Dominaria United Constructed Set Review and Decklists: White
With the full spoiler released, DoggertQBones is reviewing the best cards from each color as well as providing sample decklists! To start off, he's examining the White cards!
Table of Contents
Hello everyone! With the full spoiler for Dominaria United live, we can finally get into breaking down the cards with constructed applications!
Since I did individual card reviews already, rather than repeat myself, I’ll link the article, but still give the verdict and decklist if that’s what you’re more interested in. For this, I’m going to cover every Mythic, every Rare, and then choice uncommons and commons that have potential. Let’s get into it!
As always, here’s the scale I’ll be using to label the new cards that potentially have constructed applications.
- 0/5 – Unplayable in every sense.
- 1/5 – Extremely niche play or very unlikely to see play.
- 2/5 – Niche to no play, maybe playable in certain conditions.
- 3/5 – Reasonable playable. Not format breaking, but has the power level to see play in some strategy (or strategies).
- 4/5 – Very strong card, but not the best the format has to offer. Has the power level to see a lot of play.
- 5/5 – The very top of the format. This card will create a huge impact going forward on the format.
Serra Paragon
So the lone Mono White mythic is just Lurrus with wings? Not bad! Serra Paragon is a weird card as it seems really powerful, but it would probably play out worse than it looks. Being able to recoup lands is definitely interesting, but unless you’re playing fetchlands (lands that sacrifice themselves to search your library for other lands) of all types, not just the Eternal ones, this is going to be hard to pull off.
For what it’s worth, this card is going to be a must kill as you will get a good amount of value out of it and this is not easy to kill. Dodging Lightning Strike and Cut Down is pretty big game so it’s not crazy to untap with this and start accruing value. While I do think this is probably weaker than it looks, if we learned anything from Lurrus, it still has a decent amount of potential.
Mono White Aggro
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Aggro
best of 1
8 mythic
25 rare
4 uncommon
23 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (36)
60 Cards
$143.92
Rating: 3-3.5/5
Guardian of New Benalia
Extremely reminiscent of Seasoned Hallowblade, this has the added bonus of Enlist to make this a bit better than Hallowblade was and even Scry if you decide to Enlist. While I’m not a big fan of Enlist as a mechanic, this is a solid two drop that can slot into aggressive strategies.
Rating: 2.5-3/5
Archangel of Wrath
It’s beautiful.
As much as I would love for cards like this to be the gold standard in Standard again, I think the time for cool midrange pieces has mostly been supplanted by just insanely powerful threats on rate. I want to hold out hope as it coming in on turn 5 and killing something is a pretty nice play, especially when it’s a mini Lightning Helix, but it’s hard to imagine this is going to be better than your other options. However, it definitely has potential and I would clearly love to be wrong.
Mardu Midrange
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Midrange
best of 1
6 mythic
40 rare
4 uncommon
10 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (4)
Creatures (12)
Enchantments (10)
Lands (26)
60 Cards
$519.1
Rating: 2.5-3.5/5
Defiler of Faith
I cover this card in more detail in its dedicated article:
Dominaria Mono White Midrange
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Midrange
best of 1
9 mythic
21 rare
4 uncommon
26 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (4)
Creatures (20)
Instants (4)
60 Cards
$212.66
Rating: 2.5/5
Valiant Veteran
I cover this card in more detail in its dedicated article:
Selesnya (Mostly) Humans
by DoggertQBones
Historic
best of 1
4 mythic
43 rare
0 uncommon
13 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (32)
Instants (4)
Lands (24)
60 Cards
$509.32
Rating: 2.5/5
Urza Assembles the Titans
This is a card that has a massive amount of text and implications, but is mostly flash rather than substance. Read Ahead I envision is going to be one of the most challenging mechanics to evaluate and play with as what you do with the card changes drastically depending on what the game state is, but I’m not impressed by any of these modes. Maybe “cheating” in a Planeswalker and then activating it twice is a fun play pattern, but to spend five mana on that rather than just casting the planeswalker is super suspect to me.
This card could also hypothetically draw you a Planeswalker on chapter one, but if you whiff, you spent five mana to scry 4 in Constructed. I am definitely not seeing it, however, you better believe this is a sick card for Commander.
Rating: 1.5/5
Leyline Binding
This card is gross. If you’re willing to play a lot of colors in your deck you could potentially make this a one mana exile anything at instant speed. Sure that’s going to require some work, but the payoff is one mana exile anything at instant speed. While you’d have to really configure your mana base to make this work, I think this could be very reasonable in Standard as well considering how many Domain payoffs there are.
Huge fan of this card and even if it doesn’t make waves in Standard, the older the format, the better this card is.
5C Kami War
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Midrange
best of 1
9 mythic
41 rare
8 uncommon
2 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (4)
Sorceries (3)
Enchantments (20)
Lands (27)
60 Cards
$399
Rating: 4.5/5
Danitha, Benalia’s Hope
I cover this card in more detail in its dedicated article:
Azorius Control
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Control
best of 1
4 mythic
28 rare
6 uncommon
22 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (4)
Creatures (2)
Instants (18)
Lands (26)
60 Cards
$228.64
Rating: 3/5
Anointed Peacekeeper
I know that everyone is comparing this card to Elite Spellbinder, and while they look extremely similar, this feels much more like a Brain Maggot than it does Elite Spellbinder. Spellbinder keeps the spell locked down and has evasion, Brain Maggot is contingent on the body surviving and has no evasion.
Peacekeeper needs to stay alive for the ability to be active and not having a way to get around creatures or a large body is going to be a big detriment. This card is pretty good none the less and severely punishes opponents for having duplicates in hand so I envision this will see a good amount of play regardless.
Rating: 3/5
Temporary Lockdown
This is a wacky card as the floor and ceiling are so far from each other. There are going to be games that this is a substantially worse Oblivion Ring, but in other games, this is going to just 3+ for 1 the opponent. This is an obscenely good sideboard card and wouldn’t be surprised if slower White decks could just main deck it, depending on what the format looks like.
Rating: 3.5/5
Phyrexian Missionary
I’m probably being ambitious here, but a Gravedigger that can be cast on turn 2 as a 2/3 Lifelink seems somewhat close to a playable rate. Realistically I doubt I’m seeing this in Standard decks, but thought it was good/interesting enough to be worth mentioning.
Rating: 1.5/5
Prayer of Binding
This is kind of like Faith's Fetters, but trading 2 life for Flash. While this seems like it wouldn’t be a Constructed playable rate, it’s probably going to be better than it looks, but not much better. I can see something like Azorius Control playing this (assuming they aren’t just stone dead to Liliana of the Veil existing in the same format).
Rating: 2.5/5
Resolute Reinforcements
This is Raise the Alarm on a creature. Normally I would say this would make it better, but if you have cards that care specifically about tokens, this is technically a bit worse. Raise the Alarm hasn’t really been Standard playable for awhile and I envision this will have the same issue, but it’s always been a card that’s close.
Rating: 2/5
Conclusion
White looks ok in this set as there aren’t many stand out cards, but a slew of decent ones that may or may not make the cut. Leyline Binding is far and away the best White card and I expect to see a lot of that in many Magic formats.
Thank you for reading!
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DoggertQBones
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