Jump Scare! Upgrade Guide: 20 Easy Changes You Can Make

Last updated on October 11, 2024

Zimone, Mystery Unraveler | Illustrated by Mila Pesic

If you bought this Duskmourn Commander precon, I need you to know that I see you.

I see you through the veil of ‘90s Magic, though, so take that as you will. If you bought this EDH precon, you decided that you want another take on making face-down cards good besides your dusty Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer deck. Is the extra juice from upgrading the base face down mechanics of morph and manifest into disguise, cloak, and manifest dread going to be good enough to make this deck tick?

I’m optimistic, but you’re going to have to work together with the deck’s star, Strixhaven mage Zimone, to do a bit of Arcane Subtraction of some cards in the deck to get to your Eureka Moment with this list. Twenty changes and you’ll be rolling!

Deck Overview

Secret Plans | Illustration by Daarken

The typical double focus of a Commander precon these days is pretty easy to spot in this one, as it’s right there in the face commander: Zimone, Mystery Unraveler. This human wizard‘s landfall ability wants you to drop lands to get value from the face down card mechanics. That’s reflected in the stock decklist, which packs some cool new manifest dread cards in with the same kind of dopey Simic () ramp deck we’ve become accustomed to, including two of the most popular Simic commanders, Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait and Tatyova, Benthic Druid.

The trouble is that the two halves of the deck only communicate via our Duskmourn commander, which feels like a recipe for disaster. We’re going to focus on the face down cards, as that’s really why you’d buy this deck. It’s the fun part. And if you want to play Simic ramp, you’ve got better options.

Other than Aesi, Tatyova, Scute Swarm, and Zimone, there aren’t a ton of landfall payoffs in the deck, but it also doesn’t feel like Simic landfall has enough good stuff at affordable prices to be a quick upgrade. If that’s your jam, you’re doing a wholesale rebuild. And let us know in the comments or on Discord if you pull together a decklist for that!

Although Archenemy is rolling out with these precons, I don’t think any decision you make with this deck really affects whether this decklist is for regular EDH or the new hotness. There aren’t any schemes that particularly synergize with the manifest theme, and the landfall schemes, like This World Belongs to Me and Your Fate Is Thrice Sealed, aside from sounding like Coheed & Cambria tracks, would be fine additions to most scheme decks, but especially to this one.

Magic: The Gathering Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander Deck - Jump Scare!

• QUICK. BEHIND YOU.—Invite the element of surprise with tricky instants and lay out mysterious face-down cards to keep ‘em guessing, then flip them over to spring your traps
• 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Every Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander Deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Legendary Creature cards featuring spine-tingling Borderless art
• 10 ARCHENEMY SCHEMES—Archenemy pits a team of three against one player who draws from an extra deck of powerful and nefarious schemes. Each Duskmourn Commander deck introduces 10 terrifying schemes to make the table tremble.
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS— Each deck introduces fresh horrors to Magic: The Gathering with 10 never-before-seen Commander cards
• CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Jump Scare. Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander Deck (100 cards), 10 Archenemy cards, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box

Buy on Amazon

Upgrade Plan

Simple. Let’s add in all the sick face-down-matters cards in Simic colors we can find and cull everything else that doesn’t synergize!

That means I’m leaving in a few ramp cards and ramp payoffs. I’m even adding some that fit the mechanical theme a bit better. And I’m leaning in to face down/face up interactions with the classic cheap creatures in the morph and allied mechanics space to lower the curve significantly and to get some useful interaction, all while also reducing the number of cards that you might manifest into permanent vanilla 2/2s that won’t make a dent at EDH tables; in other words, instants and sorceries.

Zoetic Cavern

Suggested Cut: Island

Zoetic Cavern is a nice synergy in this deck. Also take this slot as a reminder that Commander precons ship with pretty poor mana bases. You can do better and upgrade these lands, likely with cards already in your collection.

Secret Plans

Suggested Cut: Worldspine Wurm

It’s boggling that one of the best Simic morph cards, Secret Plans, isn’t in this deck already. It’s also boggling to imagine that this deck had enough ramp as shipped to ever cast Worldspine Wurm, and that’s even less likely in this revision. I know you have a deck that wants it.

Flourishing Bloom-Kin

Suggested Cut: Arcane Signet

Flourishing Bloom-Kin from Murders at Karlov Manor is right on plan for a deck that combines landfall cards with face-down creatures. Hopefully you didn’t spit your morning beverage onto your keyboard when you saw that I’m cutting Arcane Signet. Land-ramp decks would always rather cast Rampant Growth than a signet on turn 2, and this deck does enough of that to warrant cutting one of the most popular cards in the format.

Nervous Gardener

Suggested Cut: Simic Signet

Same idea with Simic Signet, which I’m cutting for land ramp in Nervous Gardener.

Cryptic Coat

Suggested Cut: Thunderfoot Baloth

I’m not sure this deck ever has enough creatures out to win with an Overrun effect, and having that on a 6-drop with conditions in Thunderfoot Baloth doesn’t seem the way to go. Cryptic Coat, however, is quite efficient at using mana to keep churning through your deck, especially with all its synergies.

Valgavoth’s Onslaught

Suggested Cut: Body of Knowledge

This green sorcery from Duskmourn is the kind of top-end you need in this deck. Valgavoth's Onslaught can be a huge X spell if you get a ton of mana, but it’s also fine for X=1 if you just need to get going. Body of Knowledge just seems like it’s here as a Zimone joke, I think, but it makes little sense in this deck. You have some card draw, but this isn’t a card draw deck per se.

Abhorrent Oculus

Suggested Cut: Rashmi, Eternities Crafter

Rashmi, Eternities Crafter simply doesn’t work with this deck, and I'm somewhat shocked that it’s in here. If I cast a card as a morph or disguise, its mana value is 0 on the stack and on the battlefield, which is a non-bo with Rashmi. Abhorrent Oculus, on the other hand, looks pretty sick. It’s not an early game-card, but that blue creature‘s some serious value in EDH, on top of being a huge flier. Maybe wait to see if the price comes down on this one, though.

Hauntwoods Shrieker

Suggested Cut: Aether Gale

I’m always dubious of attack triggers, especially in Commander, but Hauntwoods Shrieker is great at flipping expensive manifested creatures for value even if you never swing with it. Aether Gale is a really inefficient piece of interaction. This is an easy substitution. I’m somewhat suspicious of interaction in this deck, as every noncreature in the deck is worse than usual if you’re manifesting or cloaking them off the top of your library. They’ve got to be worth it every time.

Obscuring Aether

Suggested Cut: Overwhelming Stampede

Obscuring Aether is a nice bit of hard-to-destroy cost reduction that can flip into a surprise blocker to nab the unwary. Overwhelming Stampede is an inefficient Overrun that doesn’t synergize in a deck that might just have a table of 2/2s.

Vannifar, Evolved Enigma

Suggested Cut: Cackling Counterpart

Another odd non-bo, Cackling Counterpart is useless with a field of morphs unless you want to get a 2/2 vanilla creature 2 for some reason. It has other uses in the deck, but it’s better to have something that always works, and that’s Vannifar, Evolved Enigma.

Vannifar can cloak cards from hand, which can be very mana-efficient with expensive creatures if you’re packing ways to flip them over, which this deck does. And you can just buff your cloaks and morphs and manifests. All useful.

Threats Around Every Corner

Suggested Cut: Sandwurm Convergence

This is probably the clunkiest card I’m suggesting adding, but Threats Around Every Corner can really start popping off with this landfall commander. And it replaces an even clunkier card in the erstwhile threat, Sandwurm Convergence, which I’m not sure I’d want for half of its 8 mana value in contemporary Commander. Surely not as something that rots in my hand with half a ramp deck.

The rest of the cards are classic interaction morphs you’ll tend to find in Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer decks. You want interaction that synergizes with the other stuff you’re doing and isn’t totally fizzled by manifest and cloak.

Kadena’s Silencer

Suggested Cut: Overgrown Zealot

A Stifle is always welcome, but Kadena's Silencer can Stifle a whole stack of abilities if you ever need that. Overgrown Zealot isn’t the ramp you’re looking for. Move along.

Mischievous Quanar

Suggested Cut: Counterspell

Sometimes copying a spell is neat! You can counter a Counterspell, even. The fact that you can pay 5 to flip this again and have the threat out there is expensive but nice. I’m taking out the spell counter for this.

Thousand Winds

Suggested Cut: Wilderness Reclamation

Thousand Winds is a nice mass-bounce spell that can be asymmetrical. Wilderness Reclamation is a powerful card in a deck with a lot more instants and flash cards. This feels like a plant if you want to pull out Kianne, Corrupted Memory for a different deck.

Voidmage Apprentice

Suggested Cut: Kefnet the Mindful

Another nice counter option is Voidmage Apprentice and is certainly better than Kefnet the Mindful, which is about the least efficient way to generate landfall triggers I can imagine for this deck!

Willbender

Suggested Cut: Trygon Predator

Willbender is a classic. You can see the value of having this whole sequence of cards that interacts when flipped, as it pushes opponents to wonder before they take action. You can play that up and generally do the MTG equivalent of three-card monte (without the gambling) here. I’m not a believer in Trygon Predator is most decks, and certainly not this one.

Echo Tracer

Suggested Cut: Skaab Ruinator

This deck runs a few flip-to-bounce creatures, and I think that’s warranted. Echo Tracer is the least efficient, but it’s still a fine card for you. Skaab Ruinator seems to be part of a lost third deck in this precon, using the graveyard from all the manifest dread cards to beneficial effect. But there’s not enough of that here and this zombie horror wants to go play with your zombie commander in another deck.

Icefeather Aven

Suggested Cut: Greater Tanuki

Another bouncer in Icefeather Aven instead of a 3-mana Rampant Growth with Greater Tanuki seems more on plan.

Exit Specialist

Suggested Cut: Beanstalk Giant

Exit Specialist is the last bouncer, and it replaces another 3-mana ramp card, Beanstalk Giant.

Stratus Dancer

Suggested Cut: Scroll of Fate

Finally, one last bit of countermagic with Stratus Dancer. Scroll of Fate is an odd card. I’m just not sure that, by the time you have the mana and time to drop this artifact, you want to be manifesting from hand.

The Final Deck and New Cards

Cryptic Coat | Illustration by Julia Metzger

Use the shopping cart button to grab the new cards if you need to make some quick changes so the deck is ready to roll when you get it!

Commanding Conclusion

Icefeather Aven | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

I left some ramp and ramp payoffs in here, because, well, it’s still Commander! But now this deck is more focused on what it can do well, with synergistic creatures and interaction that fits the face-down mechanics. I’ve also really dropped the mana curve, which should help things go a little faster.

Is the basic Zimone idea good enough? I don’t know if any version of a face down and face up mechanics deck pulls down the wins at a high powered table, but this feels like a nice way to play your powerful Simic cards in a more fun shell, especially if, like me, you no longer play Aesi or Tatyova decks. If I want my opponents to visibly groan in despair when I reveal my commander, I’d like it to be when I’m doing something less basic than predictable Simic.

Let me know in the comments or on Discord if Zimone's factory version, this upgraded precon version, or your own brew works for you and what are the levers to victory in the morph legacy space.

Happy brewing, and good luck!

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