Dominaria United

If Magic: the Gathering has a spiritual home, it is the plane of Dominaria, the original setting way back when the game was just a baby. However, while our last visit in 2018 played homage to those very early sets in the infancy of Magic, Dominaria United, the newest (and 93rd!) instead riffs on the legends of the Invasion block that transfixed players at the turn of the millenium.

Returning to the familiarity of the plane of Dominaria, players will be reunited with the struggles of Teferi and Karn and their efforts to stop the Phyrexians from destroying the multiverse. Dominaria United is the first in a story arc that will cover four sets in total in changing the entire narrative destiny of Magic: the Gathering!

In returning to Dominaria, it makes sense that Wizards of the Coast would ease the transition by linking the set mechanically to the previous visit to Invasion. As such, one of the most beloved mechanics in Magic: the Gathering, Kicker, makes a reappearance. Kicker allows players to pay an extra cost when casting a card in exchange for an additional bonus effect. This flexibility makes a card more intrinsically powerful at different points in the game depending on where in the mana curve a player needs it and what mana they have available to them. 

Domain is a keyword that rewards a player for utilising as many of the five basic land types as possible on the battlefield. Cards with the Domain ability will have their effects modified based on the number of different basic land types used to cast them. This forces players to constantly balance the risk and reward of keeping a deck as streamlined and focused as possible with the advantages of maximising the potential of each card available to them. 

Enlist is an ability that is completely new to Dominaria United, allowing players to tap another creature that is unaffected by summoning sickness to add its power to a creature with the keyword printed on it. This has the potential pseudo-effect of allowing creatures to be involved in combat indirectly, especially if the Enlist ability is paired with other keywords such as Trample, First Strike or landwalk. 

Read Ahead is a modification of the Saga ability introduced in the original Dominaria set. With Read Ahead, rather than the Saga simply starting with chapter one and continuing until it is complete, the player chooses which chapter it begins with. Again, this provides much-needed flexibility with a player having the ability to trade efficiency for a specific ability if the current board state requires it. 

The final new mechanic in Dominaria United is the stun counter and this has been made evergreen, ensuring we will see it again in subsequent sets. If a tapped permanent with a stun counter on it would be untapped, instead it remains tapped and a stun counter is removed from it. Most often this will hit creatures, removing them from combat for multiple turns but the flexibility of the mechanic allows it to also hit other permanents including lands, potentially denying the opponent precious resources.  

While not technically new mechanics, Dominaria United also has a huge emphasis on both legendary creatures and multicoloured cards. Every booster of this latest set is guaranteed to contain a legendary creature! While this can have interesting implications when building limited decks, it also has a huge impact on wider formats such as Commander giving players new toys to play with during deck design. 

One final interesting new addition to Dominaria United, is the addition of ‘Lost Legends’. 3% of Collector Boosters of Dominaria United will contain an original card from the Legends set. These cards aren’t reprints - Wizards of the Coast have literally located a supply of Legends booster boxes from their warehouse, opening them up and seeding the individual cards into Dominaria United Collector Boosters. For the vast majority of players, this will be the best and only chance of ever getting their hands on a mint copy of legendary Magic: the Gathering cards such as The Abyss and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.

And so a vast array of exciting new mechanics, old cards (literally!) and new and the beginning of a multiverse-altering narrative arc all await us with the launch of Dominaria United. I strongly suspect this combination of nostalgia, story and the dice-roll of finding a rare and valuable piece of Magic: the Gathering history might make Dominaria United the most popular set in years. You can order everything you need from Dominaria United here on Chaos Cards right now!