One of the main ability words of Duskmourn is a fairly unique one, and it only appears on 13 cards, all of which are White and/or Green aside from a single black card. I think that very fact is one of the many reasons that people miss Magic sets being released in a block structure, whether that be two or three sets. The themes and abilities of a block have a lot more time to percolate and establish their identity over the course of a block.

Take flashback's debut for example. There were 30 cards with flashback in Odyssey, the set flashback first premiered in; that actually feels like quite a bit. But over the course of the entire block - Odyssey, Torment, and Judgment - there were a total of 56 cards with flashback. This gave the keyword a lot more room to develop and breathe.

Anyway, we're talking about survival!

Survival is an ability word that triggers at the beginning of the second main phase if the creature with survival is tapped. Take one of the best survival cards in the set, Kona, Rescue Beastie, for example.

Kona says: "At the beginning of your second main phase, if Kona, Rescue Beastie is tapped, you may put a permanent card from your hand onto the battlefield."

This is one of the most exciting survival cards, and I assume you can all see why. Any time a creature allows you to even consider putting an Eldrazi into play for a significant discount, it should be given a second look.

The one thing all survival cards have in common is that they all say "At the beginning of your second main phase, if [this card] is tapped," followed by a specific effect.

Interestingly enough, there are no mythic survival cards, and there are only three rare survival cards. Combine this with the fact that there are only five cards in the set with impending, and you get the feeling that these two abilities in this set have been used very sparingly.

While it's obvious the flavorful intention of survival is for the creature to "survive" combat, there are also plenty of ways to tap them outside of combat so that they will still trigger when the second main phase arrives. Cards like Springleaf Drum and Opposition come to mind as easy ways to manipulate survival to work in your favor. And the Standard-legal Warden of the Inner Sky seems tailor made for the survival ability, allowing you to tap three different creatures to trigger their second main phase abilities.

With so few cards with survival, we might as well take a look at some of the more impactful ones in Constructed formats.

Reluctant Role Model is a two-mana 2/2 that says "At the beginning of your second main phase, if Reluctant Role Model is tapped, put a flying, lifelink, or +1/+1 counter on it.

Whenever Reluctant Role Model or another creature you control dies, if it had counters on it, put those counters on up to one target creature."

This is pretty great, and reminds me of the modular mechanic. If you recall, modular was an keyword ability from the original Mirrodin block that said an artifact creature would come into play with N counters, and you could put those counters onto another artifact creature when it died.

Giving this a flying counter as its first buff is a great way to make sure the counter train keeps on rolling. This could be a great addition to White aggro decks.

Rip, Spawn Hunter is another powerful one, with an ability similar to other humans that search out specific card types from the top of your deck: an all-too-common White trope these days. Rip digs a number of cards deep equal to its power, so base four usually, putting any number of creatures or vehicles into your hand, so long as they have different powers. This could theoretically draw you two or three cards per trigger, depending on luck and deck configuration.

One of the sad things about an ability word like survival is that, while we might see it again, it's going to have to fit into a very specific set, thematically. It doesn't feel like a keyword ability like kicker or overload that doesn't have a particular thematic attachment. Survival feels very connected to Duskmourn's horror movie troping, which is the reason it's an ability word and not a keyword ability.

I'm looking forward to finding some sweet interactions to take advantage of the few survival cards we have access to, and also hoping some future sets will find a way to reuse the ability in the...well, future, because I think it has a good deal of potential.

Frank Lepore

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