Earlier this year, we reviewed the five Magic: The Gathering Streets of New Capenna Commander decks. In the latest expansion, Dominaria United, Magic’s home plane is back, and with it, we get two brand-new Commander decks. This time Wizards of the Coast is bringing back Planeswalkers as Commanders, and each deck introduces 10 cards not found in Dominaria United’s main set that players can use in Commander.
Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast / Chris Rahn
Both decks seem fun to play and contain some good reprinted staples. If looking for a competitive Commander deck, though, you will need to make some upgrades to boost the power levels.
Dominaria United introduces a new mechanic on creature cards, Enlist. It’s a modern take on the older Banding mechanic. When a creature with Enlist attacks, you may tap a non-attacking creature you control without summoning sickness. If you do, its power is added to the attacking creature with Enlist until end of turn. In the right situation, this could be a huge buff and a fun mechanic to work with.
Each commander deck package includes:
- 99-card deck with one foil Commander
- 1 deck box
- 1 life wheel
- 10 double-sided tokens
- 2 collector booster sample packs (Note that the collector booster sample only features one foil common or uncommon from Dominaria United and one rare or mythic rare from Dominaria United with an alternate art treatment)
Legends’ Legacy
Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast / Nestor Ossandon Leal
Deck Color & Mechanic
This deck is a mixture of the Mardu colors white, red & black. It is a “legends matters” deck, meaning its main focus is to have and play as many legendary cards as possible. Making use of the color combination, this deck looks to be a bit aggressive and shouldn’t have trouble with things like spot removal and life gain. Use your Commander to fuel your hand and help protect your legendary creatures, while protecting the Commander by using her abilities to give yourself indestructible blockers.
Deck Commander & Abilities
The commander of the deck is Dihada, Binder of Wills. She is a Planeswalker and has a total converted mana cost of four.. To cast her you’ll need one red, one white, one black, and one colorless. Dihada enters the battlefield with five loyalty counters.
She has three abilities to activate, which help in various ways. Her first option gives +2 loyalty and says “up to one target legendary creature gains Vigilance, Lifelink and Indestructible until your next turn”. This is great for keeping important creatures on your board alive or even using it to make favorable trades with opponents. The fact that you don’t have to choose just Lifelink, Indestructible, or Vigilance, instead getting all three, is a big bonus.
The next ability she has costs -3 loyalty. She lets you reveal the top four cards of your library, putting all legendary cards into your hand and the rest in your graveyard. Unlike most mechanics like this, any cards put into your graveyard give you immediate value in the form of treasure tokens. The number of treasure tokens you get is equivalent to how many cards you put in your graveyard.
Her ultimate ability is a potential game-ender and comes at a whopping cost of -11 loyalty. If you use this and can’t finish the game, I’m not sure she is the Commander for you. Her last ability gives you control of all non-land permanents on the board until end of turn, untaps them and gives them haste. With a good enough sacrifice outlet like an Immersturm Predator, you could easily clean up most of the board even if you’re not able to finish the game at the very least.
Deck Cost
At the time of release, purchasing the deck as singles costs around $132, while purchasing the complete deck costs $69.99.
Recommendations for Improvements
This deck can do well on its own, but there are always ways to make it better. With Dihada’s -3 ability, you could easily choose to not put any cards in your hand and get four treasure tokens. To make the decision easier, you could not play any legendary creatures and put everything in the graveyard, then play cards like Revel in Riches and Dockside Extortionist to really abuse the treasure token mechanic, eventually using Reanimation and Grave Recursion to bring back all the creatures that gave you tokens. If played this way, I could see it having a bit more of an edge and increase in power. I would rate this deck before upgrades a 6/10 and with upgrades, it could reach around 8/10.
Painbow
Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast / Manuel Castañon
Deck Color & Mechanic
As you may be able to tell from the name, this next deck makes use of every color in Magic The Gathering. Using this combo gives you access to play literally any style you choose. Though that may make it seem like this deck’s focus might not be straightforward, the goal of this deck is to play as many five-color or even just multicolored creatures as possible, while being rewarded for doing that.
Deck Commander & Abilities
The main commander for this deck is Jared Carthalion. He is another Planeswalker Commander and he comes in all five colors. He has a total mana cost of five, one of each color. Similar to Dihada, he enters the battlefield with five loyalty counters and has three abilities you can use.
Jared’s +1 loyalty ability creates a 3/3 Kavu creature token with trample that is all colors. This pairs well with his second ability if you can keep it alive, or any creatures you may already control, as his -3 option allows you to choose up to two target creatures, and you can choose to put a number of +1/+1 counters on them equal to the number of colors they are. This means after one rotation of having a 3/3 Kavu, you can potentially make it an 8/8.
His ultimate ability isn’t as devastating as Dihada, and is more for utility and multiple uses. It costs -6 loyalty, but you should be able to avoid destroying Jared to use it. This last ability lets you return a multicolored card from your graveyard to your hand. If that card was all colors, you get to draw a card and create two treasure tokens. As long as you can find the right cards to return to your hand, this should provide plenty of fuel to keep casting spells. The biggest value is going to be giving counters to creatures you already have on the board. Depending on the creatures you control, you could potentially get ten +1/+1 counters when Jared enters the battlefield.
Deck Cost
At the time of release, purchasing the deck as singles costs around $94, while purchasing the complete deck costs $79.95.
Recommendations for Improvements
I don’t have any suggestions on making this deck better as it genuinely seems like just a fun deck to play. Since you have access to any color, you can add whatever your favorite staple cards are. I would suggest sticking with more creatures as you’ll get more value from the Commander when it comes to distributing counters. I would rate this deck before upgrades as a 5/10, leaning more toward having fun than being competitive.
So there we have it for Dominaria United’s commander decks. In most recent sets, there have been more Commander decks released, and more options for players. I’m not sure what the decision was behind keeping this set to two commander decks only, but nonetheless, these should be another two fun decks to play, and I recommend them to anyone, even if just starting to get into commander.
Every commander deck that has been released lately has been viable enough that it can be made competitive, but starting out they aren’t as competitive as some other decks. All in all, another successful release by Wizards of the Coast, and two decks that I will be looking to add to my collection.
