Duskmourn: House of Horror on MTGO

Posted on Sep 17, 2024

By The Magic Online Team

What terrors are in store hiding around every corner in a House that never ends – delirium, dread, or a light at the end of the tunel? Find out when Duskmourn: House of Horror (set code DSK) debuts on Magic Online next Tuesday, September 24 at 10 a.m. Pacific time (17:00 UTC)!

The downtime to add this set to MTGO will happen tomorrow, September 18, from 9 a.m. to approximately 12 noon Pacific time (16:00-19:00 UTC). Be sure to follow our social media outlets (Discord, Twitter/X, and more) to keep real-time tabs on this release. As a reminder, our Help site and Forums will also be down during this period.

Time for a Good Scare

Features of the upcoming couple months include another tsjuz to the Premium Booster, Duel Commander gaining greater event support, and snazzy new Premium effects to jump scare you just a little!

Vintage Cube LIVE’s Final Laps

Don’t forget that the summer’s hottest tournament series, Vintage Cube Live, is wrapping up soon. Your last chance to enter the Feeder League comes this Saturday - the last chance for players to earn Limited Championship Entry Tokens before the end of the series! 64-Player Drafts & Vegas Qualifiers continue through next week.

We sincerely thank everyone who has taken part in the Feeder Leagues and all the way through the series over the last couple of months. It all culminates in the Ultimate Guard Finals at Magic Con: Las Vegas on October 25-26. Be sure to tune into coverage that weekend – stay tuned for details!

How to Collect and Play Duskmourn: House of Horror

Play Boosters

Each DSK Play Booster will sell for $3.99 USD in the MTGO Store starting on Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT and contains 1-3 rare/mythics.

For this set, the composition is:

• 7 regular commons
  • At least 4 of the 5 colors will appear within this group
  • 1 in 64 Play Boosters will have a common replaced by a Special Guest card (#finallyreprintedsacrifice)
• 3 regular uncommons
• 1 regular rare or mythic
• 1 regular wildcard – that is, a non-foil of any rarity
• 1 foil wildcard – a foil in every pack!
• 1 land – standard-frame, unlucky-dual, or Hidden Horror showcase, all in either regular or foil

Premium Boosters

Our newest way of getting premium and Booster Fun cards into your Collection is back – the MTGO-exclusive Premium Booster! As promised, we have changed up quantities and pricing for this set.

The 10-card Duskmourn Premium Booster will sell for $5.99 USD in the Store starting next Tuesday. This time, we are stuffing as many different Booster Fun treatments into a single pack as possible!

Here’s the layout – each Premium booster contains 4 rares/mythics and at least 8 foils:

• 3 foil uncommons
• 2 foil commons
• 1 foil land - regular, tap-dual, or Hidden Horror showcase
• 1 foil rare/mythic (either regular-frame or Booster Fun)
• 1 regular extended-art or borderless rare/mythic
• 1 regular Booster Fun rare/mythic
  • Can be main set, Special Guest, or Commander
  • Can be Borderless or Extended-Art
• 1 foil Booster Fun rare/mythic (Japan Showcase, Double Exposure, or Paranormal)

Duskmourn Commander

This set has four new Commander decks for you to enjoy (set code DSC) – each deck features ten brand-new cards plus a suite of reprints. The decks will sell for $29.99 USD each in the MTGO Store starting next Tuesday. They are:

• Death Toll (black-green)
• Endless Punishment (red-black)
• Jump Scare! (green-blue)
• Miracle Worker (white-blue-black)

This set’s Archenemy cards found in paper decks aren’t available on MTGO and aren’t included in these digital products.

Booster Fun

Here’s a breakdown of where you can find each series of special treatments in this set:

*Commons/Uncommons of these series are removed from Play Boosters
**Commons of this series are removed from Premium Boosters

In response to previous feedback, we are holding Extended-Art Main Set cards and Lurking Evil rare/mythics out of the first Treasure Chest cycle.

Also, cards in the Nightmare Bundle will be included in a future Treasure Chest update.

New Premium Effects – Haunted Tech & Double Exposure

Check out this separate article from Creative Director Ryan Spain. It's his guide to our newest Premium effects, plus a preview of the massive overhaul coming to foil cards later this year!

Seriously, check it out – the before and after videos are lights-out!

Event Updates

Duel Commander Challenges Begin This Week! Plus 10-Ticket Leagues on Sept. 30

We are ramping up our support of Duel Commander starting after downtime!

First, Challenge 32 events will be added to the weekly schedule! Here are the times:

• Saturdays - 3 a.m. PT (10:00 UTC) and 9 a.m. PT (16:00 UTC)
• Sundays - 3 a.m. PT (10:00 UTC) and 4 p.m PT (23:00 UTC)

These events will adopt the new Challenge entry options and prize structure mentioned in this Blog item.

Turning to Leagues: there will be a one-week mini-League using the current entry and prizes starting next Tuesday that will include Duskmourn cards. This is because the next B&R announcement for Duel Commander is slated for Monday, September 30 at 11 a.m. PT (18:00 UTC).

After the changes to Banned & Restricted are applied, the new iteration of the DC League will match entry options and prizes with all of our other main Constructed Leagues – 10 Event Tickets/100 Play Points with commensurate prize payouts.

Finally, make sure you tune in to the next Creator Showdown on Saturday, October 12 on the MTGO Twitch channel. It will feature Duel Commander as the format with dozens of streamers competing for up to $5,000 in cash and prizes. It’s a great chance to see the format on display and get ideas to try out on MTGO!

To learn more about Duel Commander, check out this article.

Super Jump Extension and Gauntlet League Changeover

MTGO’s New Player Gauntlet Events are turning over for the year with tomorrow’s downtime. Both Modern and Commander Gauntlet Leagues will end, and new versions will start up. Previously these were year-long Leagues, but we plan to refresh the Modern Gauntlet’s contents soon, so it will run only until October 16. The Commander Gauntlet will be set up to run until November 6.

The current Super Jump league, by contrast, is being extended until October 16, when we hope to announce a refresh and rebalance of the half-decks.

Alternate Play Schedule

Here’s a look at the schedule of events coming up between now and Magic: The Gathering Foundations. Each description mentions if the Draft is Phantom – cards won’t be added to players’ collections in Phantom events. All transitions take place at 10:00 a.m. PT (17:00 UTC until Nov. 3, 18:00 UTC after) unless otherwise noted.

• September 24-October 9 – Duskmourn Limited is center stage for these two weeks.
• October 9-23 – Just in time for our newest horror set, Frank Lepore returns with his Horror Cube, incorporating Duskmourn and other creepy crawlies from across Magic’s history into the previously Innistrad-themed set. (Phantom)
• October 23-30 – We're considering our options for this short period that includes MagicCon ...
• October 30-November 12 – The Vintage Cube LIVE Prize Cube makes its appearance digitally – see if you can do any better than the eight from Vegas. (Phantom)

Commander Corner

Commander Backlog

We have made more progress against the Commander backlog during this development cycle. As with previous releases, the cards added this time were basically free to us while coding cards for this set. The Extended-Art versions of these (if available) will appear in the TC-Only slot starting next Tuesday (*indicates reprint that appears in DSC in regular frame)

Now, this looks like a small list this time. But we have managed to free up most of our Cardset team for a number of weeks this fall. They will be dedicated to making massive progress against the 22 decks remaining within the Commander Backlog. We’ll have exciting news to share about this throughout the next couple months... and it starts right now!

Three Baldur’s Gate Commander Decks Available Tomorrow

We’ll have several Commander Decks from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate ready to go on sale tomorrow following downtime. Each of them will sell for $29.99 USD in the MTGO Store – they are:

• Party Time – the white-black deck led by Nalia de’Arnise (#parrrrtay!)
• Exit from Exile – the red-green deck led by Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald
• Mind Flayarrrs – the blu-black deck led by the esteemed Captain N’ghathrod (#tentacles)

Multiplayer Play

For our fans of 4-player Commander Limited, we’ll be cycling between the two existing Commander Draft formats for three weeks at a time starting next Tuesday. Here’s the lineup:

• September 24-October 16 – Commander Legends
• October 16-November 6 – Commander Masters

Both Leagues will be Phantom and follow the framework of the CMM Leagues we ran in the spring:

• Entry – 4 Event Tickets or 40 Play Points
• Draft – 4-player draft pod, 3 20-card packs, 2 picks at a time, build a 60-card limited deck with Commander color identity rules
• Matches – Up to 2 four-player matches per course
• Prizes
  • 2 match wins – 120 Play Points and 1 Treasure Chest
  • 1 match win – 60 Play Points

If you prefer to bring your own deck to a competitive Commander match, our Competitive Commander League will refresh next Tuesday alongside the other Constructed Leagues. The entry is 5 Event Tickets or 50 Play Points for up to 3 four-player, winner-take-all matches in a course.

Magic Online Players Rewards (MOPR) Update

With all of the sets being released this season, Duskmourn only has the month of October to contribute to MOPR.

The grant on October 1 covers September play and spending. It will feature all common and uncommon Lurking Evil and Paranormal Frame treatments in foil, plus the cards in the Promo Pack in foil.

For more information on earning Player Rewards, click here.

Treasure Chest Update

Treasure Chests will update when DSK goes on sale next Tuesday – be sure to watch our Twitter/X (@MagicOnline) and our Discord channel to confirm this before opening Chests.

For full details on the changes to come, check out the information page. Many of your Booster Fun favorites will be available via the Treasure Chest –see the chart above.

After next Tuesday, the next Treasure Chest update will occur on Wednesday, October 16 during downtime.

Avatars

We will grant Prestige avatars from Bloomburrow shortly after the end of that season on September 24. We’ll also grant New Account and Treasure Chest avatars next week to those folks who received MH3 versions instead since Bloomburrow’s release.

For the first time, here are the images of those avatars:

Now let’s look ahead to the avatars of the House of Horror!

New accounts created between now and Magic: The Gathering Foundations will receive the Overlord of the Balemurk avatar.

One in every 100 Treasure Chests will contain the Toby, Beastie Befriender avatar.

Finally, we will dole out some Prestige! As usual, you get five points for each Competitive trophy you earn in Leagues and one for each Friendly trophy. At the end of the season (when Magic: The Gathering Foundations releases), you'll earn every avatar for which you qualify.

Earning at least five points gets you the uncommon Tyvar, the Pummeler avatar.

Earning at least 20 points nabs you the rare Niko, Light of Hope avatar.

Earning 40 points or more rewards you with the mythic rare Kaito, Bane of Nightmares avatar.

Odds and Ends

• Duskmourn: House of Horror will be redeemable. Redemption Tokens are planned to go on sale in the Store following downtime on Wednesday, October 16. Stay tuned to the Weekly Announcement Blog at com for details.
  • As a reminder, physical foil redemption sets are no longer available. You can redeem a full digital set of either regular or premium Duskmourn cards to get a regular physical set. Full details can be found here, including a price increase and a discount available on international shipping.
• Constructed and Limited events will rotate to DSK versions of the same event on release day, so make sure you complete any Leagues before the set launches.
• Reprints in Duskmourn that are entering a format other than Standard won’t become legal until the new Leagues kick off next Tuesday.
• The refreshed New Account Kit will include DSK commons once we are up from downtime, but new cards won’t be legal for use until DSK goes on sale.
  • The Account Upgrade Kit, Collection Upgrade Kit, and Commander Workshop will not be updated with this set.

Whether you’re just joining us for the first time, for the first time in a while, or every time – we're glad you here. Have fun and we’ll see you on the battlefield!