Magic: The Gathering’s latest release, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, is all about vampires and their thirst for blood. The card set introduces several new mechanics including cleave, training, and colorless artifact blood tokens. Blood tokens allow you to draw another card at the cost of one of your own. They’re situational, but versatile and useful if you play your cards right. Here’s how to use blood tokens.
How Blood Tokens Work
Crimson Vow is full of vampires and their constant need to feed on fresh blood. To represent this aspect in MTG: Arena, Wizards of the Coast created blood tokens. Blood tokens must be tapped, cost one colorless, and are sacrificed once they are activated. In doing so, you can draw a new card with the chance of drawing a more powerful or useful one, however, you must also discard one card in your hand.
How to Create a Blood Token
Blood tokens are created by other card effects. For instance, summoning the card Gluttonous Guest instantly creates a blood token. Plus, whenever you sacrifice a blood token, Gluttonous Guest causes you to gain one life. Blood tokens are placed on the battlefield and can be activated on your turn. You can have up to 250 tokens on the battlefield at one time.
Other Uses for Blood Tokens
Blood tokens are great for getting rid of cards you may no longer need. If you have too many lands or weak creatures, you can discard them along with sacrificing a blood token to draw another card. You may be able to draw something even better that replaces the land or creature. Having access to scry is also useful as you can see what cards are on the top of your deck and then use a blood token to draw them.
