Last week, we got a sneak peek at some of the first previewed Duskmourn cards, and this week, we'll continue to look deeper at what the set has to offer. Let's get right into it.
New Land Cycle
Duskmourn brings a new, exciting cycle of strong dual lands. They always come into play untapped and produce at least one color of mana. These lands are great at enabling light splashes. For example, if we wanted to splash a card like Ancient Grudge in a mostly Mono Red deck, Thornspire Verge would be better than even Stomping Grounds in that scenario.
These lands add some weird incentives with powerful one-mana cards that will mostly want to be played in specific color combinations. Thornspire Verge will be great for casting a turn-one Monastery Swiftspear, but you probably won't want to play Llanowar Elves in a deck featuring that same Thornspire Verge.
While it looks like we're only getting the allied-colored lands this cycle, I'm eager to see which color lands on which dual. Pioneer Izzet Phoenix would absolutely love it if the Izzet land produced blue all the time.
These lands are great in decks where they always produce the dominant color of a deck. They're slightly less good but still strong in decks that are more evenly dispersed with the color of their mana pips.
I could see this cycle of lands being heavily played in Standard and Pioneer, with occasional appearances in Modern.
Abhorrent Oculus
Abhorrent Oculus will be harder than it looks to enable in a format like Standard. It's difficult to get six cards into the graveyard early and requires resource exchanges. I'm looking at Abhorrent Oculus to play in a deck with a lot of one-mana cantrips and on turn four rather than turn three.
This card seems primed to potentially see play in Eternal formats, as it's easily enabled with fetch lands, Thought Scour, Consider, and anything that can quickly put multiple cards in the graveyard.
Abhorrent Oculus stands out as likely playing well alongside cards like Thoughtseize and Duress because you can exchange resources quickly and strip removal from the opponent's hand to allow Oculus to stick for a couple of turns, generate more value, and potentially find a second copy of itself when it manifests dread.
The biggest issue is that it competes with powerful delve cards like Treasure Cruise in Pioneer and can easily be shut off by graveyard hate.
I like Abhorrent Oculus a lot. I hope it can settle in and find a home, but its best placement is going to be in a deck where it's the only card that requires a graveyard, so you can make the opponent decide if they want to bring in their graveyard hate for just this one card. I don't want to play this card in a deck like Phoenix where they will be attacking your graveyard in post-board games, and you already have Treasure Cruise to enable.
Overlord of the Mistmoors
Overlord of the Mistmoors looks strong. While four mana for a pair of 2/1 flying tokens isn't a great exchange, it's also promising you a 6/6 several turns later. This is the kind of card you'd want to see in grindy, midrange match-ups where players are exchanging resources for a long time. It forces the opponent to hold onto an answer for the Overlord for later turns while providing a combined four power between the two 2/1 flying creatures it makes.
This card is unlikely to see play outside of Standard, and it may not be good enough for Standard depending on how the decks shake out. If Mono Red ends up being highly represented, then a card like this will get worse. If the best decks are grindier, midrange decks, Overlord of the Mistmoors has a real shot at being one of the better cards for mirrors, as it's essentially four mana for an onboard three for one. If games go long, it should be a solid value card.
I'm interested in seeing Overlord of the Mistmoors in action.
Unable to Scream
This is a rarely seen common that caught my eye for Constructed. Unable to Scream is a one-mana piece of creature interaction in blue that could see play in a lot of formats, at least in fringe situations. For instance, the Mono U Spirits deck I played at Worlds a few years ago featured Witness Protection in small numbers. Unable to Scream is substantially better, relieving all pressure from the enchanted creature, so both your life total and planeswalker loyalty are safe.
Unable to Scream's biggest downside is that it will not play well against creatures with counters or other methods of buffing their stats, such as enchantments or equipment.
Unable to Scream is a nice fringe playable at common that I'm sure we'll see here and there.
Meathook Massacre II
You know how they say the sequel is always worse than the original? That has never been more true than with Meathook Massacre II.
Meathook Massacre II is a powerful spell assuming you have unlimited mana that is mostly black, a lot of life, and no one trying to win the game in a reasonable timeframe. What I'm describing is a casual Commander game, which I'm sure this was designed for and will play nicely in. For competitive players, we should save the $15 on a movie ticket and instead stay home, make popcorn, and watch the original.
Meathook Massacre II is too expensive and color-intensive and not good enough to see 60-card play.
Undead Sprinter
The last card we'll look at this week is Undead Sprinter. Undead Sprinter is a classic recursive threat that keeps coming back if you keep feeding your graveyard with creatures. The first and most obvious spot I could see Undead Sprinter being played is in Rakdos Sacrifice in Pioneer. Undead Sprinter plays nicely with Cat and Oven. I wouldn't play a high number of Undead Sprinter in my deck, but it will allow you to cast Jegantha, can be discarded to Fable, Blood Tokens, and can continue to provide value in a slightly longer, grindier game.
I'm skeptical that it's good enough for the deck, but when I get to testing Pioneer I'm going to throw one or two copies in the deck to see how it plays. It makes sense there, and if it doesn't fit there, it's likely not good enough anywhere.
Undead Sprinter is a solid cheap play. While it's a tad too weak, it could be good enough to make the cut. This is a sleeper card with some potential.
That's it for this week. There's a lot more to cover with Duskmorn, and we still don't have the full setlist yet. Next week, I'll be back at it to take a peek at whatever cards stand out to me, and then the release will be just around the corner. I'm excited to get my hands on the cards to get back into the swing of things after a long summer.
See you then!
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