Duskmourn (DSK) Limited Overview: White

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Duskmourn: House of Horror (DSK) holds its prerelease events on September 20, 2024, and officially releases a week later on September 27, 2024. Want to learn more about card ratings and advice for Limited? Then check out this series of DSK Limited overviews!

• For the mechanics, see this article: Duskmourn Mechanics Explained
• For a first look at the Limited themes, see this article: Duskmourn Limited Preliminary Look

Rating Scale

5.0: Unconditional first pick
4.5: Unconditional first pick if you’re in the right color pair
4.0: Worth a first pick
3.5: Strong enough but not necessarily a first pick
3.0: Above average (you’ll really hope it makes your final deck)
2.5: Average, maybe around the 6th or 7th pick of a draft
2.0 to 1.0: Below average (you’d rather not play it than play it)
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable (basically don’t play it, it will only help you lose)

Ratings

Score: 2.5
Comment: A good two-mana filler is what aggro decks need, and the ceiling is higher if it can fly!

Score: 2.5
Comment: Decent body, and it has a lifelink ability when eerie triggers. Used well, whether gaining life by triggering before attacks or making advantageous blocks with some of black’s flash enchantments, it’s pretty good.

Score: 3.0
Comment: The value is mainly in the right-hand door, which is exclusive to white-green survival and gives everyone pseudo-vigilance, which is also quite important in red-white where offense and defense are one. In black-white and blue-white its value is lower and I don’t recommend using it. The left side, which gives creature spells convoke, is more of an extra option and should mostly bolster white-green, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t open it.

Score: 4.0
Comment: Arrives early, and every turn after attacking you get an extra 1/1, which is very efficient at adding board pressure. Unlocking the other side in the mid to late game to attack with the whole team should pretty much win the game.

Score: 3.0
Comment: An important common for the black-white reanimation strategy. Although it needs five mana, being a common also raises the odds of getting more copies, which raises the feasibility of the reanimation strategy. Other color pairs don’t necessarily need to use this card.

Score: 4.0
Comment: A ruthless card advantage machine. The opponent has to remove it twice, and in a reasonable build it basically earns 3 or even more cards. White has a great many 2-power creatures this time, so triggering it isn’t too hard.

Score: 3.0
Comment: In an enchantment deck, growing to +3/+3 shouldn’t be hard, but still watch out for the old problem of Auras being easily 2-for-1’d.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Nearly a two-mana catch-all removal, and the exile effect avoids some annoying return-from-graveyard cards. Quite excellent!

Score: 3.0
Comment: After entering and exiling a big creature, ending the game with a 5/5 flier is nice, and it could be the finisher for white-based decks. Although this set has plenty of enchantment removal, even if it gets removed, the creatures exiled on both sides return to hand, so the tempo doesn’t drop too much.

Don’t forget that exiling your own creature is an additional casting cost, so it’s harder to use when behind. If you can cast it for less it should be quite strong, and in blue-white it should work better than in other white pairs.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A five-mana 4/4 that stuns one creature on entering. The body itself has trouble affecting the board, and I think there are better choices.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A quality card for black-white, especially when you need graveyard usage, so take it early. If you can grow it, even better!

Score: 2.5
Comment: Good body, ordinary ability, suitable for picking after the 8th pick to fill the 4 to 5 mana curve.

Score: 4.0
Comment: For enchantment or Room themes it’s no loss on entering, and triggering eerie more than once afterward is a big win.

Score: 3.0
Comment: OK body, and after survival, sending out a Glimmer or drawing cards is both quite good.

Score: 2.5
Comment: This Room is like making two common spells into enchantments to give the theme more usable cards. Because of that, it’s basically a card that only blue-white will want; in other white pairs it ends up an ordinary filler.

Score: 2.5
Comment: 4 toughness gives it a chance to survive after attacking, repeatedly making indestructible attackers to fight alongside.

Score: 2.0
Comment: A regular +2/+2 flying trick that’s useful on both offense and defense. And with DSK’s generally high creature toughness, being able to fly through is very important. The effect of giving a creature an extra enchantment type gives us the neat use of removing the opponent’s non-enchantment creatures with enchantment removal.

Other comment: Egavas
Score: 3.0
Comment: The main point of divergence on this card’s score is how important combat tricks are, which relates to players’ personal habits and the environment’s structure. I personally value combat tricks more. Considering that in past sets, one- and two-mana instant combat tricks giving +1/+1 to +3/+3 with an extra effect almost all sit in the 2.0 to 2.5 range, I think this Jump Scare, combining efficiency (1 mana for +2/+2), flexibility (it can push through damage or protect a flier), and synergy (the enchantment type’s synergy in the set), is better than the vast majority of past combat tricks, so I give it an above-average 3.0.

Score: 1.0
Comment: This set has no lifegain theme, and lifegain cards like lifelink creatures are worth playing anyway, so you don’t necessarily need this Leyline of Hope. Without synergy and without being able to have it out from the opening hand, you basically won’t want to slam it on turn 4 doing nothing.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Team-wide pump has always been good in Limited, and this one doesn’t even need you to attack: just standing there makes all your attacking creatures bigger.

Score: 1.5
Comment: On death it should reliably get you a creature, but a 2/1 for three is still a loss. If it were an ETB it would fit red-white’s theme well, but a death trigger is a bit worse.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A very strong one-mana eerie theme creature, a cornerstone of the blue-white eerie theme.

Score: 2.5
Comment: In white-green, paired with a pile of survivors, it performs well; without them it’s more ordinary. Of course, in red-white go-wide it’s a small source of damage in the early to mid game, and in the mid to late game you can tap some creatures to gather energy, let it grow, and attack through!

Score: 4.5
Comment: Very strong, but seven mana is a bit much. Without acceleration, I recommend casting it for four mana with impending.

Score: 2.5
Comment: On offense creatures with at least 2 toughness won’t dare block, and on blocks it may be even stronger! Having a way to put +1/+1 counters on it is even better.

A small reminder: +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters cancel each other out one for one.

Score: 2.0
Comment: Paying in installments is okay, and a 4/4 on turn 3 is a sizable threat, but note the black Demon it becomes doesn’t fly!

Score: 3.5
Comment: After survival you can put +1/+1 counters, flying, and lifelink counters on it, and repeatedly at that! When it and other creatures with counters die, the counters can jump around. It’s a real headache if it isn’t removed before it starts putting counters.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Ordinary body. Survival can fetch a creature with mana value 3 or less to hand. Drawing it late may be a bit worse, but on curve it’s still fine.

Score: 3.0
Comment: This card is a bit like OTJ’s Eriette's Lullabyand LCI’s Ray of Ruinmerged into one instant. Although it isn’t removal suited to offense, it’s very good on defense, especially since this set has survival, an ability that depends on tapping, so being able to destroy tapped creatures covers more targets than only destroying attacking creatures. Apart from black-white, the other two-color pairs’ themes in this set lean toward offense, so if you want to use this card outside black-white, the build should tend toward a pile of powerful individual cards that abandons the theme mechanics.

The author’s other thoughts
Score: 2.0 to 2.5
Comment: Two-mana instant removal for tapped creatures leans toward defense, white should have better removal than this, and five-mana sorcery-speed kill is too clunky. Probably only black-white will want it; aggro red-white and white-green, and even tempo blue-white, don’t need this card much.

Score: 2.5
Comment: One mana for hexproof plus an extra +1/+1, with a chance of making a good trade.

Score: 4.0
Comment: It can remove a nonland permanent and also gives +1/+0, lifelink, and ward 2. Far too efficient, worth a first pick.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Flying is a bonus, and in black-white, after finding lands early on, it’s still a target you can reanimate.

Score: 4.0
Comment: Sometimes when used it comes close to a one-way sweeper, but it’s only sometimes after all.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Red-white / blue-white mostly draw a card on entering; in black-white, draw then discard isn’t necessarily bad; white-green doesn’t have to use it.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A four-mana enchantment that reliably lets one creature put a counter whenever it attacks is already great, and if needed you can open the other door to bring a small or medium creature back, which is very practical.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Standing alone it may not be good enough, since a 1/1 is gone once it attacks, and a lone Ember Beastis a bit awkward; but it’s used the same as Ember Beast: when you have some small creatures laid out beforehand, the 4/4 joining the fight becomes much stronger. With 4 or more creature tokens it can fly, and in red-white, which is good at producing tokens, it should perform well.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Thopter Arrestupgraded again, and it can also exile enchantments. Considering DSK should have quite a lot of enchantment removal, the added ward 2 is pretty important.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Removing one creature on entering is already worth it, and crew works well with survival, so in white-green it’s a good card worth a first pick.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Four mana for two 2/2s that also fill the graveyard. In black-white it should deserve a higher pick order.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A great kill spell, though sometimes killing your own creature may be even better.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It may be stronger in draft. If you have ways to tap it actively, growing it to a 5/4 hexproof creature and attacking in the mid to late game is still very strong.

Score: 4.5
Comment: Because it can convoke and flash in a 3/4 double striker at instant speed to defend, it easily makes advantageous trades and easily nullifies the opponent’s removal. It can protect and it can attack. Hail my Wandering Rescuer!

Conclusion

Having previewed the white cards, my general impression is: there are lots of 2-power creatures, and flying is important. This time, however, white’s commons don’t include a two-mana Pacifism; instead there’s the three-mana Trapped in the Screen, so relying on removal to clear the way is less efficient, and giving fliers Auras may be the more viable way to play white aggro. For black-white and blue-white, the eerie theme that touches enchantments and reanimation, these color pairs may need to play more defensively early and then go for a burst in the mid to late game. The white-green part was covered extensively in the preliminary article, so I won’t repeat it here.

I hope everyone finds their own combo in DSK Limited. Have fun!