Duskmourn: House of Horror releases on September 27th. And that also means we got some spooky Commander precons. I’ve already written about how great Manifest Dread is going to be in Duskmourn Limited, and in this article I’m writing about the Jump Scare! precon, which is all about manifesting dread and startling your opponents by turning your face-down permanents into scary monsters! I’ll be reviewing the deck’s contents and suggesting some upgrades.
THE COMMANDERS:
As has become the norm for precons, we’ve got two potential Commanders. The face Commander is Zimone, who comes with a powerful landfall trigger. If it’s the first time you’ve had a land enter under your control in a turn, you manifest dread. If it’s the second time, you get to turn a face down permanent face up.
That’s right, she can both quickly populate the board with face down creatures and let you turn them face up for free. That’s incredibly strong as you can effectively use her to cheat really scary creatures into play. The only thing holding Zimone back is her underwhelming stat-line, but her text box is so good that I’m very much willing to accept that.
The deck’s other legendary creature doesn’t have a whole lot to do with face-down creatures, but she’s certainly strong. Kianne will always improve your ability to interact, and she’ll constantly grow. Those effects are welcome in any Simic Commander deck, even if she isn’t that exciting to build around.
Zimone makes the most sense as the Commander since the deck on the whole is meant to take advantage of manifest dread and face-down permanents, and she’s amazing for any deck looking to abuse those things.
THESE NEW CARDS ARE PRETTY SCARY!
In addition to the two new legendary creatures covered above, Jump Scare! Also contains 8 brand new Commander cards that are here to assist you in scaring your opponent. 4 of these cards explicitly assist you in face-down creature shenanigans.
Glitch Interpreter both have the ability to manifest dread and draw you cards with face-down creatures. The Interpreter manifests dread if you don’t already have a face-down permanent and draws you cards when you hit your opponent with colorless creatures (which includes face-down permanents). On many turns that means you’ll be drawing an extra card, and that’s never a bad thing.
They Came from the Pipes is even stronger. For 5 mana, it gives you two 2/2s with upside and draws you two cards. It doesn’t stop there either, because every other time you have a face-down creature enter, you get to draw even more cards. Basically, it’s an insane value engine that can add to the board all on its own. And the floor is a 4-for-1.
Curator Beastie doesn’t want to be outdone by They Came From the Pipes, so it also gives you amazing on-board value. For six mana, you get a 6/6 with Reach and a 4/4 with major upside. Keep in mind, even when your face-down creature is turned face up it holds on to those counters. And he spits out another 4/4 any time he attacks while giving you the additional value that manifest dread inherently provides.
Rooms are Duskmourn’s big headliner mechanic so it’s no surprise that they printed a special one for this deck. And boy, it’s a good one. I really like that each door is useful in different situations.
Staff Room is nice if you already have several face-down creatures who can get in for damage, since growing those creatures and flipping them for free is great. The Experimental Lab side is better if you really need a body right away. And of course, once you fully Unlock this room you gain access to both powerful effects.
The remaining new cards in the deck are less obviously about manifest dread or face-down permanents, but two of them also work very well with manifest dread.
Shriekwood Devourer untapped lands when you attack, which makes it more likely that you can turn a face-down creature face up, even on a turn when you spent mana in your first main phase. It’s not too bad to manifest the Devourer either, since a 7/5 trampling body can come as quite the shock to your opponent.
Giggling Skitterspike is also great for manifesting. This is because a creature suddenly becoming indestructible can mess up combat in a big way. If you have the mana, you may even be able to make it monstrous in the same turn. That also makes it’s trigger far more powerful.
The remaining two cards in the set are less synergistic, but both of them have some very real potential for the Commander format more broadly.
Zimone’s Hypothesis is an instant with a mass bounce effect. And, while it’s not quite Cyclonic Rift since it’s not always one-sided and can only bounce creatures, it can have a pretty massive impact on the game out of nowhere. Cards that have you choose “odd” or “even” can be a little finicky, but you can always make the choice that will hurt your opponents the most and hurt you the least.
As its name would indicate, Disorienting Choice gives your opponents an interesting choice. For each of them you choose an artifact or enchantment, and then each player decides whether to exile the artifact or enchantment you chose. If they don’t, you get to search your library for that many land cards. Importantly, it’s not just restricted to basic lands. This means it can tutor up any land, including lands that have very real impacts on the game beyond mana production.
$50 UPGRADES
While Jump Scare! Has lots of cards that help you surprise your opponents with face-down permanents, there are some other cards you’re going to want to get your hands on to make the deck even better.
The best place to start is Secret Plans and Vannifar, Evolved Enigma. Secret Plans buffs all of your face-down creatures, and even draws you cards when you turn those creatures face up. While the deck already comes with a few value engines that draw you cards when you do stuff with face-down creatures, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have another one.
Meanwhile, Vannifar can add face-down creatures to the board by cloaking them from your hand and if you’re not interested in doing that, you can also buff all of your face-down creatures ever combat.
There are also two face-down permanent payoffs from the main set that aren’t in this precon, although they really should be. The good news is, they are easy-to-obtain uncommons.
Threats Around Every Corner manifests and then any time a face-down permanent enters you get to search up a basic land and put it into play tapped. This can ramp your mana in a big way in this deck, and it gets you that first land right away. It also helps you trigger landfall with Zimone as much as possible.
Oblivious Bookwurm gives you yet another way to draw cards as a result of having face down permanents. On most turns it’s going to just straight up draw you a card. Especially if Zimone is in play.
While there are many great morph, megamorph, disguise, and cloak effects out there to add to this deck, I think Den Protector and Kadena’s Silencer are the ones you should prioritize. When turned face up, the Protector lets you return any card from your graveyard to your hand – not just permanents as we often see these days.
Kadena’s Silencer lets you counter every single ability your opponents control. You probably don’t need me to tell you that people put lots and lots of abilities on the stack in Commander, so the Silencer’s ability to wipe away all of those that are controlled by your opponents has a huge impact on many turns.
And lastly, no face-down creature deck is complete without Brine Elemental and Vesuvan Shapeshifter. Not only are they both good morph creatures in their own right, you can use the two of them together to lock your opponent out of the game.
The Shapeshifter is great with any face-down permanent that does something when you turn it face up, because it gains access to that triggered ability. Then, because the Shapeshifter can turn itself face down again at the beginning of your upkeep, you can get those triggers repeatedly.
While this is very good in this deck in general, Brine Elemental’s “turned face up” trigger is the one you most want to use every turn. This is because the Elemental makes your opponents skip their untap steps. It’s pretty hard to win a game of Magic if you never untap!
Here are the cards I removed from the deck to make room for these additions:
FURTHER UPGRADES
In addition to these budget upgrades, there are some other cards that would make great additions to the deck, but they’ll set you back a little farther.
Like Zimone, Hauntwoods Shrieker can crank out a ton of manifests and it has the ability to turn those face up at a big discount. Notably, it can even let you take a peek at opposing face-down permanents.
Primal Whisperer can be played face-down itself, and it gets huge the more face-down creatures you have. The way this deck is constructed, he’s going to be absolutely huge on many board states.
In addition to these great synergy pieces, there are also some staples that you really want to get your hands on. The great thing about picking up these cards is that they’re going to be useful in just about any deck you build.
An overloaded Rift can reshape games unlike almost any card in Magic, and Rhystic Study draws you lots and lots of extra cards in multiplayer games.
While The Great Henge is great in any green deck with lots of creatures, it’s likely to be extra good here. This is because you’ll often be able to decrease its cost with high-power creatures that get turned face up. The Henge also turns the deck’s plethora of manifest dread triggers way better since now you get a 3/3 and draw a card every time you do it.
END STEP
Jump Scare! looks like a really fun Commander precon. Between a powerful Commander and keeping your opponents on their toes with your face-down army, I think it’s safe to assume that most of your opponents will be pretty scared when they see what you’re up to.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.