Sooo, it would seem that WotC has registered an interesting domain name: Dominaria United.

https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status ... 1552346118

We already knew about the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty thing and already had a thread about it, but the Dominaria registration seems to be new information.


Let's just hope the title means the phased out parts of Dominaria are finally returning. Though to be completely frank, I'm not even sure I'll still care about anything they release after having witnessed the destruction of everything I love about Kamigawa, and between this, new digital only cards, the state of the "storyline", all the outside IPs that are being injected into the game, and tons of crappy settings in the past few years, I simply don't feel like applauding them for a set anymore that should have come out ten years ago, if the return of Zhalfir is what it is about. I can accept that Dominaria was where they were still testing the waters and trying out the new approach, but after all the time that's passed since Future Sight, I hope they have something better than just another one-set visit to give us a long overdue resolution of a dangling plot thread from the year 2000. The kids' gloves are off and the honeymoon is over, they really need to deliver to offset all the awful stuff they are pushing on other fronts.

Don't get me wrong, I think this could really be good, I just hope it's enough to keep me invested in Magic just a little bit longer. Let's hope there's more Dominaria (and other good stuff on the side) for the 30th anniversary in 2023, 'cause the 25th was riddled with missed opportunities. And for the love of Gaea, I hope they have enough sense to not make any of this about another Phyrexian invasion of Dominaria as some have speculated. I'm not going to put up with that story again, and Dominaria has had enough world-ending disasters for a while. I want them to simply explore more regions of the plane and show us what "vibrant renewal" looks like there.

I assumed that a set about Zalfir's return would just be called "Zalfier", but maybe WOTC's antsy about confusing people into thinking Zalfir's its won plane? Which it basically is currently, but...
Anyway, yeah, I'd have pegged "Dominaria United" as a follow up to set just about Zalfir, or a totally new plot thread. But then I don't make decisions at WOTC so who can say?

I too would like to register my dismay concerning another possible phyrexian invasion of Dominaria next year. I've had my fill of invasion in magic for at least a couple more years.

Make it about the return of Zhalfir and the blossoming of Dominaria for once

I honestly can't see why the Phyrexian would have any understanding or interest in Dominaria out of everywhere else.
Dominaria was always Yawgmoth's obsession.

You could argue is part of their "genetic memories" (since New Phyrexians do know about Yawggie) and perhaps a sign of status for the Thanes or a deep mission for the Machine Orthodoxy.

I don't really think New Phyrexia invading Dominaria is what this is going to be about, but I saw it brought up as a tinfoil hat theory a lot when that domain name appeared on the radar. People are basically looking at the name Dominaria United and assuming that means Dominaria is going to unite against a bigger threat, which "obviously" has to be New Phyrexia. My guess is that it simply means "united" as in "reunited" as in "the phased out region is finally back". I just hope that it's going to get all the space and focus it deserves, both on the cards and in the story. I basically just want the 'Salad' set that was scrapped in 2018, with some adjustments to make it fit its new place. Just give me my Mirage 2.0 already. Then again, just getting that one set 4 years later and nothing else would be a textbook example of "too little, too late", even more so than Dominaria was.


They know about him, but they don't exactly respect him. IIRC, it was even mentioned specifically that they think his fixation on Dominaria was stupid and kept him from conquering the the rest of the multiverse.


Yeah, I'm pretty sure they'd always put the word "Dominaria" in the title of their Dominaria sets going forward (and not just "Zhalfir" exactly for the "confusion" you mentioned). Maybe they'd go for a mix and mention both Dominaria and the specific region a set focuses on, like "Dominaria: Legends of Corondor" or something (a man can dream...).

I groaned when I saw this... like seriously. The thought of the Serran Church facing another Phyrexian invasion (and now "White" led) punches me in the gut.

Just hoping that the arts are amazing, and the world building si good.

Another Phyrexian Invasion and then a one world government under Benelia. Calling it now.

Then Palladia-Mors emerges from the swamp (she never was confirmed dead...)

Not sure why we are assuming phyrexia when they have like 3 or 4 other baddies already set up to do things

People are probably assuming Phyrexia because Vorinclex in Kaldheim.

I really think the main thing for the set will be bringing in Zhalfir, and possibly the way the addition of Zhalfir slams Dominarian geopolitics

Also if they're going to go for it, they should have gone all the way and styled the Kamigawa set "Neon Dynasty Kamigawa" (similar to Shadow over Innistrad having its reference)

Where did this bit about Zhalfir come in? Was it due to the leaks of Teferi being in Innistrad 3?

For me because it's "Dominaria United" and one part of Dominaria is loudly missing from Dominaria.

Pretty much this, plus the fact that we know the second Dominaria set was going to focus on Zhalfir. They set the stage for this in Dominaria, and we even got a strong focus on Teferi in Core 21.

I really hope those leaks of Teferi on Innistrad are either fake or not based on the final version of the product (Remember when Ajani showed up on Atlazan Ixalan? Me neither). I love Teferi and would spend three years straight with him as the protagonist, but he definitely has better things to do than visiting Innistrad right now. If they drag him into another plane before we get to Dominaria United, it's probably going to be about him getting some MacGuffin to solve his problem on Dominaria in the most lazily-written way ever. If you look at what's been established in both the Dominaria stories and the Time Spiral trilogy, everything that's relevant to the Zhalfir plot has already been introduced. I just want them to build Dominaria's story around Dominaria instead of the Gatewatch like they did last time. It can't be that freaking hard.


Edit: Then again, one thing I could see making sense would be Teferi visiting Innistrad to get some Moonsilver in case he needs some special silver object(s) to send back in / interact with time as part of his plan to phase the missing region back in. Innistrad's potent silver is the only connective tissue I could come up with. That, or maybe having to ask Sorin for help because reasons.

We don't know the plot of Innistrad but yes, he could be there to either recover something important or because Ajani or Karn are there for some other reason and he needs to assist lest he lose the only people that can help destroy Phyrexia. If the marriage involves Sorin that could have long term implications for his plans, even if the "old Gatewatch" are only dimly aware of the guy.

When you think about it, another thing that would make all of Dominaria uniting against a common enemy unlikely in the next set would be the amount of worldbuilding and concept art for all the major parts of the plane that didn't appear in Dominaria. It also wouldn't really make sense to throw them into a scenario like that when the general audience hasn't been (re-)introduced to them in their default state yet. That would be like Alara block skipping the first two sets and jumping straight to Alara Reborn.

So, the set is indeed real and coming out in 2022:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2021-08-24

We also got two pieces of art:





...what the hell is all of this? This looks terrible

I can only guess that the second one is probably supposed to depict a meeting between elves from Yavimaya and some folks from New Argive, but it's full of overstylised BS, especially that sword. And can we please stop pretending the Thran are still relevant, or that they ever had stuctures that looked like this thing? No Zhalfir in sight either, but we also haven't seen what's coming in 2023 for the actual anniversary, so there's probably more Dominaria on the horizon if Magic still has a shred of self-respect...

*shows up out of nowhere*

Sorry I'm late. It's a jungle out there, I had to beat an old lady with a stick to get these cranberries...


I've definitely missed my window to pick up the Innistrad discussion, at least until the next set comes out, but considering how quiet this place has been lately, I might as well try to get some speculation for Dominaria United off the ground. For starters, I've been wondering what places and cultures might be featured in the set, provided we are going to see a similar breakdown across colours as Dominaria had.

Dominaria basically had two regions or cultures per colour, but I wouldn't mind seeing a less static approach this time. Then again, they still need to cover all five colours and have a roughly even distribution, so speculating along those lines is going to make some degree of sense. Now, it's probably safe to say that Dominaria has already plucked most of the low-hanging fruits when it comes to iconic cultures and places, so I guess anything could happen on the next visit.

Judging by the concept art, so far we have:

- en-kor (presumably and from the Balduvian Steppe in New Argive)
- humans from New Argive (judging by their fur capes and their association with kor and Yavimaya elves; probably mostly )
- elves from Yavimaya (compare the depictions of elves in Urza's Destiny in terms of outfits and distinctive ears and facial features; very likely )
- dwarves (probably also from New Argive; hopefully will be but I wouldn't put it beyond WotC to shove their "dwarves are " nonsense into Dominaria, especially since I expect the kor and many of the humans in New Argive to be as well...)

What's interesting about the art is that it seems to depict a sort of meeting between four factions that all have some stylised pointy symbol with them that vaguely resembles the Coalition symbol from the Phyrexian Invasion (the banner of the kor, the flag of the humans, the shields of the dwarves and elves, though I'm not entirely sure about the latter one). Considering Yavimaya didn't have any sapient life last time we saw it (except for the merfolk and the gorillas, if you want to count those), I could see this being the elves' farewell before they return to their forest, and I actually think we'll revisit Yavimaya and see its sapient inhabitants move back in. I've gone on record saying I don't want future Dominaria sets to constantly revisit the same places, but I think this one could work. Having some small overlap between this and the last Dominaria set is probably a good idea, especially to give the normies something to latch onto. Jenson Carthalion had better be involved as well! There's also an anthology story called 'Ereth the Mighty' from The Monsters of Magic that's set in Yavimaya and that I really hope they'll acknowledge (the timeline references together with the status quo presented in that story imply that the short epilogue probably takes place some time after Dominaria, which would fit right into Dominaria United). And since we're probably going to see New Argive, that could mean we'll get the local version of the Church of Serra, too. Remember that Clifftop Retreat shows Dominaria's oldest active Serran temple, which happens to be in Epityr. So that, too, would be similar to Dominaria but not the same.

Urborg is another place that could probably stand to be revisited, both because they could show us how the defeat of Belzenlok has affected it and because it really lacked a lot of the things you'd expect in Urborg and replaced them with Cabalists and fat little spirits last time we saw it. Can we have actual people that aren't the Cabal? Grisly corporeal undead? More panther warriors? Pit fighting? Windgrace's acolytes? Phyrexian remnants? Vhelnish? The il-kor? The Martyrs' Tomb being rebuilt? Anything?

Other than what we can extrapolate from the art, it's really hard to say. If the New Argive/Yavimaya hints are any indication, we might see a stronger focus on Terisiare as a whole. Would be cool to see a glimpse of Gulmany, though if that's the case I kinda hope they use it as a dumping ground for stuff from Rath. I pointed to some good evidence that the Rathi shadow races were originally from there in a thread I made about Rathi influences on Dominaria a while ago, and we know the en-Vec settled on Dominaria after the Invasion (cf. 'Crucible' in The Monsters of Magic), and I guess Gulmany doesn't have much else going on, so they might as well fill in the blanks with random Rathi fluff. There's probably also a ruined city from the time of the Primevals there somewhere, which may or may not have created the Niroso... but I digress Then there is Almaaz, which has so much stuff crammed into it that they could make an entire set about it, so maybe they'll cherry pick some of that. Orcs? Fallaji? Sumifa and its song mages? Who knows. They'd probably be hesitant to put a major spotlight on places that haven't featured (much) on the cards, though, which is a pretty big issue in and off itself IMO...

I have a feeling we might visit the Krosan Forest in Otaria, mostly because Dominaria United is going to need another region that isn't Llanowar or Yavimaya, and Krosa seems like a reasonably well-known pick that doesn't come with a lot of creative baggage. Krosan Druid was in Dominaria, and "doing big green beasts again" in Krosa was one of the possible resons to revisit Otaria Ethan mentioned a while ago, so who knows... Krosa also has nantuko, which I'd be dying to see again and which a lot of people like, I think. Other than that, you could do pretty much everything likes to do in a very accessible and resonant way.

There are also a lot of cool cities on Dominaria, each of which you could probably build an entire set around in its own right, but I wouldn't hold my breath for any of them... There's Estark, of course, but also Coraleon (that's the one at Cape Tempest where they have a festival for every emotion), and, last but not least, Karakas.

I'd argue there are certain parts of Dominaria that you can't just show one part of (e.g. for a certain colour) because you'd need to show the bigger picture for it to make sense. Sarpadia would be an example of that. People (myself included) seemed to warm up to the idea pretty quickly that maybe Sarpadia isn't all ruins and thrulls when Ethan chimed in and shared some of his views about the topic, but I think revisiting it would go against so many firmly entrenched expectations that you'd need to devote more space to it than just "Surprise! The dwarves of the Crimson Peaks are the random faction in Dominaria United! No, you can't see the rest of Sarpadia!". Zhalfir is another one that really deserves to be the main focus of the set and story it's in when it comes back, you can't just throw in the Mwonvuli Jungle and call it a day.
I'm not sure where on that spectrum Corondor would fall, though. Unlike Sarpadia and Zhalfir, it has never had its own set and has barely been featured outside of the old comics, but it probably doesn't have any particular status quo that would necessarily need an explanation (other than the outcome of the Planeswalker War, at least in broad strokes). In fact, starting small and feeding the normies little pieces in a regular Dominaria set would probably be the way to go. Getting a slice of Corondor in a colour or two would just be amazing... At least MH2 was a step in the right direction when it comes to giving Corondor some exposure, and maybe they didn't do it for nothing.

Generally speaking, I'd argue it's important to make use of some less well-known aspects of Dominaria while they haven't run out of iconic ones to mix them with. If they don't start making room for some of the more out there stuff and keep filling their Dominaria sets with only the most well-known bits, they might eventually be stuck in a scenario where the general audience is tired of them but hasn't been properly introduced to the B- and C-tier ones in order to make them carry more sets. Like, once you've done your Benalias and your Llanowars enough times but made no effort to build up your Corondors and your Sukurvias, what are you going to do? Yeah, it might not be a pressing issue considering the glacial pace at which they feed us little snippets of Dominaria (one set every few years), but I'd like to see it approached with some sustainability in mind. Then again, I have both feet firmly in the "putting a substantial focus on Dominaria as Magic's homeplane again is the only thing that can save its creative identity" camp, so...