Duskmourn: Are you ready for an eerie Prerelease?

MTG Madness news

Welcome to the 10th installment of MTG Madness. Congratulations to Nickie Burke for winning our first giveaway. And with Duskmourn: House of Horrors dropping on Sept. 20, we've got a new giveaway in the works. All subscribers are eligible to win the next giveaway and earn extra entries for helping new subscribers discover MTG Madness.

The new giveaway is for a Duskmourn: House of Horrors Playbooster box.  

All subscribers are automatically entered in the contest. To earn extra entries for the giveaway, you’ll have to reenter your information through the link above. After entering, you’ll see a heart icon with “Refer friends for extra entries.” Click on the icon to expand the box where a unique link will appear. Copy the link to send to friends. Both you and your friends will earn an extra entry. The more people using your link, the higher your chances are of winning the Duskmourn Playbooster box.

Be sure to check your Spam for MTG Madness emails so you’re winning email doesn’t end up there. Search MTG Madness in the search bar within the Spam folder and any emails that ended up in the bin will appear. Move one to Inbox and you should be fine going forward.

We all got an early look at Duskmourn: House of Horrors gameplay this past week through the LRR Preprelease event and the MTG Arena early access streamer event. Thanks to WotC, I was able to play in the early access event as well, getting a fair idea of what DSK Limited Draft and Sealed is going to look like while also showing off the power of Enchantments in the Standard meta through Azorius. 

Duskmourn Prerelease takeaways

The biggest Duskmourn Limited takeaway, from my experience, is that the 10 Duskmourn archetypes do not have a clear line of play as creature archetypes did in Bloomburrow. Colors like Green and Blue do an amazing job supporting stronger colors like White and Red. This type of color bleed opens up multiple ways to build a deck using only two colors. Three-color builds are also another solid option, especially with Green as one of the main two colors. Green has mana fixing and support for mechanics like Delirium and Manifest Dread, as well as Ramp.

Three color archetypes, BG, WU, and RG, are strong in Sealed. I expect to see more three and four-color builds at Prerelease, though. Mana fixing in Duskmourn is top-notch. The 13 life points and less lands are bomb Commons. And don't sleep on the Rare Verge Lands. Terramorphic Expanse finds you a Basic Land and Valgavoth's Lair taps for one mana of a chosen color. 

Combat tricks have their place but are slightly less influential than in Bloomburrow. Removal, however, is essential. The Duskmourn Limited format has its share of Rare bombs, and Uncommons/Commons can take over a game with the right support pieces. 

Duskmourn grades are in

My early grades for Duskmourn are here. I apologize to those who didn't get the Bloomburrow spreadsheet, as some subscribers received a link while others didn't. To rectify that, I'm dropping the spreadsheet here and will include it in future installments to ensure everyone has access to it. For those of you interested in the Bloomburrow spreadsheet, it'll also be added to future installments. 

All grades are early predictions based on my personal experiences during the MTG Arena early access streamer event. After Prerelease and the digital launch of Duskmourn: House of Horrors, I'll revisit the grades and update the spreadsheet. 

Duskmourn cards worth money: Spike and dives of the week

Prerelease prices for Duskmourn are up. Expect significant changes over Prerelease weekend leading up to the digital launch on Sept. 24

Mint versions of Penance, an Uncommon from Exodus, spiked from around .50 cents to a little over $13 this past week with the reveal of the Miracle Worker Duskmourn Commander Precon and its face commander, Aminatou, Veil Piercer. 

Another older MTG card from Dissension, Rain of Gore, also jumped in price significantly this week. Duskmourn contains a few Lifelink/Lifegain cards that are expected to impact formats. Rain of Gore is lifegain hate, specifically in BR. Main versions of the Enchantment spiked at around $15, while foil prices are listed as high as $70 or more. 

A card I recommend grabbing for Standard is Harvester of Misery, a Big Score drop from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Aggro is still strong in the Standard meta, and it's slowly driving up the price of Harvester of Misery. Golgari, Delirium, and Rakdos decks are all taking advantage of the versatility found through the Mono-Black Spirit. 

Showing a downward trend is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, a Legendary Elf Scout that's had a handful of reprints over the years. Played mostly in Commander, the three-drop Mono-Green Legendary is a solid pickup. The lowest-priced singles of Selvala, Heart of the Wilds are The List and Commander: Modern Horizons 3 versions.

Secret Lair hype or flop?

The spirit of friendly horror has seeped into Secret Lair drops through two Ghostbuster drops and a Chucky drop. Slimer is the first of the two Ghostbuster drops, and the second is from the animated series. I'm a sucker for the Ghostbuster animated series drop and will be trying to pick one up. WotC only prints a limited amount, though. Secret Lair drops like Monty Python and the Holy Grail selling out in an hour left fans, myself included, skeptical of future high-demand drops. 

And that's a wrap for this week. I'll publish my Prerelease experiences in the coming week, along with Duskmourn: House of Horror cards that pop off from the digital launch on Sept. 24.