Magic’s newest expansion takes us to the newly introduced plane of Duskmourn, a plane comprised entirely of a living haunted mansion that thrives on the fear of its denizens. A new set means new cards, and we’re continuing our review with the white, blue, and black cards in the set.
Duskmourn will release to Magic the Gathering Online on September 24, 2024, and to the tabletop on September 27.
Last time we covered the multicolor cards, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, but what we will be looking at, we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.
White
Dazzling Theater / Prop Room
FromTheShire: Starting off strong, giving convoke is a great way of pseudo ramping, especially in go wide decks. Also getting pseudo vigilance is even better, and if you have ways to tap your creatures down to do something valuable every turn this goes nuclear.
BPhillipYork: Convoke is fun for weenie decks, though it can get sort of out of control rapidly. The other side of this room has the potential to get fairly nasty. For decks running things like Opposition this can lead to some unpleasant lockdown games, but if you manage to pull that off then really your opponents should scoop. This is part of the problem with stax decks, people want to play it out once a near lock is established.
Marcy: I’ve been pretty down on Magic since the big rotation; while I at first hoped that it would be some breath of fresh air into Standard, it actually feels the opposite, and especially in fast paced versions of Standard like Arena’s BO1, the rotation turned Standard into an effectively 1 deck meta: either you are red, or you lose. So, looking at this set, I’ve not really been seeing a ton of things to be hopeful for, and this Room is a great place to start off that… I am not really thinking that’s going to change.
Loxi: Both of these seem like solid effects, but I really like having Prop Room for decks that can’t access the other untapping effects as readily like Seedborn Muse. Convoke is really nice if you’re going wide and want to cash in on it, but I can see some play for Prop Room in a lot of cases where you can actually tap your own creatures down at instant speed. Hylda of the Icy Crown comes to mind.
Dollmaker’s Shop / Porcelain Gallery
FromTheShire: Comes down early and gives you some incremental value, okay fine. Late game however, this is a Coat of Arms out of nowhere win the game card. Love it.
BPhillipYork: Another weenie buffing room. This potentially can get really out of control, but you have to get up to 6 mana. That’s no so much, truly, and games should end. If you dedicate 8 mana (or even 6) and enough weenies, turning everything you own into a Plague Rat isn’t so bad.
Marcy: This feels like a really easy include for token decks, since the cheaper part generates value and then the larger part wins you the game, very likely. I’d actually argue this could potentially see some play in the token decks currently around in Standard, not that they need a lot of help.
Loxi: This one is cool because it has a clear cut progression: play Dollmaker’s Shop early, then push Porcelain Gallery when you want to finish out the game or beat down a specific player. It’s a touch expensive for the whole package and a bit telegraphed, but it’s nice that you can choose to basically just use the right side like a sorcery if you don’t need to make more tokens. Having a constant ace in the hole to use can be really clutch, even just to make political plays.
Enduring Innocence
FromTheShire: Mentor of the Meek sees a bunch of play in token decks, and this is arguably just as good. Yes it only triggers once per turn but usually you’re only paying for Mentor once or twice at most, and if you can space that token generation across 2 turns this is 4 mana more efficient. In addition it sticks around the first time it gets killed which is excellent.
BPhillipYork: Yeah this is super duper strong. 3 mana, white has plenty of ways to generate creatures on other turns, and it comes back onto the board if it dies? Super solid.
Marcy: The current Talent decks in Standard are going to likely want to consider running this, but I don’t think it replaces Caretaker’s Talent, even if it does something very similar. I do think other decks may like this, though, as it is a body that Does Stuff, gains life, and then also sticks around even if you chump with it.
Loxi: Here’s the first of the Enduring cycle of mono-colored creatures, which have some nice synergy by being a Glimmer, but also come back as an enchantment after they die. For our first one, I’m a fan. White card draw with easy conditions to meet is always a plus, and it’s an absolute pain to get rid of. If you’ve got enough small tokens and dorks to make this worth it, it’s easily going to make it’s value if you can net 2-3 cards with it at a minimum. That shouldn’t be a challenge if you’re pumping tokens out.
Ghostly Dancers
FromTheShire: If this only returned an enchantment or made the tokens it would be borderline. Doing both while also having the occasional upside of cheating mana costs on a Room makes this a solid include.
BPhillipYork: Well, Spirits and enchantments are a thing, sort of, and they don’t really complement each other that well, so it’s pretty okay. Probably best use case is to reanimate this to cheaply unlock a Room. That’s dangerous, but there’s definitely enough steps there to mean it’s not overly dangerous. Making a horde of 3/1s with flying due to enchantments entering is also not quick, so in general this is probably just an over costed value card. If it was enters and attacks, that’d be more like cooking with gas (but now we are cooking with… coal I guess).
Marcy: I do like that this unlocks a locked Room door, but this is a little hard to imagine doing a lot that makes it ‘worth’ the cost–for example, the enchantment above, for example, is 6 mana, and this is 5. Sure, you then unlock the other door, but I’m not sure this is worth filling your deck with to try and get those things open sooner. However, there is quite a lot of value in this card, so don’t let me sound too down on it.
Loxi: It’s not the worst in terms of recursion, but cheating the mana to unlock a room can be pretty huge for some of them that run a bit pricy. I think the real value comes from being an enchantress token generator here though, so having the extra ability on top means this still gets good value even if it dies before you can make too many tokens. It’s a decent blocker to boot; solid package overall here.
Leyline of Hope
FromTheShire: This needs to go in a pretty specific deck, usually you want your life gain to be incidental on a card that’s already doing something your deck wants, not a dedicated life gain strategy. The exception is decks like Astarion, the Decadent where the amount you gain actually matters where this effect can stack up over time.
BPhillipYork: Well, this is an interesting card. I sort of like the “life matters” archetype, white or Orzhov does this fairly well, and dumping this out on turn 0 for free is a nice boost. It’s really just more support for life matters archetype, which I like to see since I think it’s a creative deck type.
Marcy: Is this how we defeat Mono Red in Standard? Everyone just runs 4 of these and mulligans till they have 1? Jokes aside, this could be the boost that Lifegain needed (ugh) to get back into the Meta in Standard, as rotation really gutted the deck hard.
Loxi: Leylines are back, and our first one is pretty nice for lifegain decks. That’s really the main use case. I think it’s not really a card you want to hard cast often (not that it’s terrible in the mid-game), so it’s up to you if you want to gamble on trying to get openers with this.
Optimistic Scavenger
FromTheShire: For enchantment based Voltron decks, this can help tick your commander into lethal territory quicker than you would expect. especially if you have other built in counter manipulation.
BPhillipYork: I’m pretty sure you can build a loop around this. Yeah, like you can use this with the classic Leonin Relic-Warder loop to pump up a Triskelion as an alternate win con. I’m not sure why you’d want that necessarily, but there it is. Just generally buffing things to survive is also decent, and at 1 mana it’s a decent turn 1 drop to buff things up as an enchantment deck builds, if you’re going tall to deal damage, or you have proliferate, or you can double counters.
Marcy: I absolutely see this card getting a lot of play. This is possibly a way for the Talent decks and some other White decks to have a far, far stronger turn 1 than they did before.
Loxi: Nice, not a bad one drop for enchantress decks. I think you want some real counter synergy to merit taking it, but something like Calix, Guided by Fate could net some nice value with this coming down early.
Overlord of the Mistmoors
FromTheShire: Very nice token generation, especially since they are 2 power and fly but are still Skullclamp-able if you feel so inclined. White can also double tokens itself or pair with green for absolute swarms of these guys.
BPhillipYork: Well, generating 2 2/1s with flying is uh, meh. Like, yes, it’s a threat I guess, but it’s so slow. 4 mana to come out turn 8, or 7 mana then you need to attack next turn. Or best case scenario you bury it then reanimate it, in which case there are way, way better things to reanimate.
Marcy: In a lot of pre-release content, the Avatars have been quite big deals. Of them, I think this guy might be weakest, but he’s still very strong; you get 2 immediate bodies at 4 mana with evasion, and then pops onto the battlefield after 4 more turns. Assuming you live that long, he might then end the game, but it isn’t quite as impactful as some of the others are.
Loxi: The first of the Overlord cycle: these are all some absolute nutters with Impending, letting you play them early as an enchantment and slowly becoming a creature over time. it’s a pretty cool effect, and I quite like that this still makes bodies when it comes in, so it doesn’t feel entirely dead if you want to play it early game to make a few dorks. It’s a dude-maker, so take of it what you will. If your insect deck happens to splash white though, that’s a neat tech you can throw in.
Edit: Vrestin, Menoptra Leader exists. That sounds like sick synergy.
Reluctant Role Model
FromTheShire: If your deck has a consistent way to tap creatures, such as giving them convoke as we saw earlier, this can hand out some solidly helpful counters even if it’s on the slower side. If you need this to fairly swing into someone and survive combat, it’s terrible.
BPhillipYork: I like Survival as a mechanic, it’s cool, and moving counters is cool, and potentially strong in certain limited circumstances so I’m all for cards like this. Fairly pushed for 2 mana, but by the baseline of cards these days it’s not that shocking. White is keen on making, moving, and keeping tokens so this card feels right up its alley. Really like to see this thing used to win the game with All Will Be One.
Marcy: Another very solid performer, I think this set may help White carve a bit of the meta back by establishing some strong and possibly growing creatures that can help turn the tide on fast aggro. It really does remain to be seen if that’s possible but I do believe this card has good potential in doing so.
Loxi: My favorite Nick Jonas cosplayer here is a neat way to get some tokens out to your other creatures that might want some other keywords. It’s not bad, but I think I’d probably pass on it unless you explicitly can benefit off humans dying, say with Trynn, Champion of Freedom & Silvar, Devourer of the Free.
Split Up
FromTheShire: Yes you’re sometimes going to miss a threat you’d rather kill but for the most part you will be able to hit the biggest problem and save your creatures all for 3 mana. Really good.
BPhillipYork: Well, yeah. I like the ability to punish people for just sitting there with creatures out, inordinately so. But generally this isn’t going to be dependable enough as a clear to run unless you can manipulate the tapped states of creatures consistently.
Marcy: Well, Standard no longer has like, 6? different board wipes, and this is an interesting change of 3 mana board clearing from Temporary Lockdown, so I believe there’s room for this in white control shells that need to constantly be dealing with board states early on.
Loxi: Being three mana is the real benefit of this, and being able to cast this on your turn when (ideally) most of your things are untapped means that you can use this to break parity in a pretty crazy way. I think every player being tapped out but you won’t really always happen, but it’s not that unreasonable to say that this can really still put a hurt on everyone else’s boards for a good price.
The Wandering Rescuer
BPhillipYork: That’s the empress right? Anyway, conditional hexproof is solid, really solid if you have a way to tap things in response. It has the classic “other things you control get the protection” which is a good balance mechanism. Pretty nice that it has convoke, and flash, so you can cast it in response by tapping the creatures to generate the mana to then protect them from a target removal spell.
Marcy: There is some world in which this is a very odd flash protection spell, but from what, I have no idea.
Loxi: Aggressive Human decks will really benefit from a powerful body that can protect that rest of the board. Convoke means she can really come out swinging pretty early if you need, and flash can be nice in a pinch for a surprise removal spell. She’s not really Commander material, but she’ll be an absolute ace in Human Typal decks.
Toby, Beastie Befriender
BPhillipYork: Doesn’t this card already exist basically. This is Pir, Imaginative Rascal, except less good and less flavorful. I mean it’s on brand for this weird off-brand set, but that doesn’t make it okay. It’s also really similar to Lovestruck Beast so it just feels like it’s been done.
Marcy: I love that this card has some fun flavor and I think there is some fun design on this card but the fact that Toby himself is a 1/1 means that he dies to quite literally anything, and thus this card feels like a ‘wins more’ where you play Toby to ensure your tokens fly on the turn you want to swing in and almost nothing else.
Loxi: Toby looks like a fun little dude, and I really like his design because I think it can go two ways. First: you could play him as a commander or in a blink deck as a way to easily crank out 4/4 creature tokens (that will eventually get flying). Second: you could just play him in a normal token deck without blink synergies as a way to just slam flying onto your board (who doesn’t end up with at least 4 tokens in a token deck at some point). Being a 1/1 is the big drawback, but considering he realistically makes 5/5 of stats for three mana, I can’t really scoff at that.
Unidentified Hovership
Loxi: It’s a removal spell with a body, basically. It’s honestly pretty solid for that, I can see some play in decks like Sram, Senior Edificer where you get even more value out of it being a vehicle or artifact.
BPhillipYork: Yeah great, its an alien spaceship. This is just, uh, well it’s one of your standard temporary exile cards for white that returns it when it leaves, but instead of getting their creature back they manifest dread, which is pretty solid. A 2/2 flyer with crew is also noted on the card.
Marcy: A very conditional removal on a body that may help the opponent out, although it is important to note that in a self-mill or Manifest deck, you can use this on your own creatures.
Unwanted Remake
BPhillipYork: Well, there it is.
Actually, this is a solid card, instant speed unconditional removal that can also be used to manifest a tutored to the top card. That’s a huge amount of utility. This shows up in cEDH immediately. Oh, you can also use this to manifest your own dread if you want that, either to mill out something or if you have something you want to get onto the board and cast from a face down position for reasons. Instant Staple.
Marcy: This certainly sees play in Standard in decks that need to deal with constant oppressive early game aggro for sure. It isn’t better than other removal but it is more reliable than some spells, like Elspeth’s Smite, which can’t always get the job done against Prowess triggers.
Loxi: I don’t think it’s going to replace Swords to Plowshares or anything since it doesn’t exile, and something like Generous Gift can hit anything instead of just creatures. It’s pretty great in a vacuum, and it’s pretty hard to critique one mana unconditional removal, but I’m just not really sure what spell I’d replace with it in a Commander deck.
Blue
Abhorrent Oculus
BPhillipYork: Really solid for a manifest dread deck if you want that, exiling a bunch of cards is a good balancing act for its low mana cost, and fairly trivial to deal with in solid decks that use a lot of land searches.
Marcy: I’m not that into the card, despite some of the early noise I’ve heard about it. Assuming you are playing on curve, this card requires you to have 6 things in your Graveyard by the start of turn 3, which feels very, very generous if you are not also self-milling somehow.
Loxi: I’ve seen a lot of hubub in the magic sphere regarding this card for 60-card formats, but I really think this is going to be a powerhouse in Commander too. Manifest Dread is really good, and doing it 3 times every turn cycle for free is pretty insane. Obviously, you need to be in a deck that can either cheat this out to ignore the casting clause or reliably have enough junk in the graveyard to let this rip, but luckily it will just naturally refill your ‘yard just from sitting on board. It also synergizes…kinda ok with Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore, and who doesn’t want that!
Central Elevator / Promising Stairs
BPhillipYork: A Room tutor is neat. A room win condition is also neat. 8 Rooms is 4 cards, so that’s difficult enough to pull off (especially since you have to start your turn with them) and I just generally like alternate win conditions to exist. Fun card to build some weird 5 color Room enchantress deck as a throw away win condition, does double duty since it’s a room tutor, but also not really that strong due to cost.
Marcy: I really want to see someone make a crazy combo deck that makes this work, but since Rooms do not enter from the Graveyard opened or active, I can only assume that combo requires some form of infinite mana and draw, which is pretty boring.
Loxi: I want to preface this: I don’t particularly love many of the “you win the game” cards because I find them to be a bit anticlimactic and make you win the game by trying to play solitaire and forcing other players to interact with you. I’ll never bash someone for playing them, but just my personal preference, so a bit of bias here.
It’s a neat alternate win condition, but frankly I think this is really something for those of you that just love to make some janky decks. This is probably more of a pain to assemble than it’s worth for a win condition that I personally think is not particularly exciting nor a potent enough payoff to be running enough rooms that actually synergize with the rest of your deck.
Enduring Curiosity
BPhillipYork: Wow, so this is new and improved new and improved Coastal Piracy. Getting card draw off attacking is at least making you interact, and 4 mana is enough of a barrier that it’s not really pushing the envelope.
Marcy: Blue Tempo does still exist in Standard; I’m not sure if this card makes it into that deck, but it could, because it has been struggling quite a bit after some of the rotations. Unfortunately, those decks usually only run like, 1 or 2 creatures, so you aren’t likely to be drawing a lot off of this anyway. Could maybe see some play in Dimir Tempo, though.
Loxi: Bident of Thassa 2.0 in kitty cat form. I love this one, I think this will be a slam dunk in a lot of Rogue/Flying Man-esque decks.
Entity Tracker
BPhillipYork: This is a pure blue enchantress, and in typical blue fashion, it’s basically better than most enchantress off the bat. Kind of frustrating to see this pattern repeat endlessly. It’s an enter trigger rather than a cast trigger, it’s got flash, and it includes Rooms also, it’s one colored mana and 2 colorless. But Bant enchantress needs more enchantresses, so fine.
Marcy: Likely unplayable in Standard but I’d love to be wrong.
Loxi: If you’ve ever sat across the table from Sythis, Harvest’s Hand, you’ll know how powerful drawing cards is in enchantress. Now you can draw off entering as well as casting if you can play both, and having access to that type of effect in blue is nice for a lot of the decks that can’t splash green and white. This one’s really solid, and becomes even scarier if you do want to push some of the Rooms in your deck.
Fear of Imposters
BPhillipYork: 3 mana to unconditionally counter is okay, the downside is a manifestation of dread which is fine. Useful for blocking a tutor attempt and gets you a 3/2 body in addition to the counter which is some real upside in my opinion since incentivizing interaction is a good thing. If Lighting Bolt also gave you a 2/1 it’d be a lore more palatable.
Marcy: Now this I see as playable. I actually almost like this as much as Ertai Resurrected, but this does less–but also in simpler colors and cost. So, a very strong and likely surprising little counter-spell on a decent body.
Loxi: Not a bad counterspell for something like Muldrotha, The Gravetide where having this effect tied to a creature becomes significantly more potent than being on an instant.
Get Out
BPhillipYork: Get out.
Marcy: I mean, the name alone is very funny, but for 2 blue you get a malleable counter spell that fits the ‘cheap’ counterspell niche that is currently a little weak.
Loxi: A counterspell with other emergency protection built in for when you can’t just counter a big spell is nice. The use-case of this being better than other counterspells is where there’s a big instant or sorcery that you wouldn’t be able to just normally counter if you had a regular counter instead. So…that’s niche, but definitely not entirely uncommon. I think it’s pretty solid.
Ghostly Keybearer
BPhillipYork: Yeah this is fun. 4 mana means you’re not turbo-ing out dangerous Rooms, but as more support for 5-color room deck, cool to have.
Marcy: See, now this is a way to maybe cheat into that Room opening win, but also, you’d have to hit with a lot of these dudes, and at that point, you probably just won anyway, right?
Loxi: It can technically help cheat on mana, but I wouldn’t play this unless you really have a ton of Rooms and will always plan to have one on board if you can.
Leyline of Transformation
BPhillipYork: MMMMM this is a dangerous card, but it’s limited in color identity to blue, so that solves most of the problem. Nonetheless, this can lead to certain undesirable situations with certain types of creatures, Elves and Goblins come to mind, but also can be used for searching for Rebels or Mercenaries, and a few more arcane tricks. Given the low likelihood of getting it on turn 0 it’s not a huge deal.
Marcy: I did see some wacky stuff with this card and Kaito in the pre-release content that was released, so I think once you see this card being more properly combined into a proper meta, you may see some really interesting plays.
Loxi: Surely there is some bullshit you can do with this card combo-wise. My brain folds are too smooth to know what it is, but I’ve seen people do some real nonsense with Arcane Adaptation, so I know it’s out there. By that logic, this is a card I think you have to have a real plan for or be playing some weird double-typal deck.
Marina Vendrell’s Grimoire
BPhillipYork: So, I guess this effect has migrated from black to blue. It’s fine, yet another Lich by another name.
Marcy: Cute card, likely completely unplayable in Standard.
Loxi: As a lover of the classic Lich effect, I adore this card. It realistically puts you on a clock, since it’s going to let you get some serious power by just putting your deck in your hand. What’s nice is that the “lose the game” clause is tied to the losing life and discarding effect, so if someone wheels you down, you aren’t just going to die on the spot. It’s a really fun and flavorful way for control decks to dig deep for a finisher. Bonus points if you’re playing a deck that can reliably sacrifice this to avoid dying to it when you start to take big hits.
Mirror Room / Fractured Realm
BPhillipYork: Yeah, well, yeah, okay. Copying things and doubling triggers. There’s so many ways to double triggers now that it’s getting kind of boring to see it yet again.
Marcy: Mom, they’re making conditional Panharmonicons again!
Loxi: Both of these are really powerful effects. You might not want both at the same time, but that’s part of the nice design flexibility of these Room cards.
Overlord of the Floodpits
BPhillipYork: Gee, the blue impending thing is pretty strong compared to the rest of the cycle. Shocking. It still costs a lot but it’s the cheapest to impend and it has one of the best abilities, so that’s very surprising. 5 for a 5/3 that nets you a card every attack and lets you select once is solid enough. Alternative 3 impend is fine too, and there’s lots of ways to manipulate counters and time counters in particular.
Marcy: 3 mana for a Loot in Blue that then does eventually net you a flying 5/3 who loots on a stick is very, very solid.
Loxi: Our blue Overlord card is a big body with a card draw engine tied to it. It’s alright, I think Horror typal decks might want this but it’s more of a 60-card tempo piece than anything to me.
Paranormal Analyst
BPhillipYork: Well that’s a way to make manifest dread really strong, fun for that kind of deck, but as a singular effect not really strong enough to build around.
Marcy: This is kind of nice to reduce the ‘oof’ cost of Manifest Dread.
Loxi: I don’t know if there are enough ways to really manifest dread often if you aren’t playing Zimone, Mystery Unraveler to make this worth it, but it’s a really nice piece there.
Silent Hallcreeper
BPhillipYork: This is a neat card, I think it’s just really cool. Not that good particularly, but I really like the creeping sense of dread it will engender, when your opponents’ wonder what your plan is to copy. This is really more impending than the cards that have the impending ability.
Marcy: I’m wondering if there’s a reason you’d want to copy an unblockable creature, but I suppose the idea is that you play it, get initial value, swap to something with more value? But I fee like since a lot of the Blue Aggro cards are still around that let you draw, I’d just happily keep my 3/3.
Loxi: Real, colorized photo of me going to my fridge for a late night snack right here.
Anyway, I really like the design of this card for decks that want evasive creatures. It has enough time to generate value early and then turn into a higher value creature you cast on a later turn. Edric, Spymaster of Trest and similar decks in the archetype could make some great use of this as an early game creature to get the ball rolling.
The Mindskinner
BPhillipYork: Um, wow. This is a real mill card. Yes, it costs UUU which is expensive, but it’s a 10/1 which is and of itself a thing, and it has unblockable, and uh, really you can ignore attacking and just mill via something else. Notably this requires damage and does not play well with Bloodchief Ascension which otherwise would be quite dangerous.
Marcy: I think this card is very funny and also very bad.
Loxi: I had some fun chat about this with people from my playgroup, and it stumped a lot of us frankly. Where I personally settled is that I don’t really think there’s a huge place for this card, but it’s definitely potent if you can really make use of it. The issue is that players (for most of the game at least) tend to have more cards in their deck than life, unless someone’s gaining a ton of life or you’re just milling them like mad.
That means that, even in mill decks, being able to actually threaten life total is still a large way to win the game, as the actual mill kills won’t always come, but Consuming Aberration beating people to a pulp is always a reliable way to close out games with a mill plan. This card does spread that “mill damage” to every player, which can be really potent in itself, but turning off some of those win conditions to mill more feels a bit durdle-y to me. Combine that with one toughness making this die to a stiff breeze means it’s a bit of a tough sell. I should specify I don’t think this card is awful or anything, I just don’t really see a place for it in many of the mill decks that might want it.
I think the best case is mono-blue mill where your main win conditions really are just mill and other combos and combat damage will literally never be something you intend to interact with if it doesn’t pro
The Tale of Tamiyo
BPhillipYork: So, this is fairly scary in that if you can dump to your yard a lot of instants you’ll just insta-cast all of them, but it’s a 4 chapter saga, so kind of on a delay which makes it just a looming (or impending) threat.
Marcy: Ok so I’m going to use this to talk about how I really hate how Tamiyo was treated throughout her lifecycle as a planeswalker. Sure, she didn’t get the worst treatment that some others did, but Tamiyo was such a cool character that has just been made to suffer for, what, 6? Sets in a row now? Come on man. Fuck off.
Loxi: I’m going to try to work this into Lier, Disciple of the Drowned since that seems like a great fit for this card. It’s great for graveyard spellslinger, a lot of value for the cost.
Black
Come Back Wrong
BPhillipYork: Super duper strong. Remove a threat and give it to you, and then sacrifice it again. Or use it on something like Dockside Extortionist. Okay not that, because it’s banned, but things like that. Also a nice marriage of cool card concept married to a good name with nice flavor.
Marcy: Since the creature doesn’t get haste, I suppose the biggest use for this is to kill something that has a powerful ETB trigger or other impact? Otherwise not really sure this is better than just regular removal.
Loxi: This is a really powerful Murder spell, trading instant speed for a turn of getting to play with that creature. I like this a lot in control decks that will have less of an issue just using their main phase to blast creatures. It’s three mana, which isn’t awful but isn’t super efficient, so you really need to make use of that turn with the creature to warrant this over another removal piece.
Cynical Loner
BPhillipYork: Oh right glimmers. Okay can’t be blocked by 8 cards. So that’s practically flavor, but tutoring to your yard is super duper strong. And obviously, if you can just tap it, say with a Paradise Mantle, then you can still get the effect. Repeated tutoring is really dangerous, so solid card.
Marcy: What the hell is a Glimmer? Anyway, If you pair this with Caustic Bronco, I think this could make for a really nice way to thin your deck–just chuck stuff you don’t need into your Graveyard to thin it out, or find stuff to put in your Graveyard that you can re-use, while your Bronco flips cards that drain your opponent.
Loxi: The first part is a fun little flavorful bit, but getting to tutor to your graveyard can be really powerful in the right deck. I think the best case for this is having another way to make it reliably unblockable, because outside of that I’d rather just play Buried Alive or something similar that can hit spells and not risk this dying before the second main phase.
Demonic Counsel
BPhillipYork: Wow, another really strong tutor. Thankfully it won’t always work, and funny you can tutor Demons always with it. This is a nice callback if nothing else to one of the most iconic and powerful cards repeatedly played across many formats.
Marcy: Whoa we’re doing Demonic (literally) Tutors now? And it gets better if you have Delirium? Monoblack looking like it might be pretty spicy again.
Loxi: Be’lakor, the Dark Master has been hugely popular since his release, letting Demon decks really rise to the spotlight. This is going to be a slam dunk for him, and frankly could be solid in any graveyard decks that have a couple demons so it’s not a dead draw if you lose your ‘yard.
Doomsday Excruciator
BPhillipYork: Wow that is a lot of black mana. Fun effect when it enters to end the game fairly soon. Also though, great target for just reanimation to get card draw with a very big beater.
Marcy: A 6/6 for 6 Demon? We’re so back baby. Honestly, I feel this is pretty playable in Monoblack and maybe even Dimir, really.
Loxi: This art absolutely slaps. It’s a weird one similar to Doomsday but on a body, and not letting you select those cards. I can see this actually being pretty good in a mill deck as a way to get everyone down to six cards and then just finishing everyone off with a quick mill spell. I wouldn’t play this if you don’t have a way to win quickly off it though. That casting cost is pretty brutal as well, so be prepared for that if you aren’t playing Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
Enduring Tenacity
BPhillipYork: Another one of these. Solid enough, still only 1 card that combos opposite all of these analogous effects. Standard cost and some removal protection is a bit of a bump.
Marcy: Absolutely see this going in the B/W Lifegain shells that are in Standard as an actual wincon for gaining life now, rather than just being unkillable.
Loxi: Sanguine Bond, but cheaper, on a body, and potentially more annoying to deal with depending on what the table has for removal packages. It’s nothing revolutionary, but more redundancy for a really powerful ability is nice to have.
Funeral Room / Awakening Hall
BPhillipYork: Solid to have another aristocrats trigger, especially with a way to actually end the game. Attrition aristocrats is fine but it often goes long, and is a bit frustrating, so nice to see something to do that suddenly gives you enough fodder to create enough trigger to end it.
Marcy: And they called it… The Expensive, Conditional Aristocrats!
Loxi: I like this a lot for aristocrat decks, it’s another stand in for things like Bastion of Remembrance, where you trade the extra tokens for the ability to get a big resurrection off late game. I can see cases for both, so I think this has some nice options to see play in quite a few decks.
Grievous Wound
BPhillipYork: This is a super feelbad card. Everyone is going to whine when this is put on them, and it’s a real clock effect. That being said, players should be eliminated and games should end.
Marcy: A very, very expensive card for Standard, but could see play in Commander and as a very mean way to get someone out of the game for sure.
Loxi: This could be a good way to focus down a player in a go-wide or Rogue strategy, although beware that targeting one player like this means that player will probably drop everything to knock you out and remove the effect. Notably, this isn’t a curse even though it’s a similar effect as well.
Meathook Massacre II
BPhillipYork: Yeah, okay, Meathook Massacre reminder but it isn’t as strong. Well that’s fine. This is an interesting pairing for aristocrats decks, and incentivizes removal in a nice way. Plays super duper well if you have a Meathook Massacre out or if you cast one after.
Marcy: I really love that the card cost is doubled, because it is a sequel. I also appreciate that, like a sequel, it is similar but different, but ultimately not as good as the original.
Loxi: Meathook two, electric boogaloo. It’s a crazy board wipe that lets you have some crazy reanimation/protection for your board. It’s really expensive, but it’s really powerful. I think it’s a bit cautiously costed in terms of the removal portion, but the protection for your board is really powerful in itself. I like this in a lot of decks, but I can see dunking this in Zombies really easily as well.
Nowhere to Run
BPhillipYork: Well for removal this is fine. Flash enchantment removal is neat, and then having a secondary effect is really solid. Given the near ubiquity of things like Swiftfoot Boots, removing hexproof and ward is fairly nice to have.
Marcy: This card is crazy that it just shuts off Ward, frankly. That alone makes this a wildly valuable card in a lot of formats, and it’s attached to an Enchantment, which is not the easiest thing in the world to remove all the time. Brutal.
Loxi: Turning off ward is really unique and can be a game changer in some cases. This does quite a bit for two mana and can be a really good way to snipe a pesky creature early in the game or something hiding behind Swiftfoot Boots.
Osseous Sticktwister
BPhillipYork: Extremely solid cheap scarecrow, that has at least a somewhat scarecrow themed ability, which is in and of itself totally worth running because it’s just a brutal attrition count down.
Marcy: Cute card but I don’t see it being overly impactful.
Loxi: This is a neat payoff for getting Delirium off, if you can buff its power it’s going to pose a real threat since it’s going to gain you some pretty stupid life if people don’t keep sacrificing things to it. Two mana on an alright body to start isn’t a bad overhead cost either.
Overlord of the Balemurk
BPhillipYork: So it mills some, which is cool and all, but its just so slow and expensive. And its’ not even reanimating, just dumping them back to your hand, which is like, okay.
Marcy: This Overlord made a lot of appearances in the Self-Mill Reanimator combo decks, and it is easy to see why: a 2 mana mill 4, return something (maybe), that becomes a 5/5? Worth it.
Loxi: I really hate that art in the most positive way I can say that. It’s absolutely awful in the best possible way.
It’s a one card recursion engine, and the Impending cost being so cheap means this isn’t bad to play reliably when you need it, with it coming in later as a threat as a nice little bonus. So far, this one is probably my favorite of the bunch just due to the versatility of its Impending effect being genuinely solid.
Unholy Annex / Ritual Chamber
BPhillipYork: I like the idea of caring about Demons, that’s a neat place to be for black, and this double Room card actually makes sense. The two Rooms interact with each other in a nice but not imbalanced way, just a solid all around card with nice theming. Essentially comparable to a more expensive Dark Confidant but draws you one the turn you drop it and it doesn’t lose you life (actually potentially gains life, and causes life loss to opponents). So really a bit of power creep.
Marcy: Conditional Phyrexian Arena, which is also still in Standard, so pop a Sheoldred into your deck and just draw with no consequences!
Loxi: You know where to play this one, I don’t really think it’s worth it unless you’re in Demon typal or your commander is a Demon, but it’s going to be a cool little Phyrexian Arena with a bonus if you have those Demons ready to rumble.
Unstoppable Slasher
BPhillipYork: Hmmm well I like it. Kind of tricksy, and a bit dangerous if it just swings on through, deathtouch is a nice touch, if you will, and a really decent way of calling up the unstoppable, slow, grinding 70’s slasher villains.
Marcy: There’s a really nasty combo with this card and Bloodletter of Aclazotz, so prepare to see that combo.
Loxi: That’s…really terrifying for three mana, with two relevant creature types to boot. This is a very good Zombie in my opinion, and I can see this becoming a pretty staple card for many decks in that archetype that plan to win through raw combat damage.
Valgavoth, Terror Eater
BPhillipYork: Well that’s a thing. Really, uh, really a thing. Reanimate this and win the game if you can bury enough into your opponents yards. Heavily relies on your opponents playing cards you actually want to cast, i.e. scales with the table, also an actually threatening beater, that is really hard to remove.
Marcy: If you play Standard, you will start to hate this card; I don’t, actually, because I love Reanimator decks, and I have seen some WILD brews of this and Squirming Emergence. Really excited to see some possibly Reanimator fun again.
Loxi: Biggie V is here, and it’s quite a scary thing. As with most of these theft-style cards, the power is going to directly relate to how potent other people’s decks end up being. If you’re in a mill deck that doesn’t really care about the number of cards in other players graveyards, this can be a good finisher, but it definitely needs to sit on the board for a bit. The ward is real nice but it’s still vulnerable to board wipes, so make sure to keep some protection ready to get the most out of it.
Next Time: The Set’s Red, Green, and Colorless Cards
That wraps up our look at the white, blue, and black cards of Duskmourn: House of Horror. Join us next time as we review the remaining red, green, and coloress cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about the future build-arounds.
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