Welcome to my Innistrad: Crimson Vow Limited Set Review! I’ll be going over each and every card for Limited play, with comments on how good it is and why. I also include a grade, which helps compare the cards to each other, though as always, it’s best to pair the commentary and grade to get the full picture. Here’s the grading scale I’ll be using:

White / Blue / Black / Red / Green / Gold, Artifacts and Lands

Retired and inducted into the Limited Hall of Fame: Pack Rat, Umezawa’s Jitte, The Scarab God.

• 5.0: The best of the best. (The Meathook Massacre. Dennick, Pious Apprentice. Wrenn and Seven.)
• 4.5: Incredible bomb, but not unbeatable. (Brutal Cathar. Poppet Stitcher. Lord of the Forsaken.)
• 4.0: Good rare or top-tier uncommon. (Organ Hoarder. Morbid Opportunist. Clear Shot.)
• 3.5: Top-tier common or solid uncommon. (Eaten Alive. Flip the Switch. Contortionist Troupe.)
• 3.0: Good playable that basically always makes the cut. (Hobbling Zombie. Moonrager’s Slash. Harvesttide Sentry.)
• 2.5: Solid playable that rarely gets cut. (Novice Occultist. Larder Zombie. Mourning Patrol.)
• 2.0: Good filler, but sometimes gets cut. (No Way Out. Duel for Dominance. Lambholt Harrier.)
• 1.5: Filler. Gets cut about half the time. (Shady Traveler. Snarling Wolf. Mounted Dreadknight.)
• 1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Abandon the Post. Bramble Armor.)
• 0.5: Very low-end playables and sideboard material. (Raze the Effigy. Plummet.)
• 0.0: Completely unplayable. (Rite of Harmony. One with Nothing.)

Training

When a creature with training attacks alongside a creature with greater power, you put a +1/+1 counter on the creature with training. These creatures start out small, and don’t take much before they become real threats. This also plays into the +1/+1 counter theme that GW has, and many of the creatures with training key off power or use the counters in some way. In general, this is a clean and powerful mechanic, and every card with it has a lot of potential. You don’t need to do much besides keep your creature count high, though some larger creatures will of course help.

Cleave

This mechanic is a wild one. It’s a variant on kicker (just like every mechanic), where you get to delete some words off the card when you pay the cleave cost. That does things like turn “destroy target attacking creature” into “destroy target creature.” I’ll be rating these all on their individual merits, as cleave doesn’t really lead to a specific deck or strategy (nor does it work better or worse in multiples).

Disturb

Disturb is back, though instead of getting another creature you get an Aura that approximates what the original creature did. That’s on balance a little weaker than the previous iteration, as Auras tend to be worse than creatures, but it’s still additional value at usually a low cost.