What to Preorder and What to Avoid from Duskmourn

With Duskmourn: House of Horror fully revealed, there’s a lot to talk about. We’ve got new Commanders, new mechanics, and a whole lot of interest. We’ve got just about two months until Foundations is out, and while I’ll be curious to see who switches over on packs, I think Duskmourn will end up like Bloomburrow, getting an abbreviated time on its own in the spotlight. 

So with that in mind, I want to look at some of the cards that I think have real potential to go up from their preorder prices, and which I want to stay the hell away from.

Two caveats before we get into the numbers: First, there’s still two weeks till the official release, and that will include a few days where it’s Arena legal. Prereleases haven’t happened yet, and not every store or company can do preorder pricing. These are not licked-in numbers. Second, almost everything drops from preorder prices, and while I’ll explain my logic, these are swings at the fences. Be kind.

Duskmourn Commander Cards – In a Collector Booster, you’ll have a slot just for the DSC cards, and 81.9% of the times, you’ll open one of the 27 nonfoil EA cards.That gives you a roughly 3% chance to open a specific card you want, or an average of 33 Collector Boosters to snag the one you desire.These will be one of the easiest pulls from CBs.

Notably, the five DSC rooms are only available by buying and opening a sealed Commander deck, they don’t show up in the Collector Boosters at all. If any of those five cards get popular, watch out as they will climb in price quite quickly.

Ancient Cellarspawn (current preorder price $10, and $12 for EA versions)

This is one of my picks for the set, but I can’t recommend getting in at this price. There are a lot of decks that can use this, including everything that wants to pay life, to pitch, to Plot, and to Cascade. Legacy would love this card, especially pitching a Force of Will and adding 5 damage to the opponent. There’s only a couple of Commander decks that can play this with Cascade (Abbadon, Yidris) but free spells is a mechanic that Wizards has been leaning on. 

It’s even got me thinking that I’d add it to The Ur-Dragon, but really, adding one damage to my Dragon spells isn’t worth it.

It’s preordering for $10-$12, but the EA price should come down some and in a few weeks I’ll be ready to buy. 

Sadistic Shell Game ($4.50 EA/$8 regular) – The TCG prices are heavily skewed based off of who’s allowed to post preorder pricing. Folks who preorder are the ones who want the card ASAP, don’t care what it costs, and upgrade every deck with every set. It’s a lot of work and a lot of money, but that’s where we are at. 

The Shell Game is a fantastic card, and as a player used to casting Druid of Purification, let me tell you that this mechanic is busted as hell. If you’re the Archenemy, they will band together and all pick a creature that’s worthless, then you get the one that needs to go. If it’s still more free-for-all, the Game is even better because they pick first! It’s a lot of fun and you should play this card in most of your decks. The EA pricing is tempting but I’m going to be patient for a bit. It’ll drop, but not too far. The Druid is up over $6.

Duskmourn Main Set 

First of all, I think the Japanese-art Enduring cards are set to go off. We’ve got the confluence of three things Magic players have been shown to love: sweet foiling, cute animals, and hyper-rare drop rates. I did the math for you last week, but in English Collector Boosters, it’s going to take you approximately 1,428 CB packs to get just one Fractured Foil English language Enduring Courage. 

The Japanese-language versions are tougher pulls in English packs, but easier in Japanese packs. I don’t have enough information to know if that balances out yet. My inclination is that the Japanese-language cards will be priced less, even in Fractured Foil, but it won’t be too huge a gap.

The other Fractured Foil cards have potential, but cute animals are their own category in Magic. Please keep in mind that the English versions are the same degree of difficulty as the Textured Foils from OTP, but these look a lot more distinct.

Hedge Shredder feels like the card that the casual player will push up and up. That ability goes into so many decks, and will feel utterly broken in whichever deck gets it into play. I think that the demand and the combos will push the card back up to the $15 range soon, up from its current levels around $7 for the basics. So yes, I’m picking this to be the needle in the haystack, the card that rises above its preorder, or bounces quickly back up. If you get your personal copies in the $7 range I think you’re going to feel very good in a month.

Meathook Massacre II is not a supremely broken card. It is a good card, but the combination of mana cost and mana type make it difficult to use. I like the ability, and as a four mana enchantment it’s actually got a lot of utility. It’s definitely not one of the five best cards in the set, and the price will fall.

Exorcise foils should be a pretty good long-term card, as a premium piece of removal that will never be lacking for targets. I don’t like getting in right now at these prices but once the big operations have opened up their product, this is a great target to be an expensive uncommon.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

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