The easy link for review. Official link because official. A link to the mechanics of the set for anyone needing a refresher.
Sigh...look the first thing we need to talk about is Baseball Bat. More than any other card, I feel like this one symbolizes what's wrong with the set.
Duskmourn doesn't have a consistent feel, and that is a problem. While I understand that the notion is to pull from 80's horror and haunted house films, and that the underlying premise for the set is one where the plane opens doors to other dimensions to lure unsuspecting entities in the feeling of this set is, in my opinion, not only inconsistent but at odds with Magic at large.
As a game evoking fantasy realms, I am actually perfectly fine with the art deco and noir stylings of New Capenna, and I thought the reimagining of Kamigawa into Neon Destiny was inspired, the steampunk leaning Kaladesh set didn't give me any pause at all. Magic is a very big game, and reimagining things is what keeps it vital thirty years on.
Unfortunately, Duskmourn feels like it took some shortcuts. Because a baseball bat is a very specific, very iconic thing. It represents a game born in America, utterly disconnected from any fantasy realm at all. It shouldn't exist in Magic, because Earth is not a place in the game. There are no wizards here, no ogres to fight, no rat ninjas to speak of.
And there is, quite simply, no way for me to get away from the fact that now the fantasy realms of Magic have been diminished by the real world.
It feels lazy, which is possibly the worst things about it. That item could have been reimagined as any number of things, with flavor text to help illustrate it's importance. An item used by survivors to help them navigate the mansion--think of the Lobo from World War Z (the book). It could have been cool.
Instead a baseball bat has made Duskmourn, and even Magic itself more mundane. And it comes alongside cards like Chainsaw-which doesn't appear to have been transformed by the multiverse at all- and Fear of Abduction and Unidentified Hovership which pull from the Gray Aliens trope of the X-Files (among other sci-fi references).
I want to be clear: I am not objecting to a card like Break Down The Door; or Bear Trap (bears have long been in the Magic universe), clowns, dolls, or even Saw, as blades of all sorts are part of every universe I can think of-fantasy or otherwise.
I am disappointed in what feels like a lack of creativity in the name of fan service, or worse, playing it safe so that the audience 'gets it'.
Whew. That was a lot, wasn't it!
So let me talk about what I like.
I particularly like the enchantment creatures as nightmares but the enchantment creatures as a whole are cool. This feels like SUCH a flavor win, from the ethereal eeriness of the nightmares to the Enduring cycle. Well done there.
I think the choice to have Manifest expand to the top two cards of your library is a great one, offering players interesting decisions to make.
I dig on the Rooms: once again Wizards is finding new and interesting things to do with the Enchantment type and I'm all for it. The rooms feel like they are evoking games like Betrayal in the House on the Hill which is a very cool nod.
When Duskmourn leans into the haunted house stuff, I dig the art and concepts there. Meathook Massacre II, Midnight Mayhem, The Rollercrusher Ride--these cards suggest to me an infinite space of unsettlement, where you just never know how large or small it is going to be. I'm reminded of the mansion in the first Resident Evil from 1996, where it somehow contained a frankly bizarre number of horrors-which was the point.
And at the end of it all, I'm interested in how the set plays. Do I wish the artistic direction had been more creative? I absolutely do.
Do I think the mechanics work? I do, and I am looking forward to messing around with it!
Edit: I'm out of town soon, so the next post will be on Thursday the 26th!
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