(Demonic Counsel | Art by Babs Webb)

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We Have Such Sights to Show You

If you're reading this, it's already too late. You're trapped in Dusksmourn: House of Horrors. Here, you'll experience the true horrors awaiting you behind every door. Today, you have the pleasure of seeing what black spells Duskmourn has to offer. Exercise caution with each step. And please, no tears. It's a waste of good suffering.

Mythics

Funeral Room // Awakening Hall

Here we have our first Room enchantment. Both halves of this Room are great for black decks that are consistently sacrificing creatures. Once all those creatures are in the graveyard, you can unlock the door to the Awakening Hall to bring those creatures back. While the Awakening Hall half of this card cost a total of eight mana, the other half is a Bastion of Remembrance that can come down earlier.

Overall, I don't mind Rooms. It's a weird blend of a Class and a modal spell. I like modal spells for Commander as they prevent a card from being dead if it's a high-costed spell or too situational. However, unlike Classes where you can use a dice to track the levels, it's not clear how you track what Room is unlocked. Would you just put a counter on the open room and then remove the counter once both are open? Let me know in the comments how you would track Rooms.

Meathook Massacre II

Our sequel to The Meathook Massacre is another sweeper effect that can be used to return any creature that dies under your control. This edict effect is pretty costly, but outside of that, this is just a four-mana enchantment that's perfect in any deck that already has other edict effects. This isn't too far off from Gisa, Glorious Resurrector, except opponents have the option to pay three life so you don't get their creature. It's a great passive ability. Either you get free creatures or your opponents drain themselves trying to stop you.

Overlord of the Balemurk

Our first impending card from Duskmourn can both fill our graveyard and recur creatures and planeswalkers to our hand. This being a repeatable effect makes this a worthy inclusion in graveyard decks. And this is a clear winner for Henzie decks that can blitz it out for four mana and get back other creatures that were blitzed out.

If you needed this effect sooner than turn five, you could cast it for two mana for its impending cost and it'd roughly be the same as casting Corpse Churn. However, if you cast it on turn two, the Overlord won't be able to be a creature and attack until turn seven—as opposed to casting it on turn five and attacking on turn six. Unless you have a way to remove counters off permanents, casting Overlord of the Balemurk for its impending cost in Commander isn't great.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater

The one thing I didn't like about Arvinox, the Mind Flail wasn't even the fact that it cost seven mana, it was that you could only cast permanent spells from exile. Here, Valgavoth, allows you to play any card that goes to your opponents' graveyard from anywhere. He's essentially a Dauthi Voidwalker in the command zone where you can pay life to cast spells instead of paying the mana cost of that spell. It's a powerful ability, and it makes the nine mana needed to cast him seem reasonable.

I'm all for theft strategies. I think with the right intentions, they can make games more interesting and memorable. But with Valgavoth, there's a chance it's encroaching on Tergrid's territory. Valgavoth encourages a strategy that wants cards to be put into graveyards, so discard, edicts, and mill are all ways to force cards into your opponents' graveyards for Valgavoth to steal. And because he cost nine mana, discard and edicts are a good way to slow down the game so you can cast Valgavoth.

Rares

Ancient Cellarspawn

Oh no, a card that makes casting free spells even better. You can cast Deadly Rollick and drain an opponent for four life. And that's not even the worst of it. Cascade is a whole strategy that wants to cast spells for free. Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder and Abaddon the Despoiler will want this even if it doesn't help reduce their mana cost. This is also pretty cool with plot and suspend cards.

Come Back Wrong

This is a solid way to trigger a creature with an enter-the-battlefield (ETB) ability. It's more likely that you'll want to hit your creatures than a random creature on the battlefield. Since it doesn't give the creature haste, you're probably targeting a creature with a useful ETB ability or some other ability that you can take advantage of. It's not the type of card I want to put in my deck unless I knew I had creatures that I wanted to target.

Cramped Vents // Access Maze

Cramped Vents could be a handy removal spell that can also let you gain some life, but the more interesting half of this card is Access Maze. Getting to cast spells for life is always good, but it's seven mana and you can only do it once on each of your turns. As a whole, I don't think it's great, but, of course, with a commander like Aminatou, Veil Piercer, the precon that it comes in, having the cost reduced by four mana makes this a better inclusion.

Deluge of Doom

At three mana, this is a pretty efficient boardwipe. However, you don't have the ability to be as precise in what you hit as you could be with Toxic Deluge. Unless you're in a self-mill strategy, you might struggle to get four or more different card types in the graveyard to get the bigger creatures on the battlefield. It's an effective sweeper in graveyard decks and worth an inclusion if you do have a decent spread of card types in your deck.

Demonic Counsel

Late game Demonic Tutor isn't bad, but I wouldn't run this unless I had a Demon card I wanted to pull out of my deck in case this couldn't be cast with Delirium. If you have ways to fill your graveyard through mill, discard, or sacrifice, or have a decent spread of card types, this would be a good pick for those decks.

Demonic Covenant

A powerful effect but with a self-destruct clause if you mill two cards with the same types. I wouldn't cast this enchantment unless I could capitalize on it the turn it comes down. Between lands and having a decent number of Demons to make this effective, I don't think it'll last on the battlefield for more than two turns. So, this should only be played on a turn where you can attack with at least four demons to feel like you got your mana's worth out of it.

Doomsday Excruciator

Now this is just evil. It's the type of card that ensures the game will end soon, and I can't imagine the game not ending the turn it comes down. If you're casting this, then you should be ready to mill out the rest of your opponents' libraries. The good news is that this is to cast, so this shouldn't see much play outside of mono-black. Bad news? K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth basically makes it free to cast. All around gross and truly evil, and I like it.

Enduring Tenacity

A cheaper Sanguine Bond, and it's on a creature that'll come back as a noncreature enchantment when it dies. It's good for triggering Constellation, and it's difficult for your opponents to remove unless it's exiled. Anytime I cast Sanguine Bond, it usually eats removal pretty quickly, so I like this version that's harder to get rid of.

Grievous Wound

While it won't be able to kill an opponent on its own, it's basically a death sentence for the enchanted player. If they get hit with multiple creatures or by a Goblin Bombardment, their life total will drop significantly. Enchanting one player with this feels so mean, but it's an effective way to ensure you can knock one player out of the game–even better if it's down to 1v1. I'm also not sure why this isn't a Curse.

Into the Pit

Not quite Bolas's Citadel, but it still lets you dig through your deck if you have the permanents to spare. It'll be good in decks that have tokens to sacrifice or nonland permanents that want to be sacrificed to the cause. Unfortunately, it stops working once there's a land on top. So, this would be a better fit in decks that have some form of topdeck manipulation.

Metamorphosis Fanatic

A pretty over-costed reanimate effect, but it can be cast for its miracle cost. This coming down for two mana is amazing, and it gives that creature a lifelink counter. In general, this is great for graveyard decks that'll be able to cheat this creature out. Or in blink decks that have ways to abuse ETB abilities. This would be a fun encore target in an Araumi of the Dead Tide deck; encore the fanatic and get three additional big creatures out with lifelink.

Persistent Constrictor

Persistent Constrictor is a pesky creature that's hard to kill with persist. The constrictor seems like a good enabler for specific decks. The life loss works well with commanders that care about opponents' losing life, such as Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin. And while the -1/-1 counters can be useful to remove small creatures, they'll be more effective in a Massacre Girl, Known Killer deck that can use those counters to draw cards.

Polluted Cistern // Dim Oubliette

Polluted Cistern gives self-mill decks a way to drain opponents for the cheap cost of only two mana. It encourages incremental milling over mass milling, since it'll only drain the table for each card type among those cards. But this is great with something like Mesmeric Orb that mills one card for each permanent untapping. Now you're filling your graveyard and draining everyone by doing so.

The other half of this Room is fine. Dim Oubliette reanimates a creature and fills your graveyard too. It's more of a nice bonus effect rather than the reason you're including it in your self-mill deck.

Sadistic Shell Game

With every new choice-based card that's printed, I'm tempted to build a choice-based deck. Sadistic Shell Game is very similar to Druid of Purification. These types of cards allow each player to weigh in on what they think is the problem permanent. It can cause rifts, it can be used to bargain deals, and overall, it allows you to get insight into what your opponents deem to be worrisome, all while not having to lose anything of yours either. Unlike the Druid, Sadistic Shell Game starts with the next opponent in turn order. This is a big deal, because with the Druid, if there was a permanent you needed to make sure got removed, you had to pick it because someone else might not see it as the problem. Sadistic Shell Game allows you to see what the other players choose before making your decision. And if someone picks the creature you wanted to pick, then you're free to choose another creature.

I also like these types of cards because it's difficult for opponents to play around. Once players start choosing what creatures to remove, the spell will resolve, and there's no instance for opponents to respond with a Tamiyo's Safekeeping once their creature is chosen.

Suspended Sentence

Not the best black removal, but it's a better Phthisis. After pay the cost to suspend or cast it, you're getting a free removal spell every three turns. And the longer the game goes on, the more use you'll get out of it. I've heard that players have been enjoying Charnel Serenade since it's a repeatable reanimate. It's also a card being cast from exile, so any commander that cares about casting from exile like Prosper, Tome-Bound will want this card. And this would be brutal with Obeka, Splitter of Seconds since she can easily remove those time counters through making additional upkeeps.

Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber

I like the repeatable card draw from Unholy Annex. It's like Phyrexian Arena except you draw the card at your end step. Losing two life each turn isn't terrible, but not great either. Ritual Chamber will give you a Demon that'll turn that life loss from Unholy Annex onto your opponents, but I don't think this card is worth running unless you have a Demon commander or a few Demons in your deck.

Unstoppable Slasher

A Graveblade Marauder except it'll come back to life with two stun counters on it. While its combat damage ability can chop an opponent's life in half, it's not going to be able to get through as long as they can block it. And even though it's hard to kill, coming back with two stun counters will make it feel like forever before it's able to attack again. I like the flavor of this card, but it'll be more of a nuance for opponents that need to chump block rather than a real threat.

Uncommons & Commons

Cynical Loner

Cynical Loner is a repeatable Entomb in decks that can consistently tap down creatures. Perfect for Greasefang, Okiba Boss decks. Tap Cynical Loner with a Vehicle to entomb another Vehicle and then use Greasefang to reanimate that Vehicle. Any deck that can tap down creatures and want cards in the graveyard will see the value in Cynical Loner.

Live or Die

Terrible removal spell, but a much better reanimate effect. Usually, five-mana reanimation spells are sorcery speed, so having it at instant speed is worth noting. Destroying a creature for five-mana is pretty bad, so I would only consider this in the reanimation slot of a deck instead of swapping out a removal spell for it.

Popular Egotist

Slightly downgraded Mayhem Devil, but it allows you to gain life when you sacrifice Treasure tokens. I think Popular Egotist can find a home in a lot of different decks. It fits into sacrifice decks, Treasure/artifact token decks, and enchantment decks with graveyard subthemes.

Withering Torment

Seeing this card be printed is kind of insane to me because Feed the Swarm was a big deal for black decks. Feed the Swarm was a cheap way for black to directly deal with enchantments. It was slow at sorcery speed and it cost a ton of life to cast if it was targeting a big creature or enchantment. Withering Torment has none of those downsides and it only costs one more mana. The life loss is even capped at two life, which is crazier to me than black having a good instant speed enchantment removal. Overall, one of the best pickups from this set.

You've Escaped Your Fate

Looks like you've made it to the end. Not everyone does so consider yourself lucky. I hope you find some use for the black spells you've about learned today. Let me know down below which cards you're looking forward to from this set, and I'll see you next time!

Joshua Wood

Josh is a creative writer that started playing Magic when Throne of Eldraine was released. He loves entering combat and pressuring life totals, and to him, commander damage is always relevant. Outside of brewing many commander decks, he can be found prepping his D&D campaigns with a cat purring in his lap.