(Abandoned Campground | Art by Cristi Balanescu)

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BOO! 

To get into the spirit of Duskmourn's horror theme, I thought I'd open with this article with a little written jump scare. Did it work? Were you spooked? Probably not, but I'll take any excuse to use giant bold font. We've got some creepy cards to talk about today, a horrifying collection of eerie artifacts and lurid lands. Let's barge right into this haunted mansion and analyze the colorless cards from Duskmourn: House of Horror.

Rares

Ghost Vacuum

This card is a Ghostbusters reference that is so unsubtle it's almost frightening. But is Ghost Vacuum a smash hit like the original 1984 movie, or a half-baked flop like Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire? Well as graveyard hate goes this card is pretty inefficient; it doesn't hold a candle to cards like Soul-Guide Lantern, Bojuka Bog and Tormod's Crypt. Even compared to other targeted pieces of graveyard removal like Scavenging Ooze and Lion Sash, the fact that Ghost Vacuum needs to be tapped to activate its effect means that it can only be used to exile a single card each turn unless you use an effect to untap it.

Let's face it though, if you're putting this card into your deck it's not because of its first ability, it's because of its second. For six mana, Ghost Vacuum can return every creature it has exiled as a 1/1 Spirit with a flying counter. Many creatures these days have incredibly powerful static effects or effects that activate as they enter the battlefield. Look no further than cards like Vile Mutilator and Fear of Burning Alive from Duskmourn. Activating a whole slew of these abilities in a single burst has the potential to change the face of a game, and having a board filled up with flying spirit tokens afterwards is also a nice touch. I would recommend slipping Ghost Vacuum into your deck under the following conditions:

1. Your deck contains a lot of creatures with powerful enter-the-battlefield or static abilities.

2. You have a token-themed deck, running cards like Inspiring Leader and Innkeeper's Talent, to buff the Spirt tokens up so that they are threats in their own right.

3. You have a playgroup where lots of players run strategies based on getting powerful creatures into their graveyard.

Marvin, Murderous Mimic

Marvin here loves two things: Committing murder and copying activated abilities. Activated abilities, for those looking for a recap, are effects on cards that can be turned on (or well, "activated") by paying a cost. These costs can take a lot of forms, but typically they're something like tapping the card or paying some mana. The mana-producing ability on Birds of Paradise is an example of an activated ability, as is Wildheart Invoker's ability to buff a creature.

Marvin, Murderous Mimic is perfectly made to fit into a Tazri, Stalwart Survivor deck. While it's hard to imagine Zendikar's most iconic general playing with a creepy doll like this, the two cards work together beautifully. Both cards want you to fill your deck with creatures with powerful activated abilities like Circle of Dreams Druid and Mother of Runes. Tazri will help you draw them, and then Marvin will duplicate their abilities.

Since Marvin, Murderous Mimic is a legendary creature himself, you can also try brewing a deck around him. This will be a pretty tricky task because the pool of colorless creatures with activated abilities isn't super wide, but it's definitely possible to put something together. In the early game, Marvin can copy the mana abilities of cards like Palladium Myr to help you develop your board. Once you get to the late game, you can generate a swarm of 10/10 Eldrazi tokens by having Marvin copy the effect of Ulamog's Dreadsire. Alternatively, you can go for an artifact-focused build by giving Marvin the effects of cards like Steel Overseer and Metalworker.

Giggling Skitterspike

Not only will the unnerving artwork of Giggling Skitterspike give your opponents nightmares (Nino Is did a great job here) but the card is also pretty nightmarishly powerful as well. A 1/1 for initially seems like a pretty awful deal, but this card has a series of incredibly strong effects that mean you end up getting a bargain. Giggling Skitterspike can be buffed up to 6/6 for an investment of five mana because it has Monstrosity 5. The card is also very difficult to remove on account of it being indestructible. The real power of Giggling Skitterspike though comes from its ability to deal damage to every opponent, equal to its power, whenever it attacks, blocks, or gets targeted by a spell. A massive range of different things cause this effect to go off, and it's easily possible to trigger it multiple times in a turn.

Giggling Skitterspike will work best in decks that run a lot of pump spells, or Auras that increase its power. Cards like Monstrous Rage and All That Glitters work well with it. Kalamax, the Stormsire would make a great commander for this card, since Kalamax's ability to duplicate a spell cast on Giggling Skitterspike would cause its damage to go off twice. Similarly, Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief is all about targeting your creatures with beneficial spells and the Skitterspike is a great creature to target. A beautiful, and maybe slightly impractical, dream that I have is to target Giggling Skitterspike with a copy of Colossification and then any two other spells in order to deal 40 damage to the rest of the table in a single colossal burst of chaos.

Dissection Tools

Before we can discuss Dissection Tools, we have to discuss manifest dread. Manifest dread is a new mechanic introduced in Duskmourn: House of Horror where you look at the top two cards of your deck. You then put one of these two cards into your graveyard and bring the other one into play as a facedown 2/2. If the facedown card is a creature, you can later flip it face up by paying its mana cost.

Dissection Tools is a more costly, but more threatening, variant of Basilisk Collar. While the five mana that you're paying for this card does look pretty steep compared to Basilisk Collar's cost of one, this card does have several things going for it. You can conceptualize this card as a 4/4 lifelinker with deathtouch for 5 mana. That's already pretty nice, but you also have the additional upside of being able to flip the card you've manifested Dissection Tools on to in order to turn it into a bigger threat. Sacrificing a creature is also a lot better as an equip cost than needing to pay . In the right deck, you'll actively want to be sacrificing things, meaning that Dissection Tools equip cost can actually benefit you. Pick your favorite sacrifice commander like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King or Juri, Master of the Revue and you can slot this card right into one of their decklists.

Séance Board

This unique mana rock sets your brain buzzing with a million different possibilities. Séance Board gains a soul counter during each end step on a turn when a creature dies. The board can then be tapped down to generate X mana of any one color, where X is the number of soul counters on Séance Board. While this mana can only be spent to cast instant, sorcery, Demon, and Spirit spells, that just means you need to ensure you put Séance Board into a deck that suits it. Creatures die on almost every turn in any game of Commander, so once you've played Séance Board it may well have already built up three or four counters by the time you get another turn. These counters will only continue to grow as the game keeps going on, and more and more creatures die.

This card comes packaged in the Endless Punishment precon. That deck is loaded with removal effects, although it has fewer Demons and Spirits than might be expected considering that Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls is the commander zone. Be'lakor, the Dark Master, and Millicent, Restless Revenant make nice commanders if you're looking to play into the typal aspects of this card. Personally, I feel that Séance Board will work best in spellslinger builds though. Loading the huge amount of mana that it has the potential to generate into a Torment of Hailfire or an Exsanguinate seems like a great way to pull off a win.

Verge lands

Wizards of the Coast are on the verge of something very powerful here, because this new cycle of lands is incredibly pushed. Verge lands enter play untapped and can always generate one color of mana. They can generate a second color of mana if you control a land with a basic land type that matches either of the colors that they produce. For example, Gloomlake Verge can always generate blue mana, but it can generate black mana as well if you control either an island or a swamp.

Probably the best cards to compare to the Verge Lands are the Check lands. Just as a reminder, Check lands are lands like Glacial Fortress and Rootbound Crag which enter play tapped, unless you control a card with a basic land type that corresponds to either of the two colors of mana they produce in which case they enter play untapped.

While the Verge lands are not quite strictly better than the Check lands (after a Check land untaps, it can always generate two colors of mana, while it's possible to end up stuck with a Verge land that can only generate one color of mana for a few turns), they are a significant upgrade over the Check lands at least 90% of the time and certainly in any two- or three-color deck. The Verge lands are also a lot better than basic lands, being an upgrade in every way aside from the fact that they don't have a basic land type.

Currently, these lands only exist across the allied color pairs, but an enemy colored set are almost certainly due for release in the future. We may also see a mirrored version of these cards as well (for example a counterpart to Gloomlake Verge which generates black mana by default, and then blue mana if you control a swamp or an island). If you're running a deck that uses any of these colors, and you have the spare cash, you should load one of these into your mana base at the next available opportunity.

Valgavoth's Lair

The game's second-ever enchantment land after Urza's Saga. Enchantment decks are very popular, and Valgavoth's Lair fits comfortably into many of them. Enchantment commanders that are at least three colors like Tuvasa the Sunlit and Zur the Enchanter definitely appreciate the fixing that this land provides, even though the fact that it always enters play tapped is certainly annoying.

One thing to bear in mind with this card though is that as it's a land, it is never "cast". This means you will need to read your cards carefully, as there are some effects that will be triggered when you play Valgavoth's Lair and some effects that won't. You won't draw a card from Mesa Enchantress or Enchantress's Presence when Valgavoth's Lair enters play, but you will still get card draw from Eidolon of Blossoms and trigger other cards that have the Constellation ability.

Even though Valgavoth's Lair won't give you any cast triggers, it still enables a whole bunch of other useful enchantment synergies. It helps Sanctum Weaver generate more mana, it allows Nylea's Colossus to double a creature's stats and it can be sacrificed to Ghen, Arcanum Weaver to fetch a bigger enchantment from the graveyard.

Uncommons & Commons

Saw

Did they put the card Saw in the set as a reference to the Saw movies, or because saws have always been a popular weapon amongst horror antagonists? We may never know the answer. Saw can't compete with Skullclamp, but it's still a decent enough repeatable sacrifice outlet that lets you turn expendable permanents into card draw. Probably the best home for Saw is in Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher decks. Saw increases Carmen's power both by letting you sacrifice more creatures and by giving her a +2/+0 boost if you equip it to her. This means Carmen can start getting bigger creatures out of your graveyard much earlier than she otherwise could. Since it's just an uncommon, this card has been overlooked by a lot of people during spoiler season. I guess nobody ever saw it coming.

Haunted Screen

Magic: the Gathering is full of mana rocks that cost three. At first glance, Haunted Screen doesn't appear too remarkable. The card can generate black or white mana for no cost, or red, green, or blue mana if you pay one life. This is a joke about how it's a black and white tv where you can pay to display the image in color, and honestly whoever at Wizards of the Coast came up with that concept should get a raise. If this was all the card did though, it would just be a slightly worse (albeit much funnier) Manalith and nobody wants to play Manalith. Haunted Screen sets itself apart from other mana rocks by being able to turn into a 7/7 spirit for seven mana. This is certainly an interesting concept. The card Cursed Mirror demonstrates that there is a demand for mana rocks that can help you out in combat and, unlike the mirror, Haunted Screen stays a creature forever.

Unfortunately, the joke that Haunted Screen is based around comes with a cost. Because this card has all five mana symbols listed in its rules text, it has a WUBRG color identity, and can only be used in five-color decks in Commander. You can't just put Haunted Screen into an Orzhov deck. Only the Kenrith, the Returned Kings, and Jodah, the Unifiers of the world will be able to experiment with this card. Five-color decks already have a plethora of powerful mana rocks to choose from like Timeless Lotus and Mox Amber, which means Haunted Screen is in a crowded market. Nevertheless, the card is good fun, and it may be worth playing around with if you're a curious five-color brewer.

Glimmerlight

At first glance, Glimmerlight seems like an utterly forgettable card. Two mana for a Short Sword and a 1/1 Glimmer creature token is not very impactful at all, especially since Glimmerlight doesn't even attach itself to the token it creates. The Glimmer creature token created by this card is an enchantment creature though. That means that Glimmerlight creates three different permanent types, spread out over two cards, for only two mana. There are some niche cases where this can be very useful.

Baba Lysaga, Night Witch requires cards with three different permanent types to be sacrificed to enable her very powerful ability. This means that Glimmerlight enables Baba Lysaga all by itself, and at a very cheap rate. Amareth, the Lustrous allows their controller to draw a card whenever a permanent enters the battlefield that shares a card type with the top card of their controller's library. Amareth decks are typically filled with cards that have as many card types as possible, so Glimmerlight has a decent chance of drawing at least one card, potentially even two as it enters play. Finally, Baylen, the Haymaker can also make use of this card. Baylen wants to fill the board with as many tokens as possible in order to enable their various activated abilities. Two tokens for two mana of any color is a pretty good rate, especially in a three-color deck.

Friendly Teddy

Kudos to this card's designers for making it a two mana 2/2 and thus a bear. Friendly Teddy is a variant on Ichor Wellspring, except rather than providing card draw upfront it provides a 2/2 body instead. Nine times out of ten you would rather have Ichor Wellspring's extra card draw, but some commanders would be happy to give this Friendly Teddy a great big hug. Delney, Streetwise Lookout makes the teddy more difficult to block and lets you draw two cards when it gets taken down. Since Delney, Streetwise Lookout is a mono-white commander any source of card draw you can get your hands on is always appreciated. Commanders that want you to sacrifice creatures like Akul the Unrepentant and Anhelo, the Painter can also make decent use of this fluffy friend. This is probably never a card that you will be hugely excited to run, but it can play its role well enough.

"Unlucky" lands

This group of ten lands has been nicknamed the "unlucky cycle" because they all enter play tapped unless any player has 13 or less life. Whether they're lucky or not is a matter of debate, whether they're any good is a significantly easier question to answer. No, no they're not. These 10 lands were clearly designed for use in Duskmourn Limited games and not for Commander. When you're playing a 1v1 game where both players start with 20 life, you'll probably be able to get some of these lands into play untapped after a handful of turns. When you're playing a four player free-for-all, where everyone starts with 40 life, that's much harder to accomplish. By the time you've made it to the point in the game where someone has been knocked down to 13 or less life you should already have access to all of your deck's colors, unless you've gotten really unlucky. Additionally, if the lone player at the table with under 13 life is eliminated, then these lands go back to entering play tapped. If you're brewing on a budget, then yes these are upgrades over lands like Stone Quarry and Woodland Stream, but it's still pretty hard to recommend the unlucky lands.

BOO!!! 

So there we have it. We're booking ending this article with boos. Did that second jump scare work any better than the first? I used an extra two exclamation marks this time, and we all know that exclamation marks are the scariest punctuation!

Speaking of scary things, Duskmourn: House of Horror looks to be a really unique set. Compared to Innistrad, which is based on Gothic horror, Duskmourn has a more pulpy contemporary scary movie vibe. The cards in the set are just as unique as its aesthetic and I'm certainly very excited to get my hands on some Verge lands and a copy of Giggling Skitterspike.

What about you? Do you think these cards look horrifyingly powerful, or horribly weak? Let us know down in the comments.

Ben Macready

Ben is a freelance writer from the UK. He's has been playing Magic since he was 8 years old, back when he thought Enormous Baloth was the best card in the game. You can find more Magic content from him on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2iSANUGoKzdK6XgLyB1qLw