Dominaria United: Release Date, Leaks, Spoilers & More!

The Dominaria United release date, leaks, and spoilers were exciting for a lot of people. Released back at the end of 2022, is the 93rd expansion in the nearly 30-year history of MTG. Don’t worry; we’re feeling old too.

Thanks to Dominaria United’s reveal stream, we have recently been inundated with details about Dominaria United. The spoiler season for this set has long gone, so we know all kinds of details relating to the set.

So without any further ado, let’s get into all the details, leaks, quirks, and features of Dominaria United.

Dominaria United Release Dates

Leaked Website Hints at Kamigawa As the Next MTG Set, Followed by Dominaria — Wizards of the Coast

Dominaria United will be subject to the same release schedule as all current standard MTG sets. This means that there was a prerelease one week before the official worldwide release of the set. For better or worse, Dominaria United also launched early on MTG’s digital clients.

Here are the current release dates we have for Dominaria United:

MTG Arena and Magic Online Release – Thursday, 1 September 2022
Prerelease Events – Friday, 2 September 2022
Worldwide Release – Friday, 9 September 2022

Dominaria United Key Dates

To go along with the release schedule for Dominaria United, Wizards of the Coast also confirmed a number of key dates. These dates include the start of card previews, when the story will be revealed, and when store championships will begin. Here’s a rundown of all the dates you need to know for Dominaria United.

Story Reveal – August 10th to August 18th
Worldbuilding Video – August 16th
Wizards Presents (featuring debut video and the start of card previews) – August 18th
Commander Previews Start Date – August 19th
Commander Previews End Date (Image gallery complete) – August 22nd
Dominaria United Card Previews End Date (Image gallery complete) – August 26th
Game Day – September 17th
Commander Party Events – September 30th to October 2nd
Store Championships – October 15th to November 2nd
Read More: Magic: The Gathering 2022 Release Calendar

Dominaria United Mechanics

dominaria united artwork — Wizards of the Coast

Dominaria United didn’t necessarily push any new MTG mechanics (aside from Enlist), but it did revisit multiple old ones. Many of these mechanics have been powerful in some point in MTG history, which has created quite a unique Draft environment.

Domain

Domain refers to a mechanic that cares about the number of Basic Land types you have under your control. The more Basic Land types you have, the more powerful your Domain payoffs become. For example, Yavimaya Sojourner is a 4/6 for eight which, on its own, is terrible. However, the card gets a one mana reduction in its casting cost for each Basic Land type you control. Should you control all five, this just costs three mana! The payoffs for Domain vary in each card’s case, but they all share a similarity of getting better for each Basic Land type you control.

Kicker

Kicker is an additional cost one can pay when casting a card. The cost of Kicker abilities vary case by case, and they generally offer an additional effect when the spell enters the battlefield.

This is pretty straightforward past that point, but one thing to mention with Kicker is that its not an alternate casting cost, but an additional cost instead. This means that, should you be casting a spell for free, you can instead just pay its Kicker cost to get the additional abilities. If you choose to cast the card for free, however, that does not mean that the Kicker cost is included.

Enlist

Enlist is a new mechanic that was released in Dominaria United. This one is a bit complex, but we will try to break it down. When attacking, a creature that can Enlist another creature can tap that creature during the declare attack step. If the creature with Enlist decides to Enlist another creature, the Enlist creature gains power equal to the Enlisted creature’s power. Past that point, additional bonuses can also trigger.

In order to Enlist a creature, the Enlisted creature cannot have summoning sickness. this means that the creature that is getting Enlisted should also be able to naturally attack. This can make the reason to Enlist a creature seem rather confusing if there are no additional benefits being granted by Enlisting.

Think of it this way: If you have a creature that you do not want to attack or block with, you can instead Enlist it to another attacking creature to give it a small buff. Otherwise, that creature won’t be doing anything!

Stun Counters

First introduced in Dominaria United, Stun Counters are a way to clean up a recurring effect that appeared constantly in previous MTG sets. Effects like Frost Lynx that tap down a target and don’t allow it to untap for a turn can be difficult to track. Stun Counters, essentially, are reminders that a creature cannot untap. Instead of untapping, a Stun Counter is removed.

Dominaria United Story

With Dominaria United being many moons old at this point, its eventful story has all been wrapped up. Not only have the ten story chapters come and gone, but the entire Phyrexian Arc has concluded. Despite this, however, Dominaria United’s story chapters are still well worth giving a read if you’re interested. After all, there were plenty of major moments and climactic revelations that happened!

Should you be looking for just a quick rundown of all the major moments, luckily for you, we’ve got that too. To start things off, Karn arrives on Dominaria, stumbles upon Sheoldred, and immediately gets captured. Thankfully, after two weeks Karn is rescued by Ajani and the two go off to warn the plane about the Phyreixans.

Unfortunately, despite seeing Sheoldred’s Restoration the denizens of Dominaria aren’t easily convinced. That is, at least, until a Karn captures a bird that’s a hidden Phyreixan spy. Once this was revealed to the Dominarian council, all kicked off, as, surprise, there were more Phyrexian sleeper agents!

After this point, the Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria was well and truly underway, however, there was already a plan to stop them. This revolved around a big final stand on The Mana Rig with everyone invited. Unfortunately, however, this didn’t quite go to plan.

Rather than being the perfect opportunity to use Karn’s Sylex, the New Coalition lost rather badly. Sheoldred is back, the Weatherlight is Compleated, and Ertai almost kills Karn. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s revealed that Ajani was actually a Phyrexian Sleeper agent and kills Jara Ballard!

Destroying the Sylex and capturing Karn, Ajani and Sheoldred leave for new Phyrexia now that Dominaria had been sufficiently scuppered, although not defeated.

Dominaria United Lost Legends

In celebration of Magic: the Gathering’s 30th anniversary, Wizards of the Coast is launching an incredible promotion in Dominaria United. Known as “Lost Legends,” this promotion allows players to open original Legends cards in Dominaria United’s Collector Boosters.

While there is a chance to pull the fabled Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, the possibility of pulling any Legends card is incredibly rare. In the recent reveal stream, Blake Rasmussen confirmed that Lost Legends cards would only be available in “3%” of packs. To guarantee opening a Lost Legends card, you’ll need to open roughly 33 packs at the cost of over $640.

By offering a chance to open up a piece of Magic’s history, the Lost Legends promotion is incredibly fitting for Magic’s 30th anniversary. Unfortunately, not all of Legends’ cards are befitting of such a celebration, so several cards have been excluded from this promotion.

Dominaria United Box Toppers

Alongside the introduction of Legends cards in Collector Boosters, Dominaria United will also feature unique Box Toppers. Known as “Legends Retold,” these box toppers are reimaginings of past legendary creatures from the Legends set. While Legends was a groundbreaking set, many of the legendary creatures were significantly underpowered and subsequently lost to time. This Box Topper promotion aims to fix that injustice by giving these cards a new lease of life.

For example, Ramirez DePietro, Pillager takes inspiration from the original Ramirez DePietro, while accentuating their pirate theme. No longer are they a boring bog standard creature; they’re a card you may want to play! The same is true for Jasmine Boreal of the Seven, who is the retold version of Jasmine Boreal.

Across the Legends Retold promotion, players should enjoy plenty of reimagined, unique, and exciting legendary creatures that could see play in Commander. It’s important to note this is likely the only place they’ll see play, as Legends Retold cards are only playable in Eternal Formats.

Dominaria United Jumpstart

As if two major promotions weren’t already enough, Dominaria United also features its own Jumpstart Boosters. For those unfamiliar, Jumpstart Boosters feature 20 cards designed to allow new and veteran players to quickly jump into a game without the need for deckbuilding. All players need to do to play is shuffle the contents of two Jumpstart Boosters together and let the fun begin!

The cards within a Jumpstart Booster all fit a variation of a dedicated theme. Dominaria United’s Jumpstart Boosters will feature ten different themes, which are as follows:

Coalition Corps
Coalition Legions
Mystic Mischief
Arcane Mischief
Totally Ruthless
Totally Merciless
Ready To Charge
Ready To Attack
Beast Territory
Monster Territory

Most Impactful Cards

From each set generally comes a few shining gems that continue to leave their mark on various formats for months, or years, to come. Dominaria United has a few cards that seem to have outshined the rest. You can find these Dominaria United MTG cards in various formats.

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Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is widely considered to be one of, if not, the best cards in Standard. With a massive body that’s difficult to trade with thanks to Deathtouch, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is a massive threat against a variety of decks. Against aggro, Sheoldred presents a difficult body to deal with that gains you life each turn cycle. Against control and combo, the life loss on card draws can tick up quickly.

Thanks to this, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse sees play in Standard, Pioneer, Modern and Commander.

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Leyline Binding is the other card from this set that sees heavy play across formats. Six mana to remove a nonland permanent temporarily is not a great deal, but Leyline Binding has a very powerful Domain ability. The card gets a reduction in casting cost equal to the number of basic land types you control. If you control all five, Leyline Binding can remove any pesky nonland permanent for just one white mana, at least until it gets destroyed.

Because of this, Leyline Binding sees a ton of play in formats that can achieve Domain relatively easily. Domain Ramp is a literal archetype in Standard right now, so you can expect to find Leyline Binding there. Fetch Lands make casting Leyline Binding for one or two mana rather trivial, giving it a presence in the Modern and Commander formats. The card also sees play in Pioneer, but only in select decks that can maximize its potential, like Enigmatic Fires.

Dominaria United Leaks & Spoilers

Magic’s 93rd set has been released for quite some time. If you’re interested in what cards the set has to offer, you can check out Scryfall’s image gallery for the main set here.

Of course, Dominaria United also has some Commander exclusive cards, including the Legends Retold lineup. If you’re more interested in what those have to offer, you can find them here.