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Wizards of the Coast has lifted the lid on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Magic: The Gathering’s next🐷 major set, Dominaria United. Kicking off the game’s 30th anniversary celebrations, it’s bringing back Magic’s original setওting of Dominaria, and a cast of characters we’ve not seen in far, far too long.
While the sneak preview didn’t reveal any new mechanics, we saw lots of interesting art styles, reimagined characters, and some of the most gorgeous lands we’ve ever hꦐad. Here’s everything we saw in the Dominaria United sneak preview event.
Showcase Art Styles
Ever since 2019’s Throne of Eldraine, each Magic set has featured at least one 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:‘showcase’ art style. Some have been better than others, but Dominaria United is bringing back one we’ve not seen outside of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a Secret Lair promotion: Stained-Glass Treatment.
Basic lands in the set will feature this art style in full-frame treatments by Magali Villeneuve. They’re highly reminiscent of the Theros: Beyond Death constellation lands with the large land icon dominating the centre of the card, but these are integrated into vistas from across Dominaria. These are available in foil and non-foil printings, an𝓡d will be found in all kinds of booster packs, including Draft, Set, Collector’s and the new Jumpstart packs.
The lands aren’t the only cards to be getting the stained-glass treatment, thoug𒁃h. One other card was shown ofܫf with it, and it’s one of the returning Planeswalkers for the set: Jaya, Fiery Negotiator. The effect here is a lot more subtle, with Jaya herself being in a normal level of detail and only the background being in the stained-glass style. However, Wizards has already confirmed we’ll be seeing more of this style throughout the full preview season next month.
Legendary Creatures Aplenty
As Dominaria is where Magic began, and where it stayed for most of its first few years, it’s become home to a lot of characters who play major parts in its lore such as Karn, Liliana Vess, Jaya, Braids, Ajani, and Teferi. 2018’s Dominaria had a legendary-matters theme with a huge number of legendary creatures, and Dominaria United is continuing that tradi💯tion.
Every💦 single Dominaria United booster pack has at leastꦯ one legendary card, with 40 of those being legendary creatures.
This does seem to imply that there will be other kinds of legendary spells as well; aside from planeswalkers, our last trip to Dominaria also featured legendary instants, sorceries, enchantments, and artifacts. We also just saw legendary lands in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, so ma🧸ybe we’ll be seeing some more come in Dominaria United as well.
Legends Retold
Box toppers are promo cards that are bundled in with booster boxes, and are often some of the rarest and most valuable cards in the set. For Dominaria United, rather than just be an alternate versio♏n of one of the set’s cards, Wizards is ‘reimagining’ legendary creatures from 1994’s Legends set and upgrading them for the modern day.
Many of Magic’s oldest legendary creatures are rather naff by today’s standard. For example, Ramirez DePietro cost six mana for a 4/3 with first strikꦿe and no other abilities. On the other hand, Legends Retold’s Ramirez DePietro is a 4/3 that costs just four mana, makes Treasure tokens, and lets you steal cards off of the top of your opponents’ libraries by dealing damage with Pirates.
The other two Legends Retold cards confirmed so far are the vanill💝a tribal commander Jasmine Boreal of the Seven, and the damage boosting Rakdos (red/black) Tor Wauki the Younger. There are said to ꦅbe another 17 on offer in booster boxes as box toppers, or in Collector’s boosters in both non-foil and etched-foil editions.
These are not part of the main Dominaria United set, and won’t be Standard-legal, but it gives Wizards a chance to revisit some characters who have been previously tied up🌳 in the Reserved List – a policy that prevents Wizards from reprinting certain cards from early in Magic’s history.
Lost Legends
Legends Retold isn’t the only way Wizards is looking back on 1994’s Legends. Allegedly, it uncovered 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a loܫst stockpile of Legends booster packs in a warehouse in Washington, and has carefully cracked every pack to include cards from them in three precent♏ of all Dominaria United Col𒅌lector’s boosters.
While some cards from Legends aren’t❀ being included, such as those barred from the game for being racist or problematic, there is still an incredibly small chance that you might pull a $4,000 cards like The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale.
Whether the story about there being a lost trove of Legends booster packs is true or just a way to side-step the Reserved List by claiming they’re not reprints, this is possibly the only way many newer players will ever get their hands on cards f💦rom Legends.
Dominaria United: Jumpstart
Dominaria United is doing away with Theme boosters, and replacing them with a brand-new type of pack called a Jumpstart booster. Based on 2020’s popular Jumpstart set (and the upcoming 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Jumpstart 2022), each Dominaria 💝United: Jumpstart pack will be t𓆉hemed around one of ten themes.
By taking two 20-card packs, adding a few lands, and shuffling them together, you’ve go♍t a ready-made deck you can play straight away. Each set’s Jumpstart boosters will be designed with earlier sets in mind, allowing you to mix Dominaria United, Brothers’ War, Jumpstart 2022, and other future packs together for a constantly expanding limited format.
While we don’t know what each of these themes do ꧅mechani💯cally, Wizards has named all ten themes you’ll find in Dominaria United’s Jumpstart packs:
|
Colour |
Theme #1 |
Theme #2 |
|
White |
Coalition Corps |
Coalition Legions |
|
Blue |
Mystic Mischief |
Arcane Mischief |
|
Black |
Totally Ruthless |
Totally Merciless |
|
Red |
Ready to Charge |
Ready to Attack |
|
Green |
Beast Territory |
Monster Territory |
Dominaria United’s Commander Decks
As with all Standard sets these days, Dominaria United is coming with a collection of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Commander preconstructed decks. It seems almost quaint to have just two decks after the four of Baldur’s Gate and the five of Streets of New Capenna, buܫt what we’ve got on offer here sounds incredible.
Though we don’t know the specific cards for either deck yet, we do know each is being fronted by a huge name in Magic’s lore. The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mardu (black/white/red) Legends’ Legacy is being led by Geyadrone Dihada (last seen in Modern Horizons 2), and the title suggests some kind of Legends-matters theme that opeওns the chance for this to be stuffed full of potential commanders to take out and build for.
The second deck is a rarity for preconsღtructed decks: it’s all five colours. Simply named ‘Painbow’, this deck will be led by a new Jared Carthalion card (who was last seen in Commander Legends). Five-colour decks are often difficult for newcomers to play with, and the last time we saw one was in 2017’s Draconic Domination deck led by a creature that has become a big name in Commander in the years since: The Ur-Dragon.
Unusually, Dominaria United is🎃 breaking from the tradition of revealing the Commander decks after the main set’s previews h🍷ave already finished. Instead, both decks will be the first major reveals, with Jared and Dihada being revealed on August 18 at the Wizards Presents showcase, and the rest of the decks coming the day after on August 19.
Dominaria United’s story will be released through the official Magic website between August 10 and August 18. That same day is the Wizards Presents showcase, which will serve as the set’s debut stream𒆙 and the start of its formal spoiler season until August 2🎃6.
Domi✅naria United launches on MTG Arena and Magic Online on September 1, with the tabletop release following on Septembe🌼r 9.