Overlord of the Balemurk | Duskmourn: House of Horror | Art by Babs Webb
16, Jan, 25

Terrifying Duskmourn Horror Takes Multiple MTG Formats By Storm

Will you follow them into the dark?

It’s rare that a Magic: The Gathering card reaches its full potential right away. Plenty of meta staples go overlooked during the first few weeks of a new format before someone finally cottons on later. While this isn’t exactly what happened with Overlord of the Balemurk, which saw some Standard play before now, few players foresaw just how good the card would be in Modern and beyond.

This past week, players have been posting daily about the fiendish five-drop in one format or another. It has even been compared to the infamous, just-banned One Ring. While most would agree such takes are hyperbolic, it’s hard to deny how quickly the card is being integrated into multiple formats and strategies. No matter how you choose to play MTG, chances are you’ll run into this hard-hitting Horror before long.

Overlord Of The Balemurk In Modern

Overlord of the Balemurk Modern Orzhov Blink

While Overlord of the Balemurk is generating buzz all over right now, Modern is definitely where it’s shaking things up the most. In fact, it appears to have single-handedly pushed a new archetype, Orzhov Blink, into the limelight. This deck did exist pre-Balemurk but in very sparing numbers. It was an Orzhov spin on the much-maligned Rakdos Scam, focused on flickering the Evoke Elementals for value. With Balemurk in the mix, it plays very differently.

Elements of that deck do remain, such as the playset of Solitude in the main. For the most part, however, this new version is more tempo-driven, largely due to Overlord of the Balemurk. While it looks like a value engine on the surface, it’s actually a terrifyingly speedy threat in this list. Since it only costs two mana to cast it with Impending, you can easily blink it with either Phelia or Flickerwisp on turn three, getting a second mill/draw trigger and putting a 5/5 into play. Even in Modern, that’s pretty good.

The graveyard-filling aspect of Balemurk is relevant here too, as it enables Emperor of Bones to really shine. This is another card that’s been on the up lately, and in this list, it can reanimate the likes of Solitude, Balemurk, or Skyclave Apparition to swing the game. If you can blink the reanimated creatures, you can even keep them once the turn ends.

Orzhov Blink has been doing very well in Modern lately, with MTG Decks listing a ton of 5-0 results for the strategy. Balemurk is also showing up in other Modern lists, including Mardu Energy and even Living End. It’s more than a one-trick Horror, in other words.

A True Pioneer

Overlord of the Balemurk Modern Pioneer

Modern isn’t the only format Overlord of the Balemurk has been taking names in recently. It’s also been putting up impressive numbers in Pioneer, specifically in Mardu Greasefang decks. The list above, which took Matsumura Tomoaki to a first-place finish in a Hareruya Daily Tournament, is one of many Greasefang builds to include the Duskmourn mythic.

Now Mardu Greasefang is, admittedly, not the force in the Pioneer meta it used to be. MTG Decks currently puts it at a 1.5% meta share, firmly in Tier 2. That said, it’s still a valid choice in the format. It’s also the deck where Balemurk has been showing up the most overall. According to MTG Decks, 164 copies of Balemurk have been run in Orzhov Blink, while 239 have been run here.

Looking at the deck, this makes perfect sense. Mardu Greasefang is pretty much a classic Reanimator deck, albeit one that brings back big Vehicles instead of creatures. Greasefang, your main reanimation tool, costs three, so you really want to be setting up your graveyard on turns one and two. Balemurk does this perfectly, letting you dig four cards deep for two mana and dump one of your Greasefang targets right on time.

This deck lacks any of the blink-based trickery that made Balemurk shine in the Modern list we discussed earlier. Here, it’s a great way to fill the graveyard and nothing more. You can potentially copy it with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker’s back half later on, but for the most part Balemurk is playing it straight here. That the card is still seeing play in good numbers even just as a generic value piece is a testament to its sheer power level.

Legacy Of Darkness

Legacy Death and Taxes

Modern and Pioneer are both tough formats to break into to be sure, but what’s really impressive is how Overlord of the Balemurk has made its way into Legacy. That’s right: the format of actual Dual Lands and Force of Will has found slots for a card printed in 2024. What a time to be alive.

Balemurk is seeing play in one of the oldest lists in Legacy: Death and Taxes. You can see an example from yoshiwata linked above. This deck achieved a 5-0 result in a Legacy League last Sunday, so it’s very recent and very real.

Basically, the Legacy lists running Balemurk follow the same plan as the Modern Orzhov Blink decks we looked at earlier. They want to be playing Balemurk early, then blinking it with Phelia and Flickerwisp for huge tempo and value. The main difference here is the surrounding shell. Death and Taxes runs tutors like Recruiter of the Guard and Stoneforge Mystic, both of which make great blink targets. It also runs Legacy-oriented hate cards like White Orchid Phantom.

Death and Taxes is one of the oldest, most well-established archetypes in all of Magic. It’s been a part of Legacy longer than most of us have been playing the game. To see players running full playsets of Balemurk in the deck, and getting 5-0 results with them, is fantastic to say the least.

You could easily view this cynically as an example of rampant power creep, but I prefer to see it as evidence that Wizards knows how to design cards with multi-format appeal. Overlord of the Balemurk is an awesome design, and I’m glad to see it getting the attention it deserves.

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