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We're proud to present our latest release of Return to Dominaria!

395 cards of nostalgia & justice; 112 common, 110 uncommon, 95 rare, 15 mythic, 18 basic lands, 30 purple timeshifted cards, and 15 tokens

Return to Dominaria began design in 2017, concurrent to the canon set that would become Dominaria, known at the time as codename "Soup"; both to celebrate the 25th anniversary of magic. After several years of work and iterative development informed by playtesting, we're putting the finishing touches on the set!

Recently we completed a follow up to RtD, Purple Reign: https://www.planesculptors.net/set/purple-reign

Return to Dominaria

More than four thousand years have passed since Urza ended the Brothers Wars using the Sylex Blast; Four-hundred years have passed since the Weatherlight crew united to form the Legacy, using it to defeat Yawgmoth & the Phyrexian Invasion. It's been two-hundred years since Teferi was compelled to sacrifice his spark to seal the time rifts. Following the Mending, mana on Dominaria began to stabilize again and new centers of civilization like New Benalia and Tolaria West came into being, though long-lost creatures continue to surface on occasion.

Having just reemerged from the past during the Time Rifts, Mishra found himself looking for a purpose. After learning of his brothers' saga and subsequent demise, Mishra returns to his previous interests - harnessing the power of magic and further pursuing Thran Archaeology. His ultimate goal is the reconstruction of the Thran Mana Rig, in hopes of once again producing Powerstones in Dominaria. However, Mishra’s magical experiments have begun attracting unwanted attention, garnering curious parties from all over Dominaria and beyond.

Meanwhile, the Phyrexian compleation was a success. Argentum, better known as Mirrodin, has fallen under New Phyrexian control. With Yawgmoth long-deceased - the Phyrexian consulate had been in search of new leadership. Fortuitously, they found such leadership in the form of a corrupted Karn, who had been found and captured while scouting the plane. Sensing magical energy once again surging from Dominaria and emboldened by their new leadership, the Phyrexians utilized the power of the Five Moon Zenith to reopen the rifts to their ancestral home and once again resume the Invasion.

Upon exiting the rift portals, the Phyrexians found that rather than directly engage they would be better served by corrupting the locals. The main creature they adopted was the Sliver; taking and mechanically altered them, often in the process severing much of the hive mind connection. The phyrexian consulate kept detailed records of Volrath’s research, who himself created the original Metallic Sliver. This method of hybridization became known as the Quicksilver Project.

Which side will win? Who will scour Dominaria and again wield the almighty power of Thran technology? Only you can help decide! Join us in the Return to Dominaria!

Have fun, and keep a lookout for anything strange.

Footnotes

Fantastic and unfamiliar forces have also emerged from the reopened rifts! Caverns emanating purple mana have begun to appear across Dominaria.

Return to Dominaria introduces Cavern, a new typeless basic land, which taps for Purple, and functions like any other basic land during deck construction. You’ll need Purple mana to pay for Purple costs exhibited on creatures and spells. You’ll find only a splash of Purple on a few hybrid cards featured in Return to Dominaria; but you can look forward to learning more about Purple, the Aetherborn, and the Finori in our follow up set - Purple Reign!

Similar to Time Spiral, RtD has a 5th rarity - purple timeshifted cards (unrelated to Caverns and the emergent purple mana). These are kinda like Masterpiece Series Expeditions, Inventions, and Invocations, these reprints don't appear in the main set themselves. They are not intended for standard; instead these cards are legal only in limited, and in eternal formats like legacy and vintage. (With the exception of one horizontal cycle of lands, who have a restricted card on their front, and a standard legal card on their back. Despite having two sides, they are not flip cards; they don’t transform; it’s just two different cards, one on the front and another on the back. This is a postulate for adding content in a dual/lenticular fashion to eternal formats amidst a standard/masterpiece release.)

Mechanics

RtD is similar to Time Spiral and Modern Horizons. We feature many returning mechanics from Magic's history, as well as a few new ones. RtD pits two factions against each other, generally the mechanics tend to support one side much better than the other. Like Time Spiral and Modern Horizons, it's a kitchen sink / laundry list of mechanics. Perhaps what the game would like if it were designed without the well learned lessons and constraints that guide more contemporary standard releases. The goals of the set were less about proper design, and more of an exercise in dialing up and exploring variance with respect to set design and the limited experience. The designs aren't stating facts, they're asking questions.

Dominaria Coalition: Enchantments Matter (Bestow, Affinity for enchantments & tribes, Constellation) Tribes Matter

Phyrexians: Artifacts Matter (Modular) Slivers Matter (Phyrexian corrupted; often Hive Mind Connection severed)

Faction Agnostic: Vanishing; Phasing; Suspend; Cycling; Scavenge; Flashback; Delve; Investigate; Evoke; Sunburst; Dredge; Exert; Unearth; Wither; Improvise; Convoke; Kicker; Shadow; and several other mechanics.

New Mechanics: Purple Mana! Recycle (Cycling from graveyard, after use) Mechanization (Constellation for Artifacts) Fabled (by Herzi Querzi)

This is certainly not comprehensive...but should give you an idea!

Project History

It's picking up on the dichotomy that was Urza's Block; better than I can say...

"...Urza's Saga's expansion symbol is a set of gears, highlighting the artifacts theme of the set, and meant to symbolize Urza’s experiments in finding a means to defeat Phyrexia. R&D originally envisioned Urza's Saga (and the further block) to be centered on the enchantment theme. But the creative team told them that this block was going to be all about Urza, the greatest artificer of all time. By further referring to the block and the companion books as the "Artifacts Cycle", the original idea disappeared from view. It didn't help that the set contained some very powerful artifacts and artifact-themed cards like Fluctuator and Tolarian Academy..." Reference: mtg.gamepedia.com/Urza%27s_Saga

Throw in some Time Spiral Block appeal, and the return of Phyrexian (perhaps, Invasion part II) and blam, there ya go! We have the Dominarians with enchantments matter and Phyrexians with artifacts matter. I've got some stuff cooked up with the Thran and the Brothers too perhaps. Oh and I forgot to mention, our special guests, the Aetherborn and the Finori! Representing purple, and 'aether matters'. So really there's three factions, the Dominarians, the Phyrexians, and the Aetherborn. Storywise, the Aetherborn have come thru the same rifts that the Phyrexians reopened to get to back to Dominaria.

Return to Dominaria was inspired by Urza's Saga, although I started playing at a very young age during Ice Age, I really connected with and fell in love with the game when I experienced it with fellow middle schoolers a few years later, when Exodus was the new kid on the block. So Urza's Saga was my first prerelease, and I sought out to create something that captured a lot of the nostalgia I attached to this period. Which is cool, because this is similar to the approach that Wizards took when concepting their 15-year and 25-year anniversary products - Time Spiral block and Dominaria / Modern Horizons.

So I started by examining the history of Dominaria, compiling ~25 pages of notes about the lore, worldbuilding, set skeleton, and a 38 page document detailing the Dominarian history, and also the various planes respective to the chronological set releases to further place that history into the full context of the game.

The set was concurrently developed with the real Dominaria in anticipation of the 25th anniversary, design began more than two years ago when Dominaria was still known as codename Soup. I've worked in spurts, picking it up and putting down again and again. I first started making many, many rares, cycles and designing straight on top of Urza Saga as a skeleton; this wasn't the best approach so I stopped and pivoted focus to the commons.

That set design got intensified when I tried to add purple into it. After a lot of hemming and hawing trying to cram purple into Return to Dominaria, and some wisening up from listening to every Drive to Work podcast, I decided purple would be best served by dropping it into its own set, and making purple the defining feature and theme driving that set...so look forward to a follow up set in the block, codename Purple Reign. Very much picking up where the rnd team left off when they explored purple for canon mtg back in Planar Chaos, and also embracing the Purple Inquest hoax.

You can find Purple Reign here: https://www.planesculptors.net/set/purple-reign

And check out our earlier progress here: http://magicseteditor.boards.net/thread/48/custom-set-design-return-dominaria

We intentionally wove a 'preview' of purple mana into RTD, to both introduce the idea to the players, and to relax parasitism within the block environment. Moreover, this was done because of the implications for limited play and drafting under the traditional block paradigm, where the drafting for each second set of a block consisted of two packs of the small set with one of the large.

After numerous playtests, we have made some sweeping changes meant to enhance the limited experience with regard to choosing a side (phyrexian & artifacts vrs coalition & enchantments), as well as the archetypical strategies and payoffs available to each color pair. Regardless of faction or color pair, players should now be able to find a lane available to them and achieve success. The coalition was lent tribal synergy and more hybrid to dial up their cohesion; and the phyrexians were given more uncommon payoffs and better color access, enabling wider support. Numerous payoffs at uncommon and rare were introduced to better glue together particular strategies; including faction agnostic payoffs good for either side.

The latest developmental pass was extremely liberal. This is in contrast to a more restrained approach with past versions. Despite the increased complexity of individual designs and the frequency of common red flags, the gameplay and limited experience is better and more fun. Players hopefully will not feel burdened by the complexity, but will instead embrace the additional opportunities and strategies enabled by that additional complexity.

We are confidant Return to Dominaria is a fun limited experience, and should act as a solid foundation for our follow up set! We're anxious for a final round of playtesting and iterative development before marking it finished.

Thank you and enjoy!