There's always a very exciting progression for every new Magic: The Gathering set.

It starts with the slow bleed (and sometimes shock) of the first few preview cards coming out, showcasing new mechanics and the world the set will inhabit. As we work through preview season and more and more cards come out, the hype waxes and wanes as the community tries to figure out what the key pieces are going to be.

Then it all hits, the release of the full spoiler. Content creators scramble to take in hundreds of cards at once and put together set reviews and the first deck ideas start to come together. The first day the set is live is a mess of players trying out all new ideas and ramming them into players playing the best decks of the old format and it takes a while for things to settle.

Which brings us to right now!

Evaluating Magic cards is notoriously tricky and now that we've got about a week's worth of real world empirical data, we can start to abandon the theoretical and get a real idea of what cards are really standing out. As such, today I'll be going over some of the biggest winners from Dominaria United (in no particular order)!

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Okay let's start by addressing the egg on my face.

In my set review a little over a week ago, I was very underwhelmed by Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. The scale of the card felt smaller and much less exciting than the other Phyrexian Praetors, which left Sheoldred just looking like a Siege Rhino that you didn't want to draw multiples of. However, I underestimated both how potent the life draining ability would be, as well as how resilient Sheoldred is to many of the main removal spells in Standard.

As Narset, Parter of Veils has shown us, messing with your opponent's ability to draw cards is extremely potent. When you're behind in a game, often one of the necessary ways to catch up is to find some way to draw yourself out it, be it chapter two on Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, sacrificing Blood tokens, or just casting card draw spells. Sheoldred slams the door on that very quickly, while also buffing its controllers life total so you can't race.

Sheoldred joins a host of powerful Black cards in Standard, which helps as part of any card is the company it keeps, but it also boasts resilience to many of the most played removal spells in the format. Cut Down, Voltage Surge, Strangle, The Meathook Massacre, and more are all mostly helpless in the face of Sheoldred, and the 4/5 body can tangle with almost anything.

Mono Black Control | DMU Standard | MrApple65, 5-0 MTGO League

• Creatures (16)
• 2 Concealing Curtains // Revealing Eye
• 2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 4 Evolved Sleeper
• 4 Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton
• 4 Tenacious Underdog

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Sorin the Mirthless

• Instants (5)
• 2 Cut Down
• 3 Infernal Grasp

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Soul Transfer
• 4 Invoke Despair

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 The Meathook Massacre

• Artifacts (3)
• 3 Reckoner Bankbuster

• Lands (26)
• 21 Swamp
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 4 Field of Ruin

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Cut Down
• 4 Duress
• 1 Infernal Grasp
• 1 Junji, the Midnight Sky
• 1 Malicious Malfunction
• 2 Parasitic Grasp
• 2 Pithing Needle
• 1 Reckoner Bankbuster
• 1 Sorin the Mirthless
• 1 The Meathook Massacre

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There's definitely an element of newness here, as I think many players (myself included) weren't ready for Sheoldred to be a force. Once the metagame adjusts to being able to actually kill Sheoldred, the luster will wear off a bit, but there's no doubt that Sheoldred has been quite the surprise and we'll be seeing a lot of it in the future.

Defiler of Vigor

Defiler of Vigor is the clear standout of the Phyrexian defiler cycle, with the rest of them all having decent bodies and middling effects like "make a 1/1" or "a creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn." Defiler of Vigor on the other hand is a monster 6/6 trample that puts a +1/+1 counter on all of your creatures. I'm honestly not sure how the other defilers can even show their faces with Defiler of Vigor around.

The question with Defiler of Vigor however ends up being where it has a home.

The early answer comes from fellow content creator Jaffer, who has removed Collected Company from Explorer Mono-Green Stompy for a full playset of Defiler of Vigor. With Llanowar Loamspeaker joining forces with the dynamic duo of Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves, there's enough acceleration to power out Defiler of Vigor as early as turn three, as well as have a bunch of cheap things to do to pump things up. And that's to say nothing of The Great Henge getting into the mix.

Mono Green Stompy | Explorer | Jaffer

• Creatures (30)
• 2 Rhonas the Indomitable
• 4 Defiler of Vigor
• 4 Elvish Mystic
• 4 Kazandu Mammoth
• 4 Llanowar Elves
• 4 Llanowar Loamspeaker
• 4 Steel Leaf Champion
• 4 Werewolf Pack Leader

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Blizzard Brawl

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Ranger Class

• Artifacts (3)
• 3 The Great Henge

• Lands (20)
• 16 Snow-Covered Forest
• 2 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 2 Lair of the Hydra

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Shapers' Sanctuary
• 2 Kraul Harpooner
• 1 Shadowspear
• 2 Ram Through
• 2 Heroic Intervention
• 2 Questing Beast
• 2 Outland Liberator
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse

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This is a promising start to Defiler of Vigor's career in Constructed, with the early results looking very promising. Defiler of Vigor could also be a good payoff at the top end of an elves deck to both grow the squad as well as utilize the cost reduction.

I'd also be interested to see how adding cards like Oath of Nissa in Pioneer or Favored Enemy in Historic to the mix would play, as being able to trigger Defiler of Vigor the turn you cast it is huge.

Either way, Defiler of Vigor is more than just a big Limited bomb!

Rundvelt Hordemaster

Goblins!

When all is said and done five or ten years down the road, Rundvelt Hordemaster may end up being the card that Dominaria United is remembered for. While there's not much to do in Standard with Goblins, in the older formats with Skirk Prospector and Mogg War Marshal, Rundvelt Hordemaster has been making all sorts of waves as a crazy powerful engine card that has not been fully realized yet.

It's one thing to get value when your creatures die naturally, which is great by the way, but it's another to be able to continually sacrifice your own creatures for both mana and value, especially in a tribe that has good combo finishes.

And speaking of good finishes, Goblins actually took down the first Modern Challenge with Dominaria United in the hands of PlaytoNguyen!

Goblins | Modern | PlaytoNguyen, 1st Place MTGO Modern Challenge

• Creatures (33)
• 1 Skirk Prospector
• 1 Stingscourger
• 2 Goblin Ringleader
• 2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 2 Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 3 Boggart Harbinger
• 3 Mogg Fanatic
• 3 Mogg War Marshal
• 4 Conspicuous Snoop
• 4 Goblin Matron
• 4 Munitions Expert
• 4 Rundvelt Hordemaster

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Aether Vial

• Lands (23)
• 1 Swamp
• 3 Mountain
• 1 Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway
• 1 Den of the Bugbear
• 1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance
• 1 Wooded Foothills
• 3 Blood Crypt
• 4 Auntie's Hovel
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Cavern of Souls

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Alpine Moon
• 2 Chalice of the Void
• 1 Fury
• 1 Goblin Cratermaker
• 1 Goblin Trashmaster
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 2 Magus of the Moon
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Void Mirror

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What's most impressive here is that this is essentially just the stock Rakdos Snoop Combo Goblins deck minus four cards and plus four Rundvelt Hordemaster. That's an excellent stress test for a new card, as there's been essentially zero optimization. If Rundvelt Hordemaster works this well just added to an already existing Goblin deck, imagine how well it can do if the deck was built entirely with it in mind.

Rundvelt Hordemaster has also been making some waves in Legacy as well, as I expect it to over many formats for many years to come.

Leyline Binding

Leyline Binding was a pretty easy one and it has living up to the hype.

In non-fetchland formats like Standard or Pioneer, Leyline Binding still has the triomes to work with and is a very solid card as Banishing Light with major upside is still quite good. We haven't felt the full wrath of domain just yet in Standard but it's going to take more than a week to figure the deck out, and folks are already salivating at the idea of sacrificing Leyline Binding on turn four to Enigmatic Incarnation to go get some crazy 7-drop in Pioneer.

However, where Leyline Binding is amusingly making its biggest waves is in the same format as Prismatic Ending, Modern.

In Modern, there are various cascade decks that can't play any card that costs two mana value or less, and these decks are often always on the lookout for a versatile answer to hate cards that they don't feel bad maindecking. Leyline Binding to the rescue!

Four Color Footfalls | Modern | SolMBAGallade, MTGO League 5-0

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Fury
• 4 Scion of Draco
• 4 Shardless Agent

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 3 Teferi, Time Raveler

• Instants (14)
• 2 Dead // Gone
• 4 Fire // Ice
• 4 Force of Negation
• 4 Violent Outburst

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Crashing Footfalls

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Leyline Binding

• Lands (23)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Indatha Triome
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Xander's Lounge
• 4 Flooded Strand
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Brazen Borrower
• 4 Force of Vigor
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 4 Mystical Dispute
• 2 Qasali Ambusher

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Crashing Footfalls cascade has been a deck for a while in Modern, but the addition of Leyline Binding as well as a few extra triomes to power it up send Magic Online player SolMBAGallade to a 5-0 in a recent league.

The flexibility that fetchlands give you in Modern right now is crazy, which makes assembling domain comically easy if you're willing to skip your turn one play. Leyline Binding is everything that was expected and more.

The best part is that we're just scratching the surface. There's a lot of fun build arounds in Dominaria United, which are going to take a little longer to figure out than the raw rate of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or the obvious flexibility of Leyline Binding. Cards like Haughty Djinn and Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart showed great promise during my Ten New Brews, but are going to need a little more time to solve.

Frankly? I can't wait to try!