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Surprise can be a powerful thing both inMagic: The Gatheringand in horror films. In both cases, surprise can elicit screams of terror from the audience, especially when your manifested card turns out to be a giant 15/15 wurm bearing down on them.
That’s the plan with Jump Scare!,Duskmourn: House of Horror’s surprise-themed Commander deck. This deck is all about placing your cards face-down so your opponents never really know what they’re in for. Your foes will sense your victory with a growing sense of dread just before it leaps out of the darkness to strangle their life totals.
Forest (9)
Jump Scare! Commander Deck Themes
The biggest theme of Jump Scare! is leveraging the full power of ‘manifest dread,‘the new keyword ability from Duskmourn: House of Horror. Manifest dread is very similar to the earlier ‘manifest,’ but instead of placing the top card of your library face down, you look at the top two cards, place one of them face down as a 2/2 creature, and place the other in your graveyard.
This allows manifest dread to also take advantage of graveyard recursion strategies, butJump Scare! doesn’t deal with the graveyard all that much. We’ll fix that later.
Jump Scare!wants to manifest dreadas many cards as it can sincemany cards in it take advantage of the presence of colorless 2/2 creatures. Most notably the box topper commander (which we’ll discuss more shortly), but there’s also Glitch Interpreter, Growing Dread, Trail of Mystery, Overgrown Zealot, and more.
Although Jump Scare! has many cards that concern themselves with either placing cards face down or flipping them face up,the commander that sets this strategy into overdrive is Zimone, Mystery Unraveler. With Zimone, every land played triggers manifest dread, and every second (or more) land played flips over a previously manifested card.
With Zimone in play,every second land in a single turn becomes a free card played from the top two cards of your deck. That’s incredible value that can be enabled through something as simple as a Rampant Growth.
Don’t overlook the surprise factor of manifest dread!A manifested creature can be flipped up at any time for its mana cost, so you can ambush opponents with something like a Hydra Omnivore if you’ve got the mana to spare.
Jump Scare! does havea few other potential commanders, butnone of them have the same kind of synergy with the rest of the deck as Zimone. Kianne, Corrupted Memory is an incredible card that would shine in her own deck, but there’s nothing in Jump Scare! that enables her (like instant-speed card draw to have the flash you’d want at any given moment).
Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Straight is a great card for the deck, but simply drawing cards on landfall isn’t the same as playing them for free. Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle likewise needs Zimone to sneak into play, otherwise you’re waiting for five turns. And Tatyova, Benthic Druid is just as disappointing in the commander slot as Aesi.
Jump Scare! works best with Zimone, sostick with Zimone as your commander.
Jump Scare! Commander Deck Analysis
With Zimone taking center stage,Jump Scare! wants to have lots of creatures to manifest and lots of land to trigger manifest dread. Thankfully, Jump Scare! has plenty, with 32 creatures (besides Zimone herself) and 38 lands. The remaining 30 cards support the overall strategy of flipping cards up or down, tossing lands onto the table, or providing on-demand removal/card draw.
On the creature side, there’sa cavalcade of threats and sneaky answers.Hydra Omnivore,Multani, Yavimaya’s Avatar,Worldspine Wurm, andAshaya, Soul of the Wild are big monstersthat can be played the hard way but are much better to cast using Zimone and an extra land drop courtesy of some of thesupporting spells, likeRampant Growth,Cultivate, orExplosive Vegetation.
Sneaky answers includethings likeKheru Spellsnatcher, who can steal a spell for its morph cost,and Trygon Predator, who can conceal its true identity as a 2/2 face-down card until it’s time to spring into action to destroy an artifact or enchantment.
Removal is typically difficult to accomplish for blue/green decks, but Jump Scare! makes the most out of several spells.Beast WithinandReality Shiftpair withCounterspellforsome targeted answers, whileOversimplify,Aether Gale,Ezuri’s Predation, and the newZimone’s Hypothesisprovide mass removal.
Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, and Myriad Landscape are all-star lands in Jump Scare!With Zimone on the table, playing one of them triggers manifest dread, and then cracking it to find another land to put into play triggers Zimone again to flip that manifested card over.
Jump Scare! is somewhat limited in terms of card draw. Glitch Interpreter, Body of Knowledge, They Came from the Pipes, and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait help, butthe deck could use some extra sources of card draw to ensure your hand is full.
Jump Scare! could also use more ramping spells that search out more lands. Zimone’s ability works best when you’re playing two lands on a single turn, which is typically best enabled by cards like Cultivate. We’ll be looking to enhance Jump Scare!’s land-planting abilities in the next section.
Sandwurm Convergence
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
To make room for some improvements, we’re going to cut some underperforming cards.Kheru Spellsnatcherisn’t a bad trick to play, but it’sa tad expensive and doesn’t play well with Zimone.
Beanstalk GiantandGreater Tanukido some land-fetching, butthere are better land-fetchers that also offer greater power. Biomass Mutation is a fine card, but the deck already has Overwhelming Stampede and there are other game-ending spells we could add that better fit the overall theme.
Cackling Counterpart,Retreat to Coralhelm,and Giggling Skitterspikedon’t really fit the overall themeof Jump Scare! now that we’re focusing on Zimone. Skaab Ruinator isn’t a bad card as we’re certainly likely to have cards in the graveyard due to manifest dread, but we’re not likely to have that many early on, riskingSkaab Ruinator being a dead card if it’s drawn in your opening hand.
Kiannt, Corrupted Memory is also a card that just doesn’t really fit. Having flash is great, as well as an escalating threat, but Kianne would really thrive as the commander of a deck full of instant-speed card draw so you can have the flash you want when you want it.
It’s extremely unlikely that Kefnet the Mindful will ever be able to attack or block, making it an expensive option for card draw and bouncing your own land. Rashmi, Eternities Crafter is likewise a convoluted source of card draw that could be replaced by something superior.
Finally,Sandwurm Convergence is a good way to generate a lot of pressure, butZimone should be able to do that on her ownwith something that places an extra land on the table every turn.
Jump Scare! Commander Deck Budget Upgrades
Let’s kick up Jump Scare! with some upgrades that improve the deck’s ability toplay more lands and draw more cards, while also adding somepotent new tricks that work well with Zimone.
Reason
Bonny Pall, Clearcutter
Bonny Pall, Clearcutter is perhaps the the best card for Zimone and Jump Scare!. She comes alongside a giant bull to provide a huge amount of power, she draws cards, and she plays an extra land from either your hand or graveyard. Considering how often you’ll be pitching lands into the graveyard via manifest dread, this is a perfect solution.
Den Protector
As mentioned with Bonny Pall, Zimone’s manifest dread ability will mean cards are going to wind up in your graveyard. Den Protector allows you to retrieve at least one of those cards. It’ll even work if it enters as a face-down 2/2 courtesy of Zimone.
Ixidron
Ixidron is a potential game-ender that also serves as an unlikely answer to some of Magic’s most powerful threats. Akroma or an Eldrazi got you down? Just flip ‘em over with Ixidron! Now you’ve got a giant monster, and you can even use Zimone (provided you weren’t forced to flip her over) to help flip your cards back up.
Kodama’s Reach
It’s another Cultivate, but that’s great. Cultivate guarantees a manifest dread gets flipped with Zimone, and you get two lands out of the deal.
Oblivious Bookworm
Oblivious Bookworm provides all-upside card draw so long as you manifest a card or flip one up every turn. Even if you can’t, drawing a card and discarding a card every turn isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Omenpath Journey
Omenpath Journey gaurantees Zimone triggers every turn for five turns. It works best when you’ve already got lands in hand to flip over the cards Zimone manifests, but even if you can’t, it’s free manifests for five turns.
Paranormal Analyst
The downside to manifest dread is putting cards in your graveyard. It’d be better if those cards were in your hand, right? Paranormal Analyst agrees.
Ramunap Excavator
Again, it’s highly likely you’ll be pitching land into your graveyard via Zimone’s manifest dread triggers (unless Paranormal Analyst arrives first), so Ramunap Excavator
Secret Plans
Secret Plans isn’t so hard to understand. Your 2/2 manifested cards get a little tougher, and whenever they flip up, you draw a card. For a deck that’s likely to have a bunch of face-down critters, it’s a win-win.
Threats Around Every Corner
Threats Around Every Corner can really enable some Zimone shenanigans. Play this card to manifest dread, then search a land card to play, then Zimone triggers to manifest another card, which then triggers another search for a basic land, which then Triggers Zimone to flip over a manifested card. You then get to repeat this process every turn.
Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
Even without escaping, Uro draws a card, gains three life, and plays a land from your hand to trigger Zimone. If you don’t draw Uro until later in the game, then you may use its escape ability to gain a 6/6 in addition to all those other good things. Either way, Uro is a winner.
Vannifar, Evolved Enigma
Cloaking a card is similar to manifest dread, but you get to choose a card from your hand rather than between two cards from your library. That’s great to pair with Zimone, but you could also just make all your 2/2 manifested cards bigger by giving them a +1/+1 counter. Thus, even if you never flip up a card, you can have an escalating army to take over the game with.
