Magic History: Dominaria

Magic Untapped takes a look back at Dominaria, the first set to take place on Magic: The Gathering's original plane in 11 years.

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Video Transcript:

April 27, 2018, saw the release of Dominaria.  It’s a set that would bring the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game back to its original setting for the first time since the release of the set Future Sight, which came out 11 years prior.

It’s also the first core expansion for the game that was not part of a block since, essentially, 1995 as Wizards of the Coast had done away with multi-set blocks in favor of one-and-done set releases – a practice still widely used today by the company.  In fact, Dominaria was initially planned as a two-set block, but those plans were scrapped and the two in-development sets (codenamed “Soup” and “Salad”) were merged together to create a single large set.

As for the story of Dominaria, part of it takes place concurrent to the events of the previous two sets – Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan – with the rest of the story occurring after the events of Rivals.

And, speaking of story, here is a summary of the story of Dominaria.

Having fled from their ill-fated confrontation against the dragonic planeswalker, Nicol Bolas, on the plane of Amohkhet, the nearly-defeated members of the Gatewatch (all, save for one) appear on Dominaria as was the plan post-battle.

Attitudes, to say the least, weren’t the best.  All were injured, Jace was missing, and Nissa was furious at Liliana for (as she put it) using the Gatewatch as a means to end one of her personal demons.

As Gideon, despite his own injuries, attempted to diffuse the situation, it came to light that Belzenlok, the fourth and final of Liliana’s contract-wielding demons just happens to reside on Dominaria.

Convenient.

Liliana, of course, wants the rest of the Gatewatch to assist her in felling him as well, telling the others that she could have easily assisted with defeating Bolas on Amonkhet has she not been held back by her pact.

Nissa wasn’t buying it.

Gideon steps in and defends the necromancer, saying that, in the end, she might be their best chance on defeating Bolas.

Nissa, though, didn’t care anymore.  She had seen too many planes fractured despite her oath to never let it occur again.  She planeswalked away, a part of the Gatewatch no longer.

As Gideon and Liliana begin to process Nissa’s departure, they’re greeted by more good news: Chandra, too, wants out of the Gatewatch.

Convinced that she was the reason for their failure on Amonkhet, she wanted to leave the team so that she could train and become stronger.  In a blaze of flame, the pyromancer, too, departs.

Liliana turns to Gideon, expecting him to follow the others to whatever place he’d rather be, the soldier’s resolve hadn’t waned.  If Liliana needs to be out of her pact to be able to best help defeat Nicol Bolas, then so be it.  He’ll do everything he can to help.

Comforted by his support, Liliana leads the two of them to Vess – the town that is her ancestral home.  Once there, she found a safe place in order to treat Gideon’s injury, calling upon her background as a cleric from her pre-planeswalker days.

The place she chose – the one near her family’s own manor – wasn’t as safe as she had thought.

The forest had, over time, become corrupted and was decaying.  The town, too, seemed all but nearly deserted and in a desolate condition.

Liliana led Gideon to an inn, one of the few structures still inhabited.  While there, she inquired as to what had happened to the town.

She learned that her family name had faded into obscurity, but that wasn’t the reason for the town’s demise.  Rather, it was due to the growing presence of a shadowy, cult-like organization called the Cabal.

The Cabal, which was originally isolated on the continent of Otaria and considered by most to be defuct, had spread since the days of the Mirari Conjecture thanks to its few remaining followers after they attempted a ritual to resurrect their god, Kuberr.

They didn’t resurrect Kuberr.  Rather, they accidentally summoned the demon Belzenlok.

The demon quickly took control of the cabal, moving their center of operations away from Otaria and to Urborg where the old Rathi Stronghold is.  He also transformed the group from one of extortion and underhanded business dealings to one that resembles a cult of death.

Cabal or no cabal, the innkeeper didn’t have any of the herbs Liliana needed to treat Gideon.  She went out into what was once a lush forest (now a blasted landscape) to find the herbs herself just as she had done in her youth.

Lost to her thoughts, she found herself wondering onto her family’s old manor.  To her amazement, her family home still stood.

Curiosity got the best of Liliana and she ventured into the house.  Inside, she found pools of dried blood, various runes carved into the floor, and a number of candles.  Some strange, sick ritual obviously had taken place there.

Liliana rushed back to town and found it under attack from the undead.  She used her talents for necromancy to repel the zombies and the cleric who was behind it.  As she did, though, a hollow voice whispered in her mind.

“The void awaits,” it said to her.

Just then, she sees a familiar face.

It’s Josu Vess, her long-dead brother.  The one she had accidentally killed when she was a young cleric attempting to cure him.  At least, it was Josu.  Now, he’s a lich transformed by Belzenlok and serving the Cabal.

It now made sense to Liliana what the ritual she uncovered within her family mansion was for.  It was for Josu.

Liliana vows to free Josu so that he may rest in peace.

The next day, Liliana ventures back out into the swamps.  This time, though, she’s looking for an old acquaintance of hers known simply as the Raven Man.  Once she locates him, she accuses him of being responsible for her brother’s condition and demands that he put him to rest.  An argument between the two ensues with the Raven Man simply disappearing and Liliana no better off.

The necromancer then turns to the Chain Veil, the cursed artifact in her possession that amplifies her powers (though at a personal cost).  Resigned, she feels it’s her only remaining option to save her brother from undeath.  But if she uses it, she likely won’t have enough power left within her to face Belzenlok which leads her to something else she doesn’t like having to do: Ask Gideon to assist her.

Back in town, she asks Gideon for help.  Without hesitation, he agrees.  With assistance from knights from nearby New Benalia, they disrupt the Cabal forces in the area and lure Josu back to Vess Manor.  There, Liliana led her brother back to the ritual site whereupon she drew power from the Chain Veil and blasted him in full force.

As her brother’s body dissolved, so too did the manor around her – the curse of the House of Vess broken and its magic fading into nothingness.  As he fades from existence, Liliana tells her brother to finally find rest.

Josu, in a final breath, tells his sister that the curse will remain so long as she remains as, when she thought she had killed him with her failed cure, she had instead cursed him with eternal unlife – an unlife that unraveled their family.

Josu’s damning words provided Liliana with resolve.  If she were a living curse, she would bring that curse to Belzenlok.

The deed now done, Gideon and Liliana accompany the New Benalish knights back to the city of New Benalia where they were to meet up with Ajani.  After waiting for a bit, they are greeted with a message instead: The pair should meet him not down in the city, but high up in the air.

What that message meant would become extremely clear as, high up above the city streets, they are met by not just the planeswalker, but a flying skyship: The Weatherlight.

The legendary skyship designed by Urza that was part of the Legacy Weapon that blasted Yawgmoth into nothingness centuries earlier during the Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria exists once more, having been repaired and retrofitted by Jhoira, an old age-defying pupil from Urza’s Tolarian Academy.

On that ship was, of course, Jhoira as captain along with a number of new faces – some of which were descendents from the skyship’s original crew: Shanna, descendent of former ship captain Sisay, Raff Capashen, a distant relative of former Weatherlight commander Gerrard Capashen, as well as newcomers Tiana, an angelic engineer, Arvad, a former New Benalish knight cursed with vampirism, ran security, along with a stowaway that Jhoira was not yet aware of in Slimefoot, a thallid that was attached to the ship’s wooden hull when it was just a saproling.  Once discovered, Slimefoot was kept around as the ship’s janitor of sorts.

Also on the ship, of course, was Ajani and, now that the ship had rendezvoused with Liliana and Gideon, them as well.

Ajani asked Gideon where the rest of the Gatewatch was as he was anticipating them being there as well.  Gideon confesses the massive failure on Amonkhet and how many of them went their own ways afterwards.  This upset Ajani as he felt that not having Nissa, Chandra, and Jace severley handicaps the team against Nicol Bolas.

Gideon then tells Ajani of the plan to confront Belzenlok to free Liliana from her demonic contract.  It’s something that Ajani finds to be a waste of time, saying instead that they should focus on finding more planeswalker allies to join the effort against Bolas.  Liliana held fast to their plan, which frustrated Ajani.  Angry, he planeswalks away.

Even though Ajani was gone (for now, anyway), Liliana and Gideon now had access to the Weatherlight and its crew.  What they need now is a plan and a little help from the inside of the Cabal.

Raff shared that he’s heard tales of the Cabal infiltrating his old wizards’ school, The Academy at Tolaria West, and that, if true, then perhaps the school had found and taken into custody a cabal agent.  The Weatherlight flies to the academy and are met with Jodah, Archmage Eternal, head of the school, and former lover of Jhoira, along with Naban, the school’s Dean of Iteration.

They inform the crew that, while the academy hasn’t captured any Cabalists, they had arrived at an opportune time as several students had just been found murdered and they believe a member of the cabal is responsible for the deaths.

Shanna, who has familiarity with Cabal tactics, suggested that Cabal operatives don’t typically kill indiscriminately – they do it with a purpose.  She thinks the murders might actually be a distraction from what’s really going on.

The corpses were being kept in a vault and laboratory not normally accessible by students due to the powerful and rare artifacts being housed within.  This rule was temporarily suspended, though, as students assisted with moving the bodies into the vault.  The thought is that a cabalist committed the murders in order to assist with moving the bodies, which would give that person access to the otherwise inaccessible area.  The question, though, is what would that person be after?

After some digging and looking around, they noticed one artifact missing and a person lurking in the shadows.  This person was, of course, a cabal agent.  After a scuffle, the cabalist was subdued and taken into custody by Jodah.

Raff cast a mind reading spell on the cabalist and was able to find some interesting information including something that caught Gideon’s attention:  The Cabal was in possession of a legendary artifact of yore called the Blackblade – a sword forged ages ago by the blacksmith planeswalker Dakkon that has the ability to consume the soul of those it slays.

Gideon thinks the sword might help give them an edge (pun intended) against not just Belzenlok, but against Nicol Bolas as well.  The crew decides that they need to find a way into the Cabal’s stronghold not just to confront the demon, but to also obtain the weapon.  But how?

For that, Jhoira had an old friend in mind: Her old planeswalker friend and time mage, Teferi Akosa.

While a planeswalker no longer after sacrificing his spark to seal a temporal rift during the time of the mending, he had been laying low and started a family while still trying to find a way to bring the kingdom of Zhalfir back into the time stream after phasing it out as a means to protect it during the Phyrexian Invasion.

The Weatherlight crew found Teferi and his daughter, Niambi, out near one of Urza’s old monuments as they were searching for some of the artificer’s old creations and relics.  The time mage’s past catching up to him once more, the crew and Teferi have a discussion about how they need his help and he, likely, need theirs.

As it turns out, Teferi and Niambi did need some assistance as they were having difficulty accessing the inside of the monument to retrieve the relic that lay inside.  With assistance from the crew, the father-daughter duo try again with success and Teferi gains access to the Starfield Orb, an artifact he believes will help him someday restore Zhalfir.

Back on the Weatherlight, Teferi agrees to join the crew on their quest.

While all of this was happening on Dominaria, Jace was on the remote plane of Ixalan trying to find himself and Chandra was on the plane of Regatha visiting the Keral Keep, a pyromancer monastery of sorts where she had received training when she was younger.  She was seeking to become stronger and better hone her skills.

At the monastery, she inquired about Jaya Ballard, a pyromancer planeswalker of yesteryear.  The abbots told her that Jaya had been long dead but Chandra still felt her presence and hoped that, if she could locate her, she could help train her.  She didn’t arrive at Keral Keep to find her, though.  Rather, she came to take Jaya’s goggles – an artifact sacred to the Keep’s abbots – and present them to the legendary pyromancer to help convince her to train her.

As she went in to pilfer the goggles, though, she was caught red-handed by her old mentor, Mother Luti.  Luti inquired as to what Chandra was doing there and why she needed the goggles.  Chandra frantically tried to explain herself, but Luti interjected and told her that she didn’t need Jaya’s help and that she should instead be focusing on assisting her friends.

This only infuriated Chandra.  She nearly literally explodes, yelling at her former mentor that she has no right to tell her what she needs.  The pissed-off pyromancer then planeswalks away in search of Jaya.

The search leads her back to Dominaria and the city of New Argive where she’s been told a powerful pyromancer has been assisting the city fend off attacks from a powerful dragon named Prossh.  After a few days in search in the areas around New Argive, she finds a kobold ambush party lying in wait for the New Argivians.  She gets the drop on them just in time to save the New Argive soldiers from attack.  After the scuffle, Chandra asks the commanding officer, Baird, whether or not Jaya Ballard had been assisting them recently.  Baird easily confirms this to Chandra and states that she’s on her way to the forest of Yavimaya as they speak.

Following Baird’s instructions, Chandra, too, heads in the direction of Yavimaya.

On the way there, the pyromancer happens upon an archeological dig site where a fight between treefolk and automated digging machines was taking place.  She also finds the one in charge of the dig.  It was the silver golem, Karn, who informed Chandra that he was digging in search of the Golgothian Sylex, the ancient artifact that ended the Brothers’ War in cataclysmic style, and that his dig site was under attack by elementals sent by the maro-sorcerer Multani who wanted the Sylex to stay forever hidden away and lost to history.

While Urza had used the cylex destructively on Dominaria back in antiquity, Karn had a different goal for the relic.  He wanted to take it to New Phyrexia and use it to destroy the Phyrexians on their home world so that they could no longer be a threat to the multiverse.  Multani, though, was too filled with rage to be reasoned with.

Chandra steps in and assists Karn fend off the treefolk just as another person shows up.  It’s Mother Luti.  Or, more appropriately, Jaya Ballard.

This revelation shocked Chandra.  Not only had she inadvertently known Jaya this whole time as Mother Luti, but she had studied under her unknowingly while a teenager at Keral Keep.

Once she had collected herself, Chandra approached Jaya and asked her to help her become a better pyromancer.  Jaya replied, saying to Chandra that she will in no way attempt to tutor her any more as she was fed up with her and her hot-headedness.

Just as Chandra was turning to Karn to get the golem to help her convince Jaya to agree, the digging machines struck their payload.  The Sylex had been found.  Almost in an instant, it seemed like all of Yavimaya went on the offensive.

As Karn turned to face the threat – one that included Multani himself this time – time froze.

The Weatherlight and its crew had arrived and Teferi froze time around them to allow a safe escape for Chandra, Karn, and Jaya.  Chandra, though, wasn’t quite ready to run.  She felt sorry for what had become of Multani and approached the mad maro-sorcerer.

She remembered the lessons she had learned from her dear friend, Nissa, on how to calm herself and applied those teachings to Multani.  Amazingly, it worked.

Multani’s rage-induced form began to change and relax.  The maro-sorcerer turned back into his own self once again and Teferi ended his time-stop spell.

Now open to reason, Karn tells Multani of his plans to take the Sylex to New Phyrexia and Mulitani gives Karn his blessing to do so.

Seeing this display, Jaya thinks that there might be some maturity in Chandra this time around and agrees to assist her with additional training after all.

Jhoira, Karn, and Teferi now together again for the first time in who knows how long, the Weatherlight captain takes the opportunity to make an ask of her old friends.  Once they’ve taken care of business with Belzenlok and the cabal, would they be willing to help the Gatewatch kill Nicol Bolas?

Of course, that feat would be quite the undertaking – especially considering that Teferi no longer had the powers of a planeswalker.  Jhoira, however, had an ace up her sleeve.

Not too long before, she had used the Thran Mana Rig in Shiv – the very same that Urza used in preparation of the Phyrexian invasion – and located the remnants of Teferi’s sacrificed spark.  She had it incased within a powerstone shard and presented it to the time mage.

Teferi found himself conflicted at the notion of once again being a planeswalker and told her he would have to think on it.

Gideon and Liliana, meanwhile, were catching Chandra up on their plans to infiltrate the Cabal Stronghold and take on Belzenlok when Jace suddenly appeared onboard the Weatherlight next to them having finally escaped from Ixalan.  The mind mage instantly informed the other three that Nicol Bolas was planning a trap for planeswalkers, realized that they were still working with Liliana, warned Gideon and Chandra that they should definitely NOT be working with Liliana, then planeswalked away when the two rebuffed such a notion.

Teferi, after giving it some thought, felt that once again becoming a planeswalker probably not only gave them a better chance against Bolas – someone Teferi had previously fought against and lost – but also a better chance of restoring Zhalfir.  He accepted Jhoira’s offer and accepted his spark back, becoming a planeswalker once again.

The Weatherlight then flies to Urborg and lands on the outskirts of a small settlement not far from the Cabal’s stronghold.  The next day, the team put their plan into action.

Chandra, disguised as a cabalist, would bring Gideon (posing as a prisoner) into the stronghold as Teferi would use his time magic to accelerate their incursion into the stronghold.  Liliana, meanwhile, had raised a modest undead army from the swamps of Urborg to attack the stronghold as a distraction to allow them to search for the Blackblade.

While Chandra and Gideon had no problem slipping into the stronghold, things got a bit muddy as Teferi’s time spell expired and Liliana’s distraction never came.  The Weatherlight, too, was delayed thanks to being attacked by the ravenously hungry spirit monster Yargle.

Liliana’s assistance, as well as that of Jaya and many of the others, never came as they were busy defending the Weatherlight from the gluttonous frog spirit monster as it was attempting to literally eat the skyship.  Thankfully, Slimefoot was still onboard and was able to commune with the land and asked it for help.

That help arrives in the form of an immense elemental made up of slime, mud, and rot named Muldrotha.  The elemental grabs hold of Yargle and drags him down into the swamp.

Now free from the frog spirit, the Weatherlight resumes its path towards the Cabal Stronghold where things weren’t going so well.  Gideon, whom was posing as a prisoner, had been escorted to the Cabal’s fighting pits where he was being matched against other prisoners in blood-brawls.  One such prisoner who fought alongside him was Radha, a half-elf warrior from Keld.  Chandra wanted to help the two against the waves of pit fighters they were facing, but that would blow her cover.

Just then, alarms sound.  The stronghold is under attack.

In the chaos that ensued, Chandra noticed a cabalist cleric casting a spell into the fighting pit.  The spell caused a miasma to form in the pit, killing all that it touched.  Looking to help those who were still alive (Gideon included), Chandra blew her cover anyway and threw fireballs at the cleric then pulled the lever that opened a way out of the pit.

The cleric, Whisper, though snuck up on Chandra and whispered a death spell.  Gideon, thankfully, got out of the pit just in time to save Chandra from harm as Radha drove her weapon through the cleric’s skull.

While the other pit fighters escaped to combat the cabalists, Chandra, Gideon, and Radha dove deeper into the Stronghold and located its treasury.  They hastily locate the Blackblade and make their escape to the outside where a fierce battle was taking place.

There, they are finally confronted with Belzenlok himself.  With the Blackblade in hand, Gideon goes into battle with the powerful demon.  Liliana approaches and fires some death magic off in Belzenlok’s direction, which doesn’t do much damage but does get his attention.

She then begins taunting him, telling him that she’s already killed the other three who hold her contract and that he will be next.  This proved as a good distraction as Gideon prepared for a killing blow.

The demon, though, turned around just in time to knock Gideon down as he swung his sword.  The Blackblade, though, didn’t fall with him.  It had become lodged in Belzenlok’s leg.  As the demon went in for the kill, Liliana lunged in and grabbed the sword by its hilt, activating its soul-sucking magic as it siphoned the demon’s life force in but an instant.

Belzenlok was no more.  She was now free of the demons who held her contract.

As the dust settled and the crew was back aboard the Weatherlight, the Gatewatch offered Karn, Jaya, and Teferi to join the team in an official manner.  While Karn and Jaya declined for their own reasons, Teferi felt it necessary to pledge his loyalty to the cause.

“For the lost and forgotten, I will keep watch,” he says.

The Weatherlight then flies off into the distance as the six planeswalkers prepare to travel to Ravnica and rendevous with Jace there and prepare for their next confrontation with Nicol Bolas.

One by one, they each departed.  All, that is, save for Liliana who found herself somehow unable to planeswalk.  As she struggled for a reason, a looming, dark figure appeared before her.

While the four demons who held Liliana’s contract were now dead, the contract didn’t simply go away.  Rather, it defaulted back to the one who brokered the deal to begin with: Nicol Bolas.  And Bolas was there to collect on Liliana’s debt.

Essentially now a slave to Bolas, the dragonic planeswalker informed her that if she dared to defy him, their contractual pact would kill her as she would age hundreds of years in but a moment until she was naught but dust.

Bound to a duty she wished she didn’t have to follow, she joined Nicol Bolas and the pair departed from Dominaria.

And that does it for the story of Dominaria, but there’s still far more to say about the set itself.

As the set that was “bringing it all home” (as it were), the set’s design and development teams were full of many of the “who’s who” of Magic: The Gathering R&D.

First off, Mark Winters returned to serve as the set’s art director.

Development was co-led by Erik Lauer and Dave Humpherys with the likes of Doug Beyer, Ethan Fleischer, Ken Nagle, and Sam Stoddard all pitching in.

As for design…

<Gavin SOT>

The 279-card set (if you include the ten cards specific to the set’s two Planeswalker Decks) was available in traditional booster packs, a bundle, and the two aforementioned Planeswalker Decks – this time featuring the cards Teferi, Timebender and Chandra, Bold Pyromancer.

Wizards of the Coast also used Dominaria as a means to test a new type of booster pack: Theme Boosters.

Theme Boosters contain 35 cards (a variable quantity of commons and uncommons, and one rare or mythic rare) from a given color or theme.  They carried a MSRP of $6.99 ($8.90 in 2025 dollars).  The product was available at only 300 WalMart locations across North America as the company was hoping the smaller, more controlled sample size would better inform them on how to handle the product for future releases.

The overall theme for Dominaria on a set-wide level was history.  Wizards of the Coast did this through a few different ways.

First, there was a large number of legendary cards as well as a good amount of callbacks to cards, characters, creature types, and other references from the game’s past.

<MARO DTW>

Second, a new enchantment subtype known as “saga” was introduced as way to convey storytelling in card form with each of the cards chapters (as it were) firing off in sequential order first as an enter-the-battlefield effect, then progressing to the next chapter at the beginning of its controller’s first main phase, and finally being discarded from play just as soon as its final chapter fires off.

These saga cards highlight various important events from Dominaria’s past such as Triumph of Gerrard paying homage to the Weatherlight crew’s destruction of Yawgmoth during the Phyrexian Invasion, The Antiquities War representing the start, middle, and end of the war between brothers Urza and Mishra, and The Mending of Dominaria showing the Time Spiral crisis and paying homage to the planeswalkers who gave up their sparks and sometimes even their lives in order to save the multiverse from certain doom.

<MARO DTW>

And third, a new game terms called “historic” is introduced.  Historic cares about a card being cast that has either the legendary supertype, the saga subtype, and/or the artifact card type.

<MARO DTW>

Beyond historic (and everything related to it), Dominaria also featured two returning mechanics in Kicker and Crew with the latter appearing on a single card: Weatherlight.

The release of Dominaria also marked some changes to Magic.

First off, the set debuted the legendary card frame that features a special flourish at the top.  It also brought back the use of the thin line of demarcation in the card’s text box that separates that card’s rules text from its flavor text – a design choice that actually debuted in the beginner-level set Portal all the way back in 1997.

From a rules standpoint, Dominaria made even more changes to the collectible card game.

For starters, Wizards of the Coast used the set as a means to change the “Planeswalker Redirection Rule,” which was a way for the company to grandfather in direct damage cards printed before the existence of the planeswalker card type so that they can hit either players or planeswalkers despite not specifically saying so in the card’s rules text.  From here on out, these cards would be printed as saying they target “player or planeswalker” or simply “any target” if that so happens to be the case.

Another change was the elimination of the term “mana pool” on cards as Wizards saw the term as obsolete and confusing to newer players, though the term does still exist in the game’s basic rules.

Also, Wizards of the Coast stopped using the terms “he or she,” “him or her,” and “his or her” on cards, instead replacing the terms with the simple term “they.”

Finally, Wizards made it so that cards can simply refer to themselves as “this spell” in the rules text, which really just cleaned up some otherwise clunky phrasing that had been in use for years on certain cards.

Speaking of cards, there’s quite a bit to highlight with this set.

First off are the 25 reprints that appear in Dominaria.  While we aren’t going to mention every single one, we will call out a few for various reasons starting with:

• Aesthir Glider, an artifact creature from some of Magic’s earliest days. It was introduced in the 1996 set Alliances and hadn’t been printed since its appearance in the Anthologies boxed set from 1998;
• Gaea’s Blessing, an anti-mill sideboard staple that first appeared in 1997’s Weatherlight;
• Icy Manipulator, a card from Magic’s original core set from 1993 that was last seen as part of 2011’s Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas;
• Llanowar Elves, a fan favorite card that also debuted in the game’s original 1993 printing;
• Sage of Lat-Nam, a card that dates back to Antiquities, Magic: The Gathering’s second-ever expansion (though with its rarity changed from common in the original to uncommon in Dominaria);
• Serra Angel, yet another classic card from the game’s original release that had seen a number of reprints prior including in the 2017 supplemental set, Iconic Masters, and;
• Thorn Elemental, a card with an ability colloquially referred to as “super trample” that debuted in Urza’s Destiny and was last seen in 2003’s Eighth Edition, though its rarity had been downshifted from rare to uncommon this time around.

In terms of cycles, Dominaria has nine.  Perhaps most notable among them are:

• Mono-colored rare creatures, each costing three of a single color of mana and tie in strongly both flavor-wise and mechanically with that color;
• Legendary sorceries at rare, one for each color, that represent a core moment in Magic’s past on Dominaria;
• Memorials, which is a cycle of nonbasic lands at uncommon that come into play tapped, can tap for one of a color, and can be sacrificed for a color-appropriate ability;
• Mono-colored mythic rare legendary creatures from across contemporary Dominaria, and;
• Enemy-colored check lands, which are reprints of cards NOT found from Dominaria’s past, but rather the original Innistrad set instead for some reason.

Dominaria also had a handful of mirrored pairs, including:

• Academy and Ghitu Journeymages, each of which being a 3/2 wizards with an enter-the-battlefield ability;
• Knight of Grace and Knight of Malice, each of which are 2/2 knights with first strike and hexproof from the other’s color (with both being homages to the game’s original White and Black Knights from 1993), and;
• Wizard’s Retort and Wizard’s Lightning, which are instants that provide a discount when casting if you control a Wizard to mimic the iconic original Magic cards Counterspell and Lightning Bolt.

In terms of notable single cards, there’re a number worth mentioning:

• Cabal Stronghold, a nonbasic land at rare that can tap for a colorless mana and also has a second mana ability that pulls inspiration from the Torment card Cabal Coffers;
• Goblin Chainwhirler, a 3/3 with first strike for three red mana that deals one damage to each opponent and each of their creatures and planeswalkers. It was a popular inclusion in mono-red aggro decks;
• Helm of the Host, an equipment that copies whatever creature its on at the beginning of each of your combat phases;
• Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, a blue/red legendary creature that cares about cards that fall under the historic tag. It’s instantly became a favorite option for “artifact matters” decks in Commander;
• Lich’s Mastery, an alternate-loss card that is itself a callback to the card Lich from Magic’s original release;
• Mox Amber, the first new mox card printed since Mox Opal from the 2010 set Scars of Mirrodin;
• Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, a planeswalker card that quickly solidified itself as one of the more powerful ever printed despite having the relatively high casting cost of five (three generic plus a blue and a white). It’s a staple card in many different control builds, and;
• Weatherlight, the second version of the iconic skyship from Magic’s multi-year-spanning Weatherlight Saga, with the original Planeshift card being a legendary artifact and this new Dominaria version being printed as a crewable vehicle.

In terms of promotional cards, prerelease participants were given a random, foil, date-stamped rare or mythic rare (as is typical) as well as a randomized date-stamped foil legendary card.  The launch promo is Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp, the open house promo is a full-art Llanowar Elves, Steel Leaf Champion is the store championship promo, Zhalfirin Void is the Magic League promo, and the Buy-a-Box promo is the card Firesong and Sunspeaker.

At the time, this was the only way to get that card as it kicked off the short-lived trend of a set’s buy-a-box promo being exclusive and mechanically unique from everything else yet printed – something that was heavily scrutinized by the player base.  The card was finally reprinted in Double Masters 2022.

And, for a few final thoughts on Dominaria on the whole, here again is Magic: The Gathering Principal Designer, Gavin Verhey.

<GAVIN SOT>

So, what are your thoughts on Dominaria?  Please let us know is the comments.

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