I will not be doing a tally of exact amount of every kindred. Since if I went for that route, I might have to also account for the prowesses that explicitly mention the kindreds, then prowesses that just have any of them in the artworks. Is that helpful, considering we also have the five enemy pairs’ archetypes too?

2.1. TDFCs

Ah yes, the one thing Innistrad have pioneered, or more accurately, vastly improved from the Kamigawa flip cards, that have very much stuck with this plane throughout all three visits. Here, it’s a very simple premise truly: Innocent thing turns into scary thing, or scary thing turns into scarier thing. Yet there are so many stories to tell. This time, we even dedicate two entire mechanics for these cards, to show how important the transformation is.

Oh well, let’s get to the card selections, what this series is all about.

Both sets have the same rarity structure for these things. The 5 mythics and 11 rares should be familiar with the previous year of MDFCs, because it adds up to a drop ratio of 29 of 121 relative to normal cards, and with wonky math to ensure the uncommon slot and rare slot only have one DFCs in either, there comes… 23 uncommons. What a weird number, it’s too close to 24, which is 121 divided by 5, to make any sense.

And with such a weird number, obviously color imbalance follows suit. Maybe not at common, we get two cards per color per set just fine.

• But at uncommon, sure each color gets 4 cards, that seems nice, then we get consistently an Azorius card, a Gruul card and a colorless card. The first two we’ll excuse in the mechanics, the last one I have immense questions. Who wants a 3 mana rock at this point in time? Sure, it could transform to be useful later. But that later comes really bloody quickly at that point. One of them is even a creature in front, ripe for removals.
• At rare, I’m gonna read quickly: Both set has Azorius and Dimir, MID has Gruul and lastly VOW has Orzhov. If you ask me, I would have firmly do 2 cards per monocolor then leave 1 last card for the on theme character. And lastly, at mythic, MID trades two Gruul color cards for a Gruul planeswalker and a colorless card that turns black, a staple to all three Innistrad visits afaik.

Let’s have a gander at how these cards transform. I’ll exclude the two DFC mechanics that will be getting their own sections. A card can count for multiple ways, each way will tick up 1 point.

What recurring motifs do we find with these cards?

• Checking for something to reach a certain number is really common, and the most common number of the bunch is three, as a certain mechanic will use.
• Many cards ask for the simplest cost of them all, mana, whether in one big payment or in smaller installments. Should I draw a mana matrix for these, even though they aren’t inherently as comparable?

• Upkeep’s category don’t just refer to Delver type cards that literally calls for that step, but also to stuff checking at the end step or at the combat, overall just anything that you get one chance per turn to transform the card. No, I don’t mean an activated ability, just hold those mana.
• Being a horror world, obviously death would rank high as a category. Whether the creature sees something being dead or it goes out of its way to sacrifice a creature. I don’t count undergrowth because you can just mill to get there.

2.2. Magecrafts: Flashback & Cleave

2.2.1. Flashback

One of original Innistrad’s chase card is very much powered by Flashback. But not because this mechanic is broken, it’s just gets right to the point: It creates a second chance for the spell to be casted and no more. Maybe that chance takes more mana, but maybe that’s your first chance because you just milled the card, then it’s a plus because milling is cheaper than drawing a card. It’s quite unfortunate that we didn’t get it back in Shadows block, considering the spinny Aftermath cards in the blocks 2 spaces after, but we finally get it back in Midnight Hunt.

Flashback is a great name for a mechanic in a horror set because it certainly got that drama to it, even though looking at the Odyssey block cards – where this mechanic actually came from – I don’t think that feeling fully adds up.

One last trivia piece, did you know original Innistrad block had one flashback card in every pairing of card cost color and flashback cost color? Granted, they were split among two rarites and the two sets, we aren’t Dominaria United after all, but it’s certainly based to get that finished and together. This time, we just get two dual colored cycles at uncommon and rare to celebrate that fact. All in the same set, how baffling and not a great use of symmetrical sets.

There’s also set booster exclusive cycle in the commander set. These have relatively normal mana values for the first case, by commander’s standards of course. Then their flashback are all 10 mana, but can be discounted by the commander’s mana value all the way to 2 if you have more cheaty plans. One rare main set card do manage to match this flashback cost, guess what color it is.

Just like the original block, we also get some cards that synergizes with Flashback. Namely two uncommons and a mythic commander that does a lot of that Snapcaster thing. Rare monocolored is also where you can find interesting things like paying mana or loyalty counters to a Banefire (I put it as the lowest cost possible, so 1 - 4), or a Stock Up variant that is aware of the paid cost, so the flashback tax doesn’t feel as bad.

2.2.2. Cleave

And then Crimson Vow decides to ditch Flashback in favor of Cleave, the most blatant version of kicker in Magic history, one that’s ripe for comedy. I can see the logic to think this isn’t stupid: vampires equal sharp things equal scissor equal cleave.

But in practice, this isn’t even a magecraft set either. It’s alleged that the art crime faction from some art deco world original wanted this, but even then is their business really to tamper with art?