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 finishing our review with the red, green, and colorless 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 white, blue, and black 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.
Red
Betrayer’s Bargain
FromTheShire: Yes it requires a sacrifice but upping your damage to 5 and exiling the target can be very useful out of the sideboard depending on the meta.
Loxi: Not the worst removal spell if you regularly have things to sacrifice to it. I think damage based removal sees a bit of a usage drop in Commander because the general power of creatures is higher compared to other formats, so things going above that 5-damage sweet spot happens reasonably often. I think this has enough tacked on that it’s pretty reliable though, especially if you happen to also have nice synergy with just generally slinging instants.
Chainsaw
Loxi: Design wise, I absolutely love this card. I think gameplay wise, it fits in a very specific sort of Rakdos Sacrifice/aristocrats deck that wants to win through Voltron or swinging with a big creature. Juri, Master of the Revue or most of the recent Rakdos incarnations could make some solid headway here, providing a nice alternate win condition when your chip-damage from aristocrats isn’t enough.
FromTheShire: Not bad for picking off a pesky utility creature, which tend to have low toughness, and then sticking around to turn the inevitable board wipes into big damage later in the game.
Charred Foyer / Warped Space
Loxi: Oh man, did we find a card that works well with Prosper, Tome Bound? That’s crazy, we never see those.
Yeah I mean this card is really good if you have other things putting stuff into exile to cast, on it’s own I’d wager it’s not quite worth the overhead cost of 10 mana. Even just as an impulse draw engine for 3 mana, I think it’s pretty mediocre in a vacuum. If you can synergize with it however, it’s likely going to make its cost back in spades.
FromTheShire: As we’ve said many times, red is continuing to get versions of this effect so each new piece like this only server to improve that game plan. Since there are so many, I like your chances of having at least one spell that is exiled that’s worth casting for free.
Cursed Recording
Loxi: I really like this card in concept, but between having to pay four mana and having an out for getting rid of it being necessary to have to really utilize it well without blowing yourself up, I think it’s a bit fragile. Someone can easily stop you from casting spells for a bit if they can stop your method of sacrificing this reliably, so you really have to make sure you can always pitch this thing if you don’t want to lose half of your starting life.
Bonus points if you have some way to manipulate the counters or blink this to stall it from going off though, that’s pretty cool.
FromTheShire: I can easily see a build where if you’ve doubled 7 spells you’ve won the game with how powerful Commander spells can be, but even beyond that, this is Commander – just tank it with your 40 life. If you can’t win the game before doubling your 14th spell, you need to revamp the deck.
Enduring Courage
FromTheShire: What if Ogre Battledriver had to be killed twice before you stopped getting the effect? It’d be pretty damn good, that’s what. In aggressive decks the haste is so clutch – I run it in my Omanth, Locus of Rage deck personally and am always super happy to have it.
Loxi: Haste enablers are really good, and having ones that are really sturdy on board are even better. I think this will see a lot of light splashed into decks with colors that don’t normally have as easy access to haste.
Fear of Burning Alive
Loxi: It’s an expensive one, but it burns on entry and packs some serious firepower for making your burn spells hit even harder. If you’re playing a burn or group-slug deck that has enough diversity to enable delirium easily, this can totally be a powerhouse. Tor Wauki the Younger is the first slot that comes to mind, since it’s damage boost doesn’t care about the source being an instant or sorcery. Torbran, Thane of the Red Fell also will do some work here, of course; it just depends on your deck construction.
FromTheShire: Each opponent is the clutch wording for Commander purposes. Flickering this gets deadly faster than you would think, and it also server to pick off their creatures at the same time to help keep yourself alive to do it.
Fear of Missing Out
Loxi: I’m torn on this card, because I think it’s actually quite solid but I don’t really know where to play it. If you’re playing some sort of extra-combats deck that has enchantment synergy, that’s likely my ideal home for this one.
FromTheShire: The body you get for that cost with an impulse draw tacked on is quite solid for 60 card, and then letting you attack with at least your biggest threat isn’t bad. If you can hand out vigilance to your whole team it’s better, though in Commander it’s often going to be a one off effect since it has to attack.
Irreverent Gremlin
Loxi: The certified Cute Little Guy of the set, it’s only OK to me. A lot of the decks that run low power creatures are traditionally either dumping tokens onto the board en-masse or have a typal synergy, this doesn’t particularly benefit either of those enough to make it feel worth a spot to me. If you are reliably making tokens on other players’ turns though, this could help chew through your deck and filter draws decently well.
FromTheShire: Yeah your deck’s ability to make tokens on every turn is what makes or breaks this. If you can, it is a hell of a lot of card selection.
Leyline of Resonance
Loxi: Another very niche card, but it’s very potent in that niche. Feather, The Redeemed could really use this well and get an explosive start out of the gate with one of these on board. Even paying four mana to copy most of your spells in a deck like that is solid, so hard casting it won’t feel abysmal.
FromTheShire: Definitely an include for Feather and Zada, Hedron Grinder style decks, or something like Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest. Too narrow for decks that aren’t built around it to see widespread play though.
Norin, Swift Survivalist
Loxi: Norin’s back and he’s…already gone!
Decks with powerful ETB triggers that aren’t just trying to trample over blockers can probably make some powerful plays here, just keep in mind that you have to play that card from exile this turn. To my understanding here, if it gets exiled and you don’t cast it, it’s going to be stuck out of play indefinitely.
FromTheShire: As a Norin the Wary deck owner I enjoy the shout out. That said, having to pay to recast the creature makes this a bit of a bummer unless you’re getting a ton of value from recasting the same thing every turn. It does enable things like Fear of Missing Out to attack safely though, and there are enough of those kinds of creatures across the game that I think an interesting deck could emerge here built around them.
Overlord of the Boilerbilges
Loxi: It’s not bad, but it’s a little underwhelming to me. In my head, it fills a similar role to Inferno Titan, trading some on-board flexibility and combat power for flexible casting and a higher damage triggered ability. If you’d consider Inferno Titan, you could consider this card as well, particularly if you can leverage any Enchantment synergy out of this one as well.
FromTheShire: 4 damage is still a very respectable amount of damage to fling around in Commander, and in Standard you have ways to try and cheat the impending counters with something like Glissa Sunslayer. I like it.
Razorkin Needlehead
FromTheShire: Always love to get a new punisher effect. The first strike might matter in 60 card but you are never swinging with this in Commander.
Loxi: It’s good tech in Group Slug or Mardu Hatebears, being a Human could merit this in decks with typal synergy there as well.
Screaming Nemesis
FromTheShire: This is a solid will you block or not style effect kind of like afflict, and then has an insane rider against life gain decks. Note that the damage being dealt to it can come from any source, so Blasphemous Act plays the same as with Stuffy Doll work wonders.
Loxi: Could be used well to deny lifegain in Toralf, God of Fury or similar burn-y decks that run big numbers on their damaging spells. The real tech here is Pariah and/or using this like a non-indestructible Stuffy Doll.
The Rollercrush Ride
Loxi: As I’ve mentioned with other delirium cards in this set, this card’s viability really heavily hinges on personal deck construction. Commander is a cool format: being 100-card singleton and favoring early game ramp means that many decks tend to run pretty diverse card types anyway, but it’s about reliably having those ready to go in your graveyard that will decide if this is worth it to you or not. If you can make it happen regularly and have a lot of non-combat sources of damage, it could be a nice way to amp up your damage.
FromTheShire: You have to jump through a small hoop to turn it on but that’s a hell of a payoff. By the time you want to cast this to take advantage of the X cost you should easily have delirium if you have it somewhat in mind during deck construction.
Untimely Malfunction
Loxi: This competes with Abrade quite well, it shines in aggressive Mono-Red decks or decks that can recycle cheap instants. Retargeting spells can be really powerful as well, and even stopping blockers can really throw off someone’s game plan and open them up to lethal damage in a pinch.
FromTheShire: All of these abilities can come in super clutch for an aggressive red deck, so having them stapled onto a single card at a reasonable cost is great.
Waltz of Rage
Loxi: This feels similar to Chandra’s Ignition, but trades hitting players for a big chunk of impulse draw. Will likely be most effective in go-tall strategies where you’ll have big creatures and a small board, but five mana to sweep up a lot of the board and get a bunch of card advantage? Sounds solid to me.
FromTheShire: Very nice payoff for having to wrath even though you’ve been developing your board, which happens pretty frequently.
Green
Altanak, the Thrice-Called
Loxi: 9/9 with trample and some potential extra cards is nice, and being able to be some weird flexible ramp early can be useful, but unless you can make use of those creature typings I’d leave this to beat up people in limited.
FromTheShire: Yeah this is one hell of a Limited and maaaaybe Standard bomb but loses something in Commander. I actually kind of like it as a weird ramp spell for self mill decks that can hit any land not just basics.
Balustrade Wurm
Loxi: Aside from some sick new tech for your Wurm-girlfriend decklist, this is a big ol’ pile of keywords on a solid body that can come back from the dead. Frankly, I’m only going to use this in Baru, Wurmspeaker.
FromTheShire: An even better Limited bomb.
Enduring Vitality
FromTheShire: There’s a reason Cryptolith Rite is like 12 bucks, and that reason is this ability is both very powerful and very popular. In token decks it usually demands an answer immediately, and in this instance you either need to kill it twice or exile it. Love it.
Loxi: Yeah, just tacking on to FTS’s point: this is absolutely fantastic for both the budget-availability of this effect as well as making it more appealing to decks that can take advantage of having an extra body. Notably, this effectively is a mana dork itself, so even casting this onto an empty board will still pay dividends.
Hauntwoods Shrieker
Loxi: This is a really strong way to start cheating creatures into play early. While you won’t always be able to control the top of your deck in many situations, even getting a few attacks off with this dude and then just having him sit back and flip your manifested creatures is solid. This also is great tech for Morph decks to cheat out some more expensive morph costs.
FromTheShire: There is definitely going to be a Manifest Dread deck in Standard of yet to be determined success, and this is a key piece. The only build I’ve seen so far is trying to flip up Valgavoth, Terror Eater, so just picture how screwed you will feel if they flip that up on you on like turn 4.
Hedge Shredder
FromTheShire: Good lord this is powerful in self mill decks. It’s not even return one of them or return one per turn or return a basic land or anything, it’s just straight up insano ramp.
Loxi: Yeah this card is seriously disgusting in the Golgari Special decks. If you’re dredging, this is going to just ramp you a silly amount. Even at worst, this lets you turn your Deathrite Shaman into a 5/5 that’s helping mill you even more. It’s a slam dunk for me.
Kona, Rescue Beastie
Loxi: The truth of this card is that people will use things like Dragon Throne of Tarkir to safely tap this and just make huge things rather than risking combat. It happens after your combat step, so I’m sure you’ll need to find some explosive plays to make that are non-combat with this to make sure you don’t get killed after you pass the turn, but if you can untap after cheating some stuff into play with this guy, the game should be sealed.
It’s neat and powerful for sure, I’m not particularly excited since I think cheating things into play is…a little bit boring? Circumventing casting costs as a main mechanic of how Magic works isn’t really that fun, since it’s just “play really crazy big thing” when you shouldn’t be able to and see if people have answers. In reality, ramp is powerful enough now that this probably isn’t scarier than a lot of the big ramp decks, so I think it will be fun to see what people come up with for this little goober.
FromTheShire: There’s already a build being floated in Standard using this to crew Vehicles and dump massive threats into play, and in Commander we have both more ways to tap safely and bigger threats so this seems like it might be a deck. The biggest drawback is being in mono green but I have faith in you.
Leyline of Mutation
Loxi: Jodah, Archmage Eternal but on an enchantment now. Neat! Not much here for me, it’s cool if your deck already likes doing 5-color mana shenanigans.
FromTheShire: Yeah I think this goes in a couple of very specific decks and that’s about it. Good piece for those decks though!
Omnivorous Flytrap
Loxi: Wait, Venus Flytraps are already carnivorous… so is an omnivorous flytrap a trap that just also eats…other plants too? Cannibal flytrap plants? Jeez, Duskmorne. You’re making Little Shop of Horrors look like a children’s play.
This is really cool because it has great synergy with one of my favorite card effects: Scavenge. It wasn’t a crazy powerful effect when it came out, but I have really fond memories of it and seeing people do some real nonsense with Varolz, the Scar-Striped enabling it on other spells. I think this has super cool synergy there and I hope to see some fun stuff with this.
FromTheShire: If you can actually get up to 6 types this is really powerful, I think that will prove to be significantly more difficult to reliably hit than 4 though. Likely difficult enough that this isn’t really worth it.
Overgrown Zealot
Loxi: Nice in Morph decks for sure. It’s notably got a big ol’ butt for a 2-cost mana dork, which can actually be quite handy at times when you need some early defense.
FromTheShire: I thought this might be part of the play for a Manifest Dread deck, but so far it looks like it works better to plan to flicker your face down creatures or use Hauntwoods Shrieker.
Overlord of the Hauntwoods
Loxi: Ramping lands is one thing, but just making them out of thin air is another. I think this card is absolutely bonkers in Landfall, Enchantress, and honestly most decks that can leverage a Slightly slower ramp spell for more power. Like seriously: getting a land for three mana and then four turns later getting a “free” 6/5 that ramps you even more? Like compare that to Cultivate, seems pretty strong put that way.
FromTheShire: Yeah this is one hell of a ramp spell. I wish the typing was a little more relevant but oh well.
Threats Around Every Corner
Loxi: Yeah speaking of Morph, this is just downright nuts there. Ramping off just playing your deck normally is pretty bonkers.
FromTheShire: This also looks like it might emerge as part of the Manifest dread deck. It’s a little expensive to get going, but this very quickly will pull every single basic out of your deck.
Twitching Doll
Loxi: If the art doesn’t give you the heebie-jeebies, this is quite a solid mana dork. The double typing of creature + artifact makes it vulnerable to a lot of removal, but early game ramp that can easily turn to late game tokens for no extra overhead cost is really nice.
FromTheShire: Solid mana dork that will appropriately creep people out of the game goes long. A little unfortunate it can only make the tokens as a sorcery, that is a noticeable downgrade since it makes it wildly more vulnerable to removal.
Tyvar, the Pummeler
Loxi: Providing a reusable overrun effect attached to a body that also has protection is really nice. I don’t really know if it’s command-zone worthy to build around, but in decks that want to reuse some Overrun effects or Elf decks that have some room to play with, I can see him making a big swing.
FromTheShire: Agreed, I think this is better in the 99 of an Elf deck than built around. It doesn’t really do anything until you have the spare mana to activate, which isn’t a big problem in Elf decks in fairness, so I would much prefer dropping this from nowhere and winning the game immediately. While making themselves indestructible isn’t nothing, it barely matters if your whole team you were planning to pump up is destroyed.
Valgavoth’s Onslaught
Loxi: I expect to mostly see this in Morph and not much outside of that, but it’s a really good way to build you board quickly there. Morph is really eating good this set, and I’m all for it.
FromTheShire: Another piece for the Manifest Dread deck. I think in Commander this may be something where if you have a big enough X to matter you should just be winning the game with something better.
Walk-In Closet / Forgotten Cellar
FromTheShire: Playing lands from your graveyard is already an extremely valuable effect with the amount of graveyard decks in the format, and then this one comes with a possible Yawgmoth’s Will stapled on? Sign me all the way up. The only downside is that it does incentivize people to blow this up where a Crucible of Worlds draws less hate.
Loxi: Both of these effects will be absolutely insane to have in most graveyard/self mill decks, and if you’re cool with having some enchantments (which I’m sure most will be happy to do here), this will likely be just more potent than Crucible if you don’t care about that being an artifact.
Colorless
Dissection Tools
Loxi: It’s similar to Basilisk Collar, trading the cheap cost of the Collar for a manifest trigger as well as some nice stats. The other real big change is the equip cost: it’s worth noting that those equipment costs can be used like a sorcery speed way to sacrifice a ton of your creatures for free, which is quite useful in itself. Given how both that and the keywords it gives can be very potent (i.e. giving this to a creature like, say, Niv-Mizzet, Parun allows him to instantly kill and heal off anything he pings), I expect this to likely see some play where that would if you can also make some use of that sacrificing.
FromTheShire: Likely playable for the equip cost alone, instant speed free sacrifice outlets are extremely valuable in Commander. Giving pingers deathtouch is also already an archetype. Add on giving out the nice incidental lifegain and this is super powerful.
Ghost Vacuum
Loxi: Ghost Busters had some budget cuts and now they just have to recycle the ghosts, what a shame!
This is fun, but it’s honestly just way too slow to really see good use in my eyes. It’s fun at least though, and the flavor is really off the charts. Just don’t cross the beams.
FromTheShire: Seems like potentially useful graveyard hate for Standard, likely too slow and situational for Commander outside of theme decks.
Kays to the House
FromTheShire: We have this kind of budget land fetching already and it’s pretty meh. There does look like there will be some form of Room deck but having to sacrifice this to use it and there just being straight up better ways to manipulate them means I don’t think we will see it anywhere.
Loxi: Eh, it’s basically an Egg in my eyes. It can help save mana on rooms at times, but I’m pretty mid on this.
Marvin, Murderous Mimic
FromTheShire: Absolutely a hideous combo piece. Have something that taps for 2 and a Horseshoe Crab or Voltaic Construct? Ayyyy, you’ve done it. After that it’s probably Triskelion combo or similar. In a slight funny side note, we don’t currently know how it resolves if you copy this with a Sakashima the Imposter or similar. If you get multiple instances of the abilities in that case, it is big for powerful effects that are gated behind only being able to use them once per turn.
Loxi: This is the “there’s some bullshit you can do here, but I don’t know what” card of the set. I expect some gnarly and whacky combos with this guy at some point.
New Land Cycle
Loxi: I quite like these lands, they never really feel dead since they always at least tap for some type of color and realistically are quite strong if you run enough basics (or duals with appropriate types). I expect to see quite a few of those in decks from now on.
FromTheShire: Entering untapped is the big thing here. You are absolutely going to have the relevant typing to unlock both colors in the vast majority of games.
Valgavoth’s Lair
Loxi: It’s alright for higher color decks, it’s not really much better than some other similar lands for two-color decks, but if it’s cheap it could be good for fixing up some budget manabases.
FromTheShire: For being the evil beating heart of the entire plane, this is pretty underwhelming. Getting an extra enchantment on board can be something I guess and hexproof isn’t technically worthless, but is your opponent really going to care that much about a land tapping for 1 of a chosen color?
That wraps up our look at the new cards of Duskmourn: House of Horror. Join us next time as we return to regularly scheduled Commander content!
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