/

At the four-mana 3/4 creature, it looks bulky in the creature curve of the White Aggro deck but be wary, its Flash ability is what makes your combat tricks an advantage. The other main ability is to exile a card and later on, generate 1/1 White Human tokens when the spell you’ve casted shared a card type with the exiled card. In a sense, it can develop your board with the token generation and make your anthem effects more efficient.

In the perspective of the Blue-White Tempo deck, this will also have another spot in their arsenal because of the two main abilities identified in the paragraph above. It has a likeness with the card Monastery Mentor, only that the latter can close games quickly because of Prowess. I do hope the new set will have more of this tempo strategy in the next batch of card spoilers.

So which deck archetype will it fit? Mono-White Aggro or Blue-White Tempo? Let me know in the comment box below.