One of the coolest mechanics to come out of Duskmourn: House of Horror is definitely the Room mechanic. This group of enchantments provides you with a lot of flexibility. Depending on the situation, you can decide which half of the Room card to cast, and that door will unlock. Then, later in the game, you can spend the mana to unlock the other door and get both effects that the Room provides.
The only downside is that many of these Rooms aren’t the most efficient for competitive play. While the versatility of these enchantments is nice, if neither half of the Room is cheap enough, it’s not worth playing it.
Up to this point, we’ve seen a couple of specific Rooms actually break through to Pioneer. Recently, we discussed the impact of Unholy Annex/Ritual Chamber in the newly crafted mono-black midrange shell. Today, we’re going to focus on another room that has been seeing more and more Pioneer play in a handful of archetypes: Roaring Furnace/Steaming Sauna. It serves as a solid removal spell with lots of upside.
Enigmatic Incarnation Synergy
- Roaring Furnace
- Mana Value: 1R
- Rarity: Rare
- MTG Sets: Duskmourn
- Card Text: When you unlock this door, this Room deals damage equal to the number of cards in your hand to target creature an opponent controls.
- Steaming Sauna
- Mana Value: 3UU
- Card Text: You have no maximum hand size. At the beginning of your end step, draw a card.
The first major archetype making use of Roaring Furnace/Steaming Sauna is Five-Color Enigmatic Incarnation. The main goal behind this deck is to keep the opponent off-balance with removal and land a copy of the namesake card. In order to maximize Enigmatic Incarnation, you need a high density of enchantments to sacrifice.
Roaring Furnace does a great job doubling as early disruption as well as an enchantment that sticks around. Unlike cards like Nowhere to Run which serve a similar purpose, Roaring Furnace has the potential to take down much larger creatures. From there, you’re free to sacrifice Roaring Furnace to Enigmatic Incarnation and go and grab a three-drop, which is what you’ll choose to do most of the time.
Of course, you also have the option in long, grindy games of casting Steaming Sauna as a personal Howling Mine. Against decks like mono-black midrange that can’t easily remove your card advantage engine, this is a great option to have.
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Quintorius Combo Addition
Another deck that is starting to incorporate this potent Room is Quintorius combo. Quintorius combo relies on being able to abuse Quintorius’ Discover ability to nab Spark Double and Clever Impersonator. As such, this deck can’t run any removal spells with low mana values.
Luckily, the mana value of the entire Room is seven while in your deck, so you don’t have to worry about combo complications. This makes Roaring Furnace a great inclusion, though it still competes with Virtue of Persistence for slots.
Roaring Furnace/Steaming Sauna isn’t the most exciting card by any stretch. Regardless, it serves its role well and is starting to get the respect it deserves. Expect to see this card pop up more and more over time.
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