Duskmourn House of Horror Art
11, Sep, 24

Duskmourn: House of Horror: Release Date, Spoilers, Commander Decks

2024 is a year stacked with fantastic releases. Not only have we already seen no end of fantastic new cards, but the themes are just spectacular. From the Wild West of Outlaws of Thunder Junction to the cute critters on Bloomburrow, there’s a lot to love. To top it all off, the final premier MTG set of 2024, Duskmourn: House of Horror, is a complete tonal shift!

Themed around the titular haunted house, Duskmourn: House of Horror takes inspiration from classic horror films from the 70s and 80s. With retro tech, wild hairstyles, and a weird amount of months, this set definitely has a lot going on. As if its style wasn’t enough, there’s even a unique special edition product too!

With so much going on, it’s well worth knowing exactly what’s what. So, here’s everything there is to know about the Duskmourn: House of Horror MTG set.

MTG Duskmourn Release Date

Duskmourn: House of Horror Key Art

Following The Preview Panel at MagicCon: Amsterdam, all the dates for Duskmourn: House of Horror have been revealed. As usual, there are a variety of pre-release preview events and post-release gameplay events to look forward to. All the important information and dates you need to know are below.

Duskmourn: House of Horror Preview Events

  • Story Begins: August 26th
  • Debut: August 31st
  • Spoilers Start: August 31st
  • MTG Arena Release Date: September 24th
  • Duskmourn: House of Horror Release Date: September 27th
  • Nightmare Bundle Release Date: October 18th

Duskmourn: House of Horror Gameplay Events

  • Prerelease Events: September 20th – 27th 
  • Commander Party: October 4th – 10th and November 1st – 7th
  • End of Year Store Championship: October 12th – January 4th
  • WPN Trick or Treat Halloween Event: October 25th – 31st
  • Open House: November 1st – 3rd

As you may have noticed, the release date for Duskmourn: House of Horror is a lot earlier than past Q4 sets. In fact, Duskmourn technically doesn’t even release in Q4 at all. This earlier-than-expected release date is thanks to MTG Foundations, which is releasing in November of this year.

Potentially, the surprisingly early release date of Duskmourn may set a trend that continues into future years. Since two major Universes Beyond are planned for each year, there’s reason to believe this unique release date could become commonplace.

Duskmourn: House of Horror Spoilers

The Wandering Rescuer

After lingering as a mansion-sized mystery for most of the year, Duskmourn: House of Horror spoilers have finally been revealed. Throughout the set’s spoiler season, we’ve seen all manner of flavorful references and spectacular bombs. It seems Duskmourn is going to have a huge impact on the metagame of multiple formats.

As expected, there are plenty of Demons, Glimmers, Horrors, Spirits, and Spiders crammed into this haunted house. With so much going on throughout spoiler season, it’s difficult, if not downright impossible, to cover it all in one place. Thankfully, we’re written all manner of articles about the set’s best and most interesting cards!

So, if you want to know more about this fantastically flavorful and hauntingly horrific set, read on below!

Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander Decks

Duskmourn Commander Decks

Since it’s a premier set, it should be no surprise that Duskmourn: House of Horror comes with a set of Commander decks. Continuing the recent trend, four unique decks will be offered, each supporting a unique and flavorful strategy. Currently, very little is known about each of the four decks, but here’s what we do know.

Miracle Worker

Colors: White, Blue, Black
Commander: Aminatou, Veil Piercer

The Duskmourn Miracle Worker deck does exactly what it says on the tin. Not only does the new Aminatou grant enchantments Miracle, but there’s a strong enchantment theme throughout. With multiple cards in the deck appearing to be Legacy playable, it’s safe to say this deck is strong. Boasting strong payoffs and interesting new support cards, this deck is an all-around hoot. And we’re not just staying that because of Soaring Lightbringer.

Death Toll

Colors: Black, Green
Commander: Winter, Cynical Opportunist

From the description of “Fill Your Graveyard – Release Monsters,” Death Toll appears to be a reanimation-themed Commander deck. Built around the new character of Winter, this deck could provide some enticing new cards to the fan-favorite dredge archetype. Whether or not any actual Dredge cards will appear, however, remains to be seen. 

Jump Scare

Colors: Green, Blue
Commander: Zimone, Mystery Unraveler

Unsurprisingly, given its name, the Jump Scare! Commander deck focuses on playing spells in a Flash and face-down creatures. Offering more support for Duskmourn’s Manifest Dread mechanic this deck has plenty of powerful and value-rich cards. While it’s not the strongest deck we’ve ever seen, it’s nonetheless a very interesting strategy that should be enjoyable to play.

Endless Punishment

Colors: Black, Red
Commander: Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls

Said to revolve around “group slug” mechanics, Endless Punishment dishes out the hurt to everybody. This likely means this deck will feature a lot of symmetrical effects to make everyone suffer. Should these cards be as “Endless” as the deck’s namesake, your opponents may be in trouble facing this deck.

Duskmourn: House of Horror Mechanics

Duskmourn art by Chris Rallis

As usual, the debut for Duskmourn: House of Horror revealed each of the mechanics appearing in the set. Five brand-new mechanics are arriving in Duskmourn, each with their own intricacies.

Rooms – Rooms are a new type of Enchantment in Duskmourn: House of Horror which comes in two parts. You can play either half of a room initially, which unlocks when it hits the battlefield. The other half of the room can be opened at a later date by paying its mana cost.

Manifest Dread – When you Manifest Dread, you look at the top two cards of your library. You Manifest one of these while putting the other into your graveyard. Manifesting a card means putting it onto the battlefield face-down as a 2/2 creature with no name, type, abilities, or mana cost. Creatures that are Manifested can be turned up by paying their mana cost.

Survival – Found on Survivor creatures, Survival is an ability that triggers on your second main phase. Specifically, Survival will trigger provided that the creature is tapped. While this can be achieved through attacking, there are many ways in Duskmourn to tap creatures without attacking.

Eerie – This fittingly named mechanic is thankfully the most simple in Duskmourn. Eerie abilities trigger whenever an enchantment you control enters and whenever you fully unlock a Room. There is no limit to the number of times Eerie can trigger per turn.

Impending – Found exclusively on Duskmourn’s cycle of Overlords, impending allows you to cast these creatures earlier than usual. When cast, a creature with Impending will enter with a number of Time Counters on it equal to its Impending cost. One time counter will be removed at the beginning of your end step. Cards with Impending aren’t creatures until the last Time Counter is removed from it.

Duskmourn: House of Horror Archenemy

Duskmourn Archenemy Cards

As if the set’s Commander decks weren’t interesting enough on their own, they also herald the return of Archenemy. Reappearing after a seven-year hiatus, this fan-favorite mechanic has been reinvented around the Commander format. For better or worse, this means the new Archenemy format plays very differently from what its fans are used to.

For starters, each of the new Duskmourn Commander decks comes packaged alongside ten new Archenemy Scheme cards. Once per turn, one of these cards is flipped from the Scheme deck and activated during your first main phase. Your Scheme deck needs to include at least ten schemes but there’s no upper maximum limit.

Following the release of Duskmourn, the life-totals when playing Archenemy games will be dramatically different. For starters, the Archenemy now has 60 starting life total. On top of this, the “hero team” of opposing players, will also now have a collective starting life total of 60. Despite this major change, players each still have their own board and can be attacked individually.

This change to life totals unfortunately does make some past Schemes, such as Mortal Flesh is Weak, effectively useless. Despite this problem, the change should hopefully make the Archenemy format more enjoyable overall. Now, players aren’t at risk of being targeted and eliminated early, as everyone is always playing until the game’s conclusion.

Currently, since Duskmourn: House of Horror is yet to be released, it’s unclear how these changes will play out. Hopefully, considering the love for the Archenemy format, these changes will be heralded as positives.

Duskmourn: House of Horror Products

Duskmourn :House of Horror Nightmare Bundle

Last but not least, it’s well worth looking over all of the products available with Duskmourn: House of Horror. Not only is there a lot going on, but there’s even more than usual thanks to a unique special edition product. Releasing later than the rest of the set, the Nightmare Bundle is a potentially lucrative addition to the product lineup.

Containing six Play Boosters, two Collector Boosters, and a unique Nightmare Booster the Nightmare Bundle offers a fair few cards. On top of this, this unique product also offers “3 double-sided posters,” which should be great for MTG and horror fans. While we don’t know much about it yet, we’re getting Compleat Edition vibes from this commemorative product.

Below is the rest of the product lineup for the Duskmourn: House of Horror MTG set, which is to be expected.

  • Play Boosters
  • Collector Boosters
  • Prerelease Pack
  • Commander Decks
  • Bundle

Read More: MTG Designer Crushes Hopes For Future Block Sets

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