Duskmourn: House of Horror Prerelease and Draft Guide
Duskmourn will soon open its doors to all, unleashing horrors unlike any other into Magic's Multiverse. With a unique modern horror aesthetic and a graveyard-centric design, Duskmourn: House of Horror offers players a whole new way of enjoying the game they love, and there's no better way to appreciate a new set than your local game store's Prerelease events.
Prerelease events let you be among the first to play with all the new cards in a set, providing a casual, community-driven experience that players have come to love. Whether this is your 100th Prerelease or your first time at your local game store, these are a perfect way to dive into a new set and find your new favorite cards!
Duskmourn Prerelease Details
When you register for a Prerelease event, you'll be provided with a Prerelease Pack on the day of the event. This contains everything you need to enjoy the event alongside your fellow Magic players.
Each Duskmourn: House of Horror Prerelease Pack contains the following:
- 6 Duskmourn: House of Horror Play Boosters
- 1 Traditional foil year-stamped rare or mythic rare
- 1 Magic: The Gathering Arena code card; only available in select regions
- 1 Deck box
- 1 Spindown die
Prerelease events typically use a format called Sealed Deck, meaning you'll construct a 40-card deck from the contents of your six Play Boosters, year-stamped rare or mythic rare, and any number of basic lands. Those basic lands are often provided by the event organizer, so no need to bring a stack of them along with you.
If you're worried about high-stakes gameplay or cut-throat competitors, that won't be a problem at Prerelease. Generally, these are relaxed events where players gather to get excited for a new set. With friends both new and old sharing deck ideas, favorite cards, and stories from past events, it's an easy way to meet new people while playing a game you love.
Our resident academic, Zimone, has compiled a list of all the cards you can see at your Prerelease event. You can study up on all the powerful creatures and spells by checking out the Duskmourn: House of Horror Card Image Gallery. But for those of you who dare to venture further into the House, read on for more information on Duskmourn Prerelease and draft strategy!
Building Your Prerelease Deck
Looking at all the cards in your Prerelease kit can be intimidating. That's not just because of all the monsters and slashers in Duskmourn. An easy way to make the process less scary is to sort your cards by color, find your two best colors, and build a deck from that!
Duskmourn, like most Standard-legal sets, wants you to primarily play two colors. While Play Boosters usually have an equal number of cards in each color, there will be standout cards that are a cut above the rest of your card pool. These will be the heart of your deck, whether they're massive creatures like Overlord of the Hauntwoods or permanents that accrue value over time like The Tale of Tamiyo.
Let's say you've identified three outstanding threats from your sealed pool, all in different colors. To help narrow your deck down to its two best colors, look at each color's removal. Removal is any kind of card that gets rid of your opponent's cards, whether that's by destroying creatures or returning permanents to their hand. Most forms of removal in Duskmourn are uncommon cards, so you should have a handful of them among the cards you opened.
Each of the five colors has its own way of dealing with threats, some of them better than others. For example, white and black are the most effective at getting rid of creatures, either by destroying or exiling them.
Duskmourn, notably, has a theme of enchantments and cards that care about enchantments, so green's ability to destroy them or blue's ability to return them to their owner's hand can prove invaluable.
Red's best removal utilizes direct damage to destroy opposing creatures or instants that can turn the tides of combat. Remember: sometimes the best removal is player removal.
The two colors with the best balance of threats and removal are going to be the best foundation for your deck. Aside from those cards, you'll still need to fill out the rest of your 40-card deck. With a few simple tools and tricks, however, you'll be assembling a deck in no time.
The Mana Curve
A time-tested philosophy, the "mana curve" is the number of cards in your deck of each mana value. By keeping these amounts in mind, which should appear as a curve when graphed out, you'll be able to reliably play the cards in your deck. In the early turns, you'll have fewer lands and less mana to spend on your spells. If you play lots of cards with low mana values, that means you'll reliably have something to cast in all stages of the game.
That doesn't mean your high-mana cards aren't playable; far from it! Some of Duskmourn's most-powerful creatures and spells cost lots of mana, and for good reason. You just want to balance them with the rest of your deck. The general template for a mana curve looks like this:
- 1 Mana: 1–2 cards
- 2 Mana: 7–8 cards
- 3 Mana: 5–6 cards
- 4 Mana: 3–4 cards
- 5 Mana: 2–3 cards
- 6 Mana: 0–1 card
- and 17 lands!
This is just a general outline. Depending on your deck's strategy, you may lean on the aggressive side and use more low-mana cards or be more controlling and run more high-mana cards. All of that depends on the archetype your deck is built upon.
Duskmourn Draft Archetypes
Magic sets are often designed around a specific strategy for each two-color pair. These vary from set to set and are often built around a central theme that runs throughout the colors. For Duskmourn: House of Horror, the two most important themes are enchantments and the graveyard.
Each color pair is built on one of these themes with a twist that's unique to that color pair. Notably, each pair has a "signpost uncommon": a two-color uncommon creature that signifies what those colors are about. We'll break down each of the color pairs, their signpost uncommons, and how they plan to win the game.
Eerie Tempo (White-Blue)
"Eerie" is a new ability word that triggers whenever an enchantment you control enters or you fully unlock a Room card. While many decks seek to utilize the many Rooms of the House, white-blue is primarily focused on playing a continuous stream of enchantments to overwhelm your opponent with an army of creatures.
Eerie Control (Blue-Black)
The dark mirror to white-blue, blue-black wants to take control of the game with Room cards, locking opponents within the never-ending halls of Duskmourn. By continuously returning creatures to your hand, you'll be able to outlast your opponents and go for the kill shot.
Sacrifice (Black-Red)
Black-red is willing to tear it all down to claim victory. First, you play your Room cards, then sacrifice them to whittle down your opponent's life total. This archetype bridges the enchantment and graveyard themes of Duskmourn, with sacrifice effects that care about Rooms as well as putting cards into your graveyard.
Delirium Stompy (Red-Green)
Delirium makes a return, rewarding you for having four or more card types among cards in your graveyard. Use the tried-and-true tactic of swinging aggressively to fill your graveyard with artifact and enchantment creatures, then power up your creatures with the delirium ability.
Survival (Green-White)
Survivors have several strategies to escape Duskmourn's horrors alive. Green-white uses an aggressive strategy that wants to trigger the "survival" ability word by having creatures tapped at the start of your second main phase. By using enchantments, Equipment, and spells to tap creatures without attacking, your Survivor cards just might make it out alive.
Reanimator (White-Black)
The House blesses its most-devoted followers with creatures beyond mortal comprehension. Stock up your graveyard with large creatures with discard and self-mill effects, then bring them back with the unhallowed rituals of Valgavoth. While you bide your time until you reanimate massive threats, stall out your opponents with white-black's removal suite.
Rooms (Blue-Red)
Make the House into a home by building a massive board of Rooms. With several enchantment synergies and cards that want you to play multiple Rooms, you'll slowly unlock the House's many doors until you're able to swing in for lethal.
Delirium Grind (Black-Green)
Rev up those chainsaws and sharpen your hatchets; it's black-green's time to shine. With the return of delirium, black-green takes the classic approach of getting four or more card types in your graveyard early, then creating an oppressive board state with its graveyard synergies. Leaning toward midrange in contrast to red-green's aggro strategy, this color pair is a slower-paced twist on Duskmourn's graveyard strategies.
Aggro (Red-White)
Come on down to the circus! Red-white's Toys, Clowns, and tiny creatures provide endless fun for the whole family. But be careful, these Toys come to life when you buff them up with spells that care about creatures with a power of two or less. Strength is found in numbers, so stock your toy chest with as many whacky creatures as you can find.
Manifest Dread (Green-Blue)
Jump-scare your opponents by manifesting fearsome creatures. While these initially start as just 2/2 creatures, you can turn them face up and surprise your opponent mid-combat. With several cards that care about the number of face-down permanents you control, you'll be manifesting your victory in no time.
Advanced Duskmourn Strategies
So, you've played in your Prerelease events, gotten to know the mechanics of Duskmourn: House of Horror, and now you're craving some deeper gameplay. While much of the fun of Limited gameplay is discovering strategies on your own, here are just a few tips for getting the most out of your events.
Splashing Colors
Let's say your two best colors are black and red, with plenty of removal and threats among those colors. But you also opened Winter, Misanthropic Guide. This powerful creature can lock out your opponents, but he doesn't fall within your colors. You can still play him by "splashing" for a third color.
By playing a small number of lands that can add your third color, you can add powerful cards that fall outside of your main two colors. This is best accomplished with Duskmourn's ten common lands that can tap for two colors of mana.
Summon Altanak, the Thrice-Called in Draft
Altanak, the Thrice-Called is a powerful creature that normally costs seven mana. However, by playing multiple copies of Say Its Name and filling your graveyard, you can bring out this Insect Beast way ahead of time.
While Altanak can be difficult to pull off in Sealed, Draft is the perfect place for this unique build-around. By drafting multiple copies of Altanak, the Thrice-Called and Say Its Name, you can build a unique graveyard deck with a payoff unlike any other.
Explore Alternate Win Conditions
The most common way to win a game of Limited is through combat damage, but there's plenty of other ways to bring about your opponent's demise. It takes a bit of clever deck building, but a surplus of Scrabbling Skullcrabs can mill out your opponent, particularly in white-blue and blue-black eerie decks.
Looking for something a bit more unique? If you open Central Elevator // Promising Stairwell in your first Play Booster, that can set you up for a wild Rooms deck. Best accomplished in the blue-red multi-Room deck, this can win you the game on your upkeep if you control eight or more unlocked doors. Go all in on the housing market with this powerful enchantment!
Face Your Fears in Duskmourn: House of Horror
You've equipped yourself with all the knowledge you need, now it's time to enter the depths of Duskmourn. Gather your friends and take on the horrors of the House at your local Prerelease event! With good people by your side and a knowledge of the set's mechanics, there's nothing to fear at your local game store.
Duskmourn: House of Horror Prerelease events begin September 20, 2024, at your local game store. Duskmourn: House of Horror products are available for preorder now at your local game store, at online retailers like Amazon, and elsewhere Magic products are sold.
