Ah, Duskmourn. This set has been fairly highly anticipated since it was originally announced.
The latest offering from WotC is a top-down design, meaning it was built around a concept or theme – in this case, modern horror movies. Think haunted houses, slasher films, groups of teens getting picked off one at a time; you get the idea. It’s an interesting premise that is probably the most modern setting to hit the fantasy landscape of Magic since Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.
First, a slight diversion…
The official release was just a week ago, but you wouldn’t know it if you looked at Reddit or other social media forums. Three days before the actual set release date, an announcement was made by the Commander Rules committee that stirred up quite a storm, overshadowing the Duskmourn release. Four cards – Jewelled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Dockside Extortionist and Nadu, Winged Wisdom, were all banned in Commander.
Jewelled lotus and Mana Crypt are staples in competitive commander (cEDH) and are priced accordingly, starting around the hundred dollar mark and going up significantly depending on the version. The ban has provoked a significant backlash online, as speculators and players who owned copies of the cards foresaw their investments dropping considerably in value.
Curiously, that drop in value has only been partially realised – people appear to be hoping for the bans to be overturned, or at least looking to wait out the uncertainty.
The behaviour of the online populace has been… disappointing. Whether or not the bans were warranted, some of the responses have been pretty nasty, allegedly even including threats of violence against committee members. The rules committee overseeing the Commander constructed format are members of the public, not directly associated with Wizards of the Coast. They made this call based on their assessment of the health of the format and were probably unprepared for the backlash directed against them.
The final result is that they have decided to formally hand over control of the Commandeer format to Wizards of the Coast. Further developments are still happening in this space and there are likely to be changes to the format coming soon.
Now, back to our regular, scheduled content…
Time to take a closer dive into Duskmourn!
As mentioned earlier, Duskmourn is a top-down design. And looking through the cards in the set it’s pretty hard to miss that fact. Like other, recent top-down designed sets (Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Murders at Markov Manor) the adherence to the theme can be polarising. Some people will love it, others will bemoan the TV sets, spectacles and sneakers in the artwork as not belonging to the Magic universe.
Some of the ideas are quite clever. I particularly like Haunted Screen, a television analogue artifact that delivers mana in black and white but allows colour – RGB – at a cost. It can also become a creature in a fairly direct reference to the 2002 horror movie “The Ring”.
A mournful tale
So how does the set tie in with the overarching storyline? Author Seanan McGuire does an excellent job at the official story, writing under the pseudonym Mira Grant. I recommend taking a look.
For those keen on a short synopsis, here you go:
The premise is that the plane was originally one where demons were subject to binding rituals, used to power minor household objects. Over time, a particular demon of immense power named Valgavoth was bound to a house but was beyond the ability of those who bound him to control. Valgavoth eventually found someone who could feed him, and he grew, and the house grew with him, till it consumed the entire plane. And there it found an equilibrium, permitting a small population of survivors as a farm for sustenance of fear they could provide.
But then came changes to the multiverse, with the Phyrexian invasions, and the opening of the Omenpaths. Valgavoth found new sources to appease his hunger.
The story deals with a small group of ex-planeswalkers (Tyvar, The Wanderer, Niko Aris) and Kaito, who still have his spark, who enter Duskmourn to a) find Tamiyo’s son Nashi, and b) learn more about the mysterious doors that are showing up.
One of the crucial points in the ongoing story arc is that Kaito (split up from the rest of the party) encounters Jace, who has lost Vraska and Loot. By the end of the story, Valvagoth is licking his wounds… but he still has Loot – the Fomori infant who Jace rescued from the Vault in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, who holds a map of the entire multiverse, and all the interconnecting Omenpaths in his head.
Part of me thinks that this might actually be part of Jace’s plan to make over the multiverse. We’ll see.
Set Mechanics
Duskmourn includes a new enchantment subtype, Room. Rooms are a split card permanent (previously split cards have only come as sorcery or instants). You can play either half and leave the other half to be ‘unlocked’ at a future point in time.
Correspondingly, the Eerie keyword is a triggered ability based on enchantments entering play or a room becoming fully unlocked.
Manifest dread is another new keyword, a variant of the existing keyword Manifest that allows you to look at the two top cards of your library, put one into play facedown as a 2/2 creature, and the other into your graveyard.
Next up we have the keyword survival. Each survival ability is a triggered ability that triggers at the beginning of your second main phase, if the creature with the ability is tapped.
Finally, there is a cycle of mythic enchantment creatures with the keyword Impending, which allows you to cast at a reduced cost but delays it becoming a creature as a result.
Collectability
The card art and showcase frames are inspired by the set’s theme of Modern Horror. Besides the ubiquitous standard cards, and extended and borderless frames, there are two different showcase frames – Paranormal and Double Exposure. The paranormal frame gives the appearance of looking through a retro tech screen, complete with fuzzy picture; while the double exposure cards pay homage to horror photography.
The chase cards of the set are the new Japan Showcase foils which resemble cards from other popular trading games. These are going to be regular features in forthcoming sets. I’m personally not a huge fan; I find them to be less readable than other card types. But obviously, there is a market for them.
Personal Take
My first time getting my hands on the cards was at a media event held at Fortress in Melbourne’s CBD. We got to try out the new Commander decks, which (though we didn’t use them on the night) I was happy to find out, include Archenemy cards. Archenemy is a product that was first released back in 2010; it is a side of large cards that are designed to give a single player a significant boost in a multiplayer game while the other players band up to take them out.
Playing with the U/G Jump Scare preconstructed commander deck, I was facing an opponent piloting the G/B Death Toll Deck. My opponent got a strong lead, managing to take out my creatures while whittling away at my life total, and at one point things were looking grim – he had me at 47 life to my 6! However, I somehow managed to stabilise and come through with Biomass Mutation, pumping a few tokens and small creatures up to base 8/8 and stealing the win.
Overall impression of the set? I like it. It’s a clever take on horror that is different enough from planes like Innistrad, which is kinda the OG. While I don’t find it as interesting a premise as Bloomburrow, it’s still one of the better sets released so far this year.
Duskmourn: House of Horrors is in stores now.
About the Author
Ric Bullock
he/him
Ric is a board game afficiando who has been playing Magic: The Gathering for way too many years.
