“Life’s Not Enough”
Art:Enter the Enigma
by Chris Rallis
We ranked all of the commanders, so now it’s time to go through all of the white commons from Duskmourn and evaluate them on a scale from 1-10! Duskmourn has some absolute wins at commons and has cards that help and work well with commanders old and new! I will also be including some commanders I think these commons would work really well with! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
Rating for Acrobatic Cheerleader 7/10:
Acrobatic Cheerleader is a pretty strong card; while I believe its use is relatively narrow outside of decks focusing on crew’ing and saddling, I think for two mana and a pretty easy way to make it evasive, I think this card is definitely worth a look for decks, that focus on tapping their own creatures.
Commanders I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Cult Healer 5/10:
Cult Healer is a cool design and an interesting card, but overall, I don’t think a lot of decks that focus on enchantments would play this over some of the other cards at their disposal. Most enchantress decks have a decently low creature count, and I personally don’t think this one makes the cut. Even so, I could see this card working in lifegain strategies that run a decent amount of enchantments for support. I can certainly see decks where this card would be included, but overall, I don’t think it would be that strong.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Emerge from the Cocoon: 4/10:
This card has a cool design with some pretty awesome flavor, but it’s quite expensive, and the effect isn’t that great. There are cheaper versions of it already in the format, like Breath of Life
and Late to Dinner
. In my opinion, the three-life does not make this card worth more mana, and overall, I can’t find a ton of decks that run this card.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with although I’m not sure a ton of decks would want to run it:
Pretty much anything with big creatures that you would want to reanimate.
Rating for Fear of Immobility 7/10:
I like this card a lot and think it works perfectly within an Azorius or even mono-white control style strategy; being able to remove a creature from combat for one turn or multiple turns is quite strong. It’s also a decent-sized attacker, so it can be a great way to whittle opponents down. I like this card a lot and think its perfect for a control-style strategy.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Fear of Surveillance 2/10:
Fear of Surveillance is by no means a bad card, but it certainly is an unremarkable card. It does things fine but doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary, and in my opinion, you could replace this with pretty much any 2/2 with vigilance that is in the format.
I’m not too sure what decks would want this card.
Rating for Friendly Ghost 8/10:
I am a big fan of this card, no matter whether it is a token, Voltron, or just a general white weenie strategy. I think this card is quite strong, being able to buff a creature and being an evasive flyer themself helps a lot with the overall gameplan and getting additional damage can help ramp up the pressure on your opponents.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Tiller runs a decent amount of flying creatures normally and buffing up any of our creatures can help the overall gameplan
Rating for Grand Entryway // Elegant Rotunda 7/10:
There are a lot of commanders within Pauper EDH from Duskmourn that focus on rooms, and sadly, there just isn’t enough of them; luckily for us, some of the room cards are pretty good independently, like Grand Entryway; this card certainly isn’t an auto-include but it provides a decent amount of utility for a token deck, a token and a buff for a pretty small mana investment can work pretty well in token decks. I’m not entirely sure about this one, but in testing found it to be serviceable.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Hardened Escort 10/10:
This, in my opinion, is one of, if not the best, commons in the set; this card works really well within a ton of strategies and has a great stat-line. I tested and loved this card in Voltron decks, Token Decks, and even enchantress decks. The indestructible can matter a lot when you are going into combat regularly, and the defensive stat line Hardened Escort has allows them to survive pretty easily as well.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
In my opinion, if the deck is white or has white and engages in combat a lot, I think this card is an auto-include.
Rating for Jump Scare 3/10:
I like this card and think its an ok card, but overall, I don’t see it as anything more of a buff; I am not aware of any horror strategies that could take advantage of this within the format, so it’s just a one mana buff and in white there is quite a bit of competition which pushes this card down a lot, I could see this card working well within Heroic decks but not having much use outside of that, I’m not sure if this would make the cut for a heroic deck with all of the strong buffs white has to offer.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Living Phone 8/10:
I am a very big fan of this card. I think it works very well within decks that care about small creatures and is pretty good in a white-weenie style strategy as well. I think this card is comparable to Militia Bugler
and gives white a strong source of card selection, which is certainly one of the weaknesses of the colors. I think this card will fit into a lot of decks that include white.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Rating for Possessed Goat 7/10:
The flavor on this card is a true 10/10, but overall I am just not sure how functional this is, I think in the right deck, this card been super good, but I’m not sure what decks I would run this in, being able to activate the ability at instant speed is super sweet and I’m sure there are some interactions where you can maximize damage. I like this card, but I am a little unsure about this one.
Rating for Seized from Slumber 8/10:
This card is quite good; with how much combat is done within this format, this is almost always discounted, and paying only two for this spell feels good; having more traditional removal in white is great as well. I am a big fan of this card and have been playing it on all of my new mono-white decks.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
I feel this would work quite well with most mono-white decks.
Rating for Shepherding Spirits 2/10:
If you really want a flyer, you have one, but overall, I don’t think this card is very good, and I can’t think of very many decks that would want to play this one, it’s expensive and clunky.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
I am not sure what decks besides Kangee, Sky Warden
would want to run this, and I’m not even sure that they would.
Rating for Trapped in the Screen 10/10:
I am a big fan of this card, an additional Oblivion Ring
style effect with ward two is a true slam-dunk for most white decks and I think this card is very strong in a variety of mono-white decks, I am a little bias because I love O-ring style effects in most of my mono-white decks but I think this card is very strong.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
Ive been putting this in every mono-white deck I make.
Rating for Unsettling Twins 2/10:
Manifest Dread is just not a great mechanic for Pauper EDH, maybe ill proven wrong but I don’t see any world where an Orzhov or any deck containing white would want to run this.
Commanders, I think this card would work well with:
I don’t see what decks would want to run this card.
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end! We are splitting up the colors because of the huge amount of info we would have to put into one article. Stay tuned for more and more colors as we filter through the set for the rest of this week! What’s you favorite white common from the set?