In what has fast become a vital part of any set’s spoiler season, Wizards has unveiled the full contents of two new Commander preconstructed decks to be released alongside Crimson Vow. The blue-white Spirit Squadron and red-black Vampiric Bloodline decks will follow in the footsteps of the Innistrad: Midnight Hunt precons, providing powerful synergies for two more of Innistrad’s signature creature types. Full decklists and an image gallery for the decks are available via Wizards.
Spirit Squadron is a classic tempo-aggro deck, combining an all-flying Spirit army with bounce, countermagic and other control tools ready to slow down enemy defenses. It packs 15 new-to-Magic spells, almost all concerned with producing more Spirit tokens — the better to utilize lords like Drogskol Captain and Supreme Phantom, or continue re-casting primary commander Millicent, Restless Revenant.
Perhaps the most interesting theme here for long-time players is its unique spin on those token-production spells. Creating “Spirit-clones” of other creature cards opens up powerful interactions with your tribal buffs, as well as more opportunities for straightforward value from ETB triggers and the like.
Vampiric Bloodline subverts some expectations of Rakdos-colored precons by taking the slower role in this head-to head match-up. This deck relies on powerful draw spells and removal to supplement the might of Strefan, Maurer Progenitor out of the command zone. Sweepers like Blasphemous Act and Olivia’s Wrath can quickly mop up Spirits or other threatening board states, giving Strefan time to cheat in crucial new bombs like Timothar, Baron of Bats or Crossway Troublemakers.
The Vampire deck also has access to several new A-grade draw spells — albeit, often ones that rely on Blood tokens or combat hits. Blood tokens gain several extra payoffs through the precon, ensuring the potential for a powerful Blood-centric deck when combined with Crimson Vow main set cards like Anje, Maid of Dishonor.
In addition to the new cards printed in each preconstructed deck, WotC has already teased collectors further with eight more new Commander cards. While these cards will be exclusively available in Crimson Vow Set and Collector Boosters, they’re still considered part of the Commander set (based on their set symbol) and thus will not be legal for play in Standard, Historic, Pioneer or Modern. This sort of cross-pollination between product lines is a very new idea for Wizards and Commander, but it seems likely to be standard procedure from now on if these cards are well-received.
You can get your hands on these new Crimson Vow Commander decks on the same day the rest of the set releases: November 19th. Preorder the Commander decks and singles now at Card Kingdom, and ensure you’ll be one of the first to start brewing around these new effects!
Stay tuned next week, when we’ll be publishing guides to upgrading these two decks.
Tom’s fate was sealed in 7th grade when his friend lent him a pile of commons to play Magic. He quickly picked up Boros and Orzhov decks in Ravnica block and has remained a staunch white magician ever since. A fan of all Constructed formats, he enjoys studying the history of the tournament meta. He specializes in midrange decks, especially Death & Taxes and Martyr Proc. One day, he swears he will win an MCQ with Evershrike. Ask him how at @AWanderingBard, or watch him stream Magic at twitch.tv/TheWanderingBard.