Upgrading the Jump Scare Precon from Duskmourn, on a small budget

By Brian Affolter

Hey, it’s Brian from the Chaotic Commander YouTube channel. I’m a deck builder by trade, and since the new MTG Duskmourn precons are releasing soon, I’m sharing my picks for 20 cards to upgrade your new Jump Scare! deck, for well under $20.

But first let’s go over what this deck wants to do. The Jump Scare! Commander deck wins the game by out-valuing your opponents. It aims to cheat in big permanents (typically creatures) and take over the board.

It does this through the face commander’s (Zimone, Mystery Unraveler’s) ability to manifest dread and then flip those permanents face up when we play lands.

To be successful in this plan, we need a slew of things to cheat in and many ways to get extra lands onto the battlefield. The precon does this fairly well, but can struggle to deal with other players’ boards if they are moving at the same pace as us, and it needs more consistent ways to get multiple lands on the field at a time.

To combat these weaknesses, here are 20 cards you can swap in, and here’s a quick way you can get these card on Mana Pool. I pre-loaded the list into the deck buyer.

Recommended Card	Reasoning
Secret Plans	No clue why this wasn’t put in the first place, but Secret Plans is a very welcome card draw engine, that in tandem with our commander, will draw a card for the first land we play each turn.
Threats Around Every Corner	This card will essentially make it so we can immediately flip the permanent we manifest dread, making it a no-brainer for this deck.
Brainstorm	Brainstorm is an easy way to put a card from our hand on top of our library if we want to manifest it onto the battlefield. Nuff said.
Den Protector	Something this deck also does very well is filling the graveyard. Sometimes we put something there we might not want to, so having a couple ways to help bring things we want back from the graveyard is definitely a must. Having this on a creature that synergizes with our deck is paramount.
Under The Skin	Like Den Protector, this card helps bring permanents from your graveyard to the hand, and it has the bonus of manifesting dread beforehand, so we can get value out of both cards we look at rather than choose one to throw in the bin.
Stratus Dancer	This deck could definitely use more counterspells as well. Manifest dreading into them isn’t ideal though, so having a counterspell we can manifest dread into is nice to have.
Thousand Winds	This may not get every problematic creature off the board, but it solves the same issue I just mentioned with Stratus Dancer. Putting our board wipe on a creature that synergizes with our deck is much more ideal.
Brine Elemental	Less of a board wipe and more of a board control card, Brine Elemental puts in work to protect us for a turn against those aggro decks and/or lets us get on with some of our heavy hitters.
Experiment Twelve	Our creatures are already going to be big, but why not make them BIGGER? Experiment Twelve not only answers this question, but also puts our opponents on notice that they aren’t safe.
Chromeshell Crab	The best part about budget builds is when you can use a budget card to play one of your opponents' non-budget cards. Chromshell Crab can do just that, or it could just get rid of an opponent’s problematic creature or commander. Great utility here.
Vannifar, Evolved Enigma	This card is another way in the deck we can manifest strong cards from our hand. And if we have no strong cards in our hand to cloak or manifest, then it buffs all of our face-down creatures. Strong utility here.
Mind’s Dilation	Another big bomb for the deck, this card lets us play our opponents’ non-budget decks for them. If the goal of the deck is to out-value our opponents, this card quickly gets us there.
DPerennial Behemoth	With all of the manifest dreading we are doing, we’re bound to pitch some lands into our graveyard. Adding a card like Perennial Behemoth lets us keep going even when we are out of lands in hand, and is especially synergistic with Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse.
Druid Class	I think most decks nowadays need a couple of ways to gain some life, and Druid Class does that, but it’s mainly a great fit here because at level 2, we can play an additional land on each of our turns. If we have this card and two of our bounce lands, we can continue to bounce those lands and play them to keep our commander’s ability going. Great for early or long game plays.
Harrow	Harrow is not only great ramp, but also an instant-speed way to manifest dread and flip over a permanent of ours. Whether being used as a straight value play, or as a combat trick, Harrow is an all-star here.
Roiling Regrowth	Not quite as good as Harrow since the lands come in tapped, but does everything else.
Entish Restoration	Just like Roiling Growth, but with a potential third land to bring in if we need to flip multiple creatures.
Khalni, Heart Expedition	This is another great way to get multiple lands on the battlefield at instant speed. What’s great is that we don’t have to use it until we want to, and our commander adds so much more depth to this card than there was to begin with.
Ainok Survivalist	This deck has a couple of ways to get rid of artifacts or enchantments, but it needs more. And having one that synergizes well with the deck is always preferential.
Nantuko Vigilante	Just like Ainok Survivalist, Nantuko Vigilante is another synergistic way to deal with pesky artifacts and enchantments. The more ways we can do this with creatures, the less likely we will whiff on the manifest dread triggers.

Using the cart optimizer on Mana Pool, my total came out to $13.69, including S&H. That even gives us a couple extra bucks to spare in case we want to swap in a couple MDFC lands or other flashy cards.

But what should we take out for these 20 cards? These cards can hit the bin:

Card to Remove	Reasoning
Body of Knowledge	Body of Knowledge is essentially a one-use draw card spell that relies on our opponents' decision-making. Not ideal for the deck, and it isn’t something we typically want to see.
Citanul Hierophants	With so much land ramp in this deck, having our creatures tap for mana is not a big deal. We’d much rather have a big bomb or a land-ramp spell taking this card’s place.
Giggling Skitterspike	A fun new card from the set, but it lacks synergy with our deck. Not really worth dumping all of the mana into this, even if we do cheat it into play.
Glitch Interpreter	While this does have some synergy with our deck, by the time Glitch Interpreter is able to stay on the field, our opponents are likely to have blockers for our morph creatures. It doesn’t do as much as it looks like, unfortunately.
Hydra Omnivore	This card does have the surprise factor if it’s face down, but once you get one hit in (if you can), you are likely to not get any more. It’s a good card, but it isn’t very useful to deal with the problems our deck faces.
Kianne, Corrupted Memory	Kianne is a solid card, but it doesn’t really do much for us here. Without building around Kianne, we are at her mercy. We should want a card that is always useful to us, not just sometimes.
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter	Rashmi goes more with Kianne than with Zimone. We are going to be spending most of our mana on low-level spells and flipping over creatures, not doing much on opponents’ turns. Rashmi wants us to cast on every turn, which this deck isn’t built for.
Shigeki, Jukai Visionary	Shigeki is just too slow for us. Four mana to get one extra land and mill us isn’t worth it, especially since we are already milling ourselves a lot.
Yavimaya Elder	If this got lands onto the battlefield, it would be an auto-include, but it doesn’t.
Ezuri’s Predation	A neat semi-board wipe. Costing 8 mana isn’t a big deal, but it won’t deal with many problematic creatures.
Biomass Mutation	No trample, so we already have to be in a great position to close the game, while dumping a ton of mana into it. It isn’t worth it.
Cackling Counterpart	This card is nice, but adding creatures that want to flip over means a copy won’t do much. Plus, putting it in the graveyard for manifest dread only makes it a 7 mana copy, which isn’t ideal.
Zimone’s Hypothesis	This board wipe can be game-changing, but it won’t deal with enough problematic creatures. The floor is too low, and we should want a card that’s always useful.
Augur of Autumn	This card is great, but it doesn’t add much to our gameplan. Playing lands from the top of our library is nice, but without ways to play multiple lands in one turn, it’s better to have a big bomb or ramp piece in this slot.
Retreat to Coralhelm	Scrying before our commander’s ability is nice, but it’s more of a setup card. I’d rather manifest dread early and play bigger bombs later.
Overgrown Zealot	Solid creature ramp, but we want our ramp to be land-based. The synergy doesn’t matter as much since our commander flips over our creatures if we get enough lands.
Kefnet, The Mindful	A great surprise attacker while face down with added synergy, but it can be tricky to attack or block while face up. I’d rather get more value out of my hand than hold things up for another blocker.
Growing Dread	Not a bad card, but it doesn’t do enough for us. Manifest dreading into it won’t make us happy, and the static ability is nice but not game-changing.
Trail of Mystery	We don’t want to add basic lands to our hand in this deck. Most of our ramp already finds them and puts them onto the battlefield. Once we’re out of basics, this card won’t help.
Temple of the False God	A solid land for big mana decks, but we need our commander to get going immediately. Any opening hand with this will slow us down.

I would also recommend adding 5ish more basic lands to the deck, and taking out a couple of the tap lands, just because we want to not run out of them so easily as we are ramping. But there you have it. I hope you found this helpful and insightful. Go have some fun with your friends, and please let us know how the deck treats you.

Make sure to check out the Chaotic Commander YouTube channel. There you’ll find other Precon Upgrades, deck techs, and gameplay videos!