Nothing like the smell of a new set! You smell them, right? I think Duskmourn: House of Horror has some fun, new mechanics, and I’m going to provide some ratings and tips to help you win the early drafts & prereleases!
I’m going to keep the same format j2sjosh had established, now that he’s safely in my basement.
5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or just pack up your cards. (Gruff Triplets, Virtue of Persistence, The Eternal Wanderer)
4.5: Incredible bomb that still gives your opponent a slim chance. (Virtue of Loyalty, Imodane's Recruiter, Realm-Scorcher Hellkite)
4.0: Great rare or the absolute best uncommons and removal. (Faunsbane Troll, Gumdrop Poisoner, Talion’s Messenger)
3.5: Great role filler or removal that you never cut. (Candy Grapple, Hearth Elemental, Torch the Tower)
3.0: Good playable that I’m basically never cutting. (Shrouded Shepherd, Spellscorn Coven, Sharae of Numbing Depths)
2.5: Decent playable and the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck to reach. (Evolving Wilds, Archon's Glory, Flick a Coin)
2.0: Mediocre filler that normally is your 20-23rd card(s). (Mintstrosity, Ice Out, Grabby Giant)
1.5: Replaceable, overall bad filler. Could also be decent sideboard cards. (Titanic Growth, Scarecrow Guide, Territorial Witchstalker)
1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Dark Tutelage, Kindled Heroism, Impact Tremors)
0.5: Very unhappy to main deck this, but maybe it has fringe sideboard applications. Cards that “could” be situationally decent, but bad in most situations. (Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mana Flare)
0.0: Unplayable in every possible situation. They rarely print cards this bad these days. (Hew the Entwood, One with Nothing)
This works kind of like a Rampant Growth, except it can only fetch from your graveyard. The better use of this card is to reanimate it after discarding it. While it won’t come up often, I’m obligated to address the synergy with Say Its Name.
I think you should play this as a sideboard card, rather than maindeck and hope you can destroy a room. It’s pretty bad if this doesn’t destroy a room when it enters.
This is a pretty neat version of Naturalize. While sorcery speed, the ability to shuffle meaningful cards from your graveyard back in can be huge in longer matches.
This thing seems pretty slow and unreliable. If you have lots of manifest dread, it’s definitely worth trying, but it does seem like a rough investment.
This is one of the more powerful survival triggers I’ve seen on nonrare creatures. If you have ways to protect this during combat, or ways to tap it during your turn, this thing can pop off.
Versions of this card have been around for some time, and typically they underperform. You open yourself up for getting two for one’d, as well as awkward situations when you don’t have an appropriate time or creature to cast this. Having said all that, when this hit, it hits, as well as triggering eerie, it might be alright this go around, but I’m still skeptical.
The first room is a pretty steep cost for mana fixing. The second room should almost always get you two cards in you’re average deck, but that doesn’t mean they are meaningful/not lands!
This is a little small to attack with impunity, but if you can – it’s incredibly strong. The activated ability can be gamebreaking as well. Keep in mind that you can look at opponents face down cards, and choose not to turn them face up.
This is a pretty sick vehicle, with a very cheap crew cost. The passive ability will put lands onto the battlefield from manifest dread as well, which is pretty sick. Also worth noting, vehicles are a great way to activate survival triggers as well.
This is pretty awesome if it survives. You likely won’t have too many cards left in hand if this triggers on turn five, but if you manage to play a couple creatures during that turn, it can certainly end things quickly.
This is decent, albeit very slow. The first half can help with mana fixing/ramp, and the second half is a decent sized creature when you’ve run out of other plays. I wouldn’t play it unless you need the fixing/ramp though.
For clarity, the 3.0 rating I’m giving this is for decks that can achieve delirium easily. If it can’t with any regularity, I would advise against putting this in your deck.
This is likely the weakest of the Overlords, but still a limited bomb, nonetheless. Not too much to say about this, its a giant stack of stats for the mana cost.
Milling a card every turn is incredibly powerful for delirium decks. I really like the design of this card, by the time you hit delirium, 3/3 isn’t all that scary.
It shouldn’t be too hard to have this thing survive since it has haste. I just really don’t like the mana cost of it, and it’s unlikely that it will survive multple turns to make an army.
This is a very efficient way of enabling delirium. It’s far less likely to “whiff” than most people assume in your average deck, so don’t get turned off too quickly.
As with the other land cycling creatures, I typically wouldn’t advise playing them in streamlined two-colored decks. Having said that, there is a good amount of green ramp/mana, and this is a suitable attacker for 6 mana.
This thing seems strong. While it’s not quite “draw a card”, you are getting a free land of any type, helping you fix any problems. This also turns into a 3/3 later, it seems all around solid to me.
This is really slow, but it does do a great job at thinning your deck, which in turn makes manifest dread more likely to find creatures to turn face up. It’s a bit of a liability to run in most decks, but I could see it being alright in decks built for the long game.
This guy is indestructable, so long as you have another creature, and it has an insane activated ability, giving all of your creatures a minimum of +3/+3 until end of turn.
This thing has tons of value built in. While it’s best to cast this later in the game, you can still cast this on turn three and should find a permanent to return to your hand.
The flexibility is part of what makes this card so strong. For 5 mana, you get two 4/4 manifest dread tokens, for 7 mana, you get three 5/5’s, and in a pinch, you can even cast this for 3, to get a 3/3 creature on the battlefield.
Green has some amazing enabling cards for delirium decks, and I assume will be a cornerstone of a lot of three+ color decks as well. It’s on the slower side, but has good defensive creatures to help stabilize to get your bigger threats out.
Lose and Learn, Learn and Win!
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Andy "Icky" Ferguson is a long time limited grinder, with his first draft in 1999 at the age of 11. 22 years later, you can still find him streaming drafts, achieving the top ranks, including rank #1 5 months of 2021. Seasoned member of the Draft Lab squad and appointed "zen master", Andy lives by the motto; "lose and learn, learn and win".
