Well it's that time of the quarter, again, to be bombarded with spoilers for the next Magic: the Gathering set and I'm going to give you a quick version of everything that's out there of note. After a long time we finally get to go back to Dominaria and so far this set is looking to be solid. Also you can legitimately get old school Legends cards out of the Collector Boosters in this set? Yeah, that's right. Someone (conveniently) found original booster boxes of the Legends set from back in the day and they are inserting those cards into Collector Booster packs! There's only a 3% chance for them to show up but you can get anywhere from a common (even old commons like these are generally worth a couple bucks) to a Tabby (Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale) which is easily a $3000 pull. Kinda cool, huh? Even if the magical Legend boosters find seems a bit strange.......cause no one has stumbled upon these pallets since Legends released in June of 1994 until now.....anyway...
Dominaria United is looking to be one of the best sets in recent memory, barring Double Masters 2022 of course. The thing that really calls to me is the fact that they are doing a Legends Retold/Legends Reborn thing with this set. They're re-printing 19-20 old Legends from the Legends set and giving them a new breath of life with most only available as box toppers it seems. Some are getting overhauled and some are just getting a shiny new coat of paint. However, not all cards from the Legends set will be included.
They will not be included in New Dominaria for a few reasons: One being because of the political climate infused into MtG lately, those racially insensitive cards from back in the day will not be included and a few others that supposedly they didn't pull; even though WotC said they cracked case after case. Something seems a little fishy with this BUT what are you going to do about it? For all we know they legitimately just reprinted all of these. Cranked up the printers with the old card stock and ink values and let it fly. We would be none the wiser unfortunately, especially for (what are supposedly) pack fresh cards that would not show any signs of age or wear and tear from being sealed inside packs, that were sealed inside plastic wrapped boxes, that were sealed inside another box and then sealed inside another bigger box. For a complete list of cards that will NOT be included, click here to find out.
Time to Rotate!
With the release of New Dominaria this will also cause rotation in Standard. Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, Strixhaven, and Forgotten Realms will be rotated out of Standard on the same day so prepare yourselves for this.
The Price Increase is Official Now The one thing that everyone will not enjoy are going to be the price hike. This will be the first official set release with WotC's across the board price increase. While it's a little early to figure out what you can expect to pay retail for these boxes you shouldn't be surprised to see boxes starting at the $120-$150 mark for draft and set boxes respectively, Commander and Collectors are still too early for me to give any real estimate but I would expect to see Commanders hitting that $44.99-49.99 mark each and Collectors Boosters starting slightly above the norm as well at around $270 +/-. With no MSRP from WotC these prices will vary widely from wherever you find them, so good luck and happy hunting. But I'd be wary of anything pre-ordering at that $120 mark. While that cheaper price point might seem appealing there's bound to be some issues like we saw with Double Masters 2022. With people pre-ordering the boxes at the lower price point before launch and then getting screwed.
Play it safe and don't pre-order this product right now. I'd wait until the very last available moment. This might cause you to pay a few bucks extra but will limit the chances of shenanigans. Notice I said limit, not eliminate. But, if you must be "that guy", make sure it's through somewhere big like Amazon where you know there is a pre-order price guarantee or a LGS you know won't cancel your order due to "allocation issues" then put up pre-orders available again a week later at a higher price point than the original. Calm thy titties, everyone. Let the hype settle a bit before doing anything rash with this set. Especially with it being the first set with the across the board price increases.
Did you see those lands though?
These have to be the best looking lands I've seen in a long while. Maybe the Pokemon lands stack up to them but I believe these lands are going to be in a league of their own. Check them out.
The Packaging
So, the packaging doesn't seem to be anything to rant about. Standard packaging it seems. Just thought you guys might like to see what they'll look like.
Yes, you see that right. New Dominaria has its own JumpStart booster. There's nothing really new to this as it follows the same scheme as the original JumpStart does. You buy 2 packs, mix them together and boom! You've got a deck to play against your friends. So far there are 10 deck themes in this product:
White
Coalition Corps
Coalition Legions
Blue
Mystic Mischief
Arcane Mischief
Black
Totally Ruthless
Totally Merciless
Red
Ready to Charge
Ready to Attack
Green
Beast Territory
Monster Territory
There wasn't any JumpStart specific card data available as far as what's in these packs at the moment so this is the best I can scrounge up at the moment.
Important Dates
Last but not least is just a time line of important dates you should try and remember if you want to consume everything about this product before it launches. Most of you won't forget I'm sure but I'm including the timeline anyways to help people out who might need that friendly reminder
If you made it this far congrats and thank you for taking time to read this. In conclusion though this set really does seem to be a solid set. Hopefully that stays true for the remaining sets released this year as we've had nothing but pretty disappointing set releases lately.