oOoOo! It’s Halloween and that means it’s time to talk about Magic: The Gathering‘s latest horror-themed set: Duskmourn House of Horror. It’s not the most Elfy set ever, but it does have cards for us to talk about.

To be honest, I thought there was more time to get this review sorted before the next set came round. Then, Wizards of the Coast dropped Magic Foundations on us and we’re back in spoiler season much sooner than I expected. I didn’t think I’d be doing a review for it, but seeing early spoilers reveals some cards we’ll need to talk about. As a result, we should probably overcome our fears and get through Duskmourn.

As always, this review focuses exclusively on a card’s application in Elves decks across Magic‘s many formats. If you think there’s a cool card for Hotel-themed Room EDH deck, this isn’t the review for that. (That card’s still cool though, whatever it is.) The rating given at the end of each entry is out of five Trees and applies to whichever format the card suits best.

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The Elves

Cautious Survivor

Unfortunately, our first card is aimed firmly at Duskmourn limited. Just a solid body with a marginal effect. Nothing to see here.

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Cryptid Inspector

Oh no, another cards exclusively for Duskmourn limited. This time it’s for the Manifest Dread archetype, which doesn’t gel with Elves at all, so let’s move on.

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Overgrown Zealot

Okay, we can work with this. A two-mana mana dork that makes any colour with four toughness. Ignore the other ability, this card can actually do some work.

It won’t ever live up to the role of cards like Llanowar Elves. However, as Standard mana dorks go, Overgrown Zealot ticks all of the boxes. The biggest factor is four toughness. Being able to come down and actually block an aggressive start from an opponent actually allows you to survive to use the mana.

Other than Standard, it’s not really doing much. I’m just glad to have solid mana dorks available for when we do try Elves in the format.

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Tyvar, the Pummerler

Finally! A card to get excited about.

Tyvar, the Pummeler is an Ezuri, Renegade Leader for formats that don’t have Ezuri, Renegade Leader. Sure, Tyvar protects himself, rather than your other creatures and doesn’t grant trample, but he’s a better beater than Ezuri and ends the game for five mana.

Tyvar is worth keeping in mind for any Elves decks where you don’t have access to Ezuri. So, we’ve got Pioneer, Historic and Standard. That’s a good set of formats for Tyvar to pummel into submission.

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Parting Thoughts

Only four new cards, but all of them Elves! That’s an welcome improvement.

While Elves aren’t there in Standard at the moment, I’m hopeful. I gave Tyvar a try and he genuinely impressed me. With Elf support in Magic Foundation on the horizon, I’m looking forward to revisiting the format. Maybe with the longer rotation, we’ll get a critical mass of Elves in Standard sometime soon to actually be able to compete.

As always, I’ve been trying out some Duskmourn cards on stream, so if you want to see some of them in action, head over on a Thursday evening (UK time). Always happy for new viewers in chat to talk about these new cards with. If you’re interested in previous sets, you can find all of our older Elves All The Way Down reviews here.