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What are Rooms in Duskmourn?
Rooms are an interesting new card type that debuted in Duskmourn and are a subtype of Enchantments. Based on the final stats of Duskmourn, it looks like 28 Rooms have been revealed. This seems like a good amount when you compare it to some other first appearances of card types. Equipment first premiered in Mirrodin with only 20 equipment, and the original split cards only premiered with five copies in Invasion.
Speaking of split cards, upon initial glance, you might think you've seen this card type before. They look almost identical to the split cards first introduced in Invasion block, with the most popular of those being Fire // Ice in Apocalypse.
There have been several modifications to the split card design over the years. One was the addition of "fuse" to split cards in Dragon's Maze. This allowed a player to cast both sides of the card. Another was the addition of the "aftermath" ability on the second half of the card, which was similar to flashback, and had to be cast from the graveyard. Unlike flashback, however, the aftermath spell was completely different from the non-aftermath spell on the card.
Rooms are another variation on the sideways card mechanic. Rooms have two sides, referred to as doors, which are each their own spell. When you cast a room, you choose which door you are "unlocking." This is the side of the room that is active upon casting. Then, on any turn as a sorcery, you may unlock the other half of the room, or door, by paying its mana cost.
Like other split cards, both sides of the room have some design connection between them. The mythic room Charred Foyer // Warped Space, for example, reads as follows:
Charred Foyer // Warped Space is letting you exile a card every turn, while Warped Space is allowing you to play those cards (or others you may find in exile) for 0 mana. This is the basic trend of all of the rooms, where the left door (which is the cheaper half) ends up powering the right door (which is the more expensive half).
Some notable facts regarding Rooms:
- If a Room enters the battlefield without being cast both doors will start locked and neither ability will be active.
- Unlocking a door is a special action that doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to.
- While on the battlefield, a Room card has the characteristics of its unlocked doors. For example, if only Charred Foyer // Warped Space is unlocked, the Room's mana value is four. If both Charred Foyer // Warped Space and Warped Space are unlocked, the Room's mana value is 10.
- It's an interesting spin on a pretty classic Magic card type (enchantments) and format (split cards).
- As of writing this, Duskmourn hasn't been fully released yet, so I can't speak to how they play, but my only initial concern with the card type is that this is another Magic mechanic that requires a bit of tracking during the game. What I mean by that is that these are cards that require a way to physically track which rooms are unlocked in every game, and if you're using something like a die or a coin, those can be bumped onto the opposing room, making things a bit confusing in longer or more complex games. It's also possible that a player might forget whether a die or coin is marking the locked or unlocked door.
For example, say I cast the aforementioned Charred Foyer // Warped Space. Now I put a die on it, to represent that that's the unlocked door. Then later, I also unlock Warped Space. To represent that, I remove the die. We have now gone from a die representing an unlocked door, to no dice representing two unlocked doors.
Admittedly, this likely won't be too confusing, and definitely isn't a gamebreaker, but it is something to be aware of, especially with Magic having a lot more game objects to track in recent years.
Frank Lepore
