(Cautious Survivor | Art by Jodie Muir)

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It's Pummeling Time for Green!

Greeting my friends! Who's ready to dig into all the green goodies that Duskmourn: House of Horror has to offer for Commander fans? My name is Bennie Smith, I've been playing Magic for 30 years, writing about Magic for 25 years, and have been a huge fan of EDH/Commander for 17 (?!) years now.

If you don't know me, I'll be going more into my background in a future article soon, so be on the look for it! But I know you're here for the set review and since we've got a lot ground to cover with who knows what lurking around every corner, let's go ahead and make a run for it!

Mythics

Hauntwoods Shrieker

This is an awesome card for any deck that cares about turning face-down cards face-up, so if you've got cards in your deck with manifest dread, morph, megamorph, manifest, disguise or cards that make facedown Cyberman creatures from the Doctor Who expansion, you're going to love this card.

I do have a Yedora, Grave Gardener deck that runs a lot of these cards, but it's a budget Commander deck so I'm worried this being a mythic rare will preclude its inclusion. Notably, this manifests dread whenever it attacks, so you can take advantage of the entire card even if your deck isn't super-focused on face-down cards.

Manifest dread puts a card in your graveyard, so this could go into a reanimator deck, or benefit other ways to utilize your graveyard like the Delirium mechanic.

Overlord of the Hauntwoods

The impending ability of this card really pushes this into "wow" territory, letting you ramp early plus color-fix if this is a card in the 99 of your Commander deck.

This will make a pretty good include for any monogreen deck that cares about landfall, but even more fun is that you could make use of green domain cards that you'd normally have to play with a five-color commander to unlock; there's Nishoba Brawler for beating down, Herd Migration for even more beat down, and Briar Hydra for +1/+1 counter synergy.

Then there are cards like Idol of Oblivion and Parallel Lives that synergize with the Everywhere land token. I'd also find a spot for Power Conduit in the deck to remove the time counters from impending more quickly.

Tyvar, the Pummeler

Tyvar's character in the Duskmourn story embodies that feeling you get in so many horror stories, where the survivors band together and basically form a Dungeons & Dragons party to take down the evil monsters.

It's cool that Tyvar's first ability can gain indestructible, letting it rumble in combat and usually survive, or perhaps dodge a battlefield sweeper like Wrath of God. A 3/3 for three mana will quickly get outclassed on a typical Commander battlefield, so you'll want plenty of ways to increase its size; cards like Blackblade Reforged and Rancorspring to mind.

And of course the bigger you make Tyvar or some other creature, the bigger effect Tyvar's second ability to boost all your creatures will be!

It's cool that Tyvar slots perfectly into Elf decks, but notably doesn't mention Elves in its text box, so you can run any of your favorite green creatures in your Tyvar deck if you wish!

Walk-In Closet // Forgotten Cellar

Rooms are a cool new card type from Duskmourn: House of Horror; you cast either side to unlock that room, and then later you can pay the mana cost of the other side to unlock that part of the card too, as a sorcery. Green's mythic Room is pretty potent, with Walk-In Closet functioning as a Crucible of Worlds, and Forgotten Cellar a Yawgmoth's Will (or rather, Gaea's Will).

Unlocking Forgotten Cellar takes a whopping five mana, so you'll want a lot of ways to generate mana for your big turn of playing spells from your graveyard, but since you're playing green already that shouldn't be much of a problem; from mana doublers like Mirari's Wake, and ways to untap your lands like Nature's Will.

Then there's Rude Awakening, which you can cast to float mana before unlocking Forgotten Cellar, and then cast it again from the graveyard to generate even more mana.

Rares

Balustrade Wurm

I play a ton of Brawl on Magic Arena, and a huge number of people on there play blue decks with fistfuls of counterspells. Nothing warms my heart more than a really good card that also includes the words "This spell can't be countered."

If you've got a friend in your Commander pod that loves their counterspells, be sure to slot this in your decks with a smile and attack with haste and trample when you draw it. I think a five mana 5/5 body is likely a little sub-par for most green creature-heavy Commander decks unless you specifically are building to unlock delirium cards, and again Power Conduit comes in clutch, this time to remove that pesky finality counter so Balustrade Wurm can keep coming back for more.

Enduring Vitality

If you're playing a go-wide creature token strategy, Enduring Vitality is a pretty good way to turn all those extra bodies into a burst of mana, and it quite nicely comes back from dying but next time only as an enchantment.

It's obviously going to slot great into Enchantress-style decks such as Sythis, Harvest's Hand, and since it's an enchantment creature, decks that care about multiple card types (for Delirium, or cards like Tarmogoyf) will love it.

Hedge Shredder

This card is incredibly powerful in the right sort of deck; green has a bunch of ways to self-mill, and putting any lands that go from your library to the graveyard back onto the battlefield is going to be huge. Sure, it could be a bummer the lands will enter tapped but that's why you run Spelunking. I'm thinking decks built around Six or Lumra, Bellow of the Woods will love having this in the 99!

I have a Strong, the Brutish Thespian Commander deck that generates rad counters from the Fallout expansion, and resolving those rad counters will mill lands that Hedge Shredder will put onto the battlefield. Notably, the lands you tutor up with Realms Uncharted that your opponent chooses to put into your graveyard upon resolution of the spell are technically going from your library to the graveyard.

Kona, Rescue Beastie

It's a mark of cool design that so many of the cards we've talked about so far involve tapping a creature, which just so happens to unlock the survival abilities of Duskmourn's Survivors, and that ability of Kona, Rescue Beastie is eye-popping good! For the sake of everyone's pocketbook thank goodness this isn't a mythic rare.

If you have this as your commander there are a ton of cards you can add to your deck to tap Kona without needing it to attack and survive combat; there are Vehicles like Hedge Shredder and Mounts like Ornery Tumblewagg, there are artifacts like Relic of Legends, and even convoke spells like Chord of Calling.

Of course you'll want to include plenty of high mana, high impact creatures to put into play with the survival trigger, but keep in mind that the trigger happens after combat, so this is probably not a deck for Craterhoof Behemoth. I'd be looking at cards with enters the battlefield abilities like Meteor Golem, Hornet Queen, and Kogla, the Titan Ape.

Leyline of Mutation

Leylines are neat, but this one like Leyline of the Guildpact can only be played in a five-color deck since it duplicates the effect of Fist of Suns. If you've got a Jodah, Archmage Eternal Commander deck, you might want to slot this in as a backup to your commander's ability.

I wonder if we've got a critical number of Leylines now to build a five-color Leyline Commander deck that gets a boost from starting the game with one or two enchantments on the battlefield?

Omnivorous Flytrap

"Feed me, Seymour!" Fans of Little Shop of Horrors will surely get this altered into Audrey II. Kirri, Talented Sprout has another Plant for its team, though you'll obviously want to ensure your deck can deliver delirium reliably before adding this to your roster.

Twitching Doll

One of the creepiest new cards in the set, a card that's a Spider and a Toy? Yikes! It's awesome this taps for any color mana, and as a 2/2 for two mana it's even a respectable early beatdown creature if that's useful to you.

As an artifact creature it covers half of your Delirium requirements by itself, and it even has a way to sacrifice itself and spit out a bunch of Spider tokens - ewww! Outside of Spider decks, I'd take a look at this card if I was running a fair number of ways to untap creatures in my deck already.

I have a stack of cards that might one day become a Commander deck built around Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero which does a lot of tapping and untapping of creatures, and this is a strong contender for the list.

Valgavoth's Onslaught

If you love big and splashy X-spells, here's another one to consider. It seems like a solid addition to Zaxara, the Exemplary decks since that commander encourages +1/+1 counter synergies. The fact that manifest dread also puts cards in the graveyard can unlock all sorts of synergies, whether it's achieving delirium, or pitching lands to get back with something like Hedge Shredder, reanimation strategies using Animate Dead, or just some added selections for a future Eternal Witness trigger.

Uncommons & Commons

Altanak, the Thrice-Called

Alright, for the Uncommons and Commons we have a lightning round since most of these are here to make Limited run smoothly and likely won't have much impact on Commander. It's unfortunate that we can't play more than one copy of Say Its Name in a Commander deck so we can get the full Beetlejuice experience, but Altanak still has a lot going for it in the 99 of some Commander decks.

A 9/9 with trample is a solid size for reanimation strategies, and its static ability lets you draw a card whenever an opponent targets it with a spell or ability. It can even pitch itself from your hand to the graveyard fairly easily so long as you're playing a decent number of ways to get lands into the graveyard (such as self-milling and manifest dread).

Defiant Survivor

The survival mechanic is going to do good things for Vehicle and Mount decks, but I wanted to call out Defiant Survivor as one of the top picks for these strategies; those decks tend to be vulnerable to attacks because you're tapping two potential blockers to get your attacks in, but Defiant Survivor's ability will generate a blocker when it manifests dread.

Insidious Fungus

I love having flexible interaction in my Commander decks because you never know how games will go, and Insidious Fungus goes on the list of green staples for this effect. It is notable the activation is two mana, which can be a lot to hold up "just in case."

It's cute that this is a one mana creature that could wear a Skullclamp for a couple turns of beatdown before cashing it in for one of its abilities and draw two fresh cards.

Overgrown Zealot

Here's another, but slightly less creepy, green two mana value creature that taps for any color mana, it's a great inclusion for any deck that cares about flipping face-down creatures face-up. My budget Yedora, Grave Gardener is stoked! Being an Elf Druid means it's a consideration for Elf or Druid decks, and it's nice to remember this makes a solid blocker with four toughness.

Threats Around Every Corner

If your deck runs Trail of Mystery already, Threats Around Every Corner provides some redundancy on the land searching effect, though Threats will put that land directly onto the battlefield. Also, it generates a facedown creature upon entering by manifesting dread. I'll definitely be slotting this in my Yedora deck too!

New Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander Cards

Curator Beastie

Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander has seven new green cards we should take note of too. Curator Beastie has a lot going on; baseline, it's generating ten power and toughness across two bodies for six mana when it enters, and then continues to manifest dread whenever it attacks, making more facedown colorless creatures and adding +1/+1 counters to it.

If I'm playing a decent number of ways to give creatures haste in my deck (Rhythm of the Wild, Surrak and Goreclaw) this will be a great inclusion!

Demolisher Spawn

For one more mana you get Craterhoof Behemoth, but since 'Hoof is quite expensive this might make a decent budget option if you can reliably count on delirium; since this costs seven mana, you'll have time to prime your graveyard appropriately.

And as an enchantment creature, there are decks that will be excited about that aspect of the card as well. I might consider this as a finisher card for my Estrid, the Masked deck.

Disorienting Choice

You'll want to consider this a conditional land ramping spell rather than removal, since your opponents can choose to keep their crucial artifact or enchantment you targeted if they really want to.

My hunch is this will generally be disappointing since there's a solid chance there won't be enough really good targets spread among each of your opponents to make this worth the four mana at sorcery speed, but I'll definitely be curious to see it in action a few times before rendering final judgment. What do you think?

Experimental Lab // Staff Room

I could see playing this in a deck that cares about +1/+1 counter synergies, but it's mostly going to be a nifty tool for decks that generate face-down creatures. I hate to keep mentioning my Yedora deck, but it's getting a lot of goodies this set!

Formless Genesis

This card has a lot going on! As a kindred sorcery with retrace, it's going get you 3/4 of the way to delirium all on its own. Outside of that, there are plenty of commanders that care about having lands in the graveyard; Yuma, Proud Protector jumps to mind, and if you've got some Plant synergies in the deck too, the Shapeshifter tokens produced by Formless Genesis have changelings and can add to your Plant army.

I have a funky Commander deck built around Erinis, Gloom Stalker deck with Acolyte of Bahamut as its background that cares about lands in the graveyard and Dragons, and weirdly this is going to fit right in there! Since Formless Genesis has changeling, it's technically a Dragon spell for purposes of Acolyte of Bahamut.

Shriekwood Devourer

I like attacking with big green creatures, so getting to untap a bunch of lands while I'm at it sounds perfect! It's nice that this card's ability "has haste" so you can cast it and then attack with a creature already in play, and immediately recoup some of that whopping seven mana you spent to cast Devourer to do something on your post-combat main phase, or have mana held up to react to something your opponents do on their turn.

It's a really elegant design that this has a power of seven, so when it attacks it will untap seven lands if it's the biggest creature. It's fun to think about cheap power boosting spells like Giant Growth or Invigorate can function as a Dark Ritual for untapping more lands.

Ursine Monstrosity

Another card for Delirium decks, the random nature of who it attacks each combat is going to be very appealing to Chaos fans, and not at all appealing to those who prefer more reliability in their Magic cards. I have a Commander deck built around Disa the Restless that has a bunch of different card types to boost the size of Lhurgoyfs like Tarmogoyf, and I might give Ursine Monstrosity a shot there since it could easily get +4/+4 or +5/+5 when it attacks.

And if I randomly mill a Lhurgoyf from my library, Disa will put it right back onto the battlefield!

If you like green decks that have enchantment and graveyard synergies, Duskmourn: House of Horror offers a ton of fun new cards to terrorize your opponents with. Which of these cards are you most excited to build new decks around, or add to your existing decks?

Bennie Smith

Bennie's played Magic since 1994 and has been writing about it nearly as long. Commander is his favorite format, but he's been known to put on his competitive hat to play Standard and Pioneer. Recently he's dabbled in Oathbreaker and Pendragon.