Duskmourn Commander Decks: Face Commanders

Hello and welcome back. We finally are in the thick of it, the halls of the dread house-plane Duskmourn. At time of writing spoilers and previews are still being rolled out, but we do have something cool to talk about! The face commander for the commander decks have been spoiled! So, let’s knock on that door!

ANIMATOU, VEIL PIERCER

Aminatou is actually an older character, first printed at the head of another commander deck as the planeswalker Animatou, the Fateshifter. She’s back for another go, and still cares about the top card of the deck. This time though she specifically cares about enchantments and being able to cast them as miracles.

If you’re unfamiliar with Miracle as a mechanic, it gives you a discount on the card you draw with Miracle if you draw it for the first time in a turn. For Animatou, that means we want to control what we draw and when we draw it, because that matters even on other players’ turns. Cards like Sensei’s Divining Top and Varragoth Bloodsky Sire are going to be good along with similar things

I would also add something that gives flash like Leyline of Anticipation, which happens to be an enchantment, or Heliod Radiant Dawn // Heliod the Warped Eclipse which can act as kind of a backup commander and synergizes with Animatou’s surveil. Even if we can draw those enchantments, we need to be able to cast them after all.

What also matters is that the card we have on top of our library is an enchantment. While there are other Miracle cards, Animatou rewards us for using enchantments with a deep discount and gives those enchantments Miracle. When we draw an enchantment off our deck for the first time each turn we can cast it for four generic mana less. That can be huge with cards like Omniscience or something as simple as Sigil of the Empty Throne. Indeed, I would consider casting enchantments with multiple colored pips even if we don’t get the full discount.

Maximizing the discount is going for the gold of course. While Omniscience is probably one of the better plays, not everyone might appreciate seeing that line every game. Consider some of the more expensive enchantment creatures, the new rooms/doors enchantments from Duskmourn, or even something like Virtue of Persistence which also synergizes a bit with Aminatou's surveil.

Speaking of and finally getting to her surveil ability, it works great to filter cards off the top before your draw and see what you might want to dig for. This opens up a few possibilities, the first of which is getting that discount on an enchantment you can cast as a Miracle. Outside of that, there can be creatures to recur from the graveyard, cards with flashback or unearth, triggers for cards like Mirko Obsessive Theorist and general good stuff.

Animatou looks like it can be a powerful commander with some flexibility. At the time of writing, the deck list has yet to be revealed. With every deck though, new cards are made to help the deck out, and I can’t wait to see what we get that’s new and old in there!

VALGAVOTH, HARROWER OF SOULS

This demon loves to have players lose life. Really, I’m not sure there is a demon that doesn’t, but mechanically this one cares specifically about when your opponents lose life on their own turns. That’s a taller order than normal, but easily enough done.

Whenever our opponents lose life on their turns, Valgavoth gets a +1/+1 counter and you draw a card. It’s a simple but powerful ability that you want to have trigger every go around the table to be effective. Cards that punish people for playing things or taking actions seem to be what we want here. Zo-Zu the Punisher, Mogis God of Slaughter, Mayhem Devil, and probably any assortment of aristocrat cards can be in the deck as well. Because we only gain a trigger off of players losing life in their own turn, cards like Massacre Wurm and others that largely work on our turn should be minimized unless they fit a larger strategy.

Valgavoth will get plenty big off those counters and threaten commander damage fairly quickly once he’s down. This will make him a target for removal, which is probably why the card comes with Ward - pay 2 life. The ward itself helps trigger the second ability discusses above to draw a card and make him larger, so straight protections for him might be some we want but to a lesser degree than other commanders. Sure, include boots/greaves/lavaspurs, but I’d also include a few “change target spell to a new target” cards. The cost for Ward still has to be paid by the opponent targeting, so the second ability will still trigger, so there is a window to respond with cards like Untimely Malfunction or Return the Favor. Not only do these potential help you get rid of something else as long as there is a target, you also can potentially help you win the game instead of just helping Valgavoth survive.

Now, Valgavoth does come with flying which is important for evasion to hit your opponents and for potential blocks. I really feel like he could use trample or another secondary evasion, like shadow from Dauthi Embrace or Trailblazers Boots. While there will be plenty of opportunities to drain your opponents’ life total, don’t shy away from trying to deal some commander damage.

WINTER, CYNICAL OPPORTUNIST

Winter here does what these colors do best together: recur something. That is what sets this commander apart as well. With their last ability tied to the mechanic Delirium, you can return any permanent to your field from the graveyard by exiling any number cards with four different card types. The permanent returned could be an artifact or planeswalker, whatever you want outside of an instant or sorcery. The permanent does receive a finality counter though, so losing it again can be forever.

This isn’t all bad though as long as you’re getting your value. Using Entomb and other effects like Oriq Loremage to pick and choose what you want to get rid of to recur what you do could give this potential deck some insane consistency. Put in a bunch of other stuff like a cycling land or an enchantment that sacced for a land (or “Steve” Sakura-Tribe Elder) and such, and then use the entomb effect to get the big thing and recur it. The recursion happens at the end set on your turn, so you have the whole turn to set up and possibly surprise your opponents.

Something to consider as well is removing the finality counter on your own permanents with cards like Vampire Hexmage or Thrull Parasite to keep your stuff within range of the graveyard to recur again.

I know that I keep working the cards' abilities in reverse here, but that keeps making sense to me. That said, Winter himself also helps you get cards into the graveyard when they attack by milling 3 cards per attack. That is a decent amount and I’m sure the deck can support other effects like Nyxweaver.

Attacking can be a dangerous prospect though. Luckily, Winter’s high toughness and built in Deathtouch make blocking Winter’s attack unlikely for a while, getting you your first or second big plays into the graveyard.

ZIMONE, MYSTERY UNRAVELLER

Look, another Simic commander that cares about lands. I have to give it to Wizards though, they are trying to make it more interesting as they go along.

This legend only has one ability triggered by landfall, but it does two things. First, it allows you to manifest dread on the first time this ability resolves. This means you look at the top two cards of your library, pick one to manifest as a faced down 2/2 colorless creature, and the other into your graveyard.

The second part of the ability then allows you, for an additional land drop, allows you to turn a face down creature face up. Taken with the first ability and maybe some top deck manipulation from cards like Cream of the Crop or Sylvan Library, you can cheat a massive threat into play just by playing two lands. Old Gnawbone or Hullbreaker Horror come to mind to be a nuisance to your opponents, but I’m sure there are other options as well.

This isn’t restricted to your turn either. You could use cards like Walking Atlas, Terrain Generator, and Field of Ruin which offer plays outside of just landfall by removing problematic lands. Burgeoning seems really good here, since you can put lands into play on your opponents’ turns and get a free play off your deck. Of course there are better cards to drop second lands, like Oracle of Mul Daya. I’d still consider the before mentioned cards for some extra oomph to hit those double drops.

Hopefully this deck will come with a number of new cards that trigger when turned face up to help shore up a honestly still lacking morph, megamorph, disguise and cloak pool of cards. However, that isn’t to say there aren't a bunch of decent to good cards in those categories. Ainok Survivalist and Den Protector still being excellent choices, and Deathmist Raptor might be worth an include since it can recur from the graveyard by itself if you turn a creature face up.

Greenbelt Radical and Printlifter Ooze might be a good way to end a game and put a larger field onto the table respectively. Lastly, Become Anonymous might be worth including to reset some of your cards to turn back face up and save some of your creatures at the same time.

Since turning a creature face up doesn’t trigger enter effects, picking creatures that don’t miss out on benefits like that are going to be tricky. This does mean a lean towards creatures that may have on-hit effects might be worth including, depending on the build you settle on. Of course this doesn’t mean you still can’t have creature like that in the deck since Zimone might not always be on board, and you do have access to Blue which has blink and bounce effects to help reuse those cards, like Thassa Deep Dwelling, Essence Flux, or in Green Kogla the Titan Ape and Temur Sabertooth.

ANOTHER DOOR OPENS

With only the face commanders to go on so far, there isn’t much to do but speculate and use cards that have been spoiled or already exist to plan ahead. However, the commanders still are maintaining the mostly more open designs of the previous commander precon deck iterations. Moving forward this is very important, especially while losing set mechanics that may not return any time soon.

Those are my initial thoughts on the face commanders. Let me know what you think might be some good cards to include in the comments below.

Until next time, don’t open any strange, new doors.