{"id":7700,"date":"2024-09-03T20:33:52","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T20:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/?p=7700"},"modified":"2024-09-09T20:35:54","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T20:35:54","slug":"magics-duskmourn-channels-80s-horror-adds-new-room-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/03\/magics-duskmourn-channels-80s-horror-adds-new-room-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic\u2019s Duskmourn channels \u201980s horror, adds new room cards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

<img alt="Valgavoth, the demon, is shown as a giant, furry moth whose wings open into vast black hallways." data-caption="Valgavoth, the demon at the center of the plane of Duskmourn. | Image: Antonio Jose Manzanedo<\/a>\/Wizards of the Coast” data-portal-copyright=”Image: Antonio Jose Manzanedo<\/a>\/Wizards of the Coast” data-has-syndication-rights=”1″ src=”https:\/\/platform.polygon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/09\/Valgavoth-Terror-Eater_Antonio-Jose-Manzanedo.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100″ \/>

Valgavoth, the demon at the center of the plane of Duskmourn. | Image: Antonio Jose Manzanedo<\/a>\/Wizards of the Coast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the holiday weekend at PAX West, the team from Wizards of the Coast formally unveiled Duskmourn<\/em>, the next set of cards for Magic: The Gathering<\/a><\/em>. Inspired by 1980s slasher movies and classic horror tropes, the action takes place in an entirely new setting \u2014 a vast and mysterious haunted house. To sell the idea of a haunted house, designers came up with a new type of card called called a \u201croom.\u201d Here\u2019s room cards work, and how they help elevate the set\u2019s creepy theme.<\/p>\n

According to senior art director Ovidio Cartagena, the plane of Duskmourn itself has a tragic backstory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis used to be a regular plane, with happiness and people in it,\u201d Cartagena said during the livestreamed presentation<\/a>. \u201cBut a demon that was locked inside the house took over it. And his way of taking over was growing the house until there was nothing else but him and the house. And you\u2019ll feel his presence everywhere \u2014 the name of this demon is Valgavoth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The primary building block of Valgovoth\u2019s realm are the aforementioned rooms, and those rooms take the form of two-panel horizontal cards.<\/p>\n

\"Dollmaker\u2019s<\/p>\n

\u201cRooms were our biggest shot; our flashiest mechanic of the set, you might say,\u201d said senior game designer Annie Sardelis. \u201cThey are enchantments, and they ask you to unlock things.\u201d<\/p>\n

For instance, if you\u2019d like to play Dollmaker\u2019s Shop\/Porcelain Gallery (shown above) you\u2019d first pick which side of the card you\u2019d like to play. If that\u2019s Dollmaker\u2019s Shop, you\u2019d tap one white and one additional mana to bring the card into play as an enchantment. The other side of the card hasn\u2019t been cast yet, and therefore isn\u2019t active. But suffice it to say that the door to the Porcelain Gallery enters play alongside Dollmaker\u2019s Shop, and can be opened later.<\/p>\n

\"Dollmaker\u2019s<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever you like, you can pay the mana value of the other side to enable [it],\u201d Sardellis said. \u201cSo it really gives you that flexibility, that feeling of moving place-to-place. We really wanted to have two effects on a room, because we want to feel like we\u2019re expressing the real massiveness [of Duskmourn], and what\u2019s behind every door of the setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duskmourn kicked off on Aug. 19 with the first in a series of narrative pieces, cheekily called episodes<\/a>, published on the official Magic website. Card previews are currently ongoing via multiple outlets, including here at Polygon where we\u2019ll have some to share later this week. Meanwhile, Duskmourn<\/em> arrives in Magic: The Gathering \u2013 Arena<\/em> on Sept. 24 and at retailers as a physical product on Sept. 27. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<img alt="Valgavoth, the demon, is shown as a giant, furry moth whose wings open into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7701,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700\/revisions\/7701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}