Duskmourn (DSK) Limited Primer — Multicolor

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

Duskmourn: House of Horror (DSK) will hold its prerelease events on September 20, 2024, and officially launch one week later on September 27, 2024. Want to learn more about single-card ratings and recommendations in Limited? Then check out this DSK Limited primer series!

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

Rating Scale

5.0: Must-take, unconditionally
4.5: Must-take if you’re in the right colors
4.0: Worth a first pick
3.5: Strong enough, but not necessarily a first pick
3.0: Above average (you’ll really want it in your final deck)
2.5: Average, maybe around the 6th or 7th pick in a draft
2.0-1.0: Below average (you’d rather not play it than play it)
0.5-0.0: Unplayable (basically never play it; it will only help you lose)

Color Pair Overview

Before we start previewing the multicolor cards, let me first list the themes of each of the ten color pairs this time so you can read along with the individual cards.

Blue-White — Eerie tempo
Blue-Black — Eerie control
Red-Black — Sacrifice
Red-Green — Delirium stompy
White-Green — Survival
Black-White — Reanimator
Red-Blue — Rooms
Black-Green — Delirium grind
Red-White — Aggro
Blue-Green — Manifest dread

Alright, let’s get started!

Ratings

Score: 3.5
Comment: A classic horror doll whose ability fits this set’s red-white aggro theme very well. If you’re committing to red-white, it’s basically a must-pick when you see it, and with a wide board and low-power attackers that gain trample, you can build up a big life-total gap.

Score: 3.0
Comment: It grows the body while giving a way to break through on offense. Besides putting it on a survivor to raise its survivability, when the opponent has an empty board you can also tap your own survivor in reverse, or even a creature played that turn, and immediately get survival value in your second main phase!

Score: 3.5
Comment: One-sided damage is already a good card, and with delirium it can also place two counters, making it a frightening card in the red-green theme.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A two-mana 2/3 reach is very good, and also a very efficient card in the delirium theme; late in the game it can even make a row of flyers and punch right through. If your deck is aiming for black-green delirium, this cute spider shouldn’t be missed.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A two-mana sacrifice enchantment or creature that draws two is middling, but sadly it can’t eat itself, and the second ability, manifest dread, needs other cards to work with it.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A four-mana instant that kills anything, with a chance to cost less. This format is relatively slow compared with the last few sets, so this removal will be a good choice.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Getting multiple copies makes it quite powerful, and flying lifelink brings a life-total gap that makes up for its drawback of being unable to block. Worth noting is that it’s an enchantment itself, so if there are multiple copies in the graveyard, entering the battlefield can trigger the return to hand too.

Score: 2.0
Comment: If you’re playing the eerie theme it’s still fine, but if not I recommend leaving it out; a two-mana 2/2 vanilla is a bit ordinary in my opinion.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Flash manifest dread. If the opponent is playing blue-green, watch out for a 2/2 blocker suddenly popping up, or even flipping face up right away.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A key card for the white-blue eerie theme; it can quickly play enchantments and unlock Rooms, earning resources faster.

Score: 2.0
Comment: It’s a shame that a two-color-requirement uncommon gets this body and ability, so it can only be a working stiff in red-blue.

Score: 3.0
Comment: The skull-balloon guy: in red-white it makes a 1/1 token with flying and haste, which not only triggers abilities related to power 2 or less but also earns enter-the-battlefield or dies abilities. In addition, because it has trample, in the survival theme you can also make one and attack, triggering effects in the second main phase, with quite a few fun synergies to play with.

Score: 4.5
Comment: [+1] makes it bigger and hurt more the more you use it, and use [-2] when you need to clear the way. Having hexproof built in makes it very hard to deal with.

Score: 0.0
Comment: The ability really is fun, but five colors is far too deadly. I don’t recommend using it in Limited, unless you have dreams.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It gives everything except a decent body and is restricted by creature type; menace alone won’t necessarily get through, but if you have very good power-2 trigger abilities, this is still passable.

Score: 2.0
Comment: A key figure of this set, Tamiyo’s adopted son, whom she entered the haunted house to find. You’d want to draw him early for his ability to be effective, and late in the game he’s relatively useless. A reminder: he’s the only Ninja in this set that can work with Kaito, Bane of Nightmares.

Score: 4.0
Comment: Enters and makes two enchantment tokens that can trigger eerie twice, and its activated ability can earn the enter-the-battlefield effect again, and can also be used to dodge removal.

Score: 3.0
Comment: It starts earning looting as soon as it enters; if you manifested dread this turn, or flipped a manifested creature face up, it becomes draw a card with no discard, which is very powerful in the blue-green theme.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A very precious card-draw card for red-green; controllable timing and instant speed make it quite good.

Score: 2.5
Comment: The left half is liked by blue-white or red-white, with a chance to be a one-sided sweeper; the right half is basically treated as nonexistent.

Score: 4.0
Comment: An important card for white-green; whenever survival triggers, it looks at at least four cards and takes a creature or Vehicle, which is very powerful.

Score: 3.0
Comment: It can dig twice, but the color requirements are heavy, and its exact strength depends on how strong the creature you dig up is.

Score: 4.0
Comment: The left half can kill creatures in non-aggro decks, and the right half draws an extra card every turn, maxing out resources.

Score: 3.5
Comment: If it can grow to 4/3 for three mana it’s quite threatening; note that the sacrifice can be activated at instant speed.

Score: 3.0
Comment: White-green can grow it steadily every turn, which is pretty good.

Score: 2.5
Comment: The color requirements are a bit too heavy; in black-white it’s probably better to reanimate it instead.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A two-mana 1/4 flyer is an excellent blocker; standing there and slowly earning, the eerie resources pile up quickly.

Score: 1.5
Comment: Not recommended outside red-blue, and we even hesitate over whether it can actually run smoothly in red-blue…

Score: 3.5
Comment: It enters with two flyers, and with or without delirium it’s quite powerful.

Score: 3.0
Comment: With proper building it’s a 3/3 trample haste that keeps crawling back, quite annoying.

Score: 3.0
Comment: An ability that needs a high degree of synergy to be super profitable.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Strong! Take as many as you can get and bravely go into red-green; when it dies, it helps fill two delirium card types, which is not a loss at all!

Score: 2.5
Comment: The draw ability lets both players draw, so I don’t think it’s that excellent. Reaching delirium in Limited is hard enough, and a hand-size cap of three cards is also ordinary.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Cast on time it’s a 1/1 + 3/3, and later it grows bigger, though 7/7 is probably about enough.

Conclusion

This is my first time trying to write about multicolor. Multicolor cards are all closely tied to their color pair’s theme, so you need to look a bit more to give more accurate ratings. By the way, the card I most want to play in Limited in this new set is the UUU 10/1 mill guy The Mindskinner.

One month after the new set comes out is MIT 7, and one month after that I’m going to Shanghai for the 睿卡杯, so best wishes for me and my comrades, and I wish all the GF fans smooth play, with no flood or screw!