Dominaria, the first location for Magic: The Gathering, stayed crucial to its early storylines, including the epic saga involving an intrusion of mutant metal and flesh creatures known as Phyrexians, who were repulsed when Dominaria’s various peoples banded together as the Coalition and vanquished Yawgmoth, the man-turned-god responsible for the Phyrexians.
The next Dominaria United set goes back to the aircraft and discovers it in need of heroes once more. The sleeper operatives of the Phyrexians are already concealed among the Dominaria factions in preparation for their return.
It marks the start of a plot that will develop over the course of three additional sets: The Brothers’ War in November, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and March of the Machine the following year.
We recently looked at the mechanics of Dominaria United, including the reintroduction of Kicker, which allows you to use more mana to power up abilities, and Domain, which alters effects according to how many various types of basic lands you control, making multi-color decks profitable.
New mechanics include Enlist, which enables you to increase the strength of one creature by touching another that isn’t fighting and isn’t afflicted by summoning sickness, and Read Ahead, which allows you to skip chapters in multi-stage Saga cards.
Enlist is just a modernized and abbreviated form of the outdated keyword “banding,” which hasn’t been used in years. I
Dominaria United, which is all about resurrecting vintage Magic and contains cards from 1994 in select Collector’s booster packs, is the perfect place for it to make a comeback.
Enlist appears to be a lot more easy implementation of banding, which was intriguing but overly complicated (I recall being perplexed by how it worked in the videogame Shandalar).
Enlist may be found on the Coalition Skyknight Dominaria United card that Wizards of the Coast has provided for us to share. Its artwork shows a human brandishing a lance on the back of an enormous falcon-like bird called an aesthir. It is a 2/2 white creature with Flying.