Following the tantalizing reveals of Wizards Presents 2022, Dominaria United’s spoiler season is well underway. This has already given us new mechanics to digest and gut-punching reveals to cope through. Unlike a regular spoiler season, Dominaria United has a lot more on offer, thanks to Magic’s 30th-anniversary celebrations. These celebrations are bringing Lost Legends and Legends Retold cards to Dominaria United’s boxes and boosters. Thanks to the ongoing Doiminaria United spoiler season, we know precisely what these celebratory Legends Retold Box Toppers are, and they’re good.
Legends Retold
If you’ve not heard of it before, the Legends Retold Box Topper series in Dominaria United reimagines old legendary creatures. As the name suggests, these legendary creatures are from the 1994 set, Legends. As Wizards of the Coast noted when announcing this series, much to their chagrin, legendary creatures in Legends weren’t magnificent. This made them a ripe candidate for reimagining, as Legends’ legendary creatures deserved to be just that, legendary.
Thankfully, the Legends Retold series in Dominaria United does just that. By reimagining Legends’ legendary creatures with new art, stats, and abilities, WotC has new legendary creatures you may actually want to play. These Legends Retold cards are available primarily as the Dominaria United Box Toppers. The Legends Retold cards are also available in a foil etched treatment, exclusively within Collector Boosters.
It’s important to note that Legends Retold cards are technically part of Dominaria United Commander, not the main set. As a result, each of the 20 retold legends are only legal in Eternal formats, such as Commander.
A Commander Player’s Dream
As we’ve highlighted previously, Dominaria United is already chock full of legendary creatures, lords, and powerful cards. This makes the set an absolute dream for Commander players. The Legends Retold series, however, makes things even better for Commander fans. Comprised of twenty new and unique legendary creatures, Commander players are getting plenty of exciting options to helm their decks. While not all cards are destined to be the strongest commander ever printed, they are at least interesting.
Ramses, Assassin Lord, for instance, might not win you every game, but it will win you games in style. With the ability to outright win a Commander game by only eliminating one opponent, Ramses, Assassin Lord, is undoubtedly powerful. The downside, however, is that to trigger that effect, you must attack the opponent on the turn that they die. Thankfully, Ramses, Assassin Lord is more than just a niche effect, as they’re also, quite literally, an assassin lord. By giving +1/+1 to all assassins you control, Ramses, Assassin Lord will likely take up residence in many an assassin tribal deck.Across the Legends Retold collection of Box-Toppers, many an obscure mechanic and tribe is supported. The Lady of Otaria, for instance, will be incredibly powerful in a Dwarf tribal deck. With the ability to ignore their casting cost and poorly tutor dwarves after putting land into the graveyard, The Lady of Otaria can give relevant decks an incredible amount of gas. Niche effects like these can be seen across the Legends Retold series. For instance, Ohabi Caleria supports Archer tribal, and Jasmine Boreal of the Seven supports creatures with no abilities.
The Tribal Triumph
With weird and wonderful tribes and archetypes being supported, the Dominaria United Box-Toppers look like a lot of fun. These cards may not be the best for CEDH players. However, they’ll nevertheless inspire all manner of janky homebrews. For many players, this casual side to Commander is what makes the format so great.
While there appears to be a lot of fun to be had with Legends Retold cards, one major unknown remains; the price. Currently, on TCGplayer, Legends Retold’s presale ranges between $19.99 and $2.99. Since Legends Retold can only be found as Dominaria United Box-Toppers, or in Collector Boosters, the rarity of these cards is somewhat of an unknown. There’s also no telling how much demand there will be for these cards, as they’re undeniably niche. After all, how many MTG players are clamoring for an insect assassin commander?
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