Dominaria Set Leak

Sorry, folks but it's true-lots of release notes and you can find the official stuff here.

I'm not pro-leaks as a way to get cool internet points but this seems to be the result of a mistake and accidents happen. So while I understand this is going to be a topic of conversation, I hope that the content creators who rely on these cool spoiler effects for hits aren't kicked too hard.

Also, kudos to WotC's handling of this. Monday's update just seals my admiration. They've been up front and professional and that's how you do it.

That said: I want to talk about Dominaria. However, I'm going to big picture this, because I'd rather see the entire set before making any judgments.

I can talk about the set's themes and mechanics...so here we go. If you don't want anything spoiled for you, I understand but it's spoilery stuff from here on out.

Saga
This is weird but as I read it, it's starting to click. It's weird because the timing on the card is unusual: enter the battlefield, then end of draw step, a timing thing they haven't done since Invasion, when 'during upkeep' triggers all became 'at the beginning of'. So to unweird this, it would have to say 'add a counter at the beginning of your first main phase'. In addition, adding a lore counter to the object doesn't use the stack and whenever something doesn't use the stack, that's weird. The effect from putting the lore counter on creates a triggered ability that does use the stack, so that part makes sense.

But what I don't like is this part:

If counters are removed from a Saga, the appropriate chapter abilities will trigger again when the Saga receives lore counters. Removing lore counters won't cause a previous chapter ability to trigger.

Wait. Why is it that we now have to do this crappy bookkeeping thing? This bothers me in the same way that Renown and Monstrous bother me: there's no way to know how the +1 counters got on the creature, so players just have to remember. Or, if the counters get removed for some reason, I can't re-trigger the ability.

Well, hell. This has two problems, for me: First, why do I have to remember that? It's unnecessary bookeeping which always ventures into the realm of unfun. Second, and this is specific to Saga but could also be true for Renown/Monstrous: If I can remove the counter, why can't I repeat the chapter? I've gone through the trouble to do so. LET ME DO THAT.

It works for Cumulative Upkeep, why doesn't it work here?

Legendary (stuff)
I will start with: Hey, I called it! That's always cool. (Check under the Green section).

I'm not sorry to see more legendary creatures or permanents. Cool deal. Commander gets a HUGE boost, lore aficionados get a thrill, it's all pretty win-win in my opinion. I've no doubt that they've learned from Kamigawa block and will be doing all they can to keep the excitement up. That Dominaria is a single set undoubtedly has a lot to do with this, because that means WotC doesn't have to glut the players with legends for a year. All very smart!

But, Legendary Sorceries. From the doc:

You can't cast a legendary sorcery unless you control a legendary creature or a legendary planeswalker. Once you begin to cast a legendary sorcery, losing control of your legendary creatures and planeswalkers won't affect that spell.

Other than the casting restriction, the legendary supertype on a sorcery carries no additional rules. You may cast any number of legendary sorceries in a turn, and your deck may contain any number of legendary cards (but no more than four of any with the same name).

Emphasis mine. Because that's a pretty big casting restriction, once you remove those cards from Dominaria! There will be 18 MONTHS of these cards in Standard, including sets that don't just give you Legendary stuff, along with 25 years of sets and ideas that don't need or want legendary stuff.

So, why do that? Why make a card useless unless you've got a legendary creature or planeswalker in play? You can't even use it if you have a legendary artifact or enchantment!

Why not make it like the Ascend mechanic, so you get something if you don't have a legend, but something better if you do? Flavor reasons? If flavor is the reason, that's just stupid. The functional should've won out here.

If it's because it would make the mechanic to similar to Ascend....well that at least I get. Once every few years they have to drag out the "every mechanic is kicker" argument and defend why design is a limited space. Having two similar mechanics exist so closely together might give the game too much 'sameness'.

If it's because it allows WotC to make really powerful and special sorceries that, and this part is key, they wouldn't get to do otherwise, I get that too.

But those are the only two reasons I'm OK with. And even then: I think casting restrictions like this are bad.

Historic
Let's break it down: Historic will trigger off of three types of permanents: legendary (awesome), Saga enchantments (cool) and artifacts (wait, what?).

I am...very, very, very tired of WotC's boner for artifacts.

According to Gatherer: 925 current Legendary permanents, excluding artifacts. If you want to add in those, that's an additional 68 permanents, so just under 1000, including Un-sets. None of this counts what Dominaria will bring to the table.

There are 1889 artifact permanents (this includes Legendary ones). So, over double. Again, none of this counts Dominaria.

Yes, I get it: Artifacts represent history. That's...almost literally what they are about. And yes, I'm glad that Historic gets to interact with other sets in Magic. That's great stuff!

But. It's imbalanced and I don't like that: you have restrictions for two of the three triggers, and then the sky's the limit for the third?

However, I suppose that's more about me and my desire for better artifact destruction (reprint Smelt, damnit!) and the break in pattern than it is about whether or not Historic does something neat. And mechanically, it does, while also hitting some great flavor notes.

So I'm going to let my grumpy slide here.
Kicker: Kicker is good.

Oddity: they're removing the term 'mana pool' from cards? I guess that it makes some sense-lands haven't referenced this since Sixth Edition. Why not make other cards the same way? Still, it seems weird.

And that's it! The other stuff-more inclusive pronoun usage, planeswalker damage change, a line between mechanical and flavor text-I'm all good with these things and hopeful that they will improve the experience of playing Magic.