As with every recent Magic set, Duskmourn is chock full of alternate card styles and frames. There are 80s-themed Paranormal Frames, especially spooky Mirror Monsters, and Lurking Evil cards too. If you ask us, the latter of these is easily the most interesting of the three main card styles.
This style slips a shadowy creature into the background of a regular piece of card art, creating the impression of something always creeping around in the corners of this nightmarish plane. Unfortunately, the execution doesn’t quite match the intent. Many players are finding the Duskmourn Lurking Evil cards humorous, rather than scary in the slightest.
Too Much Of A Scary Thing
There are a few reasons behind this unintentional hilarity. One is the Lurking Evil style being applied to cards that are, frankly, scary enough to begin with. Meathook Massacre II is probably the most egregious example of this.
“The Lurking Evil variant is so funny. “You thought this butcher surrounded by his victims’ dismembered parts was scary? Wait til you see the little shadowy guy skittering around!” “
imbolcnight
The idea behind the Lurking Evil style, based on the name, is to add a subtle sense of horror to cards that were otherwise lacking it. Cards that showed quieter sections of Duskmourn, to remind the player that nowhere in the house is truly safe. Adding it to cards that already have horrific artwork, as imbolcnight points out, feels a bit redundant. The hyper-detailed butcher setup on Meathook Massacre II doesn’t benefit hugely from the addition of a strange spider creature in the foreground.
This isn’t the only example of humorous overkill in the style, either. Yesterday saw the reveal of The Rollercrusher Ride, a flavorful new haunted rollercoaster enchantment. The Lurking Evil variant of this card is even stranger than that of Meathook 2, since the original art already includes two characters that look a lot like the Lurking Evil shadow.
“Yeah I gotta admit that the lurking evil variant feels a little underwhelming since it’s just adding a third spoopy dood after the two already on there. Feels like the ‘original’ shouldn’t have any of them on there.”
MagnorCriol
Cards like these were strange choices for the Lurking Evil treatment, to be sure. Rather than amping up the scares, the artwork here instead feels a little bit over-the-top and silly. It’s worth considering that this may have been fully intentional, of course. ’80s Horror films were nothing if not over-the-top and silly, so this could be a way for Duskmourn to pay respects to its inspirations.
Negligible Nightmares
On the other end of the spectrum, some of the Duskmourn Lurking Evil cards are funny because they don’t push things far enough. There’s subtle horror, then there’s need-to-squint-to-even-see-it horror. Norin, Swift Survivalist’s Lurking Evil variant is an example of the latter, with the extra shadowy figure being so small you can barely see it.
“The extra lurking evil being a single tiny hand in the top left is so funny.”
Infinite_Bananas
Now, you could argue that a subtler use of the Lurking Evil style like this is more on-point flavorfully. There’s even a case to be made that having the creature here blend almost seamlessly into the background makes it possible for the art to catch you unawares for real when you look through your cards later. These are valid points, but it’s hard to deny how funny it is seeing these two ‘separate’ variants side-by-side, given how little they differ.
There are other subtle specters lurking in this card style, too. Cursed Recording has one that’s just as sneaky as Norin’s, albeit a bit better in terms of execution. The shadow creature in this one is only just visible among the other shadows behind the TV sets, meaning it’ll likely take you a few seconds to find it. Or several minutes, in the case of certain Reddit users.
“I’d argue I spent 5 whole minutes trying to figure out what the screen had different before spotting the shape behind.”
JeanneOwO
There’s a debate to be had about whether these Lurking Evil cards are too subtle or not, especially for an alternate card style. For my money, they do a better job than the over-the-top examples above. That said, they can be just as funny when viewed side by side with their original versions.
Ultimately, the Lurking Evil style is something a bit experimental for Magic, and it’s a flavor home run for the plane of Duskmourn as well. Just as Bloomburrow got to enjoy seasonal variants of lands, Duskmourn gets to enjoy these.
Something Wicked This Way Comes?
Whether you find the Lurking Evil cards funny or genuinely chilling, they’re interesting in another way, too. The name of the style is vague enough that any kind of monster could’ve been used, yet the same lanky shadow creature was used each time. Is there some kind of deeper narrative at play here, with the Lurking Evil cards hinting at some kind of larger threat? Or does WotC just love shadow monsters that much?
Well, now that we’ve seen a fair chunk of the set, we have more information to work with. The shadow creatures aren’t exclusive to Lurking Evil cards but rather appear on multiple cards within the set too. See Grasping Longneck and Silent Hallcreeper for examples. In both instances, the shadow creatures are portrayed as Enchantments and Horrors type-wise. They also appear in different colors, which implies they show up in different sections of the house.
Based on this information, it’s likely that the shadow creatures don’t represent a larger threat, but rather just a common resident of Duskmourn. It shows up regularly, and therefore it shows up in the background of many different cards. Not quite as juicy an explanation as it could’ve been, but it does make logical sense, at least.
Why was this specific creature design chosen to be the face of a whole alternate card style? I think it has something to do with internet horror culture at large. Creepypasta stories, or short horror stories shared primarily online, typically feature monsters that bear some resemblance to these shadow creatures. Think Slenderman, The Rake, The Strider, etc. Creatures like these lurking in the background are on-point flavor-wise, helping Duskmourn hit on the modern horror axis too.
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