by Johnny Cycles, October 4th, 2024
Duskmourn: House of Horror brings a decidedly contemporary horror feel to a game steeped in fantasy. Whether it be a telephone, a UFO, or a cheerleader, Magic’s latest set has pushed the envelope for what is acceptable in terms of modernity in flavor and art.
But regardless of whether you’re on board with Magic cards with televisions on them, the set does bring some powerful and fun build-around cards to experiment with! And as much as I love Halloween and horror movies, the first deck I’m testing features some of the latest set’s least terrifying cards.
Glimmers!
Glimmers are a brand new creature type with a new twist on the undying mechanic. Rather than coming back after death with a +1/+1 counter, these creatures come back as enchantments that offer the same abilities as when they were creatures. Thus, opponents have to kill the creature, then remove the enchantment, something that should be more difficult.
But that’s just playing these cards fairly. How can we abuse these cards to gain additional value out of them?
How does it work?
Sacrificing Enduring Courage to cast Eldritch Evolution will leave behind the enchantment version of the Dog Glimmer, while tutoring up Carnage Tyrant, which will get +2/+0 and haste. That’s a trampling, hexproof 9/6 as early as turn 4.
Yeah, I know. Modern is a still a turn 3 format, despite the influx of recent popular Midrange decks like Energy and Necrodominance.
But, here at cyclesgaming.com, we’re more interested in doing fun, janky stuff then playing the best, most efficient decks!
Sacrifice Outlets
Let’s fill our deck with powerful and hard-to-answer 4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-drops and sacrifice our way up the curve to grind out value and victories! Our key numbers are +1 (Neoform and Birthing Ritual) and +2 (Eldritch Evolution). This means our Glimmers are perfect targets for snagging 4-, 5-, and 6-drops, while leaving behind enchantments that further our gameplan of either casting large creatures or beating face as fast as possible.
Which creatures are our finishers?
I’ve chosen two creatures with hexproof and trample, four with trample, and one (Thragtusk) that gains us some life on ETB and leaves us with a creature on death. Ghalta and Mavren gives us a 7-drop to find off of Thragtusk and Eldritch Evolution. And, as those of you who’ve been following this site for awhile know, this Dinosaur Vampire is a guilty pleasure for me.
Decklist – Gruul Glimmers
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (23)
| 4 Arboreal Grazer | |
| 3 Wall of Blossoms | |
| 4 Enduring Vitality | |
| 4 Enduring Courage | |
| 2 Elder Gargaroth | |
| 2 Thragtusk | |
| 1 Thrun, Breaker of Silence | |
| 2 Carnage Tyrant | |
| 1 Ghalta and Mavren |
Spells (7)
| 3 Pyroclasm | |
| 4 Eldritch Evolution |
Enchantments (8)
| 4 Utopia Sprawl | |
| 4 Birthing Ritual |
Lands (22)
| 2 Boseiju, Who Endures | |
| 2 Commercial District | |
| 5 Forest | |
| 1 Kessig Wolf Run | |
| 3 Mountain | |
| 4 Stomping Ground | |
| 1 Verdant Catacombs | |
| 4 Wooded Foothills |
Sideboard (15)
| 3 Pick Your Poison | |
| 3 Damping Sphere | |
| 3 Roiling Vortex | |
| 2 Anger of the Gods | |
| 4 Leyline of the Void |
Deck Tech
Primary Game Plan
If my introduction didn’t make this clear, we’re looking to ramp into an early Glimmer, sacrifice it to find one of our big fatties, then commence to smashing our opponent. In support of this strategy, we’re playing Utopia Sprawl and Arboreal Grazer (which we can sack later to find an Enduring Vitality). We have Wall of Blossoms for a bit of card advantage plus a sacrifice target that can find us Enduring Courage. And we’re playing Pyroclasm as a way to fight against go-wide strategies and clear the way of chump blockers, though most of our threats have trample.
This is a Midrange strategy looking to grind out value in a (mostly) fair way. The weaknesses of the deck include: first, a lack of interaction. With only three copies of Pyroclasm, we’re hoping our mid-to-late game can overcome whatever fast start our opponent has via combat. Furthermore, we have no way of killing something at instant speed, meaning we are susceptible to decks looking to combo off with creatures (like Indomitable Creativity).
Second, our finishers are not in the vein of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Griselbrand, or even Atraxa, Grand Unifier. They don’t just win us the game on the spot. We are still planning on winning fairly through combat. And while our best threats have hexproof and trample, it will still take us a few turns to close out the game, giving our opponent ample time to kill us, combo off, or find an answer.
All that being said, this is just my first build with Glimmers and Eldritch Evolution. Below you’ll find some alternate builds.
Match 1 vs. Freed from the Real-Leyline Combo
Match 2 vs. Abzan Midrange
Match 3 vs. Charbelcher
Match 4 vs. Indomitable Creativity
Overall Record: 1-3
Impressions from Gruul Glimmers
Well, our lack of instant speed removal was max punished in our matches. Wow! Who would’ve thought we’d play multiple combo decks, only one of which is commonly found in the meta. Playing against Charbelcher, Indomitable Creativity, and Freed from the Real is not where our deck will shine. Rather, this build is looking to compete with more Midrange creature strategies. In our one match against such a deck, we were able to grind out the win.
Still, the deck was super fun to play. We got to sacrifice our Glimmers for value on a number of occasions. And, more importantly, some of those occasions actually mattered…ha.
When I originally came up with this deck, I thought of Neoform as our second sacrifice spell after Eldritch Evolution. But then I remembered Birthing Ritual was a new card I’d been wanting to test out. And, wouldn’t a repeatable sacrifice outlet be better than a 1-time sorcery?
Well, as it turns out, the answer is mostly no. Not only did we whiff about 50% of the time with Birthing Ritual, the fact that it all happens at our end step hamstrings one of the chief synergies I had envisioned when I thought up the deck: hasty beaters on the back of Enduring Courage. Without being attack the turn we get Elder Gargaroth or Ghalta and Mavren means we’re even slower than the average Modern deck.
Let’s rectify that.
Decklist – Temur Glimmers
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (22)
| 4 Arboreal Grazer | |
| 4 Enduring Vitality | |
| 2 Enduring Curiosity | |
| 4 Enduring Courage | |
| 2 Elder Gargaroth | |
| 2 Thragtusk | |
| 1 Thrun, Breaker of Silence | |
| 2 Carnage Tyrant | |
| 1 Ghalta and Mavren |
Spells (12)
| 4 Lightning Bolt | |
| 4 Neoform | |
| 4 Eldritch Evolution |
Enchantments (4)
| 4 Utopia Sprawl |
Lands (22)
Sideboard (15)
| 2 Pick Your Poison | |
| 2 Stern Scolding | |
| 3 Counterspell | |
| 4 Pyroclasm | |
| 4 Leyline of the Void |
Deck Tech
Changes Worth Noting
Being in gives us access to counter magic, which we’ve made room for in the sideboard. Otherwise, we have Enduring Curiosity as another 4-drop Glimmer to find that will keep our hand full of action (hopefully). Finally, I’ve switched in Lightning Bolt for Pyroclasm (which is in the board). My experience with targeted removal is mixed, but having some instant-speed interaction feels right. Let’s just hope we can go over the top of the Energy decks with our huge creatures!
Match 1 vs. Mardu Tokens
Match 2 vs. Dimir Control
Match 3 vs. Infect
Match 4 vs. Jund Flytrap
Overall Record: 1-3
Impressions from Temur Glimmers
Well, those were some tough, tough matches. If I had more time, I’d play some more to see if the deck is more competitive when not mana screwed, but I just don’t have much more free time and there’s still one more deck to test!
But first, let’s briefly discuss the Temur build of Glimmers in Modern.
Our one win came against a Midrange deck, which is exactly the kind of deck we should be able to out-grind. Our three losses came, in large part, to mana screw. However, we also faced a deck with counter magic supporting Psychic Frog. When you’re looking to sacrifice a creature to get a creature, counter magic is particularly challenging, as it leads to some big blowouts. Meanwhile, in Temur colors, we don’t have a clean answer for the Frog…
We lost to Infect, which, well, we’re a Midrange deck without a lot of removal. No surprise there.
Finally, we lost to a Jund graveyard strategy with some sweet synergies between Nethergoyf, Omnivorous Flytrap, and Malevolent Rumble. This is a deck we should be able to compete with, but we weren’t able to find any lands after a mulligan to four in game 2. Furthermore, their combo cards are cheaper and bigger than ours.
Sigh… This is where not having a lot of time really hurts. Is the deck as bad as it felt, or was it just due to mana screw? Alas, I won’t be able to find out before deadline.
But I’m not done yet! And, in fact, I think I’ve saved my best build for last!
Decklist – Jund Glimmers
by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern
Creatures (24)
| 4 Orcish Bowmasters | |
| 4 Enduring Vitality | |
| 4 Enduring Courage | |
| 2 Enduring Tenacity | |
| 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse | |
| 2 Maha, Its Feathers Night | |
| 3 Thragtusk | |
| 2 Noxious Gearhulk | |
| 1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier |
Spells (10)
| 2 Fatal Push | |
| 4 Lightning Bolt | |
| 4 Eldritch Evolution |
Enchantments (4)
| 4 Birthing Ritual |
Lands (22)
Sideboard (15)
| 2 Pick Your Poison | |
| 3 Thoughtseize | |
| 3 Damping Sphere | |
| 2 Pyroclasm | |
| 2 Sheoldred’s Edict | |
| 3 Leyline of the Void |
Deck Tech
Big Changes
Dipping into instead of means we’re back on Birthing Ritual over Neoform. The benefit we get, however, is the creatures we’re tutoring up do things without haste that further our game plan. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse combos nicely with Enduring Tenacity, while Maha, Its Feathers Night and Orcish Bowmasters are besties.
Speaking of Enduring Tenacity…we play Thragtusk and Noxious Gearhulk as tutor targets that also synergize nicely with the Black Glimmer. Finally, we’re playing a single copy of Atraxa, Grand Unifier over Ghalta and Mavren. Atraxa is a more powerful threat that synergizes further with Enduring Tenacity, while refilling our hand. Will we get to see it on the battlefield? Let’s find out!
Match 1 vs. Naya Energy Combo
Match 2 vs. Boros Energy
Match 3 vs. Goryo’s Vengeance
Overall Record: 0-3
Impressions from Rakdos Glimmers
Whew! That. Was. Rough.
I’d love to play a few more matches with the Jund build, as I ran into Energy twice, but there just isn’t time this week. What’s so ironic is that the Gruul version of this deck played Pyroclasm in the main and we didn’t play Energy once. We cut it for Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push in this last build and we played Energy twice.
Sigh.
That kind of variance happens, of course, as does the horrible stretch of mana screw we ran into with our Temur build.
Overall, I enjoyed this deck and do think there’s something to build around here. However, I was pretty disappointed in our game plan in general. It’s just too slow for today’s Modern, which seems to be skewing to Combo more than Midrange.
I wouldn’t have called the Energy decks that appeared before the Pro Tour Combo decks, but now that they are playing Goblin Bombardment in the main deck, I think they can be considered hybrid Combo-Aggro decks. And they are super powerful. Our opponent in the Boros game was on 1 mana until turn 5 and was able to win. Granted, they had three copies of Ocelot Pride and some cheap removal to help get them to the win, but our deck couldn’t punish their mana screw effectively.
That is a sign of a bad draw, to be certain, and probably a bad deck, as well.
However, I have hope! I really think this Jund build has the most upside. I could see cutting Eldritch Evolution for Village Rites and go more for card advantage over tutoring. Or cut Birthing Ritual.
Regardless, though, we need to speed up our clock or find room for main deck hate against the meta.
Conclusion
Back to the drawing board with the Glimmers, unfortunately. The deck was powerful against Midrange decks of old, but couldn’t keep up with the Combo decks ruling the format, whether those be Goryo’s Vengeance, some form of Energy, Indomitable Creativity, or simply pitching cards to a Frog on steroids (not much of a combo…).
It’s possible the deck has a better home in Pioneer, given it’s slow, grinding nature. Maybe one day I’ll test it there. But for now, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and watching! Let me know in the comments if you enjoy this kind of article where I build several different decks around the same cards/strategy.
