Is it me or is VOW the most disappointing set design-wise yet?

First off, I hate blood tokens. Why does a vial of blood let me rummage? It's like they ran out of ideas and just put out something and say "whatever;that will do". The generation and usage of it is all over the place.

And then we have cleave. Is cleave a vampire thing? Maybe there's some vampire subculture I'm not familiar with. And second point, not only does it not resonate with the set theme (that is if my first point was correct), it doesn't even resonate the with game play. It's not a creature or you cleaving things on the battlefield... Or even library... But you cut rule text out? That's a page taken straight out of UN-sets.

After so many in-your-face wedding stuff (rings, invitation, etc) is it too much to ask for partner with on Olivia and Edgar? It's not like it's a complicated or distracting mechanic. Look at phasing with teferi in a CORE SET no less.


Where is the horror? The mystery? The eerie, creepy feeling that makes innistrad innistrad?


They have two full set to flash out or develop werewolves and vampires yet all we got was more of the olds. Nothing new. We actually have less to work with. I didn't agree with blood, but maybe if you have to do blood that way, bring back Madness as well?

While I'm at it, I want to complain about the set icons too lol. (sorry, but not really) the MID icon actually looks more similar to the AFR icon than VOW. All they need to do was put the bat in negative to the same moon? Vampires are night creatures too no? Why print two sets back to back on the same planes when they have little to do with each other? They can't even relate on the set icon level lol


List go on. I think I will arbitrarily cut my rant here. Sorry about this mental vomit. Might come back up edit this to be more comprehensible if I have time. Just really want to vent this out. Get it off my chest.

In similar, if differing, views; my wife is most put out that we got a wedding ring card but not a wedding dress card. Apparently you don't make a set that's wedding-based and not showcase that dress.

They were never going to put partner with on premier set cards. It both combines Commander-specific text and they just don't like tutoring effects now. Olivia with "Draw Edgar" and Edgar with "Draw Olivia" would make have forced them to make the base card weaker.


Bride's Gown?

Partner with isn't there because they simply refuse to do any mechanic (except for Evolving Wilds/occasional one-off cards) that tutors anything. Maro's justification is that tutoring delays the game significantly and variance is more important than ever with MTGA being the main way to play non-commander formats, which I think is fair enough. Also the example of phasing isn't quite right because they're now doing 'phases out' and 'phases in' as a regular core mechanic, they're not doing actual phasing.

As for vampires and werewolves doing nothing particularly cool or original, I agree with you. Blood is a new mechanic but it's too similar to previous artifact tokens, which they're doing too much now.

Oh, the ring was in the commander set so we looked there for the dress. I guess my wife can be happy then. Nevermind.

I will admit that I'm less excited about VOW than most recent sets, but I still think it'll be fun to play. It feels very much like a classic block's second set, where it's building on MID's mechanics more than anything else.

Honestly, Blood is thing I'm most excited about here. I agree that the flavor isn't good, but in my experience with it so far, it's a powerful way to smooth out draws. It reminds me of GRN's Dimir decks that just never had a bad draw because they were surveilling so much. Plus, the use of it as a resource should lead to interesting situations.

Cleave is not meant to tie into any theme. A lot of sets have a flavorless mechanic thrown in, and this one is at least pretty unique in terms of execution.

I also like the evolution of disturb, and the way they've built it into a whole enchantment subtheme.

Honestly, if you're looking for revolutionary new stories and mechanics, it's better to just wait for a non-return set. Most return sets are primarily about giving players more of what they liked before, and I don't think that's a bad thing in moderation.

Blood tokens were a real flavor mismatch. If blood tokens prove to be a gameplay hit will they bring them back under a new name? Feels like a sloppy move.

Cleave is another terrible name. Something like Addendum, Fine Print or really most things would work better than "Cleave".

Blood rummaging would not be the first thing I thought of, but drinking blood for a rush of euphoria or excitement is a common theme on Innistrad, like Neonate's Rush in the previous set. I don't think it needed to be the most on-point thing; it needed to be a weak token to be used by the vampire cards as a resource.

The idea that Blood is a very specific flavor so it's more difficult to reuse is not a compelling issue for me. I feel like players in general weirdly want more cards with every mechanic. If it doesn't hurt to leave room for future flexibility, then sure, but it makes sense to focus on making the mechanic work for where we know it will be (here) rather than focusing on making it work for the theoretical future.

No need, its ****.

What you described has been every set since Throne.

I like cleave. It's clever and has a lot of design space. The name I maybe like less, but whatever. I enjoy at least a couple of the cards, mostly the weird ones like Toxrill that have nothing to do with the wedding. Runo's summon cthulhu is neat. That said, the set overall does feel very shallow. I have to remind myself that there really is THAT MUCH filler that this thing is a large set and not one of the cruddy little third sets that used to be the dumping ground for excessive gimmicks and forgettable themes (see particularly: Scourge and Alara Reborn)

Show me a cleave card that wouldnt look better as a kicker cost or a split spell of some sort

I don;t know that cleave makes anything new mechanically possible, but the terminology can save a lot of words on cards, which I suppose does make the previously unprintable possible.
It's the formatting that disappoints me. I just mentally filter out the square brackets whenever I read a cleave card. Maybe if it were underlined or something? Would curly brackets stand out more? A font change? I dunno. Sadly, italics already has a function.

I feel like folks are confusing "Partner" and "Partner with"; the latter was in Battle Bond and allowed players to use two specific cards together like Rowan Kenrith and Will Kenrith whereas the former is an exclusively Commander mechanic that allows you to use two commanders at once. Why they didn't use different names for different mechanics, I have no idea, but the Partner with does seem like it would match the premise.

God yes.

It’s a meta name, right? Breaking the 4th wall. You’re cleaving the text on the card when you pay it’s cost

Cause its a sub-mechanic of normal partner, same with mutikicker, the different version of cycle, ect.

Most of the text in "Partner with" is about commander. Also if you want to put reminder text on the card it takes of half the textbox just covering the second ability.

Clearly cleave should have been called "Screw the rules, I have mana!"

I suspect the reason cleave causes dissonance to me is that it sounds like a character keyword (a la 1st strike) while being a player ability. Guessing if they called it “redact” I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.