Thread by @Veveil

Long thread on VOW archetypes/overlaps, please like/retweet!

BR is all about Vampires/Blood tokens. On their own, Blood tokens are not especially powerful but help manage mana light/heavy draws, and give aggro decks a shot at winning late game through sheer spell quantity. Blood tokens are created incidentally by much of your curve filler.

BR pacing should vary between very aggressive to pretty much just midrange. In theory you want to go under ramp decks and over the top of small creature decks. Knowing what kind of pace you are going for is important; avoid cards that don't match your desired pace.

An important thing to note about Blood tokens is that they are by far the most practical way to trigger the "madness"/discard caring cards in this set. This means that each of these cards is a stealth "Vampires" card, and that weaker Blood cards go up in value slightly with them.

One last comment on RB is that treason + sac is possible but very difficult to set up. Outside of the cards pictured, there are no other treasons and no cheaper ways to sacrifice creatures in RB. Don't expect Bloody Betrayal to be particularly desirable.

RW is the most aggressive color pair in the format, as per usual. The signpost uncommon has some small synergies with Training, and is a Vampire for a couple of tribal relevant cards. RW may want to draft the same aggressive Vampires as BR, as Blood tokens are an out to flooding.

Cards to avoid in RW include fat defensive creatures, removal spells that don't go after blockers, and the similar things. On the other hand, Markov Waltzer, Blood Hypnotist, Alluring Dancer and Voltaic Visionary (aggressive above rate uncommons) are all great reasons to be RW.

RG is once again Werewolves, although after playing MID once has to hope the archetype is less depressing to play this time around. Thankfully, the Werewolves in this set look generally more powerful, with Child of the Pack appearing so good that it may get splashed frequently.

Keys to success with RG: you want a critical mass of woofs/werewoofs, you want some decent Instants to make flipping Night less costly, and you'll generally enter the archetype via good uncommons. One last note is that unlike MID, there are no non-RG werewolves this time.

BG is "butts matter" in this set. Unhallowed Phalanx is a bad card on its own, but potentially broken with any of the three toughness payoffs pictured as a 13/13, 13 damage burn spell, or +13 life setup. Try to include Reach creatures/kill spells to deal with fliers too.

There are few other payoffs for big toughness though (only other two pictured), so feel free to ignore this theme without the right setup. A good stuff BG deck splashing bombs/removal from other colors should be very coherent even with minimal toughness theming.

UB focuses on Exploit in this set, which should make UB one of the more controlling color pairs. The basic gameplay of exploit is to play some kind of fodder card, then an exploit creature and sacrifice it for value/tempo. All three of the pictured commons make for decent fodder.

Your payoffs are fairly straightforward and put you up a card (or more) if the thing you are sac'ing is cheap/free. The end result is a generally grindy deck that will want a mix of payoffs, fodder, removal spells, and generically good cards/bombs.

UB is also the best home for Zombies matters cards, as it was in MID. All 9 exploit creatures are Zombies, and many Zombies make for good exploit fodder. There aren't a ton of tribal payoffs but the few that exist are very good!

BW cares about lifegain in CV, a common theme for the color pair. There are a fair number of payoffs for gaining life, most of which work best when life is gained in small consistent increments. Gluttonous Guest and Restless Bloodseeker give BW some extra use for Blood tokens.

Pictured below are some of the more convenient ways to gain life in the set. Traveling Minister isn't really "worth a card" on its own though, so I'd want to have some solid payoffs before playing it. The others are easier to justify including even with just a couple of payoffs.

UR is once again a "spells matter" deck, though notably its payoffs care about "noncreature" spells and not specifically "instant or sorceries". This means that enchantments/artifacts work fine with these cards, though UR lacks many good ones.

As with MID, the key to success with UR is prioritizing high quality noncreature spells and payoffs like Whispering Wizard. In addition you should know what kind of pace you are going for (aggro/tempo or control) and not play combat tricks in control or too much clunk in tempo.

GW focuses on the Training mechanic, Humans and +1/+1 counter synergies, which all mesh fairly well together. Auras and Equipment can help you keep training, while combat tricks may be your best bet for surviving combat with trainees intact.

Most of the cards that work well in GW are fairly obvious. Shieldbasher and Sigardian Paladin do an excellent job training other creatures, while the uncommons are clear payoffs for GW. Lastly, its rare but Sigarda's Summons could just flat out win you the game in GW.

Brine Comber shows off that UW is once again about Spirits/Disturb, but this time with a twist because Disturb creatures are now all Auras. A high creature density should play well in UW, given that your dead creatures double as Auras.

UW can lean on discard/mill effects to pick up a bit of card advantage, but I would caution against leaning too hard on this aspect. Auras do not play well from behind, so durdling to draw a bunch of Auras is not always the best idea.

Our final 2-color pair is UG, which is best described as "self mill". UG wants to fill its graveyard with creature cards to reap rewards like Vilespawn Spider, Moldgraf Millipede, and Skywarp Skaab.

Here are some solid enablers for this kind of gameplay. How deep you want to go on this theme will depend on your payoffs, but be careful of decking as there is no Turn to Earth/Devious Cover-Up in this set. Witness the Future is your only option for hedging against decking out.

While that covers the archetypes, one last thing to note is mana fixing. At common there are 3 3 mana fixers + Evolving Wilds, and their quality is superior to MID garbage like Crossroads Candleguide and Mystic Skull. G decks should splash frequently in this set!

Other mana fixers exist at uncommon as well, both of which are pretty solid. This set is filled with bombs but many of them require two of the same color to cast, so splashing them will require significant mana fixing. Gx decks should be common to leverage this.

There are certainly more bombs I could list but here are some egregious ones to get you started. Avabruck Caretaker isn't even playable yet and is already being hyped as one of the most miserable Limited bombs to play against in years.

Anyways that should about do it for an introduction to the format, hopefully you enjoyed this thread! Remember to like/retweet and follow me on twitch.tv/veveil for Crimson Vow drafts/sealed in a few days!