(Marina Vendrell || Art by Jack Hughes)

Ready To Kick-Start Three More Duskmourn Commander Decks? I Got You!

Hello friends, and welcome to another Start Me Up! This 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. Since Duskmourn: House of Horror is still the new hotness, I’ll feature three more new legends from Magic’s modern horror spooky set. Is your adrenaline priming you for fight or flight? Let's go!

Marina Vendrell

Rooms are a super-spooky new enchantment card type, and Marina Vendrell lets you play as many of them as you want all in one deck! She also taps to let you unlock or lock any Room you have on the battlefield, and since unlocking a room costs mana that will leave you options for doing other things with that mana.

But, why would you want to lock a door? In order to get the unlock benefit from the room again, of course! If you also have a way to untap Marina, you could tap to lock a Room, untap, and then tap Marina again to unlock the Room and get the benefit again. The idea of leaving a room, locking it, and then immediately unlocking it again is kind of funny, but mechanically it could be exactly what you need for the particular game state you’re in.

Let’s get started by looking at what EDHREC recommends as high synergy cards.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

These are powerful cards for any enchantment-heavy strategy. Since Rooms are enchantments, these are powerful additions. Sythis, Harvest’s Hand is a cheap to cast card-drawing engine, and while Eidolon of Blossoms and Enchantress’s Presence are little more expensive, the extra card draw is very much worth it.

Sanctum Weaver is another enchantment deck staple, tapping for more and more mana as the game progresses and more enchantments hit your battlefield. Jukai Naturalist shaves a mana off each enchantment you cast. While Marina’s activated ability will save you mana, you can always use all the mana you can get to cast Rooms and unlock multiple Rooms in a turn.

Of course people are putting a lot of Room cards in their Marina decks. The left side of Smoky Lounge // Misty Salon probably gets cast first, giving you extra mana on subsequent turns to help you cast or unlock Rooms. The right side of Mirror Room // Fractured Realm seems like the perfect card to unlock with Marina, saving you a whopping seven mana on the turn and making each Room or other permanents trigger twice! You could cast the left side of Bottomless Pool // Locker Room to bounce a blocker, and then unlock the other side with Marina and attack, letting you draw a card for each opponent you're able to deal combat damage with by one or more creatures.

Funeral Room // Awakening Hall is another Room with a powerful effect that's normally quite expensive to unlock, but Marina will let you bring back all your creatures in your graveyard to the battlefield. This is exactly the sort of Room you'd want to lock again with Marina to have ready to use again later after a battlefield sweeper. Dollmaker’s Shop // Porcelain Gallery is best in a deck that puts a lot of creature cards on the battlefield that attack, which isn't exactly what this deck wants to do but since it's a Room you'll likely want to run it anyway.

Door Synergies

There's actually a surprising number of non-Door cards that synergize with Door cards, and while not all of them are powerful, many of them are quite good. Inquisitive Glimmer does a pretty good Jukai Naturalist impression, only it also discounts unlock costs to your Rooms. Entity Tracker is an Enchantress-style card but in blue, and it also draws you a card when you full unlock a Room. Ghostly Dancers has a sweet enter-the-battlefield trigger that can recover a Room or other enchantment from your graveyard to your hand, or unlock a locked door, and its eerie ability generates surprisingly aggressive 3/1 flying Spirit creature tokens.

The eerie ability of Victor, Valgavoth’s Seneschal is a pretty modest surveil 2 the first time an enchantment enters and whenever you fully unlock a Room. Marina can certainly help chain two of these triggers in a turn to make each opponent discard a card, and if you can do it three times in a turn, you get to reanimate a creature card from any graveyard to the battlefield under your control. Players won't like the discard part of this, so don't expect Victor to stick around long!

Other Room synergy cards I'd strongly consider are Fear of Sleep Paralysis, Gremlin Tamer, Ghostly Keybearer, Fear of Infinity, Skullsnap Nuisance and Unwilling Vessel.

Untap Marina

There are a lot of nifty cards you can run to untap Marina. One that immediately springs to mind is Thousand-Year Elixir, which is also nice because it gives the tap abilities “haste” so Marina can be used the same turn you cast her. There are some other cards that do a similar thing such as Magewright’s Stone, Patriar’s Seal, and Seeker of Skybreak. Saryth, the Viper’s Fang lets you untap a creature, but also provides a benefit of granting hexproof to your other untapped creatures, and deathtouch to your other tapped creatures. Samut, Voice of Dissent can untap another creature, and also gives all your other creatures haste.

Halo Fountain can untap one or more creatures depending on how much white mana you have available, but even untapping just Marina is nice since it also provides you with a 1/1 chump blocker for your troubles.

I really like Freed from the Real and Retreat to Coralhelm since they are enchantments and have synergy with other enchantment-matters cards you’ll be running in the deck.

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is a neat option here, getting to tap or untap multiple permanents thanks to combat damage triggers, but keep in mind that Marina taps as a sorcery, so you can’t stack a bunch of untap triggers and then tap Marina multiple times while the stack resolves. But I still think it would be worth running since you could also untap permanents that can untap Marina in your post-combat main phase.

Ioreth of the Healing House is surprisingly useful, not only for untapping Marina but it can even untap a land to generate extra mana, and if you have another legendary creature on the battlefield you could untap that and Marina too. Say, Saryth, the Viper’s Fang and Samut, Voice of Dissent are legends!

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Niko, Light of Hope

Next up is the recently desparked Niko, Light of Hope and if you love playing value creatures, this commander is going to be right up your alley! When Niko enters, they create two Shard tokens, which are like juiced-up Clue tokens, but Shards are enchantments instead of artifacts, and if you sacrifice one, you get to scry 1 and then draw a card. But as tempting as it might be to cash in those Shard tokens, you’re going to want them to stick around – and if you can, make even more of them! Niko has a tap ability that lets you exile a creature you control, and then all the Shard tokens become copies of that creature until the next end step. You will also get that exiled creature back during the next end step. You’ll want to play creatures that have a nice enters the battlefield – or leaves the battlefield trigger – to target with Niko, or creatures that make good attackers. Sun Titan covers both bases and would make a fantastic target for Niko’s ability!

Let’s get started by looking at what EDHREC recommends as high synergy cards.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

It looks like the early Niko decks in EDHREC’s database have a ton of blink effects in them, with instants like Ephemerate, Cloudshift, Momentary Blink, Essence Flux and Ghostly Flicker. Not only are these good for squeezing more value out of creatures like Sun Titan, but you can also use these to blink Niko and make even more Shard tokens. And who doesn’t want more Shard tokens?

Teleportation Circle and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling are permanents that let you blink a creature each turn, squeezing even more value out of your Sun Titan-like creatures, or blinking Niko for more Shards.

Soulherder is another way to blink a creature each turn, and it also grows bigger each time a creature is exiled from the battlefield – including if you’re aiming a Swords to Plowshares at someone’s huge monster!

Niko Aris is an awesome way to dump a bunch of mana into making a bunch of Shard tokens, and you can even use the loyalty ability to make another Shard each turn. Archon of Sun’s Grace appreciates that Niko's Shard tokens are enchantments, generating Pegasus tokens to go along with them.

Niko Synergies

Training Grounds is a good card to run with any commander creature that has an activation cost, and shaves the mana of Niko's ability in half. And who would think that Niko's best bud would be a grumpy-looking Frog Wizard? Dour Port-Mage loves what Niko's doing, drawing you a card, and even bouncing a creature back to your hand to cast again if that's something you want to be doing.

Attack Triggers

Exiling value creatures with Niko is a great way to accumulate incremental advantage, but ultimately you'll want aggressive creatures that want to be attacking in multiples. Hero of Bladehold's battle cry ability is going to awesome the more Shards you have. And how about Sludge Monster, sliming a creature when it enters, then attacking with a bunch of Shards that are suddenly Sludge Monsters sliming a bunch more creatures? Now that's just clean(?) fun!

Silverwing Squadron and Hammers of Moradin are two more awesome creatures to attack with en masse. And I have fond memories of copying Steel-Plume Marshal in my Magic Arena Brawl Niko deck; having five Steel-Plume Marshals attacking at once is some serious beatdown!

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Norin, Swift Survivalist

I have huge nostalgia for the character of Norin the Wary, originally found in a bunch of flavor text from early Magic set cards like Jade Statue, and later to be realized in his own flavorfully weird card in Time Spiral. After many years he's back as Norin, Swift Survivalist, officially now a Coward and yet he can actually successfully attack now. As a 2/1 he's not going to survive combat so Norin now has the slippery ability to exile any creature you control that becomes blocked, and you may play that card from exile this turn. Norin himself only costs one red mana so he's very easy to cast again, but what we'll want is other creatures that you don't mind casting again if its blocked by an opponent.

Let’s get started by looking at what EDHREC recommends as high synergy cards.

EDHREC High Synergy Cards

Invasion Plans is a nifty old school card originally seen in Stronghold, forcing all creatures to block each combat if able, and letting the attacking player choose how each creature blocks. So you can have all blockers block the one creature you don't mind casting again from exile, and let the rest of your creatures crash in on your opponent's life totals. Just keep in mind this effect is symmetrical so opponents can take advantage of it by attacking you; but hey, you're playing red so let chaos reign!

Guild Artisan is a cool Background to play if you're attacking with Norin quite often, and since the trigger creates two Treasure tokens, you'll easily be able to cash in a Treasure to cast Norin again. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser is a great way to set up a hard choice for an opponent -- to block a creature you want to cast again and get some benefit from it, or take the damage and get your choice of Grenzo's triggers. The one that lets you cast a spell from an opponent's library from exile can synergize with other cards that care about casting spells from exile.

Charming Scoundrel and Fanatic of Mogis are creatures with nifty enters abilities you sometimes won't mind casting again from exile.

Passionate Archaeologist is another nifty Background that works great here, dealing damage to an opponent equal to the spell's mana value that you cast from exile. Plus, you can yell "this belongs in a museum!" when you do it and see who chuckles. Iraxxa, Empress of Mars's battle cry ability is welcome for attacking with a bunch of creatures, and its paradox ability will spit out 2/2 creatures each time you cast a spell from anywhere other than you hand. Wild-Magic Sorcerer is another awesome card that lets gives the first spell you cast from exile each turn cascade, and who doesn't love cascade?

Seize the Spotlight with Norin on the battlefield means that opponents won't won't to let you borrow a creature and potentially exile it if it's blocked, which means a bunch of fortune votes to let you draw cards and make Treasures. I really like Agate Instigator, which you can cast without offspring early and later on if its blocked you can cast it from exile with offspring to make a cute little 1/1 version of it.

Recasting Creatures

There are a ton of cool creatures with enter-the-battlefield abilities you can easily search up in Scryfall so I won't waste space listing a bunch of them here. Instead, I want to make sure you play ways to make replaying creatures from exile easier. Ruby Medallion and Hazoret’s Monument can shave a colorless mana from the mana value, while Defiler of Instinct can actually shave a red mana from the cost. Runaway Steam-Kin and Birgi, God of Storytelling can give you bursts of red mana along the way, while Neheb, the Eternal can give you some amount of red mana post-combat, which happens to be the perfect time to cast any blocked creatures from exile.

Enter-The-Battlefield Triggers

Like Agate Instigator, there are other cards that trigger when creatures enter your battlefield that you'll want to include like Impact Tremors, Witty Roastmaster, and Molten Gatekeeper. Terror of the Peaks is probably the best of the bunch so if you have one looking for a home, this would be perfect!

Cast from Exile

If you're like me, you've been waiting for a deck to run the weird Doctor Who card Flaming Tyrannosaurus, and now we have a place for it! Throwing a Lightning Bolt and getting +1/+1 bigger each time you cast a spell from anywhere but your hand will add up quick. Also from Doctor Who is Memory Worm, which is like a mini-Flaming Tyrannosaurus. Keeper of Secrets can hit opponents with damage very much in the style of Terror of the Peaks.

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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