“The House is the world, the world is the House, and the word for both is Duskmourn, the grief of the sun slipping out of your hands, the coming of the cold and sorrow.” This is the way that acclaimed author Mira Grant describes Duskmourn, the plane at the center of Magic: The Gathering’s 2024 set Duskmourn: House of Horror. Duskmourn was once a modern-looking plane in the multiverse. The demon Valgavoth was once imprisoned in a haunted house, but he expanded the boundaries of the space until it consumed everything in existence. Now, the entire plane — and Magic set — is full of monsters, cultists, and murderers inspired by real-world events from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
What would a person look like, and how would they behave, if they were forced to survive a decade inside this nightmare? Because that’s the fate of the character Winter, introduced as part of the set. The card Winter, Misanthropic Guide also happens to be one of my favorite Commanders to play because he nerfs all opponents in an irritating way — unlike virtually any other card in the game.
Winter, Misanthropic Guide is a 3/4 Human Warlock that costs four mana (one colorless, one black, one red, and one green) to play. He gets a ward cost of two to help with defense. And at the beginning of your upkeep, each player draws two cards. At first, this looks counterintuitive. Why would you want your opponents to draw cards? But he also comes with a delirium ability. Introduced in the Shadows over Innistrad block about a decade ago, delirium activates when you have four or more card types in your graveyard, but it scales as that number increases. For Winter, he reduces each opponent’s maximum hand size to a number equal to seven minus the number of card types in your graveyard.
Keep in mind that the primary card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, battle, and kindred. With a discard- and mill-heavy deck chock full of other cards with delirium, your Winter Commander can easily make it so that every opponent has to discard down to zero cards in their hand at the end of their turn. It’s the kind of Commander that everybody else at the table will hate, so you inevitably get targeted quickly and often — at least after delirium activates. The ward 2 certainly helps protect Winter a bit, but in later rounds, it won’t matter much when opponents have the mana to spare.
The discomfort he generates makes a lot more sense when you meet Winter in the Duskmourn: House of Horror short stories by Mira Grant. He is neither a heroic survivor nor a traditional villain. He’s thin and emaciated, with pallid skin and dark circles carved deep beneath his eyes. He has short, messy dark hair hacked short. His clothes are practical, layered, scavenged, and worn down by years of violence inside the House.
Tellingly, Winter is almost never described as standing tall. He leans, crouches, and presses himself into corners. He’s learned to expect a threat around every corner and carries a knife as a last resort, and he knows that attracting any sort of attention can get you killed.
Over the decade or so he’s spent trapped in the house, Winter learned its systems. Which rooms repeat? Which corridors punish curiosity? He learned that relying on people — and letting others rely on him — only leads to more danger. So he literally became a “misanthrope,” or a person who distrusts mankind and sees them as selfish, flawed, or malevolent. Because relationships inside the house are a bigger liability than hope or optimism.
It’s fitting that another version of Winter called Winter, Cynical Opportunist headlines the Death Toll preconstructed Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander deck. I’m not nearly as much of a fan of that version, but these two names tell us a lot about the character. When a small group of adventurers and planeswalkers enter the house in the House of Horror short stories, he begrudgingly becomes their guide.
“You’re basically beacons for every hungry thing in this House while you’re so hopeful and sure of yourselves,” he says. “Stick with me if you want to stay alive.”
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Winter didn’t merely survive the House. He compromised with it. When escape proved impossible, he made a bargain with Valgavoth, the demon-god imprisoned at the heart of the House, who feeds on fear, stories, and sacrifice. Winter enters into a pact with Valgavoth (hence why he also gets the warlock creature subtype) by offering the demon the life of his closest friend. And as the group’s misanthropic guide in the short stories, he leads them right into Valgavoth’s clutches as additional sacrifices.
When confronted with this betrayal in the short stories, Winter defends it. “Spend enough time lost in Duskmourn,” Winter says, “and there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to find your freedom.” Then Winter delivers perhaps his most iconic line: “When all hope is gone, only the truth remains.”
By the end of the Duskmourn: House of Horror stories, however, Winter is dragged away and absorbed by Valgavoth. Is it moral punishment for all his betrayals? Or just karmic justice?
Winter, Misanthropic Guide the card doesn’t stop people from drawing cards, but he stops them from keeping them. In a sense, he teaches players that clinging to hope will cost them everything. The table’s discomfort at facing this card says a lot about this character’s arc in the set’s story. The kind of guide that hates and distrusts his charges is not one you want — mainly because he might lead you astray and leave you powerless.