All 5 Dominus Cards in Magic Ranked

Drivnod, Carnage Dominus | Illustration by Bogdan Rezunenko

Phyrexia: All Will Be One gave us a few cycles of cards, one of them being the Dominus cycle. These mythic creatures’ doubling abilities are incredible strategy accelerators, and they even make great commanders to build around. Whatever your flavor of play is, we have a Dominus creature for you!

So what are these Dominus creatures, and why are they important? Today I'm going to rank all five cards in the cycle as well as highlight their payoffs to understand just how powerful they can be. Let’s dive in and see how these creatures can help you dominate your next game!

What Is the Dominus Cycle in MTG?

Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus | Illustration by Martin de Diego Sadaba

The Dominus cycle focuses on five legendary Phyrexian horror creatures. There’s one Dominus for each of the five colors in MTG, and they represent the living forms of the ideologies of each of the five Praetor creatures.

These Dominus creatures share three common traits: similar mana costs (two colored mana and some amount of generic mana), some sort of doubling effect, and an activated ability that costs Phyrexian mana to give them an indestructible counter. The doubling effects and indestructible activation costs are all on par with their respective color philosophies.

#5. Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus

Being the weakest card on this list doesn’t make Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus a bad card. It fits well into poison, superfriends, and many other counter-based decks.

Tekuthal’s indestructible cost may be one of the easiest to achieve with all the counters you’ll have lying around.

#4. Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus

Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus is the most expensive of the bunch, but it can pack a killer punch. It doubles all your creatures’ power and toughness each combat. This makes for deadly assaults and impenetrable defenses.

The indestructible counter activation may seem expensive, but it may be worth it depending on your board state.

#3. Solphim, Mayhem Dominus

Get your burn spells and abilities ready with Solphim, Mayhem Dominus. It fits extremely well into burn decks, aggressive mono-red, and storm decks in slower formats.

Discarding two cards to get the indestructible counter is expensive, but it may be useful for mana flooded hands.

#2. Drivnod, Carnage Dominus

Drivnod, Carnage Dominus adds an extra trigger for dying abilities, which makes it a perfect addition to aristocrat decks in particular. I can envision this card being effective in Commander since it can truly bring some strategies to the next level.

Out of all the Dominus creatures I believe that Drivnod has the fastest and easiest path to getting its indestructible counter.

#1. Mondrak, Glory Dominus

Token doublers have already proven to be super popular in Commander, and Mondrak, Glory Dominus is just another one to add to the collection. The indestructible counter cost is pretty easy to get to as you can just sacrifice some of the extra tokens it created.

Best Dominus Payoffs

Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus is a proliferate machine, so it fits well into an Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice Commander deck. It may also benefit from cards like Contagion Engine, Thrummingbird, and Karn's Bastion. Now that you can proliferate you need great targets to grow like Magistrate's Scepter and Goblin Razerunners.

Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus works well with green midrange creatures like Werewolf Pack Leader, Ghalta, Primal Hunger, and Questing Beast. You can even pair it with other doubling cards like God-Eternal Rhonas and Unnatural Growth for even greater effect.

Mana ramp will be key to getting online quicker since Zopandrel has a high mana cost.

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus helps speed up your burn cards like Boros Charm, Eidolon of the Great Revel, and Lightning Bolt. It fits well alongside other damage modifiers like Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Furnace of Rath.

To take full advantage of Drivnod, Carnage Dominus, use powerful sacrifice cards like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Attrition, and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. Some other great dying payoffs are Elenda, the Dusk Rose, Junji, the Midnight Sky, and Wurmcoil Engine.

I think Mondrak, Glory Dominus will make waves in Standard with cards like Gala Greeters, Hallowed Haunting, and Wedding Announcement. Honestly any token generators are good here.

Wrap Up

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus | Illustration by Chris Cold

Ability doublers usually get a lot of play in Commander, and these Dominus creatures will be no exception. Not only do they double relevant effects, they also have ways to protect themselves with indestructible counters, which makes them a pain for your opponents to deal with.

That’s it for me. I hope this helped you understand some of the new creatures in All Will Be One. Now that you know about the Dominus creatures, what will you do with them? Have they earned a spot in your next Commander deck? I'd love to hear all about it in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Twitter.

Have fun playing, and may you dominate your next game!