Welcome all to the Daily Dose of Dominaria, where today I’ll continue my look into the exciting setting of Dominaria.
Dominaria will tell a Magic story through it’s cards in a way it has never been portrayed. We can see this in the new Saga cards that I talked about earlier in the week, and the trend continues with today's discussion on a brand-new mechanic from Dominaria. To better represent the sheer importance and power of these new cards, they are under the new category of Legendary Sorceries. That’s right, Legendary sorceries. Before I go into the specifics of some of these new cards, let’s look at what Legendary Sorceries are.
Each of the new cards will have the following written on them:
“Legendary Sorcery
(You may cast a legendary sorcery only if you control a legendary creature or planeswalker.)”
As you can imagine, it must be a powerful ability if you need to have something on the battlefield just to cast it. Don’t worry though, even though it is a Legendary Sorcery, you can still have a full playset in your deck, you can even cast multiple copies of the same spell in the same turn. The Legendary part of the card merely references the need to have a Legendary creature or Planeswalker on the battlefield to cast it.
Now, let’s dive straight into these powerful new spells. Without further ado, here's Urza’s Ruinous Blast:
Wow, what a line of text on this card. Being able to exile not just all creatures, but all nonland permanents that aren’t legendary is massive.
But let’s look at the potential drawbacks for this card. First off, you need to have a legendary creature or Planeswalker on the battlefield. There are plenty of options for you with all the legendary creatures in Dominaria and current Standard Planeswalker cards like Gideon of the Trials. But how likely is it for your opponent to be playing legendary permanents? Going through the recent Top 8 decklists from a standard Grand Prix, here are the currently played legendary permanents.
- Pia Nalaar, Rhonas the Indomitable, Hadana’s Climb, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, The Scarab God, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Search for Azcanta, Hazoret the Fervent, Heart of Kiran
As you can see, a lot of the most powerful cards from those decks won’t get hit by this spell. There is still a chance to get rid of most permanents, however.
Next up is a burn spell that will allow you to pick off three different targets, including your opponent. Here is Jaya’s Immolating Inferno:
The power of this card would normally be associated with a card that has XX in the casting cost, not just one X. Being able to hit up to three targets, which can now include both a player and a Planeswalker, is crazy.
Picture playing Chandra, Torch of Defiance on turn four. In the following turn, you use her +1 ability to add RR to your mana pool. Now you can cast Jaya’s Immolating Inferno with X = 5 to deal five damage to three different targets. That could clear a battlefield out quite quickly.
If you're looking for another legendary permanent on the battlefield in a red deck, both Hazoret the Fervent and Kari Zev, Skyship Raider are good options. Overall this spell shouldn’t be that difficult to cast.
Next we have a classic ability on a blue spell with a little added twist to it. Let's take a look at Karn’s Temporal Sundering:
Here is another “take an extra turn” blue spell to add to the mix, joining recent additions like Part the Waterveil and Temporal Mastery.
Each of those spells gave you the chance to have some incremental value to the spell and Karn’s Temporal Sundering is no different. This card has the added bonus of being able to bounce a nonland permanent back to its owner’s hand. You can use it to either clear something from your opponent’s side or bounce one of your own permanents to be able to replay and gain value from it, like Torrential Gearhulk.
If used correctly, you could even play The Mirari Conjecture on a previous turn and when Chapter III hits, play Karn’s Temporal Sundering to gain two extra turns and bounce two nonland permanents.
Lastly, here are two spells that will allow you to increase the number of permanents on your battlefield in a rush. Here are Primeval’s Glorious Rebirth and Kamahl’s Druidic Vow:
Let’s start with Primeval’s Glorious Rebirth. This is a spell that you have to setup with plays throughout the game and your previous turns to be successful. Not only that, but you need to have a deck full of legendary permanents. But if you have met these requirements, you could take over the game by adding multiple legendary permanents onto the battlefield.
Kamahl’s Druidic Vow is similar in nature, but the X in its casting cost means that you can cater it to what you have in your deck. Also, the more you spend, the more value you’ll get out of it. Being able to put all the lands in the top X cards onto the battlefield means you can use this as a ramp spell as well. I can see this being used in a Dinosaur deck to both ramp and put large legendary Dinosaurs like Ghalta, Primal Hunger, Gishath, Sun’s Avatar, and Zacama, Primal Calamity onto the battlefield .
Like with Saga cards, you will want to make sure that you've planned out your turns properly in order to cast these spells when you want to cast them. They each are quite powerful and can change the course of the game, but hopefully you won’t top deck one of them with an empty battlefield.
What are your thoughts on the new Legendary Sorceries? Thanks again for reading the Daily Dose of Dominaria. Join me tomorrow as I talk about some other new Legendary cards that aren’t creatures. See you then!
