Dominaria United: 7PH Set Review

 

Catching up on these set reviews is even easier to do when I'm using them to procrastinate from job applications. By the way, if you need someone to draw or model something in the engineering industry hit me up!

~ is a very interesting card to me because it's so expensive money-wise. When I first saw her I was like, yeah this is a great card but it just dies to Fatal Push. I thought that potentially horrible exchange would keep her in check. But clearly fucking not. My local store is charging a hideous amount for her (25th Feb 2023). What is happening?

Obviously there are other factors going on, like black having a lot of support in Standard, and it being harder to enable revolt in Pioneer without fetchlands. Still doesn't justify the price tag in my opinion. It's sad cause I want her.
Really nice against all the blue cantrips. The more hate for Brainstorm, Preordain and Ponder, the better for the diversity of the format.

She gets Karakas'd in upkeep.

Generally you can only afford to run 3 or 4 expensive spells due to curve. ~ is a fine option.

Wrecks aggro.

Flying is nice for pressuring planeswalkers that make tokens. Flying also nice for taking The Initiative and racing.

The kicker shocks are handy against some must-kill creatures like Dauthi Voidwalker, Deathrite Shaman and Reflection of Kiki-Jiki.

~ improves if you can protect her with discard/Mother of Runes/Giver of Runes/Skrelv, Defector Mite.

Powerful must-answer threat. Realistically a 5drop since you want to play a fetchland with her at minimum. Fetchlands actually net you life in this case.

You might want to mark which permanents have been cast with ~ so that you remember to exile them and gain the life when they die. I personally would lift the card out of the sleeve a little. I do this with Oko, and exert and Fractured Identity.

I often view 'Baneslayers' like ~  as sideboard cards against aggro because they're too much of a tempo loss if they get removed. ~ is still a good sideboard card but if you can reanimate one of the reconfigure equipment from Neon Dynasty then I think she's good enough for maindeck. Here are some options that could fit with ~:

Lion Sash

Lizard Blades

Blade of the Oni

Leech Gauntlet

The Reality Chip

Clousteel Kirin

Strong sideboard against aggro, especially if you can protect her with discard/Mother of Runes/Giver of Runes/Skrelv, Defector Mite; or better yet, bring back an aura or equipment that protects her, e.g. Lightning Greeves or Swiftfoot Boots.

Pretty sweet with Eater of Virtue

Good with Champion's Helm in a legendary deck.

I've tried ~ in a mono white Lurrus equipment deck and it was pretty good. ~ is more suited to a metagame lacking in combo because in that case combat more important than disruption. 

I can see ~ in a Scapeshift deck, as a big threat that must be answered but also gets closer to the critical 7 lands for Valakut. I don't think the power level is there outside of that strategy though.

The trigger doesn't target, so even if there isn't a land in the graveyard when you cast ~, you can respond to the trigger by discarding a land to his abilities, and still get back the land you discarded.

Note that ~ gets lands from any graveyard, not just your own.

Bad combo with Shreiking Drake; effectively you can pay 2 life to draw a card. Hard to justify when you could simply cast Yawgmoth's Bargain instead.

I know it's unlikely but I've always wanted to gain infinite life with Boros Reckoner and Rush of Vitality, but now I have an on-colour version! 

Excellent payoff for 'mono instant speed' deck. Presumably the opponent will have lots of sorcery-speed spells and won't be able to abuse ~ like you can.

To maximise ~ you'll want most of your spells to be cheap, so that you can cast all those extra cards you draw.

The flier is good for taking The Initiative.

Good with Yorion.

My Aluren deck values ≤3 mana creatures which ETB draw a card because they let you dig through your deck trying to find a Recruiter or Cavern Harpy. ~ being blue is an extra bonus because of Cavern Harpy.

Curves with Mana Crypt and Ancient Tomb.

~ is perfect with Winota. Its a Human to be found with her but also creates a nonHuman, which triggers her and the token is on curve for a turn4 Winota and the token has evasion, making it likely to survive.

Zero-mana damage sources let you get that trigger even if you cast ~ on curve. The ones that come to mind are:
Fury
Pyrokinesis
Seal of Fire
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Arlinn Kord
Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes
Comet, Stellar Pup

Garruk Relentless

You don't need to run ~ with other dragons, but you so really want that trigger the first turn so that you get enough value before she dies.

Excellent payoff for a lifegain strategy. Only downside is that lifegain decks tend to not be blue, so you would have to lightly splash.

There are about twenty 1mana instants that target a creature and draw a card. You could fill your deck with those, some creatures and a bunch of payoffs like ~ and the following:

Feather, the Redeemed

Mavinda, Student's Advocate

Silverfur Partisan

Wild Defiance

Ink-Treader Nephilim

Storm-Kiln Arcanist

Mirrorwing Dragon

Another payoff for the 'Feather' deck.

If you don't have another creature of your own then you can target your opponent's creatures to get the copy of the cantrip and draw two cards. If you do have a second creature but it's summoning sick, then it would typically be better to target the opponent's creature in case they have removal.

~ strong in the Bogle deck if that gets the extra few 1mana hexproof creatures it needs to become viable.

Combo potential with Jeskai Ascendancy; snowbally because every untap animates another lands which is another mana every untap.

Could be good in mono colour combo decks for digging to the combo pieces.

Vulnerable to removal but very powerful if it lives. Haste creatures support ~ well because not only will they bait out removal so that ~ can live, they can also crew ~ immediately if they enter. The rest of your deck will be removal spells that ~ can cast to stop blockers from killing her.

Goes in one of my favourite imaginary archetypes, Aristorcrats. But hey, they're only imaginary until someone does well with them!

I could imagine ~ in a Mardu Aristocrats deck, which a large Skullclamp focus:

Grim Initiate

Doomed Traveller

Hunted Witness

Garrison Cat

Nested Shamber

Crawling Chorus

Bloodghast
Entomb

Blood Artist

Cruel Celebrant

Zulaport Cutthroat

Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim

Corpse Knight

Judith, Scourge Diva

Grim Haruspex

Mayhem Devil

Carrion Feeder

Viscera Seer

Cartel Aristocrat

Goblin Bombardment

Rally the Ancestors

Return to the Ranks

Immortal Servitude

Ascend from Avernus

Skullclamp

Stoneforge Mystic

Steelshaper's Gift

Fighter Class

Open the Armory
Diabolic Intent

Back before Thassa's Oracle I had a Sultai Hogaak deck which Birthing Pod and needed a 4drop black or green dude to kill Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman. For a while I tried Hostage Taker but it would die and they'd get the Scooze back. I also tried Ravenous Chupacabra but too often I'd hit 4mana and against control or combo and it would be bad. ~ would be a perfect fit in that spot.

~ would actually be a good fit in that Sultai Hogaak deck too.

Strong madness outlet. Yet another one of my imaginary archetypes that I'll eventually make work.

~ is a bit like a bad Jace, Vryn's Prodigy.

Always worth paying attention to new tutors in 7PH, especially creature based ones that can be abused with blink effects. I'm surprised ~ hasn't taken off considering how good Spellseeker is. Of course it's a whole mana more, but it's also triple the size.

Here are some sweet things we can search for:

Ancestral Recall

Demonic Consultation (for Thassa's Oracle combo turn5)

Red and Blue Elemental Blasts (postboard)

Ephemerate (for value)

Summoner's Pact (for Protean Hulk to combine with Flash next turn)

Swords to Plowshares / Fatal Push / Lightning Bolt

Thoughtseize

Mother of Runes, Thoughtseize and Blossoming Defense are better for protecting your combo creature but perhaps you're not any of those colours and that is when ~ could sneak into a deck.

I like this in control decks with all the good good ways of protecting it and also disrupting combo opponents from comboing off teh turn you tap out for ~. I'm talking Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress, Dread Fugue, Force of Will, Force of Negation, Mana Drain. Then all your two-drops are creatures for taking The Initiative, and then all your 3's and 4's are removal. Then you have a couple haymakers like ~ to take over the game.

Returning a creature and giving it haste is excellent for combos such as Hermit Druid and Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies. There are cards that are cheaper than ~ for bringing back a creature and giving it haste, e.g. Shallow Grave, Postmortem Lunge and Corpse Dance. However, being a creature itself gives ~ extra utility to tutors like Worldly Tutor, Eladamri's Call, etc. And it can be the 3rd creature required to sacrifice to Dread Return in Hermit Druid combo. 

Good combo control card. If you don't cast a counterspell or removal spell then you can EoT ~ to dig for your combo, potentially putting cards in your graveyard that you wanted there anyway.
Fuels delve and escape nicely.

~ is vulnerable to all popular removal but you'll probably get at least one end step trigger, which would be enough value if what sacrificing something for almost no loss. The best example I can think of is Bloodghast, which can also be tutored for with Entomb and Unmarked Grave. Other good sacrifice fodder I can think of is Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephaliaand Hidden Stockpile.

Could be good in graveyard based combo decks which naturally have a lot of mana. My reasoning is that the first chapter trigger is good for hitting a potential Faerie Macabre or Endurance from the opponent's hand. However, that line is quite slow, so you need some natural acceleration to get ~ out quickly, or perhaps you're a combo control deck which can buy time with disruption.

Lurrus decks want mana sinks because they lack expensive spells. 

Mana sinks that have cheap mana costs are strong against counterspells.

The way ~ naturally curves out wants you to run a lot of 1drops so that you can cast ~ turn1, then turn2 attack for 2 and cast another 1drop. Then turn3 attack for 3 and cast another 1drop.

~ is better in reactive decks where you often have unspent or leftover mana from holding up removal or counterspells.

If March of the Machines gives us ways of turning creatures into phyrexians, then you can active the final ability of ~ without having to activate the first two abilities.

Win condition with Squee, the Immortal + Food Chain

Another win condition for Squee, the Immortal + Food Chain! And ~ is actually an ok card without the combo.

Nice cheap Dragon for Crucible of Fire.

There could be some sweet deck with The Great Henge and Not of this World with cheap big dudes. Ideally you want your huge creature to resolve and then be able to cast ~ immediately before the opponent gets priority to remove your big guy. You also need to be doing this in the first four turns of the game to not be too slow. Suicide could be a good home:

Death's Shadow

Shadow of Immortality

Rotting Regisaur

Wall of Blood

Can copy Time Walk even if the original Time Walk gets countered. The old Fork variants targeted the Time Walk and therefore there was risk. This new formating is better against counterspells. Here are some more like this:

Dual Strike

Teach by Example

Doublecast

Galvanic Iteration

Sea Gate Stormcaller

This is enough that tutoring for Time Walk and consistently copying it the following turn is a reality. Sea Gate Stormcaller is special because it won't trigger the others. This means you can go ~ into Sea Gate Stormcaller into Time Walk (yes, 6 mana is a lot) and get two copies.

The new Mercurial Spelldancer fits well into this plan too.

Metagame dpendant card. Has just enough utility to be reasonable. I can imagine a metagame where artifacts and enchantments are popular. Perhaps there's a couple Underworld Breach or Time Vault decks that have lots of ways to return their namesake card from the graveyard.

Unlike much removal, ~ deals with the indestructible enchantment gods.

The exile is nice against Wurmcoil Engine and Hangarback Walker.

AGGRO

Third Path Iconoclast is in this format, so for ~ to be good enough, you need to be triggering him consistently turn2. Did some scryfalling and it looks like you'd be Naya aggro:

Kird Ape

Wild Nacatl

Loam Lion

Skyshroud Elite

Sunblade Elf

Narnam Renegade

Those are the generally good aggro ones. We need more but the remaining ones diverge and for synergy sake we'll need to only choose one group. One group is the Pelt Collectors that will need a progression of bigger and bigger creatures, i.e. almost all your spells being creatures:

Pelt Collector

Experiment One

Evolving Adaptive

The other group need as many fetchlands as you can run, and in Goblin Blast-Runner's case, you'll want Wasteland and Strip Mine too but that's ok cause those cards fit the aggro strat anyway.

Akoum Hellhound

Steppe Lynx

Goblin Blast-Runner

Ignoble Heirarch

Noble Heirarch

The Heirarchs are a little sketchy cause they aren't very aggro and you can't always attack with a 1/2 on turn2 cause the opponent might have a blocker. You'll want to run Fury and Solitude if you can support them.

Solid aggro creature. Reminds me of Flinthoof Boar. The domain creatures: Nishoba Brawler, Territorial Kavu and Scion of Draco are much more powerful, so ~ is more playable in Gruul aggro where you're relying on more consitent mana, value lands and Blood Moons to make up the power difference of the rest of your cards.

Nice aggressive 1drop. Always great when pure aggro gets a boost.

Flying is very strong in the Initiative meta.

Haste is nice with Embercleave if you're going wide.

Nice to Skullclamp if your deck is designed to get three attackers for the reanimation.

A bonus is that you get to do the chicken dance when you attack with ~.

DOMAIN CARDS

Easy to get 4 basic land types and make this cost 1W. Not much harder to get 5 basic land types to make ~ cost just W. 

5 colour decks can run Scion of Draco, Nishoba Brawler and Territorial Baloth; at that point it becomes worthwhile to run a triome or two. Triomes reduce ~'s cost, but they also effectively cost a mana to play because they ETB tapped.

'Flash remove anything for 1W or W' is an excellent rate. The downside of course is the possibility of ~ getting destroyed and the thing returning. Therefore, ~ is bad against cards with ETB or LTB triggers. Also, if the opponent has mana open and you're thinking about attacks, you need to consider the possibility of them destroying ~ midcombat and blocking with the creature they bring back or whatever. Popular removal for ~ includes:

The opponent's Leyline Binding

Boseiju, Who Endures

Assassin's Trophy

Vanishing Verse

Unexpectedly Absent

5/3 trampls is excellent but 4/3 trampls is good enough in today's metagame too. Your opponent can drop a White Plume Adventurer and you can swing in for guaranteed damage.

Big enough to attack into a Ledger Shredder for a couple turns.

I wouldn't run this unless Wrenn and Six gets a second point. You've been warned.

Hopefully it does, so that all these sweet 1toughness creatures get unlocked.

WUBRG Warriors would be awesome, so that you can get full value with ~ and activate Najeela's ability. Unfortunately for these two, Cavern of Souls and Unclaimed Territory don't contribute.

TRIBAL

The key to Dragon tribal is having enough things to do turn 1 and 2 to keep up on tempo until your Dragons can start to take over the mid to late game. Korlessa, Scale Singer just got printed. You'd want cards like Mana Drain and Remand that keep you up on tempo but also give you resources to get to your expensive Dragons.

Good recurring threat for hyper aggro and Warrior Tribal.

Possible inclusion for Warrior Tribal, especially in builds which generate tokens.

Yes, Soldiers are playable. They're actually really good against Underworld Breach combo. So if you're looking to beat Brennan Crawford ;) , then check out:

Dryad Militant

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Cathar Commando

Sungold Sentinel

Aegis of the Gods (Intuition)

Dennick, Pious Apprentice (Sevinne's Reclamation)

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade (Lion's Eye Diamond)

Ranger-Captain of Eos

General Kudro of Drannith

Loxodon Gatekeeper (Lion's Eye Diamond)

~ might push the Soldier deck into green. ~ can be found with Green Sun's Zenith and Collected Company.

~ is a decent mana sink for Gaea's Cradle, although you do need some white mana.

~ could also go in a Human Tribal deck, although the tokens he makes aren't Humans.

Weak stats but I think this would be good enough in a Winota deck since it's a Human to hit and it creates a nonHuman to trigger Winota.

Ideally you run Skullclamp and equipment tutors.

Decent in Soldier tribal giving two bodies to get buffed by lords. 

A little underpowered for a general aggro deck. I think you'd need tribal Soldier synergies to push it over the edge.

Clerics are more of a combo tribe that try to sacrifice Academy Rector or loop Clerics with Orah, Skyclave Hierophant; ~'s lord ability is less useful in Clerics than it would be a combat-based tribal deck. However, I still think ~ is good. 

Threat and disruption.

Curves with Mana Crypt, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors.

Relevant creature types for potentially powerful cards like Champion of the Parish, Orah, Skyclave Hierophant.

You don't have to name a card in their hand.

Unlike some of these effects, you can name lands, e.g. fetchlands. If you Collected COmpany into ~ then you can name the fetchland they have on the battlefield and they won't have the opportunity to crack it.

See their hand is nice information even if there isn't something good to name.

~'s weakness is that a 3/3 vigilance for 3 is below curve. Ideally it would have 4 toughness to survive a Lightning Bolt or Endurance fight.

Good grindy creature. Ideally you'll want ways to increase its power to maximise the lifelink.

Gets better with Lurrus as your companion.

Gets better in Cleric tribal.

I would run this in my Merfolk tribal deck if it was just a 1/1 lord but they gave it FLASH, which is an awesome combat trick and they gave it the tax ability.  Flash makes the tax ability a surprise, especially in 7PH where's only one ~. Disruption on a creature is so valuable for tribal decks because disruption is necessary against combo but you'd rather not run anything that isn't of your tribe and not contributing to synergy.

Merfolk has a few counterspells to protect ~. They also have ways to pump ~, which lets it take bigger dudes. I think ~ is maindeckable in Merfolk.

Outside of Merfolk I think ~ is just a little too small at 3mana to reliably take a threat, and too vulnerable to removal in general.

YESSSSSS! Dominaria United has been out for a long time now but my excitement from this printing still lingers. When I first saw a text spoiler of it I didn't believe it. I didn't want to get my hopes up, and then it was true.

I'm a huge 7PH Goblin fan. I wrote a primer on my build of the deck, which you can find on this blog and another slightly different version on 7PH.com.au. In that article I put a big emphasis on how Goblins is (still) starved for quality 1 and 2 drops.

~ does die to Wrenn and Six but it's bearable because there's a chance you hit a Goblin off the top. Note that it's until the end of your next turn, so you always have a window to cast any Goblin you hit, unless it's too expensive.

~ specifies Goblin creature card, which means no Tarfire. Yet another reason why I prefer not to run Tarfire. The others being Muxus, Realmwalker and simply not getting pumped by lords such as ~.

If ~ is on the battlefield it can make your Goblin Recruiter piles even trickier. Recruiter is a mindjob. 

If you already have a sacrificer and ~ then you can use the triggered ability to clear away dummy Goblins in your stack to trick the opponent into using removal when Goblin Chirurgeon is hidden underneath. However there's also the chance for the opponent to use their removal to clear away Kiki-Jiki before Conspicuous Snoop loses summoning sickness, so you need to put a bunch of dummies in there to stop that from happening. Dummies being single R cost Goblins, which you can cycle through with Skirk Prospector for free effectively.

I've never built Elves but I presume this is best Elf lord ever printed. The thing that Elves do best is generate a tonne of mana, ~ is going to draw a tonne of cards if she lives. And even if she dies as soon as possible, you probably got 1 draw out of her and she's only 2mana to cast, not a big deal if she dies.

Decent curve topper. Most decks only have room for one maybe two 5drops, so the slot is hotly contested. Kess is arguably a better 5drop because you want to immediately cast a cantrip or Lightning Bolt to get some value before she dies. However she does rely on the graveyard. Chaos Defiler is probably a better 5drop than ~ too. Therefore I only really see ~ getting played if the deck doesn't have the 1drops required for Kess or maybe it's an Elemental or Demon Tribal deck.

Very rarely will the game go long enough for you to be forced to choose the 'donate' option. But just in case it's a good idea to run a bounce effect like Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

MOX AMBER

All legendary deck? Could be good enough, especially if there are some ETB, LTB and death triggers about.

All you creatures are legends and ~ can create some HUGE attacks.

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider is a little better thatn usual in this deck because her and Ragavan get buffed by ~. Kari Zev also double triggers Yoshimari, Ever Faithful.  
Perhaps you want to be Human tribal deck to gain access to Cavern of Souls, Unclaimed Territory and Secluded Courtyard for better mana.

Fantastic land for the legendary deck.

I think this is only good on legendary creatures, and you want as many evasion legends as you can. The ward and +1/+1 just push it enough. If you tried to use it as a Sixth Sense on an evasion creature, you would be exposing yourself too much to removal. You wouldn't even put it on a hexproof creature because they tend to not have evasion and therefore blockers will stop you drawing cards.

 

PROWESS

Brennan played this in his Lurrus Underworld Breach deck for a while. It's a permanent for Lurrus and Sevinne's Reclamation, and it lets you flashback key instant and sorceries, which makes it more of a combo card.

Chapter 1 recovers some or all the mana you spend on ~. If you can cast a 2mana spell here, then ~ is effectively a zero-mana Regrowth that mills too. Obviously you need your chapter 1 spell to be proactive. Hymn to Tourarch and Expressive Iteration are strong options.

Chapter 2 is great for fueling delve and escape.

Chapter 3 lets you flashback the key instant and sorceries like Tainted Pact, Intuition and Channel.

Strong in the prowess deck which aims to keep its graveyard i.e. instead of using powerful delve cards, you keep your graveyard for cards like:

Bedlam Reveler

Cryptic Serpent

Enigma Drake

Spellheart Chimera

Experimental Overload

Blitz of the Thunder Raptor

There is merit to this build because you retain your graveyard resource, which means you can run more payoffs. The downside is that you're weaker to graveyard hate.

~ may also be used in a storm deck. I know Gene Holland has been working hard on his High Tide deck and it's getting very tuned.

This is another excellent example of the payoffs I was referring to with Haughty Djinn, i.e. benefits of keeping a huge graveyard of instants and sorceries.

Mental Note and Thoughtscour help a lot.

Good payoff for the all instants/sorceries aggro prowess deck. Not as powerful as Young Pyromancer, Thirp Path Iconoclast and Sprite Dragon, but it doesn't die to Wrenn and Six.

Another good payoff for Prowess. Works especially well with Young Pyromancer and Third path Iconoclast, pumping all those tokens. Maybe ~ is naturally enough Wizards for that deck to run Wizard's Lightning.

Another 4mana 'win the game in a few turns if it doesn't die' planeswalker. May get chosen over others if that deck can trigger prowess easily, especially if at instant speed for zero mana to get surprise profitable blocks.

HARDENED SCALES

Excellent curve topper a Hardened Scales deck designed to maximise the three green Evolve 1drops. Here are the cards you can cast for 2 life the moment ~ enters:

Hardened Scales

Mold Adder

Swarm Shambler

Evolving Adaptive

Experiment One

Pelt Collector

Narnam Renegade

Teething Wurmlet

Willow Geist

Ascendant Packleader

That's enough 1drops that there's a decent chance you still have one in hand by the time you can cast ~, without having skipped a mana until that point. As long as you get 1 trigger off ~ then it's fine.

Another threat for the Hardened Scales deck. Honestly you probably only run this deck in a metagame with low amounts of combo because you're too busy setting up your synergies to disrupt the opponent.

More Hardened Scales shenanigans.

~ obviously gets better with more creatures.

ARTIFACTS

Eggs combo. Run ~ and other ways of making artifacts cost 1 less:
Etherium Sculptor

Enthusiastic Mechanaut

Helm of Awakening (if you're desperate)

Cemetery Prowler

Herald of Kozilek

Cloud Key

Foundry Inspector
Urza, Lord Protector

Fill your deck with every egg:

Conjurer's Bauble

Chromatic Sphere

Chromatic Star

Darkwater Egg

Mossfire Egg

Skycloud Egg

Shadowblood Egg

Sungrass Egg

Sensei's Divining Top*

plus a bunch of ways to make them free, like ~ and

You can run mass artifact reanimation to keep the egg cracking going:

Second Sunrise

Scrap Mastery

Open the Vaults

Roar of Reclamation

Brilliant Restoration

You might need some extra mana:

Mox Opal

Chrome Mox

Mox Diamond

Mana Vault*

Lion's Eye Diamond

Black Lotus****

Lotus Bloom

And then of course some Storm spell to win the game like Aetherflux Reservior 

Honestly there probably aren't enough eggs for this strategy to work, but that could change in the future. Doesn't hurt much to be aware of the possibilities. There's also the problem that the deck is vulnerable to storm hate, graveyard hate and artifact hate. To make up for this, the deck would need to be super fast and consistent.

If you're running red in an artifact deck it's because you're trying to abuse Goblin Welder and Goblin Engineer, perhaps Daretti, Scrap Savant. That means you've got some really high cost artifacts like Portal to Phyrexia and Myr Battlesphere. ~ can put a couple cheap things in and eventually get to the big stuff. Lightning Greeves might actually be good in this archetype.

I had a go at running ~ with Paradox Engine in Pioneer and it was pretty good.

The more artifacts you run that can be cast for G, the better your ~ turns will be.

~ gets around Null Rod, which is like. Much like Urza, Lord High Artificer does.

This looks like jank. But I realised that two mana is a small price to pay for the mono brown artifact deck to play Mishra's Workshop, Tolarian Academy or Urza's Saga on turn2. Now of course you're not guaranteed to hit one of those off the 5 cards from ~, but the chance might be worth it.

I chucked the numbers into Aetherhub.com's hypergeometric calculator and it spat out 26%. Not great. I dunno, could still be good.

That deck runs Expedition Map, which doesn't let you play the land until turn3, so you could look at the chance of whiffing to be the price of the extra power of having your busted land a turn earlier.

SIDEBOARD

Could be another copy of Languish in a 4 colour deck full of 5toughness creatures.

Could be a good metagame choice in an aggro deck to compete with sideboard cards that gain life.

You might be able to shut down some infinite life combos like Zuran Orb + Fastbond + Crucible of Worlds.

Niche sideboard card. In your meta there might be a control deck with Moat and big fliers, or perhaps Blood Moon/Back to Basics with big delve creatures.

You could run this in the sideboard of a mono colour or colourless deck with Mishra's Workshop.
The activated ability is quite slow considering that ~ enters tapped. We're more interested in that passive ability which shuts of fetchlands. ~ could be a good sideboard card against Lands decks which recur their fetchlands from the graveyard. ~ is also decent against Storm combo if you can cast it before they combo off; it shuts off Bolas's Citadel and Necropotence.

Good sideboard card that hits aggro decks and artifact decks. Artifact decks have few ways to remove ~ and they tend to have fewer ETB triggers than other decks. Of course there are better hate cards against artifacts but those aren't also strong against aggro.

I wouldn't run this if it hit lots of your things. Hard control is too difficult to do these days thanks to The Initiative and broken planeswalkers, therefore ~ is only really suited to combo decks.

Weird combo:
Step1 cast a ≤2 mana creature with an ETB that gives you some value.

Step2 cast an Oblivion Ring (or Detention Sphere).

Step3 exile the O-Ring with Leonin Relic-Warder.

Step4 cast ~ to exile the Leonin-Relic Warder and the value ETB dude. The Leonin Relic-Warder leaving will bring back the O-Ring. Then you exile the ~ with the O-Ring, which will bring back Relic-Warder and the value ETB dude, and so on and so forth until the value ETB dude wins you the game.

CONCLUSION

Ok! that does it for Dominaria United. Was a pretty big one, 77 highlander playable cards (by my standards anyway). Largest general category of playable cards was tribal; Special mention to the series of 2mana lords. Prowess got some nice payoffs (not that they were in need).

Here are my picks for best cards in the set in rough power order:

Leyline Binding

Nishoba Brawler

Leaf-Crowned Visionary

Rundvelt Hordemaster

Plaza of Heroes

Micromancer (Ancestral Recall)
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

Special mention to Vodalian Hexcatcher which could quite possibly be the best lord ever except Merfolk has almost zero good 1drops and therefore the deck is bad.

Cheers,

Mulch