(The Wandering Rescuer || Art by Anna Pavleeva)

Ready To Kick-Start Your Duskmourn Commander Decks? Here We Go!

Hello my friends, and welcome to the kickoff to Start Me Up!. This regular column will pick three legendary creatures from the most recent Magic expansion and provide you with ideas to help get you started brewing your own Commander deck around them. I will be tapping into my vast deckbuilding experience in Magic and Commander, with an eye towards maximizing fun for the whole table. Did everyone have a good time playing against me and my deck, and will I be welcome back to play again? That’s my definition of success!

If you don’t know me, let me present a quick introduction. I started playing Magic in early 1994 when packs of Unlimited and Arabian Nights were still on the shelves at the local game shop, and immediately started playing multiplayer games with my D&D buddies. I do enjoy competitive Magic, but multiplayer has always been my first love, so when Sheldon Menery shared Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) with the Magic community back in 2007 I started building EDH decks and writing about them for Star City Games. In 2014 I published The Complete Commander, an eBook designed to quickly bring people interested in Commander up to speed with the format. During the pandemic when there wasn’t much else to do, my Commander deck collection swelled to 100 decks, but I’m now in the process of dismantling many of them and paring down to just my favorites. Building decks is my favorite part of Magic and Commander, and I’m excited to be sharing that love with you here on EDHREC!

Right now, Duskmourn: House of Horror is the latest hotness, featuring 19 new legendary creatures we could build decks around, so let’s get started!

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Winter, Misanthropic Guide

When I was taking a look at the new commanders from Duskmourn on EDHREC, I was pretty surprised to see Winter, Misanthropic Guide in the #2 slot. Why? Because the card is so incredibly mean! It helps opponents on one hand by providing extra cards, but then the delirium ability makes it more and more difficult to keep those extra cards in hand. Which is flavorful given Winter’s character in the storyline, but makes it problematic for Commander. It doesn’t take too much effort to stock your graveyard with enough card types to reduce all your opponents’ hand-size to one or even zero, which most casual Commander players will find unpleasant despite the extra cards. You’ll want to carefully balance the way your deck plays with what your playgroup will tolerate, or else you end up with “sure, you can play something other than that awful Winter deck.”

I think one approach could be to use Winter’s Delirium ability as a rattlesnake to dissuade opponents from destroying too many of your permanents, assuming of course those permanents aren’t equally as odious. So rather than actively trying to achieve Delirium, you just do Jund good stuff and use Winter’s draw ability to grease the wheels of the game for everyone.

Let’s take a peek at what people in the EDHREC deck database are doing by examining the high synergy cards for Winter.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Clearly, a lot of people are embracing the evil! They’re punishing card draw with Fate Unraveler, Underworld Dreams, Kederekt Parasite, Spiteful Visions, and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, while also punishing the discard with Waste Not, Liliana's Caress, and Megrim.

Howling Mine is a friendly way to have everyone draw extra cards, while Dark Deal is a not so friendly way to force everyone to discard multiple cards. And if you’re a fan of Dark Deal, there’s a nifty new art one from the recent D&D Secret Lair!

Delirium Enablers

Instead of just filling your graveyard as fast as you can, I like the idea of having individual cards that can turn on Delirium when it’s time – either someone has gone crazy with their card draw to push ahead, or you’re ready for your endgame. Jarad's Orders and Final Parting will each add a sorcery to your graveyard, along with another card of your choice, most likely a card with two types, to potentially increase your card types in the graveyard by three. Plus, getting one more card in hand that could answer whatever situation you find yourself in. Vessel of Nascency is less precise but cheaper in overall mana. But if you’re aiming for setting up Delirium fast, it’s hard to beat Ripples of Undeath over a few turns.

Everyone Draw

If you want to lean harder on making everyone draw more cards, either as a Group Hug or a Group Slug strategy, there are lots of options. Anvil of Bogardan is a cool choice if you truly want to remove the Delirium threat from the table by removing the discard step altogether. And Rites of Flourishing is a great way to mitigate your Delirium by letting your opponents make extra land drops each turn and be better able to deploy the extra cards they draw.

For either approach, Heartwood Storyteller and Seizan, Perverter of Truth are like Howling Mine attached to a body that can pick up Equipment, attack and block. And Wheel of Misfortune is a cool minigame that offers players the option to just not draw any more cards if they just want to bid zero.

Punishing Draw

The high synergy list has a lot of the go-to cards for punishing draws, but I wanted to shout out Zurzoth, Chaos Rider in that regard. Making a Devil token for each opponent during your upkeep with Winter sounds pretty nice!

Sculpting Your Graveyard

It could be helpful to have ways to turn off Winter’s Delirium ability if it’s hurting the game’s play experience. Seasons Past can shut that down all by itself unless your graveyard has gotten incredibly stocked, plus it will give you a brand new grip. You’ll probably want Reliquary Tower in your list! This also seems like a good place for The Mending of Dominaria; while it does provide a bit of mill and potential pain for a few turns, you’ll get to return a few creatures and then all your lands to the battlefield and shuffle your graveyard back into your deck.

Gaea's Blessing is a classic way to shuffle three cards back into your library if you cast it, and it also doubles as insurance against mill strategies that might be energized by the printing of The Mindskinner!

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The Wandering Rescuer

Further down the list of commanders from Duskmourn on EDHREC is The Wandering Rescuer at the #12 spot. So many earlier incarnations of the Kamigawa royalty have been control cards; it’s nice to see one that’s primed for aggression! Let’s look at what early decks featuring The Wandering Rescuer are doing in the EDHREC deck database.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Some of these are just flavor choices: The Wandering Emperor, The Wanderer, The Eternal Wanderer and Cut Short, which is cool of course if you’re a fan of the character!

Wand of the Worldsoul and Knight-Errant of Eos are ways to tap your creatures to further the tapping your creatures theme, though tapping your creatures at sorcery speed isn’t going to offer much protection from the Rescuer.

Masako the Humorless is nice technology to enable your blocked creatures to still block, ensuring you’re less vulnerable to attacks. And Adeline, Resplendent Cathar will both generate extra creatures and benefit from going wide to provide more bodies to use for convoke shenanigans.

Okay, let’s dig a little deeper…

Power Boost

Since the Rescuer has double strike, it’s already going to be dishing out six points of damage, but let’s push for more! Things that boost power are going to be doubly effective, and the scariest thing just might be equipping with one of my format favorites, Blackblade Reforged! The recent card Excalibur, Sword of Eden is also amazing so if you have one this might be just the deck for it. The Rescuer will already shave five mana from the casting cost, so any other historic permanents will trim it down further. The character is known for her sword work so wielding the iconic Arthurian blade would be cool!

Bastion Protector and Flowering of the White Tree provide both power boosting and protection, so I’d likely find room for them too. Oh, and Odric, Lunarch Marshal could be a sweet inclusion, giving all the creatures in a go-wide strategy double strike each combat.

Tapped Creature Synergy

Tapping creatures for convoke and other effects opens up some interesting card options. The new Split Up is a flexible creature sweeper that you can pick and choose who lives and who dies based on their tapped or untapped status. There will be times when this might not be as precise as you’d like, but what do you expect for just three mana? I like that you can cast it before attacking to destroy other players’ tapped creatures so they can’t attack you back.

Creatures with the new survival keyword like Reluctant Role Model might be good candidates for the deck, providing some incremental value without necessarily having to get into combat.

Vehicles like Smuggler's Copter another way to tap creatures outside of convoke spells like Ephemeral Shields.

Untap Creatures

Tapping your creatures might protect them with the Rescuer, but it can also leave you fewer blockers than you might otherwise want, so I’d recommend having some ways to untap your tapped creatures, like Dazzling Theater // Prop Room and Drumbellower. Halo Fountain is another gem, especially in a mono-white deck that wants to go wide.

Return Creature to Hand

Lastly, the Rescuer’s flash ability means it might be nice to have ways to return it to your hand at instant speed. Erratic Portal can be used over and over again – and can occasionally snipe an opponent’s creature if they use all their mana, but Scapegoat is a nifty instant speed way to do it that will certainly be a surprise. And then there’s Whitemane Lion, which is a nice instant-speed effect attached to a creature.

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The Swarmweaver

Last up, let’s take a look at The Swarmweaver, which is way down at #17 on EDHREC. Typal “lords” that aren’t also the creature type(s) it boosts can often feel off, which might explain why this is really low in personality currently. For Spiders I think there are much better options, but for an Insect deck it might make a pretty good choice to lead the fight. Let’s take a look at the high synergy cards from the EDHREC deck database.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

The other Insect lords are represented here with Zask, Skittering Swarmlord; Amzu, Swarm's Hunger; Grist, the Hunger Tide; and Grist, Voracious Larva. Hm, I guess Insects are hungry all the time?

There are also Spider cards represented with Ishkanah, Grafwidow; Arasta of the Endless Web; Shelob, Child of Ungoliant; and Arachnogenesis. You might want to just make a Creepy Crawly deck with both Insects and Spiders and tie them together with Maskwood Nexus.

Crawling Infestation and Crawling Sensation are enchantments that make Insects and also self-mill, which will help you achieve delirium to boost your team of swarmy squigglies. And if an opponent destroys one, it’ll count towards delirium as an enchantment card!

Delirium Enablers

The creepy new Twitching Doll is a Spider, and it can accelerate and fix your mana early on, but it can eventually sacrifice itself to potentially make a bunch of Spider tokens. Since it’s also an artifact, it will count towards half your Delirium requirement. Nyx Weaver is also a Spider that has you mill two cards during your upkeep, helping to build that Delirium, and you can spend mana and exile Nyx Weaver to return a card from your graveyard back to hand. If Nyx Weaver dies, since it’s an enchantment creature it also covers half your Delirium.

Broodspinner is a Spider that only has one card type, but it surveils 2 when it enters, and you can sacrifice it later to make a bunch of Insect tokens with flying that The Swarmweaver will boost and give deathtouch.

Combat Damage Triggers

Since The Swarmweaver will give your Spiders and Insects deathtouch, your opponents will be loath to block them, especially if they don’t have token creatures they can easily throw away. That means you can put them in a tough spot if they don’t block by playing cards like Fynn, the Fangbearer, which will give poison counters when a creature with deathtouch deals combat damage to a player. Or Toski, Bearer of Secrets which will let you draw cards. Or Giant Adephage, which is a huge Insect that will make copies of itself. Since it has trample combined with deathtouch, it's sure to punch through any blockers. With enough of your swarm pushing past blockers, you might even be able to cheer on victory from Strixhaven Stadium’s point counters.

Enters Again and Again!

Since The Swarmweaver makes two flying Insects when it enters, you might want to have a few ways to have it enter the battlefield again without having to die and be replayed from the command zone. Conjurer's Closet is perfect for this, blinking any creature (or artifact) once during your end step. There’s also Golden Argosy, which will exile each creature that crewed it this turn; but keep in mind that if you exile The Swarmweaver it won’t be able to boost your Insects and Spiders. Voyager Staff is a one-shot way to blink The Swarmweaver, and as a self-sacrificing artifact it can help build Delirium.

Never Stop Brewing!

Which of these three commanders do you think you might build a deck around? What other cards do you think you'll add to your deck list?

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