My love of Magic cosplay has its origins in my love for Halloween. On one spooky night we're given permission to inhabit another character entirely. This is healthy, the realization that we adopt different personas. In cosplay, we often become angels or knights, but we can also explore our darker side, become more selfish and more powerful, like Liliana.

For the rest of October we'll be celebrating Halloween by creating frightful new packs of Jumpstart. Depending on your point of view, the Slivers tribe may already be scary. This week I search for four packs with terrifying themes. It wasn't easy, largely because I had already leapt on the most obvious evil designs: demons, Eldrazi, zombies, and Werewolves. Beyond those, the original box featured Spooky Jumpstart, which was my first thought for this week's article title.

So, our scary packs will all be off the beaten path in the Halloween corn maze. You might have expected Black, and our first list does contain a card of that color, exactly one. This isn't Commander, where every mana symbol must maintain a sacred color identity. Our first pack explores the scary side of White.

Delirium White | Jumpstart | AE Marling

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
• 1 Icatian Crier
• 1 Inquisitor's Ox
• 1 Jousting Dummy
• 1 Knight of Sorrows
• 1 Lesser Masticore
• 1 Sanctum Spirit
• 1 Sunscourge Champion
• 1 Topplegeist

• Instants (1)
• 1 Spirit Flare

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Gaze of Justice

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Opal Gargoyle

• Lands (8)
• 7 Plains
• 1 Thriving Heath

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In my previous Zombie packs, one included Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, alongside multiple ways to discard him, but what it didn't have room for was many knights. Ever since then I wanted to build a knight-centric pack featuring Haakon. I also loved the idea of shuffling a Black pack together with a White one, giving you the chance to summon a White Knight back from the grave. This week I tried to achieve that goal, only to once again be thwarted.

Curses! Foiled again! Adding enough discard sources for Haakon in a Jumpstart pack leaves you next to no room for adding other knights. This list includes only two, the aptly named Knight of Sorrows and Jousting Dummy. Yes, I could have added Crib Swap, but recursive removal tied to an unkillable threat is not the play experience I want in Limited.

So, I wasn't able to build a knight deck, but what I could achieve was White delirium. With a variety of card types and discard outlets, we should be able to enable our best friend, Pokey McColdfingers.

Our discard outlets, such as Icatian Crier, also work well with our cards that are better off in the graveyard, like Spirit Flare and Gaze of Justice. Sanctum Spirit can discard not only Haakon but also either of our artifacts, which give us two card types for delirium. True, we only have a couple delirium payoffs, and that was the cost of also playing Haakon.

We glimpse White's evil side, its potential intolerance of difference, its hostility toward any who try to escape the role society has deemed necessary. Beyond that, White can also be positively eerie. Yes, its spirits might be closer to Casper, but they're still ghosts. And even those with the best of intentions they can give us the spooks.

White Spirits | Jumpstart | AE Marling

• Creatures (10)
• 1 Apothecary Geist
• 1 Benevolent Ancestor
• 1 Bygone Bishop
• 1 Emissary of the Sleepless
• 1 Faithful Squire
• 1 Gallows Warden
• 1 Keening Apparition
• 1 Niblis of the Urn
• 1 Revered Dead
• 1 Voiceless Spirit

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Guard Duty
• 1 Soul Snare

• Lands (8)
• 7 Plains
• 1 Thriving Heath

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This would be an exciting one to shuffle together with the Blue Spirits packs from the original Jumpstart. Not only do we have flying creatures to win, but we have enough defensive cards to not die to our opponent's ground creatures. Revered Dead and Benevolent Ancestor should give us some support on the ground. Apothecary Geist's lifegain can brew us the elixir we need to heal from an onslaught.

Our removal is also defensive. With all our fliers our need isn't as great to remove blockers. For that reason, Guard Duty should be able to keep an attacker at home and useless. In a typical White deck with creatures forced to attack on the ground, this aura wouldn't be nearly so strong. The same is true of Soul Snare.

When designing Jumpstart packs, one of the most important Vorthos choices we make is what basics to include. For these White ones, I would go with a mix of Plains from Innistrad, such as this eerie prairie by Adam Paquette.

Not all our packs today are White. I'll give you one hint as to what our next one will be. This is the art of the basic Forest I would suggest including.

This is from Kamigawa, a plane divided between the normal and the spiritual. At least from a Western perspective, the spirits are positively spooky. I designed a pack to feature them, along with the jump-scare of the card type arcane actually being meaningful.

Green Spirits | Jumpstart | AE Marling

• Creatures (9)
• 1 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
• 1 Budoka Pupil
• 1 Burr Grafter
• 1 Elder Pine of Jukai
• 1 Haru-Onna
• 1 Kodama of the South Tree
• 1 Loam Dweller
• 1 Nightsoil Kami
• 1 Wall of Roots

• Instants (1)
• 1 Kodama's Might

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Prey Upon

• Lands (8)
• 7 Forest
• 1 Thriving Grove

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Like White spirits, these Green ones aren't necessarily out to get you. That doesn't mean they wouldn't give me a fright. Personally, I find every card in this pack terrifying, apart from two. The first is Haru-Onna. This illustration by Rebecca Guay is more bewitching, which I suppose is simply another level of frightening. I could well imagine following this beauty into the woods and never finding my way out again.

The second card that doesn't make my skin crawl is Budoka Pupil, if only because the art is too small to evoke an emotional reaction. I also included the similar Faithful Squire in the White Spirits pack. Although this sort of flip card is inferior in design to the double-faced ones, I still enjoy the idea of evolving your creature. Playing a succession of spirits (and or arcane spells) is an unique way to express tribal identity.

Taking a closer look at Ichiga, Who Topples Oaks is felling my composure and leaving my calm teetering. Quickly, let's finish up with this pack by mentioning that not only is Prey Upon cheap interaction, but the fight mechanic has additional upside in a deck with soulshift. You can kill your own creature to regrowth another spirit from your graveyard.

Our last pack today is in fact Black. Naturally, I considered spirits, or perhaps supernaturally, but many of those you most identify with this color are in fact specters or shades or even wraiths. That reminded me of an original scary creature from Alpha, Bog Wraith.

This ghost could slip past your opponent's defenses, if they also partook in Black Magic. Our last pack comes from the same bog. It's full of horrifying creatures that can't be blocked, cards that enable their swampwalk, and augmentation that makes them even more scary.

Wraiths | Jumpstart | AE Marling

• Creatures (6)
• 1 Bog Tatters
• 1 Bog Wraith
• 1 Filth
• 1 Sewer Shambler
• 2 Quag Vampires

• Instants (1)
• 1 Funeral Charm

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Aspect of Lamprey
• 1 Contaminated Ground
• 1 Tainted Well

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Bloodforged Battle-Axe
• 1 Mask of Memory

• Lands (8)
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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This is one of those Jumpstart packs that upgrades an uncommon slot into another rare. For our non-basic land I've chosen Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, for obvious reasons. Our second rare is Bloodforged Battle-Axe, which is the last thing your foe wants to see rising out of the brackish mire to get them. Remember, the axe tokens also create new copies on impact. Soon you'll have more murder weapons than you have opponents to kill.

Quag Vampires is the perfect creature to equip. The kicker mechanic is well suited for Limited, as it makes our bipedal bog leeches a great draw even in the late game. For those reasons I included a second copy of the common. I wanted to find an aura to attach to them or our other evasive threats. Mark of the Vampire was a topical option, but I went with Aspect of Lamprey because I thought it was even more scary.

What flavors of frightening would you like to see in next week's packs?