The creepiest, scariest, and downright most horrifying creatures in Magic The Gathering's Duskmourn expansion

When the Summer is winding down and the nights are creeping in earlier, there’s nothing more I like to do than start watching spooky movies on the sofa.

This year, however, my usual go-to of junk food and slasher flicks is being disrupted by the arrival of Magic The Gathering’s Duskmourn: House of Horror expansion. As a big fan of the horror genre in just about any format, I’ve been excited to see what Wizards of the Coast has been cooking up, and right in time for Halloween, no less.

Thankfully, the team has absolutely killed it (see what I did there?), with a whole host of unsettling creature designs coming in the latest set.

Here are my favourite card designs in Duskmourn: House of Horror. 

10 - Enduring Tenacity

I’ll be honest, I don’t like snakes anyway. They make my skin crawl at the best of times, but a spooky ghost snake? No, thank you.

The Showcase art is somehow even worse here, with its eyes following you as you shift in your seat. I might just concede if an opponent plays Enduring Tenacity.

9 - Hand That Feeds

A bit of body horror never hurt anyone, and the Hand That Feeds is, quite literally, a hand that looks particularly peckish.

It’s partially on the list for the fun wordplay, but also the way it’s got too many fingers and thumbs to be an anatomically accurate hand and therefore ends up looking a bit more like a creepy crawly.

8 - Overlord of the Mistmoors

Avatar Horror is a pretty fitting creature type here, with Overlord of the Mistmoors being a humanoid creature with extra limbs that also happen to be really long.

It plays on one of my favourite horror tropes - something almost familiar, but just not quite right - and looks like something you’d see in a particularly fervent dream.

7 - Phantasmal Image

Clowns are scary, there’s simply no denying that, and this reprint gives Pennywise a run for his money.

Again, the air of familiarity is subtly prodded at by the elongated, sharp fingers of the clown here, and the fact that, well, there are two of them.

6 - Fear of Falling

We’ve all had those dreams where we wake ourselves before we fall a great distance to our doom, and Fear of Falling plays on the idea of the manifestation of that sensation.

The idea of endlessly plummetting, seemingly forever, is bad enough, but the flavour text here is particularly unsettling.

5 - Silent Hallcreeper

Oh god, it’s awful isn’t it? Silent Hallcreeper feels a little like Overlord of the Mistmoors cranked up to 11, and the idea of it being entirely silent as it wanders the titular House of Horror feels very Haunting of Hill House.

Those extra-long limbs and spider-like hands feel like they reach right into your brain, and the Borderless version leaves more to the imagination while still being undeniably scary.

4 - Valgavoth, Terror Eater

As credentials go for a Magic card, Elder Demon is definitely a great thing to have on a business card. Not to be confused with the Valvagoth that heads up one of the new Commander decks, and while it’s a big cost, big power card, it’s also a true Eldritch-style horror icon in the making.

Its wings seem to spread out for meters, suggesting there’s no escape, and the Borderless variants show it slipping through a door as if it’s tiptoeing into your bedroom.

3 - Overlord of the Boilerbilges

If Overlord of the Mistmoors was creepy, Overlord of the Boilerbilges is a little like its steampunk cousin that’s been locked in Freddy Krueger’s boiler room for a little too long.

The sheer scale of it in the standard card is one thing, but the Showcase treatment highlights its huge number of dagger-like teeth and more of its half-living, half-machine nature. Ick.

2 - Razorkin Needlehead

Seemingly inspired by a certain horror icon, Razorkin Needlehead is faceless, save for, well, his needlehead.

“Stitch your eyes, stitch your skin, stitch your mouth into a grin” is as creepy a flavour text as you’re likely to find in Magic, and it looks like it’ll be popular for aggro decks. Lucky us, we get to see it more often…

1 - Twitching Doll

Ever since I saw the Extended Art version of this card, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Twitching Doll is, or at least was, a creepy enough toy, but it’s now been overrun with spiders and gained sentience.

Leaning on my own arachnophobia and the well-worn trope of killer dolls, the way it’s emerging either from under the bed, or sneaking into your hiding space in the Extended Art version may have taken a good few hours off of my sleep schedule for the rest of my life. Cheers, Wizards.