With Duskmourn's release we get a host of new mechanics, tailored specifically for the chilling new horror set. A set so unnerving wouldn't be complete without mechanics to match, and today we'll be talking about the new enchantment-specific mechanic - Eerie! Eerie is an interesting mechanic that's very unique to Duskmourn. Let's go over how Eerie works and how you can best abuse it in your Duskmourn games.

What is Eerie?

Eerie is a new mechanic introduced with Duskmourn that is a trigger gained every time an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control or you fully unlock a Room you control.

Eerie is specific to Duskmourn in that it cares about Rooms, the new enchantment type introduced in this set. It's worth noting that Eerie isn't limited to once per turn, meaning you can trigger it multiple times, say by playing a Room and fully unlocking it.

Eerie in Duskmourn Limited

While Eerie is shared across every color except for Green in Duskmourn, and is primarily featured in Blue, Black, and White. While Green has multiple enchantment cards in this set, primarily various Rooms, the cards with the Eerie ability on them are primarily in these Esper colors, with Blue-White and Blue-Black being Eerie-centric decks.

In Blue-Black we get two signpost uncommons that both have Eerie triggered abilities:

I think these two cards have interesting play with each other. Skullsnap Nuisance definitely reads and plays as a more defensive card, as it's a two-drop with four toughness that gains you card advantage with its Eerie trigger. Skullsnap Nuisance can help you put cards into your graveyard you can reanimate with spells like Live or Die. It can also quickly fill your graveyard with multiple card types for Delirium, for cards like Osseous Sticktwister.

Fear of Infinity, on the other hand, reads a bit more aggressive, as it can't block and the lifelink means you can potentially race opponents who are attacking you on the ground. However with its Eerie trigger, you can recur Fear of Infinity

Blue-White also looks like a more aggressive go-wide strategy based on its eerie cards and signpost uncommons, Gremlin Tamer and Inquisitive Glimmer.

These cards, combined with Optimistic Scavenger and Grand Entryway // Elegant Rotunda can make for some pretty aggressive cards in this color combination. When a Gremlin Tamer on turn two, you can make a small army on turn three by playing Grand Entryway, netting you a gremlin, a glimmer from playing the enchantment, and an additional gremlin from the glimmer token coming into play! These cards combined with ways to buff up your team, like Lionheart Glimmer, are pretty powerful ways to overtake your opponent.

While you can have some pretty aggressive starts with these builds of Blue-White Eerie, I also think there's something to be said about games where you get to hold down the fort with an army of gremlin tokens. Erratic Apparition, for example, is not the most threatening creature you can play for three mana in this set. However, if you're blocking your opponent from getting in significant chunks of damage with your gremlin tokens, cards like Erratic Apparition are incredibly helpful in chipping away at your opponent's life total in the meantime.

It's interesting to compare these two archetypes because depending on your build you could be more aggressive or defensive in nature. A card like Dashing Bloodsucker reads more like a pumped up Wishcoin Crab than a creature you want to attack with. It's good at defending against aggression but at the right moment it's a way to turn a game around by gaining some life back once you've stabilized. However I can definitely see decks with Balemurk Leech, Fear of the Dark, and Fear of Infinity being very aggressive and looking for ways to reduce the opponent's life total while also protecting its own.

One Eerie card that perplexes me is the only Red card with the mechanic, Infernal Phantom. Infernal Phantom reads to me as a Blue-Red card, since Blue-Red is the Rooms archetype (see the signpost card Intruding Soulrager). I think this card could also slot into a Black-Red deck with a self-sacrifice theme, letting you kill two creatures at once with a card like Final Vengeance or Sawblade Skinripper. While this is the only Red Eerie card I'm happy that it can slot into multiple types of decks. One aspect about Duskmourn that I've already written about is how multifaceted cards are in this set - many cards even at the common level have use in three or more archetypes. This is much different than how strict cards were to specific archetypes in the last Draft environment, Bloomburrow.

What are the Best Eerie Cards?

For Limited my favorite Eerie card of the set is without a doubt Ghostly Dancers. This card is a house that can easily turn a game around in your favor. Ghostly Dancers replaces itself on entering, by returning an enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand. With Duskmourn having so much inherent surveilling and other ways of filling your graveyard, while also having a big chunk of enchantments (or creatures that are also enchantments) you'll most likely have something to return back to hand. Every Eerie trigger nets you a 3/1 spirit token with flying, giving you another way to win the game or block your opponent from attacking.

Entity Tracker is a solid runner-up since it's sort of a mini Ghostly Dancers in that its Eerie trigger can draw you far ahead of your opponent, especially if you're gaining multiple enchantments out of one card like Grand Entryway // Elegant Rotunda. The uncommon Eerie cards are all pretty solid in Limited. I'm biased towards Scuttling Skullcrab because I like cards that are inherent win conditions that don't require attacking. Unwilling Vessel also scares me in that a simple three-mana 3/2 can potentially give you a large flying win condition just by playing a few enchantments and unlocking some doors on Rooms you control.

While there are a lot of interesting and unique Eerie cards, there are only 15 in the main Duskmourn set. Aside from that we get Fear of Sleep Paralysis in Duskmourn Commander. While I'm no Commander expert, this card seems like it could be a nuisance in the right circumstance if you can generate repeating ways of creating enchantment tokens to lock down all of your opponents' creatures. Entity Tracker also seems like a fun engine, and one you can flash in on your opponent's end step to potentially go off with a big turn. Enchanted Evening probably has some nice combos with various Eerie cards - if you have a Gremlin Tamer in play and get an Eerie trigger with Enchanted Evening in play, you'll make infinite tokens!

Overall Eerie is a spooky new way to gain value off having enchantments enter or by fully unlocking Rooms. Room cards play particularly well with this mechanic, as they'll provide two triggers for Eerie, one from playing the enchantment and another from unlocking the other door. Eerie also plays well with cards that aren't enchantments but can make them, such as Glimmerlight, and they also give you a little extra value out of enchantments that are already giving you cards, like Disturbing Mirth.

Whether you're playing some Commander or jamming Drafts I hope you pull off some crazy Eerie combos this set! Thanks for reading.

-Roman Fusco