Magic is turning 25 this year, and yours truly isn’t far behind. 25 long
glorious years of spell slinging, creature casting and mana flooding.
To celebrate this incredible anniversary Wizards have decided to go back
to where it all began with Dominaria.
For those of your that don’t know about Dominaria it was the original plane of existence in the Multiverse, most early printed sets took place on Dominaria as opposed to nowadays being shifted away from Dominaria to explore new lands. However, Dominaria will always hold the crown of flavour and, as some believed, importance in the Multiverse: the Serra angels called the plane “The Wheel” as they believed that things that happen on Dominaria had a trickle down effect that would then go on to affect many other planes. This main plane in the Multiverse holds a lot of stories and has housed many legends and planeswalkers, now it has returned basking in flavour and theme to re-educate players of Magic’s history.
Today I’m going to take a look at the keywords, mechanics, themes and cycles in Dominaria in preparation for its release next week, so let’s dive right in.
The immediate aspect of Dominaria that will catch players eyes is that it’s full of Legends. Legendary creatures are running around everywhere, usually they only appear at rare but every now and again there are exceptions made. There are a whopping 42 Legendary creatures in Dominaria and a decent chunk of them are at uncommon, there are obviously more Legendary permanents in the Set such as planeswalkers And Artifacts but Dominaria has gone all out to impress. It’s off to a good start right out the gates.
Stories of the old days have been told again and again over the years, sometimes losing, or even gaining, elements through each iteration. Dominaria remembers every little detail of those tales even if it’s story tellers don’t.
Saga’s are a brand new card type to Dominaria, they bring with them a new layout and mechanical working.
Saga’s are enchantments that represent certain moments in Magic’s history, the art is depicted in a vertical tapestry with the text box running parallel.
Saga’s work similarly to normal enchantments: they have a mana cost to cast them and they hang around on the battlefield until they are either destroyed or in this case they reach the end of their story.
As you can see, Saga’s have three chapters to them to show story progression. Each chapter represents a different stage in the story that Saga is telling and is recognised by a lore counter that gets placed on the Saga enchantment whenever it enters the battlefield or after your draw step. Each time a lore counter is placed on a Saga it triggers the chapter effect for the amount of counters on it: the first lore counter placed on the Saga when you cast it will trigger the first chapter, the second lore counter will trigger the second chapter and the third lore counter will trigger the third chapter, after which the Saga is sacrificed. Adding lore counters to a Saga doesn’t use the stack, you can’t forget or choose not to put one on the Saga it just happens. Each triggered ability does use the stack however and therefore can be responded to. There may come situations where you add multiple lore counters to a Saga in the same turn, at which point the triggered abilities of the chapters will be placed on the stack in the order the lore counters were put on the Saga, for example if you control Doubling Season: when you cast a Saga you will put a lore counter it as it enters the battlefield, Doubling Season states that when one or more counters is put onto a permanent you control place twice that many on it instead. So the Saga would come into play with two lore counters on it and the effects of the first two chapters will trigger and use the stack.
Saga’s are a great new addition to Magic and I think will bring with them a plethora of new avenues and strategies.
Next up are Legendary Sorceries.
For those of your that don’t know about Dominaria it was the original plane of existence in the Multiverse, most early printed sets took place on Dominaria as opposed to nowadays being shifted away from Dominaria to explore new lands. However, Dominaria will always hold the crown of flavour and, as some believed, importance in the Multiverse: the Serra angels called the plane “The Wheel” as they believed that things that happen on Dominaria had a trickle down effect that would then go on to affect many other planes. This main plane in the Multiverse holds a lot of stories and has housed many legends and planeswalkers, now it has returned basking in flavour and theme to re-educate players of Magic’s history.
Today I’m going to take a look at the keywords, mechanics, themes and cycles in Dominaria in preparation for its release next week, so let’s dive right in.
The immediate aspect of Dominaria that will catch players eyes is that it’s full of Legends. Legendary creatures are running around everywhere, usually they only appear at rare but every now and again there are exceptions made. There are a whopping 42 Legendary creatures in Dominaria and a decent chunk of them are at uncommon, there are obviously more Legendary permanents in the Set such as planeswalkers And Artifacts but Dominaria has gone all out to impress. It’s off to a good start right out the gates.
Stories of the old days have been told again and again over the years, sometimes losing, or even gaining, elements through each iteration. Dominaria remembers every little detail of those tales even if it’s story tellers don’t.
Saga’s are a brand new card type to Dominaria, they bring with them a new layout and mechanical working.
Saga’s are enchantments that represent certain moments in Magic’s history, the art is depicted in a vertical tapestry with the text box running parallel.
Saga’s work similarly to normal enchantments: they have a mana cost to cast them and they hang around on the battlefield until they are either destroyed or in this case they reach the end of their story.
As you can see, Saga’s have three chapters to them to show story progression. Each chapter represents a different stage in the story that Saga is telling and is recognised by a lore counter that gets placed on the Saga enchantment whenever it enters the battlefield or after your draw step. Each time a lore counter is placed on a Saga it triggers the chapter effect for the amount of counters on it: the first lore counter placed on the Saga when you cast it will trigger the first chapter, the second lore counter will trigger the second chapter and the third lore counter will trigger the third chapter, after which the Saga is sacrificed. Adding lore counters to a Saga doesn’t use the stack, you can’t forget or choose not to put one on the Saga it just happens. Each triggered ability does use the stack however and therefore can be responded to. There may come situations where you add multiple lore counters to a Saga in the same turn, at which point the triggered abilities of the chapters will be placed on the stack in the order the lore counters were put on the Saga, for example if you control Doubling Season: when you cast a Saga you will put a lore counter it as it enters the battlefield, Doubling Season states that when one or more counters is put onto a permanent you control place twice that many on it instead. So the Saga would come into play with two lore counters on it and the effects of the first two chapters will trigger and use the stack.
Saga’s are a great new addition to Magic and I think will bring with them a plethora of new avenues and strategies.
Next up are Legendary Sorceries.
Legendary Sorceries don’t work in the same way as Legendary permanents as you may have imagined. Where two of the same Legendary permanent will result in you having to sacrifice one, two of the same Legendary Sorceries can’t be in play at the same time (just possibly on the stack). To cast a Legendary Sorcery there is a little bit of criteria you need to meet, controlling a legendary creature or planeswalker to be specific. This doesn’t effect how many of a Legendary Sorcery card you can have in your deck or anything just the timing of playing one, so it may need some extra thought when putting one into your deck.
Legendary
Sorceries also provide a look into stories throughout Magic’s history,
for example Urza’s Ruinous Blast shows of the exact point of Urza’s
final act to end the Brother’s War, destroying almost everything the
blast touched.
So, the first two were different and new card types, modifications on an existing template. Dominaria also brings a new keyword into the game of Magic, Historic.
Historic brings together three different card types and puts them under one label - Legendary, Saga and Artifact. Bringing these card types together opens up more design space, for example...
I like the bringing together of Legendaries, Saga’s and Artifacts as Historic, it makes a lot of sense to me. A Legendary permanent or even new Legendary Sorceries are supposed to be important and pivotal characters, objects or events that may have gone down in history. The Saga’s are obviously records of times and moments in various stories through Magics existence. Artifacts probably hit this best for me though as an Artifact is an object that may have been lost or hidden for a long time, it may contain some sort of power or have been imbued with a spell that could be used for various purposes. Ultimately though, the one thing that all of these have in common is that there will usually only be one, I don’t mean in a deck or in a game of Magic but in the story: you’re only going to have a Planeswalker or Legendary permanent show up in a single form in a story, whichever event a Legendary Sorcery is depicting will most probably only happen once in a story and there is usually only unique Artifacts that will be found or uncovered in a story. Historic makes sense to me and I think the design space this new keyword has opened will be making waves and showing us different points of view for cards in the years to come.
So those are the new card types and terms that Dominaria is being to the table but what about Keywords abilities?
The first keyword Dominaria has to offer that I want to talk about is Crew. Some of you may remember Crew originally from Kaladesh block, or even its quick return in Ixalan block, as a way to turn certain Artifacts into creatures. It’s pretty straight forward: the word Crew will appear on some Artifacts with the subtype Vehicle along with a number, so for example it might be “Crew 2”. What this means is to turn that Vehicle into a creature you need to tap any number of creatures with a combined power of 2. You can Crew a Vehicle at any point you could cast an instant so you can do it in your opponent’s turn, the Vehicle will become a creature until the end of the turn, able to attack or block. There is only one card in Dominaria that has the keyword Crew, but even though its the only one its a very important card.
So, the first two were different and new card types, modifications on an existing template. Dominaria also brings a new keyword into the game of Magic, Historic.
Historic brings together three different card types and puts them under one label - Legendary, Saga and Artifact. Bringing these card types together opens up more design space, for example...
I like the bringing together of Legendaries, Saga’s and Artifacts as Historic, it makes a lot of sense to me. A Legendary permanent or even new Legendary Sorceries are supposed to be important and pivotal characters, objects or events that may have gone down in history. The Saga’s are obviously records of times and moments in various stories through Magics existence. Artifacts probably hit this best for me though as an Artifact is an object that may have been lost or hidden for a long time, it may contain some sort of power or have been imbued with a spell that could be used for various purposes. Ultimately though, the one thing that all of these have in common is that there will usually only be one, I don’t mean in a deck or in a game of Magic but in the story: you’re only going to have a Planeswalker or Legendary permanent show up in a single form in a story, whichever event a Legendary Sorcery is depicting will most probably only happen once in a story and there is usually only unique Artifacts that will be found or uncovered in a story. Historic makes sense to me and I think the design space this new keyword has opened will be making waves and showing us different points of view for cards in the years to come.
So those are the new card types and terms that Dominaria is being to the table but what about Keywords abilities?
The first keyword Dominaria has to offer that I want to talk about is Crew. Some of you may remember Crew originally from Kaladesh block, or even its quick return in Ixalan block, as a way to turn certain Artifacts into creatures. It’s pretty straight forward: the word Crew will appear on some Artifacts with the subtype Vehicle along with a number, so for example it might be “Crew 2”. What this means is to turn that Vehicle into a creature you need to tap any number of creatures with a combined power of 2. You can Crew a Vehicle at any point you could cast an instant so you can do it in your opponent’s turn, the Vehicle will become a creature until the end of the turn, able to attack or block. There is only one card in Dominaria that has the keyword Crew, but even though its the only one its a very important card.
Next up is a keyword that has graced multiple sets and always goes down well, Kicker. Kicker is an additional cost on some cards that is option to pay, you will choose whether or not you want to pay the Kicker cost when casting the spell, you can’t pay it after an opponent has responded to the spell. Kicker effects range, some may just have you put a number of +1/+1 counters on the creature where others can give you card draw. Those are just two of the possible effects but the main thing to focus on is that Kicker gives you an additional effect but doesn’t have to be paid, you can just play the spell for its regular mana cost if you want.
Lastly with the keywords is Hexproof. Some of you may be thinking “we know what Hexproof does, it’s nothing special now it’s been in multiple sets.” Dominaria does Hexproof slightly differently, instead of a creature just having Hexproof in Dominaria some creatures have Hexproof from a certain colour: For example Hexproof From Black.
Hexproof from a colour is effectively Wizard’s most recent attempt at an older mechanic Protection. The problem with Protection from a colour is that if a creature had Protection from red not only could it survive any red spells thrown its way but it also took no damage when it blocked a red creature. This was a little unbalanced sometimes and players weren’t a fan. Hexproof from a colour fixes those issues: it can’t be target by the mentioned colour but can still be damaged by creature or global spells of that colour.
Finally, the cycles of Dominaria. We’ve already looked at Saga’s and Legendary Sorceries, both big cycles in Dominaria, but there are some cycles at lower rarities, but no less important, full of flavour.
Triple colour creatures: There is a cycle of five creatures all with the mana cost MMM. That’s three mana and all of the same colour, with a commitment to one colour such as this these creatures have been pushed a little further than an easier to cast three mana creature.
Memorial lands: Five lands that all have activated abilities but also all refer to a character in Magic’s story: Memorial Of Glory for example depicts a memorial to Gerrard Capashen.
Enemy check lands: Some of those words may be confusing for some readers so I’ll explain what I mean. Enemy in this context refers to enemy colours, colours that aren’t aligned parallel on the colour wheel. (Turn over a Magic cars to see the colour wheel, it will show you which colours are allied, the colours to the left and right of a colour, or enemy, colours opposite diagonally.)
The check part refers to the effect of the card. For example, when these lands comes into play they check to see if you control one or the land types of the colours the check land produces.
The land part means it’s a land but these tap for two different colours of mana, making them dual lands.
That brings us to the end of our look at the keywords, mechanics, themes and cycles of Dominaria. I can’t wait to play with this set in constructed and how powerful some of the new card types are along with some choice new creatures and spells. Remember, the prerelease is this weekend so if you want a sneak peak at the set be certain to make your way to your local games store who I’m sure will be holding an event.
Keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates and definitely come back next week when I’ll be looking through all of the cards from Dominaria one by one.
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