The upcoming Magic: The Gathering set, Duskmourn, plunges players into a dark, eerie world filled with terrifying creatures and a bone-chilling atmosphere. With its focus on horror-themed monsters and twisted landscapes, the four pre-constructed commander decks promise to deliver strategic depth and spine-tingling thrills.
Before we dive into each deck individually, let’s briefly examine what items are in the decks: A 100-card ready-to-play commander deck with 10 new cards, one traditional borderless foil commander card, and one borderless foil featured commander card. In addition to that, we also get 10 non-foil double-sided tokens, 10 scheme cards, one deck box, one Collector Booster Sample pack, and one Strategy insert.
Let’s dig into the four Duskmourn: House of Horror commander decks.
MTG Duskmourn Commander Precon decks, ranked
4) Death Toll
Death Toll is easily the most underwhelming preconstructed deck in this set. Winter’s reliance on delirium is clunky at best; it exiles cards from your graveyard to activate his ability, ultimately sabotaging his own strategy. By mid-game, you’ll have exiled key cards, crippling any chance of late-game recursion. Thankfully, there are quite a few cards with more than one card type to feed Winter. Nonetheless, exiling your own graveyard when the point is to bring things back from it feels counterintuitive.
The overall card quality, compared to the other three commander decks, is frankly lackluster. There are no standout reprints to save it except a couple of Planeswalkers, Culling Ritual, and Reanimate. While the deck struggles with synergy, the second commander offers a glimmer of hope, presenting far more interesting build-around potential. Unfortunately, Death Toll feels like a missed opportunity compared to previous Golgari commander precons.
3) Jump Scare
Despite Simic being considered one of the strongest color pairings in the format, this deck isn’t quite as scary as it looks at first glance. It tries to blend several themes, but they don’t mesh as smoothly as expected. The deck’s primary strategies are landfall triggers and facedown permanents. Each strategy is quite strong on its own, but the plan lacks focus. To add to the confusion, +1/+1 counters are tossed into the mix seemingly randomly, lacking synergy with the other strategies.
The deck is saved from being complete hogwash thanks to its surprisingly good reprints. Simic lovers rejoice for Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait has finally been reprinted. Sitting at a whopping $30 price tag, the giant sea lizard desperately needed a reprint. Other less pricey but excellent reprints include Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, Hydra Omnivore, Augur of Autumn, Kefnet, the Mindful, Worldspine Wurm, Scute Swarm, Arixmethes, Tatyova, and Dig Through Time.
2) Miracle Worker
The Miracle Worker deck is an enchantress deck with a twist. Aminatou’s ability, albeit powerful, relies heavily on top-deck manipulation. It’s a powerful strategy you can execute correctly, but it’s poorly supported in the deck. While there are some tools for setting up the perfect draw, such as Moon-Blessed Cleric and Verge Rangers, they’re sparse, leaving the strategy inconsistent.
Instead, the deck leans on obsolete four-mana spells like Return to Dust and Utter End that feel sluggish in today’s faster-paced meta. The deck has real potential, but it needs a lot of upgrades in all departments, from top-deck manipulation to low-mana removal and the power level of its enchantments. Straight out of the box, Miracle Worker lacks synergistic pieces to capitalize on Aminatou’s Miracle / Enchantment ability consistently
1. Endless Punishment
Endless Punishment stands out as the strongest of the four preconstructed decks in the set, thanks to its singular, relentless focus to spread love in the form of pain. Unlike the other decks, which juggle multiple strategies, this one knows what it’s doing and sticks to it. With numerous enablers and synergistic cards like Blood Seeker, Spiteful Visions, and Harsh Mentor, the deck might not be the fanciest of the precons, but it is brutally effective. This focus initially feels a bit simplistic, but that relentless dedication to spreading damage makes it a game-winner.
Endless Punishment has a high number of reprints—good reprints, that is. On top of the punishers, some of the excellent reprints include Mogis, God of Slaughter, Vial Smasher The Fierce, Kardur, Doomscourge, Massacre Wurm, Massacre Girl, Braids, Arisen Nightmare, and many more. Even the mana base is filled with great lands such as Blackcleave Cliffs, Canyon Slough, and Graven Cairns, among others. It is in every aspect the superior preconstructed commander deck from Duskmourn.
Duskmourn: House of Horror releases on Sept. 27, but the commander decks will be available on Sept. 20, during the pre-release weekend. If you plan on grabbing one of these commander decks, please consider supporting your local game store instead of buying it at a giant retail chain store.
