MTG Duskmourn’s pre-con Commander decks are fun straight out of the box

Wizards of the Coast were kind enough to invite us to a Duskmourn: House of Horror preview event. We got our hands on some of Magic: The Gathering’s most horrific Commander decks yet and they were a blast to play with.

Magic: The Gathering’s release schedule is a wild ride with four main sets a year as well as the addition of some popular collaborative ventures in between. It feels like we’ve only just wrapped our heads around the adorable anthropomorphic animals of Bloomburrow and now Duskmourn: House of Horror is here.

Far from the whiplash we expected jumping into the classic horror-inspired set after Bloomburrow’s cutesy fable, we ironically felt right at home in the house of horror. At least in the confines of the set’s pre-constructed Commander decks.

Despite not landing a game with all four of Duskmourn’s face Commanders due to the rampant popularity of one in particular, our matchup was an excellent showcase of the set’s new mechanics. One thing seems abundantly clear from our time with the Duskmourn Commander decks; they pair against one another remarkably well.

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Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander decks

Each of the new commander decks that have been spotlighted in the lead-up to MTG Duskmourn’s release comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. Built around the new mechanics for the set, there’s an option for everyone.

The decks themselves come with some spooky lore to set the mood and a rundown of how to play them properly. Here’s what we took away from each of them.

Jump Scare (Blue/Green)

Zimone, Mystery Unraveler takes center stage in the Jump Scare Commander deck; appropriately named for its reliance on the newly-titled Manifest Dread mechanic. This four-cost Commander leverages a Landfall tag to play cards for free as a facedown, colorless 2/2 creature. Ordinarily, you can flip these for their mana cost at a later time and they will gain their usual traits.

If you’re able to effectively ramp and play a second land in a turn, you can flip one of your facedown creatures for free. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to do so thanks to the ramping options provided by the deck’s Green cards.

Getting a slumbering giant like the reprinted Worldspine Wurm out for free is one of the most ideal combos for this Commander deck. If you can buff it from its already insane 15/15 stat line, your opponents will be in real trouble. These cards do become massive targets for the other decks’ removal options, however.

Miracle Worker (Black/Blue/White)

If you like value, Aminatou, Veil Piercer is the Commander for you. She gives your Enchantments cards the Miracle tag allowing you to cast them for four less colorless mana the instant you draw them.

The Miracle Worker deck is stacked with a number of Enchantments with powerful control effects to take advantage of this. To press this advantage, many of the creature cards in the deck are Enchantments themselves giving you plenty of options.

Demon of Fate’s Design is a particular stand out here that becomes a 6/6 you can cast for two Black mana provided Aminatou is online. Thanks to its ability to sacrifice other Enchantments to add to that considerable strength, it’s easy to envision how the wheels should turn for this one.

Endless Punishment (Black/Red)

They weren’t kidding around when they named this deck. Centered around Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls who gets 1/1 counters and card draw whenever an opponent takes damage during their turn, this Flying Commander can become a nightmare.

The real Punishment here comes from the deck’s alternate Commander; The Lord of Pain. While he’s in play, your opponents can’t gain life and whenever an opponent casts their first spell per turn, you get to choose a different opponent and deal damage equal to its mana cost.

Speaking to other players at our preview, placing The Lord of Pain in the Command Zone seems to be the preferred way to run the deck and we can see why. Being able to reliably get him onto the board makes for a menacing encounter.

Death Toll (Black/Green)

Winter, Cynical Opportunist is the reluctant hero of this Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander deck and he’s a sleeper for sure. In true Golgari fashion, he likes to mill his own cards and summon them for free from the Graveyard. Granted, you do have to exile some as a cost and the free card is saddled with a Finality counter.

Some self-inflicted life-loss shenanigans are balanced with tools to get that lost life back. Coupled with this are a number of creatures that benefit from having a full Graveyard.

Old Stickfingers and Carrion Grub come to mind thanks to their power being governed by how many creatures are in your Graveyard. With Winter’s frequent Milling and other sacrificial mechanics, they’re always a threat.

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Testing Duskmourn’s Commander decks

To get this out of the way early, we were not able to participate in a match that featured all four of the new Commander Decks for Duskmourn. Endless Punishment was a clear favorite for the reasons outlined above and so our group consisted of two Death Toll players, one Miracle Worker player, and myself with Jump Scare.

To mix things up a little, our more seasoned Death Toll player fielded their alternate Commander; Rendmaw, Creaking Nest. Don’t let his status as the second fiddle fool you, this half scarecrow, half bird’s nest was a serious threat.

His ability to ‘gift’ 2/2 black Bird creature tokens that are goaded into attacking Commanders other than him is a really fun mechanic that made his presence constantly felt. Because they enter tapped, you can never block these Birds with your own meaning that every player is constantly taking chip damage thanks to a severe lack of Flying creatures to defend with.

This made our game a clinic in the politics of MTG’s Commander format and in the spirit of fairness, we rolled dice to determine our Bird attacks. Eventually, the Birds were kept in check thanks to our Miracle Worker player’s Shark Typhoon Enchantment.

They were able to generate Flying Shark Tokens of varying power thanks to their ability to cast cheap Enchantments with the help of their Commander’s Miracle mechanic. Once these hit the board, we would run our Birds into Sharks to limit their impact.

For my part, I wasn’t able to effectively get the Jump Scare deck online. This was more of a luck (or unluck) of the draw type of deal. I wasn’t able to find Land in the mid-game and I failed to draw any Search tools either.

I did manage to pull off a few casts via the Manifest Dread mechanic but these were frequently shut down via board wipes from our Miracle Worker player. Curse whoever came up with Time Wipe.

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Relatively early on, I ate a 20-damage swing facilitated by a combo from Demolisher Spawn and Ursine Monstrosity. From there, chip damage from numerous sources continued to erode my life and I was defeated a single turn before I could pull my own Voltron combo with a 24/24 Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle empowered by Overwhelming Stampede.

The true hero (or villain depending on your perspective) of our match was our Death Toll player running the deck the way it’s meant to be played out of the box. The combination of Winter, Cynical Opportunist and Polluted Cistern subtly drained the entire table of life.

Polluted Cistern is one-half of one of Duskmourn’s new Room Enchantments. It has the powerful effect of causing each opponent to lose a life whenever its controller puts a card in the Graveyard. My biggest piece of advice for this set is not to sleep on Rooms.

Between Winter Milling three cards every turn and Planeswalkers like Professor Onyx (Liliana) adding fuel to that fire, players were losing a guaranteed five life a turn. With this combination, a player who hadn’t touched an MTG card in five years beat me and two far more seasoned players while only taking a single swing.

The true magic of Magic is that this game could have gone 100 different ways. If I can give one bit of praise to MTG’s Duskmourn Commander Decks it’s this; even while I was losing horribly, I still had fun watching them tick.

Wizards of the Coast

You’ll be able to get your hands on Duskmourn: House of Horrors when it launches on September 27, 2024.

If you’re looking to get into MTG or you’re an avid fan of the hobby, Duskmourn’s Commander decks are a fantastic pick-up. Those keen on crafting their own Commander Deck from scratch can take a look at Duskmourn’s evil clown and terrifying archdemon for some inspiration.