Will Duskmourn Affect Modern?

On this spooky edition of Modern Times, we take a look at a few standouts from Duskmourn: House of Horror in the aftermath of its pre-release weekend. While there are lots of cards to discuss, we'll look at three choice singles from the set that have considerable potential in not only Modern, but also Pioneer and Standard. We’ll also discuss one lovely Special Guests reprint, and its financial implications in the foil card market for which its demand is most relevant. Let’s jump in!

Abhorrent Oculus

Let’s start our conversation today with one of the most anticipated mythics in the set, Abhorrent Oculus. For three mana, and exiling six cards from your yard, you get a 5/5 flyer that allows you to continually manifest dread, making you an army of 2/2 creatures as the game goes on, while simultaneously filling up your graveyard for future plays. While a mandatory “Delve 6” is a steep additional cost to pay, despite the otherwise low mana value of Oculus, this cost is fairly easy to mitigate with the help of Fetchlands, Surveil lands, and the normal progression that most tempo decks would take en route to building up an end-game boardstate. 

What’s more is that Oculus fuels future tempo plays by converting cards from the top of your library into creatures, while refreshing your graveyard, which can in turn fuel future Oculus casts, or even enable plays with cards that care about being in the graveyard, like… Oh, what's its name? Oh yeah, Arclight Phoenix.

Whether Oculus shines in Modern remains to be seen. It certainly does give Izzet Murktide players an excuse to dig out their old decks from binders and bulk boxes they may be currently resting in, but where this card really shines is in Pioneer, where Izzet Phoenix is an already established and powerful archetype. The preorder price of around $15 (at time of writing) reflects this as well, though it is trending mildly downward. I feel like this card has potential to land anywhere between $10 and $12 depending on its adoption in Pioneer beyond its obvious synergies. Overall, the ceiling for this card feels really high. Again, three mana for a four-turn clock that actively speeds up itself by manifesting dread is the floor. Where does it go from here? Well, the sky’s the limit in my opinion. 

Abhorrent Oculus	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $10.64
Abhorrent Oculus (Borderless)	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $10.18

Leyline of Resonance

A new cycle of Leylines is always an intriguing prospect! In the history of Magic, Leylines have become synonymous with pre-game actions. If a Leyline is in your opening hand, you can start the game with it in play. These little gems vary in quality quite a bit. The average Leyline at its very worst in today’s game can be pitched to an Evoke Elemental from MH2, or a Force of X, Y, or Z from MH1 – they also provide “free” devotion if you run Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. 

At their best, the Leylines provide game-changing effects that can freely protect your synergies, and even single-handedly shut down an opponent’s strategy. Leyline of Singularity could be used back in the day as a free means to shut down Splinter Twin by making all non-legendary creatures legendary. Leyline of the Void single-handedly crumples decks that rely on graveyard strategies like Living End, and Leyline of Sanctity is a classic sideboard staple to turn off any and all targeted burn spells, or targeted discard spells. 

Finally, some Leylines have even been “too pushed” for constructed play with Leyline of the Guildpact from Murders at Karlov Manor sending Temur Rhinos from being the best deck in Modern by a small margin to being unquestionably the best deck in the format bar none. To be fair, this deck fell to the wayside after Violent Outburst ate a banning, but the deck was fundamentally pushed to this point directly because of Leyline of the Guildpact’s addition to the base deck. Leyline of Abundance also proved to be too strong for Pioneer and Explorer and ate some swift bannings as well.

So where does that leave us with Duskmourn? Kind of in the middle in terms of raw card quality, although there is one standout: Leyline of Resonance

It’s been well documented how this card in Standard can enable 20+ damage on Turn 2 with a fair amount of ease. Even in Modern, it can be used in Prowess-based decks to convert each pump spell into free tempo. Assuming you have this card in your opening hand, and you play a Monastery Swiftspear on Turn 1, you can pay two life on Turn 2 for a Mutagenic Growth targeting Swiftspear, triggering prowess and Leyline. Note that copying spells with Leyline does not also trigger prowess. Nevertheless, your Swiftspear is now getting +5/+5 for just paying two life. With your spare mana from untapped lands, you can cast, oh I don’t know, Monstrous Rage targeting Swiftspear, triggering prowess and Leyline, giving your Swiftspear +5/+1, a Wicked Role token (+1/+1) and trample. Now you can just turn Swiftspear sideways with a casual 12/9 trampler after all is said and done. And this is just the floor for how good this card can be in the right build. 

Financially speaking, this is one of the rare instances where preorder prices are relatively stable and not dropping off too aggressively before the set release. I want to believe this reflects a fair degree of certainty in the potential the card has. Does that mean it will skyrocket and become $20, $30, or even $40 a pop??? No. I think this card has a ceiling around $15 in part due to its ability to be readily used and abused in a Standard format with a considerably smaller card pool relative to Modern. Having said that, if this card can present a Turn 2 kill in Standard, then in theory, it can do the same thing functionally with the same card pool in Modern, although, it will have a much more difficult time doing so efficiently enough to compete with the speed of the current meta. All the same, this is a nice addition to the Leyline cycle, and even has potential in Commander, too, in the right shell!

Leyline of Resonance	CardKingdom $6.49	TCGPlayer $5.47
Leyline of Resonance (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $6.99	TCGPlayer $5.26

Ghost Vacuum

It may not be the Poltergust 5000, but it’s pretty close. Like Soul-Guide Lantern and Relic of Progenitus before it, Ghost Vacuum represents the newest potential piece of permanent-based graveyard interaction fetchable off of Urza's Saga, but with an interesting twist: unlike Soul-Guide Lantern or Relic, which can represent card draw in addition to pure graveyard hate, Ghost Vacuum can “reanimate” whatever you exile with it, including your own creatures! By paying six generic mana, and sacrificing Ghost Vacuum, you can return all creatures you exiled from your graveyard and/or your opponents’ graveyards into play as 1/1 Spirits, which is not only powerful, but also incredibly flavorful. 

Financially speaking, Vacuum’s price is trending downward at a relatively faster rate than Leyline, but is sitting comfortably at around $5 making it above bulk-rate for the time being, though I expect it will continue to trend downward a bit more before bottoming out closer to $2 or $3. Is this card viable in Modern? Probably not. This effect is more “cute” than anything. Exiling an opponent’s Primeval Titan, and then getting it back as a Spirit which enters and fetches you two lands, is quite entertaining, but is it “good” for the cost? It’s highly situational. Most of the time, this effect will likely be too slow to make an impact on the game that changes the tides of play in your favor, although, if it hits early enough, and continually accrues value turn-after-turn, then perhaps in the late game it can expel many Spirits that in sheer volume tip the scales in your favor. But I would question how the game got to this point to begin with… 

All the same, the potential is here with this card. In theory, when cards like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn are discarded or milled and its shuffle trigger goes on the stack, you can exile it with Ghost Vacuum, allowing you to at a later point get a 1/1 Emrakul that’s also a Spirit. You now have a 1/1 with flying, protection from colored spells, and Annihilator 6… Again, this is cute more than it is good. But, at the very least, much like Agatha's Soul Cauldron, Ghost Vacuum presents a cheap spell that can interact with graveyards and reward you with value later in the game should you choose. 

I like the idea of using this card in Commander with Unwinding Clock or other effects that allow multiple uses per turn. I would say, of the cards in this set, Vacuum might see some sideboard play if only for additional fetchable graveyard hate with some upside in the long game, but I can’t see much more use than that… Although in Modern, it does represent a very real interaction threat against decks that leverage Goryo's Vengeance to reanimate Atraxa, Grand Unifier, or even against Living End, where their bulky cyclers can come back later to serve you.

Ghost Vacuum	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $2.99
Ghost Vacuum (Showcase)	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $2.77

Phantasmal Image

Okay, this pick is purely self-indulgent. I have a special level of admiration for Special Guest slots for a couple reasons: they add value to Standard sets that otherwise may be rather low in expected value making the prospect of buying sealed products more appealing, while simultaneously enabling opportunities for fresh, and flashy reprints of staple cards outside of the Standard format. Special Guests also make it easier to keep Standard sets… well… Standard? Rather than reprint Phimage in the set itself (which from a flavor and aesthetic standpoint is justifiable) and risk offsetting the power balance of the Standard format, why not use a bonus print sheet to reprint a long overdue staple in cEDH in some flavorful art? Everyone wins! Foil Phimages were sitting around $50+ prior to this reprint. Now?

Well, the preorder price for this reskinned Phimage is around $30, and will likely continue to fall sharply upon release. In the long-run, I see this version of Phimage in foil settling between $15 and $20, which is a very welcomed sight given how long it's been since a foil iteration has seen a proper reprint (Modern Masters 2017 to be specific). Overall, A+ reprint. Love Special Guests, and will always look for an excuse to rave about the concept, especially when it’s executed well.

Phantasmal Image (Borderless)

CardKingdom $9.49

TCGPlayer $15.95

Dusk Till Dawn

Duskmourn’s power level feels largely on-par with Bloomburrow and Outlaws of Thunder Junction - plenty of fun, distinct cards that mainly serve the Standard format – as they should be. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t single cards with Modern potential, but from the outset, it’s obvious that Standard sets are reverting to being made for Standard explicitly. Even the relative quantity of legendary creatures is low for this set, which is a welcomed change of direction in the lines of products that seem intentionally designed with Commander in mind. In the whirlwind of variability in product design, product intention, product pricing, and product release windows, Duskmourn feels like the dawn of a new morning in the space of Standard sets. I hope to see more of what Duskmourn offers in the future, but for now, speculate safely!

Further Reading:

Let's Talk About Mystery Booster 2

Cards to Watch from Duskmourn