Metagame: Duskmourn's First Week in Tournaments

Duskmourn is here! The expansion inspired by classic horror films arrived at Magic Online and Magic Arena last week, and the first wave of Challenges brought the set's new features to competitive tables.

In Standard and Pioneer, it brought crucial new features that can certainly affect the competitive Metagame, with the inclusion of Sheltered by Ghosts, Leyline of Resonance or Turn Inside Out for Aggro decks, while more mana-hungry decks gained Overlord of the Hauntwoods for ramp and color fixing.

In Modern and Legacy, Ghost Vacuum has become an important maindeck and sideboard piece due to its interaction with Urza's Saga. In the older format, a creature from one of the Commander dprecons seems to be the next staple for Reanimate - meanwhile, in Pauper, Clockwork Percussionist and Grab the Prize have given even more momentum to the main Aggro decks of the commons format.

Check out the main cards and decks that stood out in the first week of Duskmourn in Challenges below.

The hype around Leyline of Resonance has took over Standard. Duskmourn's new enchantment, coupled with the addition of Turn Inside Out, has brought new Prowess variants to the format due to the explosive turns that the enchantment allows. To mitigate the bad topdeck that it brings, some lists bet on Witch's Mark to discard extra copies of it while interacting with the Valiant triggers.

The Boros version also features important enchantments that the new set brought to the format. Among them, the most relevant is Sheltered By Ghosts, which doubles as removal while protecting and triggering your creatures' abilities. In addition to showing up in Prowess lists, this card also gained notoriety in a new archetype: Azorius Enchantments.

The new aura also made an appearance in Azorius Aggro, which also gained Unidentified Hovership as a removal that we can then be enchanted with Zoetic Glyph.

Another Azorius list that showed results this weekend was the Helping Hand combo with cheap creatures, which received in Abhorrent Oculus one of the most powerful threats and three mana that blue has had recently.

The Overlord cycle was also present in some Standard lists, but with timid appearances as one-of or two-of.

Decks like Domain Ramp and Golgari Midrange took advantage of Overlord of the Hauntwoods, while Overlord of the Mistmoors was a common one-of in Mono White Tokens and Overlord of the Balemurk was also in Midrange lists - perhaps being a variant of the Titan cycle that dominated Standard in 2012 is no longer enough to impact the format today.

Leyline of Resonance and Turn Inside Out had significant appearances in the Prowess decks that, today, are at the top of the Pioneer Metagame. In addition to showing up in some Rakdos versions, they brought back the original variant of this strategy - Boros Heroic - and a new version of it with Clever Lumimancer.

Sheltered by Ghosts was another motivator for Boros' return in this first week. The enchantment also revitalized other archetypes that had been forgotten in recent weeks, such as Azorius Tempo, Selesnya Auras, and also found a spot in Spirits decks.

The Overlords cycle, as expected, found a home in Enigmatic Incarnation decks, where they allow bypassing mana costs to find high-cost bombs earlier while having relevant ETB effects.

Overlord of the Balemurk found a spot in Greasefang lists, which also received Say its Name as another means of digging deep into the deck and an alternative win line with Altanak, the Thrice-Called.

Another combo that gained traction with Duskmourn was Bloodletter of Aclazotz now that it has a creature that is difficult to remove and that enables lethal damage in a single attack if Bloodletter is in play.

There were also some specific additions, such as Valgavoth, Terror Eater in Rakdos Transmogrify and Fear of Missing Out in the Tree of Perdition

+ Voldaren Thrillseeker combo.

Leyline of Resonance also made an impact in Modern, although less frequently than in Pioneer, given that the necessary proposal for it to work is not one of the most competitive in the format today.

Abhorrent Oculus was the main card with a notorious presence in Modern Challenges this weekend, where it competes with Murktide Regent while Dimir Tempo decks adopt other options to accommodate the costs of both cards in their lists.

Some archetypes that can easily enable Delirium took advantage of Fear of Missing Out. Among them, Hollow One was the one that had the best results and further solidifies the space that a forgotten archetype has gained this year.

Finally, Ghost Vacuum appeared as a one-of in several lists. The main reason is the interaction of the artifact with Urza’s Saga, which allows for efficient and repetitive graveyard hate in the maindeck without major concessions and/or without disrupting your game plan. It also has shown up with some frequency in the Sideboard of Energy variants.

Metamorphosis Fanatic was Duskmourn's most significant maindeck addition to Legacy. In addition to functioning as a topdeck Animate Dead, its ability makes it a great target to Reanimate as well and provides a boost to the archetype after Grief was banned in the format.

Another card that has been popping up quite frequently in decks this week, especially in the Sideboard, has been Ghost Vacuum - a one-mana graveyard hate that allows players to answer Reanimator and/or other archetypes while having a relevant late-game ability. Its main appeal, as in Modern, has been the ability to find it with Urza's Saga.

Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and Abhorrent Oculus also made their appearances in the Challenges, although more timidly.

Pauper received Clockwork Percussionist for Kuldotha Red, where in addition to being another aggressive one-drop that guarantees Metalcraft and increases the power of Goblin Tomb Raider, it interacts with Kuldotha Rebirth and generates more card advantage for the deck.

Madness Burn also received a relevant boost with Grab the Prize, which doubles as an enabler for Madness while also dealing damage to the opponent, ensuring that they don't just waste two mana trying to make another card work.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!