The Best Commanders in Duskmourn: House of Horror

Key points

• The Mindskinner slaughters opponents ten at a time with unique blocking features.
• The Lord of Pain blocks health recovery and punishes spells cast with damage.
• Marvin, the Murderous Mimic, creates powerful combos with activated abilities.

Legendary creatures are plentiful in Magic: The Gathering's Duskmourn: House of Horror. Between the core set and the hilarious Commander decks, there are some real terrors to face on the battlefield.

Whether you're looking for something to scare your opponents with or just need some fun ideas for what to build your next deck with, we've combed through every room we can find in Duskmourn to find the absolute best legendary creatures in the set.

10 The mind-cleaner

Eliminate your opponents 10 at a time

A very silly mill commander that would be a blast to build around, The Mindskinner is a monstrous 10/1 Nightmare creature that can’t be blocked. All this for just three blue mana. While dealing ten commander damage in one hit is huge, that’s not what makes The Mindskinner good.

All damage you would deal to an opponent is prevented, making that massive ten power useless. Instead, that damage is converted into milling for that amount. All of your opponents must mill that number of cards, not just the opponent you are attacking, making The Mindskinner a milling machine.

9 Nashi, Seeker in the Dark

A triple threat

A solid choice for anyone looking to mess around with their commander, Nashi, Searcher in the Dark is a Rat, Ninja, and Wizard creature, with a decent amount of power and durability as a 2/2 for just two mana. When you connect with Nashi to a player, you can mill as many cards as you dealt damage with him. When you do, you can take as many legendary or enchantment cards from those milled cards into your hand, if you don't, Nashi grows a little bigger with a +1/+1 counter. Fueling your next strike.

This type of self-mill effectively turns your graveyard into a second hand, especially when you throw in some reanimation effects and ways to shuffle cards back into your deck. While Nashi does have some threat, you'll probably want to add some extra evasion for him, as making him unblockable or using Helm of the Host to create more non-legendary tokens of him can really fuel your milling and, in turn, your draw power.

8 Marvin, Murderous Impersonator

Keep the combos flowing

There are a lot of options with this little toy commander, and none of them will be fun for your opponents. Marvin, Murderous Mimic gets all the activated abilities of your other creatures, as long as they don't share the same name. This is to ensure that you don't have two Marvins eternally getting all these abilities forever.

It's incredibly easy to set up all sorts of combos with this Commander. All you really need is Pili-Pala and Palladium Myr to get infinite mana. You can also use Marvin with cards like Triskelion and Phyrexian Devourer to generate tons of damage to send all your opponents to their deaths.

7 Niko, Light of Hope

Blink forever

Niko hates being told what to do, so why not give him a ton of options as your commander? When Niko, Light of Hope enters the battlefield, you get two Shard counters. Sure, you can use them to scry and draw cards, but there's a much better way to use them.

For two mana, you can tap Niko to exile a non-legendary creature you control to make your Shards copies of that creature. All you have to do is flash Niko a couple times, getting a few extra Shards, and then choose a powerful creature to exile with its ability like Agent of Betrayal or Palinchron, and you have a lot of potential for cheating.

6 Zimone, the questioner of everything

Brush up on your math skills

Magic is a lot of math, you have to add up the damage you deal, your life totals over the course of the game, the number of cards you have in your deck, and more. With Zimone, All-Questioning, you can make the game even more complicated.

At the beginning of your end phase, if you have a land entering the battlefield under your control and you have a prime number of lands, you may create a Prime, the Indivisible token, a legendary 0/0 Fractal token. Then put +1/+1 counters on it equal to that prime number.

To refresh your memory, a prime number is any number that is not divisible by two smaller numbers without rounding. So 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, and so on, are all prime.

5 The Happy Balloon Man

He's so happy!

Hasty Commanders are always a solid choice, and one with a cool ability goes a long way, too. Jolly Balloon Man is a three-mana Human Clown, which is pretty silly on its own, and it can create tokens that are copies of other creatures you control, except it's not a Balloon creature along with its other types, which also gives it flying and haste.

Like most balloons, the tokens don't stick around for long, forcing you to sacrifice them at the start of your next finishing pass. If JBM looks familiar, that's because it's like a weakened Kiki-Jiki, and as such, there are a ton of combos that still work with it. A super easy combo is to combine The Jolly Balloon Man with an Umbral Mantle and a Dockside Extortionist, and the ability to make at least four Treasure tokens, and you have an infinite supply of untaps, 1/1 attackers, and very likely a win with very little work.

4 Tyvar, the Puncher

The Elven Fist

After all that math, you might just want a more straightforward Commander, where all you have to do is count your opponent's life total from 40 and down. Tyvar is more than happy to step in, though you'll probably still have to calculate your damage before striking.

While you don't have to play Tyvar like a similar Elf deck, it makes sense to do so. You can pay five mana to give all your creatures +X/+X for the turn, with X being the highest power of all creatures you control. If you have a 5/5, you can give all your creatures +5/+5, effectively having your own little Overrun in your Commander.

3 Marina Vendrell

Five-Color Enchantress

Five-color decks are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you have access to every card ever printed in Magic history. On the other, you have to make a lot of tough choices about what to play and what to cut. Marina Vendrell helps narrow those choices down a bit by being an enchantment-focused commander. When she enters the battlefield, you can look at the top seven cards of your deck, taking all the enchantments among them and putting them into your hand.

It also has a Room focus, which lets you tap Marina to lock or unlock a Room you control, which lets you repeat Room effects. You’ll probably have more fun flashing Marina over and over again, constantly cycling through the top seven cards of your deck so you always have a spell card in your hand.

2 Kona, the rescue beast

Bestial Friends Forever

Who can say no to a free card? Well, with Kona, Rescue Beastie, you don't have to. With her survival ability, in your second main phase, you can take a permanent card from your hand and put it into play for free, as long as Kona is tapped.

There are some huge green cards that you can cheat to play this way, such as:

• Nyxbloom Ancient
• Vacuum sieve
• Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

And it's not just creatures you put into play, either, because they let you do pretty much anything you want for free.

You don't have to attack with Kona, you can use it to crew vehicles or ride creatures, or to activate the abilities of other cards: just use Kona.

1 Valgavoth, Dread Eater

The Source of Nightmares

The cause of all the problems in Duskmourn, Valgavoth is a monstrous deem that is a monster on the battlefield. For nine mana, you get a 9/9 Elder Demon with flying, lifelink, and a brutal protection effect.

The power comes from Valgavoth’s two abilities, where if a card you don’t control is put into an opponent’s graveyard, it’s exiled. Then, on your turn, you can play cards that are exiled with Valgavoth, forcing you to pay life equal to the mana cost instead of actual mana. This is great for spells you won’t have access to colors for, but terrible if you’re running low on life.