Before I had enough time to fully appreciate Bloomburrow, a new set decided to jump scare us. Duskmourn is a new modern horror themed set, it takes place on the plane of Duskmourn which has been taken over by a infinite impossible House. It’s nice seeing this era of horror portrayed in such an earnest way, but does this set live up to the legacy of the genre?

Theming

Perhaps the most striking thing about Duskmourn is the theming. It marks a sharp turn compared to the typical high fantasy of Magic and I have to say that I really enjoy it, the portrayal of many horror tropes is done really well in the context of Magic, the art is beautiful, horrifying and the flavor is pretty well done.

There is something really great about the plane of Duskmourn, I’m a big fan of impossible spaces in horror and twisting a comfortable house into a plane-wide phenomenon helps the world feel very unique and allows for a ton of cool details. Cards like Daggermaw Megalodon feature a contrast between the horrors of Duskmourn and the world they inhabit, this makes them feel that much more scary and interesting. Just take a look at the lands of this set, incomprehensible spaces surrounded by walls and windows, regardless of “where” you may be in the House, you always feel its oppressive presence. There is something poetic about mana being found in these places.

Special mentions go to Murder for the beautifully dreadful art.

I think the showcase cards are especially beautiful. The two styles used are quite immersive and in my opinion look fantastic as art pieces while still being very readable as game pieces.

There’s definitely some misses though, Toby, Beastie Befriender just makes me think of Poppy Playtime which I’d rather not think about, many Survivors like Reluctant Role Model just kind of look like chumps and it undermines how scary many of the monsters of Duskmourn are. After all, how has this guy been able to stay alive for so long if there really are Threats Around Every Corner? Still, there’s a certain charm to those, they call back to cheesy horror movies where a bunch of untalented teenagers somehow outsmart an armed murderer. As cheap as these stories can feel sometimes, this set is an honest homage to them and I respect that.

Of course, theming isn’t just about card art. Mechanics play a big role to making Duskmourn feel like it does. The new Room mechanic works well in this regard, there’s something very immersive about how unlocking each door unleashes some effect. Entering the Ticket Booth side of Ticket Booth // Tunnel of Hate just begs you to imagine a squad of survivors entering an oppressively dead space, imitating what once would be bustling with activity, further enhancing the dread of a situation. You could really tell a beautiful horror story with some of these cards and I think that’s a mark of a good Magic: The Gathering set. I’m glad not to have gotten any cards with Jace in them.

Mechanics

Duskmourn has a couple of noteworthy mechanics that are really nice in my opinion, here’s a few I wanted to bring up.

Survival

Survival is a pretty fun mechanic. Creatures with Survival give you a small benefit if they are tapped at the beginning of your second main phase. This creates an interesting dynamic around combat where your opponent is incentivized to hunt down your creature and trade down to deny you value and where evasion effects become a lot more valuable. It also synergizes in a flavorful way with cards like Coordinated Clobbering which allow your survivors to team up and survive together, or they can get in a vehicle like Hedge Shredder to hide and stay safe. But also, if they Split Up then each group can be taken out individually. While not extremely strong, this is a really well designed mechanic that uses simple rules to really enhance the flavor of the plane and shift the dynamics of combat.

Delirium

Delirium is back! As long as there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, cards with delirium are a lot stronger. Most often cards with delirium are perfectly fine, if a bit slow, when you don’t have your types but once you do they become very efficient like Let's Play a Game or Demonic Counsel. It’s a fun mechanic to play with, delirium can really come out of nowhere if you get lucky with cards like Greenhouse // Rickety Gazebo, Say Its Name or Patchwork Beastie and it takes a certain amount of building around if you want to be powerful before your opponent sweeps the floor with you. Say Its Name deserves a special mention here, it has a really cool second ability that’s quite different from anything else in Magic and can make every card you mill that much more hype. Delirium also synergizes in a flavorful way with manifest dread, after all I too would become delirious if I had to constantly fight against the dread of a never-ending House.

Manifest dread

Manifest dread is a powercrept version of the manifest mechanic but, overall, I’m okay with that. It’s a sort of combination of manifest and surveil, it has the element of choosing something to put in your graveyard to maybe get to delirium or get a strong reanimator target and it lets you maybe get a terrifying creature on the board hidden. “Dread” is an adequate name for it, while the manifested creature is not particularly scary (I haven’t seen that many manifested creatures turned face-up in general), every time you do it it feels like stepping forward towards your goal which could inspire dread in your opponent. It’s really more of a supplemental mechanic for graveyard archetypes than an archetype in of itself and it gets you a decent body for your trouble.

Rooms

Rooms are a brand new enchantment type and Magic’s first split permanent type. You can cast either side of a room to start with that door unlocked and you can unlock the other door at sorcery speed by paying its cost. I personally love split cards, they make your deck denser with a wider variety of effects and choices. I found myself picking certain rooms even just for a single side and getting a lot of unexpected value out of the second mode. Magic has been trying out new ways to do modal cards with spree and Bloomburrow’s pawprint modal cards but I think rooms really hit the mark. They fit the theming really well, make games more fun and decks more dense.

Eerie

Eerie is a pretty simple “when synergy happens do thing” mechanic but it’s alright. I like the theme, enchantments in this set include otherwordly nightmares like Appendage Amalgam, terrifying concepts like Duskmourn's Domination, enduring qualities like Enduring Curiosity, fears like Fear of Burning Alive and, of course, rooms. The result is that these eerie creatures really feel otherwordly, being powered up by fear and horror, but other than that it’s a bit of a generic mechanic to power up an “enchantment” synergy.

Limited

Now, of course, I didn’t get to play all that much. Overall though, I feel like the limited format is fun. It feels pretty tightly knit in terms of mechanics where you can get away with using a bit of everything. The draft archetypes are all interesting and fun while remaining pretty balanced, Pyroclasm definitely saved my ass a couple of times and the abundant targetted removal gives each game a satisfying back-and-forth. I’m definitely looking forward to playing it more as there is a lot of room for experimenting here.

Conclusion

Overall, I quite like Duskmourn. It plays well, has fun mechanics and a really stylish and unique theming. I wish I could play it for longer than two months before we get another set but I suppose that’s just what Magic is now.

(Portions of this blog post are literal and graphical information about Magic: The Gathering, including card text and art, and are copyright Wizards of the Coast, LLC. I am not endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. Card data and images are provided by Scryfall.)