Chilling art, clever design make ‘Duskmourn’ a frontrunner for best 2024 ‘Magic: The Gathering’ set

“Magic: The Gathering” has long played host to nightmares.

The 2002 set “Torment” tickled my adolescent imagination with its Faceless Butchers and Mesmeric Fiends — slithering, clicking monstrosities that leered out of clouded, luminous backgrounds. Years after I forsook my childhood cards, the werewolves and vampires of “Innistrad” seduced me anew. By 2016’s “Eldritch Moon” I was as hooked as I’d ever been. From “The Dark” to “Phyrexia: All Will Be One,” terror has always lurked in the heart of these cards.

So after the warm but disappointing fuzzies of “Bloomburrow” and the overpriced but intriguing “Modern Horizons 3,” I was more than ready for “Duskmourn: House of Horror” — a new set that wears its 1980s inspirations on its neon sleeves. Ill-fated survivors slink through this surreal world with little more than flashlights and baseball bats to protect them against slashers, scarecrows, cultists, insectile abominations and the fantastical embodiments of phobias ranging from the cheeky Fear of Missing Out to the extra-terrestrial Fear of Abduction.

Like Valgavoth, the ancient demon who reigns over “Duskmourn,” I find all this fear oh-so delicious. But much as I love a good scare, it’s the set’s sturdy, interlocking mechanics that make this “House of Horror” truly worth a visit.

Wizards of the Coast granted me and other streamers 24 hours of early access to the set before its general release next week. After spending much of that time slurping up “Arena” drafts, “Duskmourn” has me grinning ear-to-ear.

Just as the set’s aesthetic recalls horror tropes like a recurring nightmare, so too do its rules. Manifest Dread is a hilariously-named rehash of a “Fate Reforged” mechanic. Cards with this text give you a facedown creature that you can later flip to surprise an opponent (an Altanak, the Thrice-Called once crushed me this way — a real jump scare!). But these cards also feed your graveyard to enable Delirium, another returning favorite from my beloved “Shadows Over Innistrad.” Then there’s Eerie, an expanded version of Constellation which debuted in 2014’s “Journey Into Nyx” and complements the set’s mechanical centerpiece: rooms.

“Magic” cards have gotten steadily more modal and flexible, and these new enchantments fit tidily into that trend. Rooms are two cards in one: you can play either side, and then later “unlock” the other by spending the same mana it would have cost to cast it. Some obviously impress (like the Phyrexian Arena variant, Unholy Annex//Ritual Chamber); the potential of others creak open more slowly.

Grand Entryway//Elegant Rotunda, for example, packs three Eerie triggers into one card. Glassworks//Shattered Yard may look like modest removal coupled with a woefully expensive damage-over-time effect — but I’ve lost to it twice. Once, two copies clinched a war of attrition, and a second time it provided a handy sacrifice for Boilerbilges Ripper to clear my board alongside a Fear of Burning Alive. I’m convinced that most rooms intentionally have one side look mediocre, to tip you off that there’s other ways to use them and push you toward cards that offer cheaper unlock effects.

These layered mechanics and abundant color-fixing slow down the format’s speed. You’ll need to be proactive — early blockers and removal are key against White-Green survival, for example — but you can jam seven-drops and landcyclers without shame.

All told, “Duskmourn” already makes a strong case for best draft set of the year. It’s not perfect — I prefer Innistrad’s more grounded worldbuilding to this pastiche phantasmagoria, keen as Ovidio Cartegena’s art direction may be. The color balance also seems slanted toward Green (what else is new?) and Black (as is appropriate) — but I’m also liking White and especially Blue Eerie decks, and have underestimated Red at my peril.

I’m not sure how long I’ll want to stay in the dusky halls of “Duskmourn,” but for now — with Halloween finally on the horizon — I’m more than happy to dance to its creepy tune.