Sets [DMU] Dominaria United Spoilers

[ellogeyen]

I don't like read ahead. The mechanic itself is fine, and I will probably play some of them because I'm desperate for more sagas, but I don't expect players to read the top of the card that is usually just a bunch of reminder text (and is still for the most part just reminder text). Seems very easy to miss. At least you don't make a rules mistake if you treat it like a normal saga.

So I was having the same issue here. Read Ahead isn't too bad if you mistake it for a normal saga, but I'm playing with quite a few people who're not up to date with the latests sets and definitely unfamiliar with saga's. If their first saga encounter is a Read Ahead saga, they might understand all saga's to behave that way.

Don't know if I'm overthinking this. I'll let their inclusion depend on the actual saga's themselves.

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

As someone who did kinda want "Exert" to be a more general term, This could be interesting.

Evergreen is intersting? How often does wotc do this kind of effect? I guess there's some frost lynx in every set

Stun counters differ from Frost Lynx effects by preventing any other untap effects, not just at the start of turn.

I could see stun being used in green and possibly red to thematically represent a knockout punch or similar.

 

[ravnic]

Always wanted that card. Would've taken it without a lady in such a weid body position, but okay, take it.
It's to Raise the Alarm what Goblin Instigator is to Dragon Fodder. But in white that actually is better for blink purposes instead of being worse for spell purposes.

I don't like read ahead. The mechanic itself is fine, and I will probably play some of them because I'm desperate for more sagas, but I don't expect players to read the top of the card that is usually just a bunch of reminder text (and is still for the most part just reminder text). Seems very easy to miss. At least you don't make a rules mistake if you treat it like a normal saga.
I hope I get some high-floor domain cards that offer some interesting synergies.

So far I'm mostly looking at The Raven Man as a black madness payoff with some flex option. Maybe Squee.

100% agreed, I am also hesitant to add read ahead cards for this very same reason.

 

[safra]

if I add 'read ahead' sagas i'm just gonna highlight the Read Ahead rules text so it isn't lost

e: big fan of this sheoldred

 

[sigh]

View attachment 7232
I feel like this thing is pretty good in fetch/shock enviornments.
It's no tarmogoyf but trample is an intriguing upside, and it's probably a 3/3 at some point, hopefully early.

In a fetch/shock environment I see this being an on-curve 2 mana 3/3 a good percentage of the time. T1 fetch to Color2/Color3 land, T2 play Forest/? and you are good to go. Pretty straightforward to hit 3/3 by the time it can attack on T3 I'd say.

In most decks, that would probably also be the cap on it's power unless the deck is doing some creative land splashing to boost it.

 

[Nanonox]

Sheoldred seems like a cool way to make Wheels less one-sided, but that might just be too easy. And I am not sure decks that want the Wheel will necessarily want Sheoldred at 4 mana.

The card that stuck out to me is

I'm not huge on the +2, but the -3 is spicy! You get cards and/or mana and fill the GY. If you miss completely, you still get 4 treasures and can cast another 4 drop.
I'm sure it's possible to fill the cube with legendary permanents like the new Neo lands and such to maximize the hits. I think I'll probably need to revisit this one in a couple of years!

 

[Chris Taylor]

In a fetch/shock environment I see this being an on-curve 2 mana 3/3 a good percentage of the time. T1 fetch to Color2/Color3 land, T2 play Forest/? and you are good to go. Pretty straightforward to hit 3/3 by the time it can attack on T3 I'd say.

In most decks, that would probably also be the cap on it's power unless the deck is doing some creative land splashing to boost it.

I do like that it at least suggests that you can go ham though

 

[inscho]

Wow Raven Man and Squee are super cool

 

[Brad]

Stun counters feel excessive and uninteresting.

Read Ahead is unintuitive.

I'm a Domain fan because your cube's mana base can adjust the cards' power levels.

How good is Archangel of Wrath? The body, especially with the lifelink, is solid. Build-a-Flametongue is strong, but then it costs 6. Is it pretty medium overall?

 

[Brad]

Did no one post Enlist?

Seems like a decent way to get through a bigger guy.

Obviously, the abilities on this one are going to be popular here.

 

[shamizy]

Enlist reads messy to me, just kind of an unnecessarily complex mechanic on first glance. That card does neat stuff, but it just looks inelegant and rubs me the wrong way. It's almost the opposite of that earlier Aggro Red 2 drop to me in terms of pure mechanical aesthetics.

 

[Rusje]

I don't like read ahead. The mechanic itself is fine, and I will probably play some of them because I'm desperate for more sagas, but I don't expect players to read the top of the card that is usually just a bunch of reminder text (and is still for the most part just reminder text). Seems very easy to miss. At least you don't make a rules mistake if you treat it like a normal saga.
I hope I get some high-floor domain cards that offer some interesting synergies.

So far I'm mostly looking at The Raven Man as a black madness payoff with some flex option. Maybe Squee.

How is the raven man a madness payoff? You still have to discard the card to be able to madness it. Did you mean discard payoff (e.g. cycling, the imp and so on)?

 

[Rusje]

Enlist reads messy to me, just kind of an unnecessarily complex mechanic on first glance. That card does neat stuff, but it just looks inelegant and rubs me the wrong way. It's almost the opposite of that earlier Aggro Red 2 drop to me in terms of pure mechanical aesthetics.

Enlist is a much simpler, but also one sided (on many sides) of banding. Sadly it is still complex and it will screw up pre-combat math big time.

 

[Brad]

Really? I like it quite a bit. Add two dude's powers together. Feels simple to me. When your 2/1 and this 2/2 can't get through anymore, send the 4/2 scry 2 into battle.

 

[Velrun]

How is the raven man a madness payoff? You still have to discard the card to be able to madness it. Did you mean discard payoff (e.g. cycling, the imp and so on)?

I think they meant 'Madness' as the deck theme and not the mechanic. Meaning the deck could be called 'Madness' and still only have 3 madness cards in the entire 40 card list.

So in other words: It's a payoff card for a deck that you could name Madness.

 

[Seeker]

The release notes leaked early... uh, again, because that happened last time we had a Dominaria set too

https://www.docdroid.net/zxMwUTQ/dmu-release-notes-20220804-en-pdf

Plenty of new stuff, mostly I'm not interested but you can tempt me with Yet Another Redundant Piece:

Cult Conscript

Creature — Skeleton Warrior
2/1
Cult Conscript enters the battlefield tapped.
: Return Cult Conscript from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only if a non-Skeleton creature died under your control this turn.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I guess to me Sagas still feel like new card types for the sake of having a new card type. There's never been one that's super appealed to me. (too much visual complexity @landofMordor )

 

[Seeker]

oh there's also this

Cut Down

Instant
Destroy target creature with total power and toughness 5 or less.

which is not Fatal Push or anything but sure is an interesting design

 

[Jason Waddell]

oh there's also this

Cut Down

Instant
Destroy target creature with total power and toughness 5 or less.

which is not Fatal Push or anything but sure is an interesting design

Wall of Roots shall oppress us no longer.

 

[landofMordor]

I guess to me Sagas still feel like new card types for the sake of having a new card type. There's never been one that's super appealed to me. (too much visual complexity @landofMordor )

I do find the gameplay is pretty good -- you get this guaranteed value-over-time, which changes the texture of your decisions for the next few turns, but it's not a permanent feature of the game, nor is it a warping must-kill like a Planeswalker can sometimes be. A Saga is somewhere between Sorcery and Enchantment on the spectrum of "game permanence", which is a mechanical niche that is pretty novel. (I guess creatures exist there, too, but the opponent typically has more agency in destroying/blocking creatures than they do with Enchantments or Sorceries, so the latter are more predictable. So too are Sagas.)

That said, the gameplay benefits do come at a nonzero complexity cost, especially visually. I find that the stellar in-world art on many Sagas makes them more appealing, but that's not exactly a mechanical hook, haha.

 

[inscho]

Braids, Arisen Nightmare

Legendary Creature — Nightmare
3/3
At the beginning of your end step, you may sacrifice an artifact, creature, enchantment, land, or planeswalker. If you do, each opponent may sacrifice a permanent that shares a card type with it. For each opponent who doesn’t, that player loses 2 life and you draw a card

<3 <3 <3

 

[inscho]

Other things that caught my eye on a quick pass

---

Spoiler

Electrostatic Infantry

Creature — Dwarf Wizard
1/2
Trample
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Electrostatic Infantry.


Ertai Resurrected

Legendary Creature — Phyrexian Human Wizard
3/2
Flash
When Ertai Resurrected enters the battlefield, choose upto one —
• Counter target spell, activated ability, or triggeredability. Its controller draws a card.
• Destroy another target creature or planeswalker. Its controller draws a card.


Evolved Sleeper

Creature — Human
1/1
: Evolved Sleeper becomes a Human Cleric with base power and toughness 2/2.
: If Evolved Sleeper is a Cleric, put a deathtouch counter on it and it becomes a Phyrexian Human Cleric with base power and toughness 3/3.
: If Evolved Sleeper is a Phyrexian, put a +1/+1 counter on it, then you draw a card and you lose 1
life.

Founding the Third Path

Enchantment — Saga
Read ahead (Choose a chapter and start with that manylore counters. Add one after your draw step. Skipped chapters don’t trigger. Sacrifice after III.)
I — You may cast an instant or sorcery spell with mana value 1 or 2 from your hand without paying its mana cost.
II — Target player mills four cards.
III — Exile target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard. Copy it. You may cast the copy.

Haughty Djinn

Creature — Djinn
*/4
Flying
Haughty Djinn’s power is equal to the number of instantand sorcery cards in your graveyard.

Instant and sorcery spells you cast cost less to cast

Karn, Living Legacy

Legendary Planeswalker — Karn
4
+1: Create a tapped Powerstone token. (It’s an artifact
with “: Add . This mana can’t be spent to cast anonartifact spell.”)
−1: Pay any amount of mana. Look at that many cards from the top of your library, then put one of those cards into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
−7: You get an emblem with “Tap an untapped artifact you control: This emblem deals 1 damage to any target.”

Karn’s Sylex

Legendary Artifact
Karn’s Sylex enters the battlefield tapped.
Players can’t pay life to cast spells or to activate abilities that aren’t mana abilities.
, , Exile Karn’s Sylex: Destroy each nonland permanent with mana value X or less. Activate only as a sorcery.

Phoenix Chick

Creature — Phoenix
1/1
Flying, haste
Phoenix Chick can’t block.
Whenever you attack with three or more creatures, you may pay . If you do, return Phoenix Chick from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped and attacking with a +1/+1 counter on it.

 

[MilesOfficial]

Couldn't agree more, @inscho, Phoenix Chick and Electrostatic Infantry both are fairly competitive and exciting even in the strongest cubes, supporting multiple existing archetypes in red each.

Cult Conscript and Cut Down are both easy inclusions, but they're both replacement-level rather than meaningful upgrades to anything.

Karn’s Sylex is a more cubable Engineered Explosives imo. Ertai Resurrected is neat but will probably have to go head-to-head with Hostage Taker, which is going to be a rough decision for me.

Other cards from the document I think are worth a look:

Spoiler

Rivaz of the Claw
Legendary Creature — Viashino Warlock

Menace

: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast Dragon creature spells.

Once during each of your turns, you may cast a Dragon creature spell from your graveyard.

Whenever you cast a Dragon creature spell from your graveyard, it gains “When this creature dies, exile it.”

3/3

This is an archetype-in-a-can that isn't embarrassing in any circumstance. Three MV for a 3/3 menace, great! Casting dragons from graveyards and ramping them out? Neat!! My dragon count isn't high enough at the moment to justify this, but there's other dragon / graveyard midrange cards that I wouldn't mind slotting in to support this as a rogue strategy.

Quirion Beastcaller
Creature — Dryad Warrior

Whenever you cast a creature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Quirion Beastcaller.

When Quirion Beastcaller dies, distribute X +1/+1 counters among any number of target creatures you control, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on Quirion Beastcaller.

2/2

I'm not sold but it starts at a 2/2, and you can distribute the counters on death Burger King style. In green, +1/+1 counters for creatures is better than the spellslinger Dragonsguard Elite and starting at 2/2 is an improvement to Vinelasher Kudzu.

Thran Portal
Land — Gate

Than Portal enters the battlefield tapped unless you control two or fewer other lands.

As Thran Portal enters the battlefield, choose a basic land type.

Thran Portal is the chosen type in addition to its other types.

Mana abilities of Thran Portal cost an additional 1 life to activate.

Fast painland of any color? I think I prefer it to the "choose 1 color but enters tapped" probably? I just removed the last one of those from my 720 so this is a question mark for me still, especially considering how confusingly written it is; that's a lot of text for a simple ability!

King Darien XLVIII
Legendary Creature — Human Soldier

Other creatures you control get +1/+1.

: Put a +1/+1 counter on King Darien and create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token.

Sacrifice King Darien: Creature tokens you control gain hexproof and indestructible until end of turn.

2/3

Pretty good anthem effect with plenty of upsides to support the token deck in GW, while still being good for midrangey decks in a pinch. The sacrifice is gravy, I doubt it'll get used much. I'll be strongly considering it all the same!

 

[LadyMapi]

 

[Peter LaCara]

Enlist reads messy to me, just kind of an unnecessarily complex mechanic on first glance. That card does neat stuff, but it just looks inelegant and rubs me the wrong way. It's almost the opposite of that earlier Aggro Red 2 drop to me in terms of pure mechanical aesthetics.

Look, man. They had to get Banding in there somehow and this is the best they could do.