Dominaria Preview Season Has Arrived!

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Newsletter
Thursday, April 5th

Dominaria? Meet the Magic world. Magic world? Meet Dominaria.

As preview season of Dominaria has officially begun, I've got but one word to describe it—WOW! I expected big things from our return to such an iconic plane, but never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted this. With new card types (hello Sagas!), new mechanics (hello Legendary Sorceries!), the return of past favorites (hello Kicker!), and seeing old favorites brought back to life (hello Karn and Teferi!), how could one not be excited about Magic's newest set?!

Unsurprisingly, everyone here at SCG is buzzing about the return to where Magic all began. Todd Anderson has already picked his eight favorite cards from Dominaria preview season but I think some of them may surprise you. Ben Friedman has been having a blast with U/R God‑Pharaoh's Gift in Rivals of Ixalan Standard but believes Dominaria brings a lot to his favorite archetype. And for those looking for quick thoughts about Magic's newest set? Matthias Hunt and Ryan Overturf take a swipe, Tinder-style, at ten of Dominaria's hottest cards.

But before we get to Dominaria release weekend in Atlanta on April 28-29, the SCG Tour has some Modern action to take care of in Milwaukee this weekend. I'll be joined by Patrick Sullivan, Nick Miller, and the rest of the @SCGTour crew as we work our way through fifteen rounds of Magic's most popular format, share our thoughts on as many Dominaria previews as we can get our hands on, and crown ourselves a champion in Brew Town. The fun begins at 10:30am ET at twitch.tv/scgtour!

— Cedric Phillips, Content Coordinator

April 21-22
Prerelease

April 28-29
Team Constructed

May 5-6
Team Constructed

My Top 8 Dominaria Cards So Far
By Todd Anderson  

Phyrexian Scriptures seems like it will be one of the more powerful Sagas in the set, if only because it feels like Tragic Arrogance with suspend 1. And if you randomly control another artifact creature, you get to keep them around as well. I love cards that punish decks that go wide while also giving you a reason to continue playing out creatures. While I don't know if there are a ton of good artifact creatures to play right now, the fact that this spell will give them all a bit more value (both for you and your opponents) is definitely a plus.

My gut tells me that this card will be great alongside stuff like Scrapheap Scrounger, possibly giving Mono-Black Aggro a chance to shine in a format where The Scarab God rules over all. Sweeping the battlefield so that you can get in one big attack is exactly what this style of deck needs. And alongside Yahenni, Undying Partisan, this one-two punch could end the game on the spot.

But Phyrexian Scriptures doesn't necessarily have to go into an aggressive deck. It fits perfectly alongside creatures like Glint-Sleeve Siphoner in a midrange deck. You don't care much if your Champion of Wits hits the bin, and you don't have that many creatures you want to protect. And the fact that the Phyrexian Scriptures will trigger while all your mana is untapped means you'll be the first person to deploy a big threat on the fifth turn after the Phyrexian Scriptures pops. Now doesn't that curve nicely with The Scarab God?

Dominarian Delights
By Ben Friedman  

As Ari Lax mentioned in his excellent send-off to this Standard format, there isn't much to be done with the format after a few lingering events. There's only a short while for this particular iteration of U/R God‑Pharaoh's Gift to shine. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we've got Dominaria on the horizon, and that means new toys for Nicol Bolas to wrap up for good little children in shiny 4/4 hasty packages.

The first obvious candidate for gift-wrapping is none other than Siege-Gang Commander, a good little Goblin who brings enough friends to the party to make sure that everything gets blown up. In concert with Warkite Marauder, a bucketful of Goblins is essentially a Plague Wind, and the fact that Siege-Gang clogs up a battlefield so well on both the front side and the zombified side means that it's going to be among the first cards to jump into new versions of the archetype.

Taking A Swipe At Dominaria, Part 1
By Matthias Hunt and Ryan Overturf  

Matthias Swipes Right, Messages A Bunch, And Never Asks The Mirari Conjecture On A Date: Dating apps are an imperfect science, so it only makes sense that we end up swiping right on cards that never make it to the deck registration sheet.

The Mirari Conjecture is nice enough that you should test the waters. You only ever need an active Pyromancer Ascension for one turn anyway and Mirari Conjecture offers you just that. It even gives you presents along the way if you do things right. This Saga is exciting and I would definitely send some messages to get the conversation started. I'd start with Glimmer of Genius and Fatal Push, of course, and when things started going well, I'd even start talking about sorceries! I'd talk about how I already play a Doomfall or two in the maindeck and even a Confiscation Coup in the sideboard. The conversation would be going well.

And then it would stop there. It's one of those situations where, although no one said anything wrong, I would just... lose interest. It wasn't going to work and at some point we both knew it. Why did I swipe right in the first place? I guess I just needed to be sure.

Ryan Accidentally Super Likes: I hate it when this happens.

Look, I'm not upset that The Mirari Conjecture knows that I'm interested in it, but in all honesty, I was just trying to understand what the card actually does. I'm having trouble imagining wanting to tap out on Turn 5 in Standard to not impact the battlefield, but I'm also having difficulty imagining losing upon hitting the third stage of this saga. Do I want to copy Karn's Temporal Sundering? Yes. Will I win any games by trying to accomplish this? I don't know. The heart wants what it wants, and I guess I'm locked in.

Sagas are easily the most difficult cards to understand in Dominaria, and it makes sense. New card types are tough. A good baseline for any new card type or mechanic is that the most powerful ones don't need to be interpreted in the context of the mechanic. If there's a deck full of instant and sorcery spells worth recurring, then a spell that recurs them and copies them will be a natural fit. Whether this is the case remains to be seen.