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Magic: The Gathering’sDuskmourn is one, huge haunted house. Having been warped and expanded to the point where it devoured anything else in the world, Duskmourn’s rooms are corrupt, evil places ready to trap and confuse anyone who steps inside.
Magic’ Room card type can be similarly confusing. Combining split cards with enchantment synergies, making the best of Rooms will help push just about any enchantment deck even further.
What Are Rooms?
Rooms are a subtype of enchantments that were first introduced in Duskmourn: House of Horror. Like previous enchantment subtypes like Sagas and Classes, Rooms give you a way to gradually ramp up the abilities of your enchantment, provided you have the mana to pay for it.
A lot of the confusion surrounding Rooms comes from its use of the word “door” in its rules reminder text. A door isone half of the split card, and “unlocking a door” is paying its mana cost to enable its abilities.
When you first cast a Room card, you pick which half of it you want to cast and pay its associated mana cost. This counts as unlocking its door when it enters enabling its abilities when it enters the battlefield. Then, at sorcery speed, you canpay the other side of the card’s mana costto open that “door”as well.
you may only choose to cast one half of it. You can’t pay both costs up-front and unlock both rooms at the same time.
As an example, there is a mono-blue Room card called Mirror Room//Fractured Realm. By paying two generic mana and one blue, you’re able to have it enter the battlefield with just theMirror Room door unlocked, and so, when it enters, you can make a Reflection token copy of any target creature you control.
Later on in the game, be it later in that turn or in a future one, you’re able to then pay five generic and two blue to unlock the door toFractured Realm.Now that that door is unlocked, the triggered abilities of permanents you control will trigger twice.
Rooms’ mana values change depending on where it is. If it’s on the stack, its mana value isonly the half of the card you’re currently casting. If it’s on the battlefield, it’s the combined total of each door that is unlocked. Anywhere else, like the library, in exile, or graveyard, it is the combined total of both doors.
Rooms are the first time we’ve seen permanent split cards. It’s important to remember thatit only counts as one card,even when both doors are unlocked. For anything that cares about the number of cards, enchantments, or permanents you have, it only counts as one card.
Unfortunately, you can’tblink a Room, or bring it back from the graveyard, as a way to cheat the costs.If a Room isn’t cast, it enters with both doors locked,and you’ll need to pay to unlock both of them individually.
How To Use Rooms
The immediate and obvious benefit of Rooms is thatyou can spread the cost of them over multiple turns.Paying one white and one generic for a Dollmaker’s Shop is much easier than the four generic and two white for a Porcelain Gallery, and you’ll be able to immediately benefit from it.
As they’re enchantments,Rooms triggerconstellationwhen they enter the battlefieldand, more usefully for Duskmourn, eerie. Rooms actuallytrigger eerie twice– once when the first door is unlocked on the initial enter of the Room, and again when you unlock the final door.
Unlocking the second door doesn’t count as the Room entering the battlefield, so it won’t trigger other enchantment-entering abilities like constellation.
In formats that don’t care about colour identity, like Standard and limited formats, a Room may be agood reason to splash outside of your regular colours.If you’re playing a red deck and have a Smoky Lounge, you could be persuaded to run a few blue lands to also give you access to Misty Salon, or you may simple choose to only stick with the red half.
A downside to Rooms are the sheer mana sink they become. One piece of enchantment removal, which is incredibly common in most colours, can cost you the very expensive Room you’ve paid a lot to unlock both doors for.
In some situations, it may be better towait until you can cast the more expensive side, as then you’ll have an opportunity to benefit from its effect before it’s blown up, rather than hoping to unlock it later and it scaring your opponent into action.
The Best Room Cards
Naturally, there are a lot of great Room cards to use. Perhaps the best so far isFractured Realm, which serves as a triggered ability doubler in mono-blue. It costs more than a Panharmonicon, but it works for any triggered ability – enters, dies, attacks, deals damage, the works.
Smoky LoungeandMisty Salonis tool for any Room-centric deck. Smoky Lounge gives you the mana to unlock further doors, while Misty Salon can be unlocked later to give you a big creature to swing out with.
Funeral Room and Awakening Hallis a payoff for both graveyard-centric decks, and sacrifice decks hoping to pile up the Blood Artist-esque triggers. Three mana for the basic effect is a little much, but with ways to cheat the unlocking of the second door, it’s a great price for a shot at bringing everything back from the graveyard with Awakening Hall.
Speaking of cheating Room cards,Ghostly Keybeareris an essential for any Room-centric deck. On dealing combat damage it can unlock any door, regardless of its cost. Four mana for a 3/3 flier isn’t great by modern Magic design, but if you pull it off (and especially if you have Fractured Realm to unlock two at a time), you could be getting serious value with minimal effort.
