Dominaria United is the third Standard Magic: The Gathering set to release in 2022. Returning once again to the titular plane of Dominaria, which has served as the setting for some of the biggest storylines in MTG lore, it brought another helping of high-fantasy Magic to the tabletop, and promised multiverse-shattering stakes.
But Dominaria United wasn’t just any expansion set, it also marked the trading card game’s 30th anniversary. And the setting seems fitting. Dominaria was the first plane visited in MTG, and is home to some of the game’s most recognisable characters: Liliana Vess, Nicol Bolas, and Urza. It’s a focal point of the Magic Multiverse, and is often at the centre of world-spanning events and Planeswalker plots. And now it’s kicked off a new one, as Dominaria United is the first set in a four set story-arc “where the fate of Dominaria—and the Multiverse—is set to unravel”. It looks like the mean machines of Phyrexia are on the attack.
Ahead of the set’s release, we rounded up everything known about Dominaria United in this handy dandy guide. If you’re after a quicker overview, read our rundown of the MTG 2022 release schedule, or check out what we know about The Brothers’ War and the MTG Warhammer 40k Universes Beyond crossover.
Dominaria United release date
Announced in a sneak peek livestream in May, Dominaria United will release on September 9. That’s when it’ll be hitting shelves worldwide. As usual, there’ll be a few weeks’ worth of spoilers and card previews to whet our appetite before then – Dominaria United spoiler season starts on August 18.
There’ll also be pre-release events in the week before, from September 2 – 8. And Dominaria United will hit MTG Arena one week before its global tabletop release, coming to Arena on September 1.
Dominaria United spoilers
Dominaria spoiler season is officially here, and Wizards of the Coast have heaps of reveals for you to sift through.
In a twist that surely no one could have seen coming, there are plenty of familiar planeswalkers populating Dominaria United. The return of Liliana of the Veil, perhaps one of the most powerful planeswalker cards out there, should really liven things up in Standard and Pioneer (or, knowing her, really unliven things up).
Karn makes a comeback with Karn, Living Legacy, and the card Mark Rosewater teased as “a character players have been requesting get a card for years finally gets one” turns out to be The Raven Man. The newly compleated Ajani, Sleeper Agent also makes an appearance.
MaRo also teased a new Lotus card, which has now been confirmed as the Timeless Lotus – a five-mana Legendary Artifact that creates one of every mana colour when tapped. Not too shabby.
The variant cards definitely aren’t something to sleep on in Dominaria. In particular, our favourites are the Lands and Legendary Creatures done up to look like stained glass windows.
And, of course, this guide wouldn’t be complete without taking a look at the Phyrexians that threaten Dominaria. Black currently has the most Phyrexians spoiled – check out Balduvian Atrocity, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Blight Pile, and Toxic Abomination. Plenty of life-draining action going on there.
Plenty of the spoilers cards we can see in the image gallery were already spoiled inn the July 21 preview stream. Starting with the juiciest stuff, we’ve got a new Jaya Planeswalker card – Jaya, Fiery Negotiater. She looks pretty great – we love a four mana planewalker with four different loyalty abilities. This Jaya’s got removal, card advantage, token-making, and a fiery ultimate.
Moving on to the creatures shown in the preview stream. We’ve seen Shivan Devastator, a big but simple dragon-hydra, with intriguing flavour text referencing the Phyrexian Praetor Sheoldred. On a related note, Evolved Sleeper is a human creature that can ‘level up’ into a beefy Phyrexian card draw engine. Finally, Llanowar Loamspeaker is a mana dork that can turn one of your lands into a legitimate threat.
One sorcery card was also shown on the stream. Temporal Firestorm is a board wipe that lets you save your best creatures or planeswalkers if you pay the kicker cost. It’s a wonderfully flavourful card that represents Jaya and Teferi teaming up. Last (and realistically least) we also got to see some lovely stained glass lands from the set.
As of August 23, you can find a full Dominaria United card image gallery on the MTG website. There’s also a Commander card image gallery, plus a variant card image gallery to show off some marvellous alternative art.
Dominaria United mechanics
The only non-evergreen mechanic we know for sure will be in Dominaria United is that old mainstay, Kicker. However, we do know that there’ll be legendary creatures in each Dominaria United pack. Because of that, it seems quite likely that the Historic mechanic will be making a comeback, especially since the next set, The Brothers’ War, looks to have a heavy artifact theme. And if there’s Historic, there’d have to be Sagas…
Perhaps we’re getting carried away with our speculation. Once we’ve got a better idea of the set’s mechanics and seen a few more cards, we’ll be sure to update this section and share them here.
Dominaria United Story
The story of Dominaria United is going to be a major part of the set, and as of August 10, story articles are being released letting us know exactly what the plot of the set is all about.
Dominaria United will be the starting point for a new story arc that will span four sets and have major stakes for the whole MTG multiverse. It seems clear it involves the evil robot Phyrexians – Sheoldred’s shown up in the story, and the few card spoilers we’ve seen include Phyrexians.
It looks like the Phyrexians are a threat that all kinds of Dominarians will be teaming up to fight. Further evidence that points in that direction is the set symbol. It seems to be the logo of ‘The Coalition‘, a group of unified forces created by Urza that resisted a Phyrexian invasion of the plane in the Invasion block. Hmm…
Ajani was revealed as the mysterious compleated planeswalker – right before he killed off Jaya. She, Teferi, and Ajani have been confirmed to have starring roles in Dominaria United, but packaging for the set gives us a strong indication of some of the other characters likely to crop up.
For starters, we’ve got metal planeswalker Karn, seen on the draft booster box alongside Jodah, Archmage Eternal and Shanna, Sisay’s Legacy. Planeswalkers Ajani and Liliana also appear on the set boosters, and a cartoon depiction of Braids on the collector booster box.