Magic: The Gathering‘s fall set Dominaria United previews will begin on Aug. 18, giving players a look at the first chapter in a multi-set story involving the devious Phyrexians and steadfast Gatewatch.
Dominaria United will be released digitally on Sept. 1 followed by a worldwide tabletop release on Sept. 9. With the release of the set, Standard will rotate, creating an entirely new Standard and Alchemy environment for players to brew decks in.
Before the official previews start, Mark Rosewater, senior game designer at Wizards of the Coast, published his Dominaria United teaser blog. Every set, Rosewater hints at what cards and mechanics are coming in the upcoming set.
The Dominaria United teaser is less dense than some previous sets, but there are still some interesting nuggets of information throughout.
Here are some of Rosewater’s teasers and what they could mean.
“A new evergreen counter”
A mechanic becoming evergreen is a big deal. It means it will become a permanent fixture in Magic design in future sets. An example of an evergreen counter is a +1/+1 counter. The last evergreen mechanic added to Magic was Ward from Strixhaven: School of Mages. It was an improvement on Hexproof and Shroud, allowing for creature cards to have protection without being too difficult to interact with.
With the set being in Dominaria and most recent sets having a high number of legendary cards, this new evergreen counter could be a legendary counter.
“A blue card with ‘destroy all creatures'”
The boldest thing Wizards could do is reprint Supreme Verdict. It is a Blue and White card that destroys all creatures. That’s not going to happen. U/W Control already has plenty of dominant tools in Standard and injecting one of the best board wipes in Magic would make the deck overpowered.
That likely leads to this card being a mass polymorph effect similar to Pongify and Rapid Hybridization. It would destroy all creatures and then replace them with a smaller, weak token. Those tokens could be frogs, a niche creature type that has gotten support in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Innistrad: Crimson Vow, and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.
“Three original Weatherlight crew members are in the set”
The skyship Weatherlight and its crew were at the center of the original Phyrexian storyline from Weatherlight to Apocalypse. Throughout Magic‘s history, the members have appeared on cards. Many members made an appearance in the first Dominara set in 2018.
Here are the names of the original crew of the Weatherlight:
- Gerrard Capashen
- Captain Sisay
- Hanna
- Tahngarth
- Orim
- Ertai
- Karn
- Mirri
- Crovax
- Rofellos
- Starke il-Vec
- Squee
- Multani
Three original crew members will be in Dominaria United. One is clearly Karn, a key character in the set’s storyline. Squee, Multani, Tahngarth, Gerrard, and Sisay have made recent appearances in Magic supplemental sets. It will likely be a character that hasn’t appeared in a while, like Starke il-Vec or Mirri.
“Enchantment creatures you control have”
This piece of card text reveals a minor Enchantment theme in Dominaria United. It also shows that the Enchantment strategies introduced in Neon Dynasty will be receiving support with rotation, positioning them to be a top-tier archetype in the coming Standard environment.
“Vehicles you control have crew 1”
Vehicles were given substantial support in Standard in Neon Dynasty. The archetype has set to make an impact on the format, lagging behind other strong aggro options. Vehicles have taken hold in Pioneer with the combo deck built around Greasefang, Okiba Boss. Dominaria from 2018 included plenty of Artifact support and Dominaria United will likely follow that trend. Look for Vehicle strategies to be elevated in Standard and Pioneer.
“Legendary Creature – Frog Beast”
This has to be something related to Yargle, the vanilla Frog Spirit that became one of the most popular cards in Dominara due to its ridiculous 9/3 stat line and fun flavor text. A return to Dominaria must include some reference to Yargle.
