Here is MaRo’s Teaser for Innistrad: Crimson Vow

Innistrad: Midnight Hunt has been a part of Standard for just around one month now, but it’s already time for us to get ready for the release of its partner set, Innistrad: Crimson Vow. The first set was focused around the Werewolves of the Innistrad plane, but Crimson Vow will instead focus on the Vampires, and specifically the marriage of an original Innistrad vampire: Olivia Voldaren.

The official card previews will be kicking off this Thursday, October 28. In the meantime, MTG Head Designer Mark Rosewater has published a collection of teasers about Crimson Vow on his blog. Rosewater has made a tradition of writing a list of things that players can expect to see in a set just before the preview season starts. Today, we’ve got some interesting bits of information to take away from Rosewater’s post concerning Crimson Vow:

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/666032714092331009/maros-innistrad-crimson-vow-teaser

As always, MaRo’s teaser is chock full of interesting details about the set – including some wild counters and creature types – but there are a couple of things in particular that caught my eye.

Removing Something That’s Never Been Removed Before?

One of Rosewater’s bullet points says that there will be a new mechanic that “removes something never removed before.” Players on Reddit joked that we’ll finally be able to “remove target player from the game,” but what Rosewater is actually referring to is somewhat unclear. One possibility that jumps to mind is emblems, which are usually created by planeswalkers such as Wrenn and Seven.

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Emblems are well-known as a card type that cannot currently be interacted with by any means in the game once they have been created. It’s certainly possible that emblems are what Mark Rosewater was hinting at here, so perhaps that’s about to change. Planeswalkers often have to gain a significant amount of loyalty before they can create an emblem with their “ultimate” ability, something that’s known to be quite difficult in a game of Magic. If there is going to be one or more cards that can remove emblems, it will be interesting to see how Wizards of the Coast balances the niche ability.

A “Popular and Powerful” Creature From a Previous Innistrad Set Will be Reprinted

There are a lot of cards that have been printed in Innstrad sets that could be considered “popular and powerful,” from Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to Emrakul, the Promised End. With such a provocative hint coming from Rosewater, it’s tempting to think he might be referring to Snapcaster Mage, an extremely powerful creature that’s seen competitive play in every format it’s been legal in.

It’s probably a longshot, but maybe it’s not crazy to think Wizards would print Snapcaster into Standard. After all, they did just print Delver of Secrets in Midnight Hunt after Mark Rosewater gave us a similar hint in the previous teaser. It’s also possible that Rosewater could be talking about something like Craterhoof Behemoth, a staple in EDH and a player in other formats as well. We won’t know anything for sure until spoiler season gets underway, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for a reprint that matches this description.

A New Artifact Token

Wizards of the Coast’s design team has been leaning pretty heavily into artifact tokens over the last few years. Throne of Eldraine brought with it Food tokens, the newest of the bunch. Treasure tokens have been popping up in many recent sets, especially Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, and Innistrad: Midnight Hunt just recently saw the return of Clue tokens to the Standard format.

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Now, we’ve learned that Crimson Vow will apparently include cards that create a new type of artifact token along the same lines. There’s no end to the kinds of things that an artifact could theoretically do: Food tokens gain life, perhaps there could be a token that does burn damage? Maybe there could be some kind of equipment token? A commenter on Reddit suggested it could maybe have a life drain effect (opponent loses 1 life, you gain 1 life).

Regardless of what the token actually does, these artifact tokens are popular among players and have become an important part of Standard and other formats, too. We’ll have to wait and see what the function of the new tokens will be and if it can live up to the legacy.

A Returning Mechanic From One of Ravnica’s Factions

Rosewater also says that a mechanic will be returning that “first appeared as a faction mechanic.” The factions being referred to are almost certainly the guilds of the Ravnica plane, whose names have also become the go-to titles for the color pairs in Magic (Azorious, Boros, Dimir, etc).

There have been nine premier sets to take place on the Ravnica plane, and they’ve all featured the factions in some way; this leaves us with no shortage of mechanics that Rosewater could potentially be referring to. Based on the lore of Innistrad’s Vampires, along with the mechanics of the existing Vampires from Midnight Hunt (which were certainly designed with Crimson Vow in mind), some players are speculating that the mechanic in question could either be Bloodthirst or Spectacle.

Bloodthirst was first associated with the red/green Gruul clan, but the name checks out flavor-wise and +1/+1 counters have been often associated with Vampire cards in Magic’s past. Spectacle also makes a lot of sense, especially given that it comes from the black/red Rakdos clan from Ravnica Allegiance. Black and red are typically the primary colors for the Vampires of Innistrad, and the lore fits perfectly with the idea of Olivia Voldaren’s macabre wedding – it’s sure to be a spectacle.

And a Zombie Catapult?? …Or Something

There’s plenty more fun stuff from Rosewater’s teaser, including a legendary character who will be returning as a Vampire, a creature with the types “Sepent Egg” and more. One of my favorite nuggets is that there will be a card that says “Zombies you control have flying.” Okay, so maybe it isn’t going to be a Zombie catapult, but you gotta admit that would be sweet!

Be sure to check back with us this Thursday when the spoiler season will be kicking off with a livestream on the official MTG Twitch and YouTube channel starting at 9:00 am Pacific. Our spoilers page will be kept up-to-date with the newest Crimson Vow spoilers as we collect them from across the web, so check back there regularly once the previews start.

What do you think of MaRo’s Crimson Vow teaser? Do you have any guesses as to what some of the more cryptic hints may be getting at? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll see you Thursday!