Dominaria Remastered is as much aMagicset as it is a celebration of the game’s rich, lengthy history. Drawing on 27 different sets, from the early days of Alpha to 2018’s Dominaria, all of which were set on the titular, iconic plane, it brings together a huge number of fan-favourite cards, renowned for their power level, nostalgia value, or both.
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And while many of the chase cards from the set are tied to one of the five colours of Magic, such as Force of Will and Sylvan Library, there are plenty of excellent colourless cards in there too. Early Magic sets were infamous for extreme power outliers, many of which were Artifacts. Thankfully, Dominaria Remastered’s designers had the foresight not to reprint the worst of these (looking at you Metalworker), but they did include a range of excellent artifact options, with utility in a number of gameplay situations and formats.
10Gauntlet of Power
While not quite the Infinity Gauntlet, this card is still an absolute staple inbudget monocoloured Commander decks. It serves as both an Anthem effect for your creatures, as well as a way of doubling up your mana from basic lands, which, in a budget deck, you’ll be playing a lot of.
The latter effect is particularly notable when working with aggressive colours, like red or white, that don’t normally get access to strong mana ramp options. Dropping the Gauntlet of Power on the Battlefield allows you to transition from go-wide aggression into huge bomb creatures, unlocking a new axis for the decks that include it.
9Damping Sphere
Damping Sphere is what’s known as a ‘hate card’: a card that exists for the sole purpose of preventing your opponent from carrying out specific actions. In the case of the Sphere, these actions are twofold: land-based mana ramp, and multi-card combos in the vein of Storm decks.
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Against decks that rely on these actions to win the game, Damping Sphere is essentially a win condition, making it a staple sideboard option in Pioneer, Modern, and even Legacy. It’s a relatively recent card, debuting in Dominaria in 2018, but it’s useful enough to make it a welcome reprint regardless.
8Urza’s Incubator
As an expensive tribal Commander staple, Urza’s Incubator is a great reprint choice for financial reasons alone. Beyond this, however, it’s also a brilliant card that enables some truly disgusting turns in the right deck.
The mana cost reduction provided by this card can let you accelerate the game plan of an honest tribal deck by dropping all of your creatures sooner; or, you can take the darker path, and combine it with cards like Grinning Ignus to end the game on the spot with a devious combo. Either way, it’s an incredibly powerful card, and a reminder of the huge difference that two mana makes in the game.
7Icy Manipulator
Icy Manipulator is a card that returns in Dominaria Remastered more for sentimental reasons than practical ones; it’s a favourite among players from the game’s early days, when creatures were much less powerful, and there was actually time to put a four mana artifact that does nothing when played to use.
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That said, it does still have a place in modern Magic; in Commander, the land of shenanigans. Combined with a way to untap artifacts and plenty of mana, you can enjoy getting death glares from everyone else at the table as you lock down their lands for the fourth turn in a row, gleefully going about your game plan while they check their phones and consider quitting Magic entirely.
6Lotus Blossom
Any card with the word ‘Lotus’ in its title is guaranteed to make long-time Magic fans sit up and pay attention, such is the hallowed legacy of that word in the game. While not quite as powerful as the cards its name invokes, Lotus Blossom is still an excellent mana ramp option in Commander.
This is especially true in decks with a counter theme, or those based around the proliferate mechanic, where you’re able to push the card beyond its intended ‘one counter a turn’ limit and generate a huge amount of mana fast.
5Helm Of Awakening
Boasting one of the shortest and simplest lines of text on any Magic card, Helm of Awakening does just what it says on the tin: it gets everybody up and moving along one turn faster. Being a symmetrical effect, the Helm’s cost reduction benefits your opponents as well, and this has a multiplicative effect in Commander, ultimately benefiting your opponents more than you overall.
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That said, in archetypes like group hug, that could be exactly what you’re going for. There are also ways to circumvent the symmetry of the Helm’s effect, such as bouncing it back to your hand at the end of your turn before everyone else gets to enjoy the benefits.
4Cryptic Gateway
A forgotten Commander classic, Cryptic Gateway has only ever had one printing prior to Dominaria Remastered: its original printing, back in Onslaught. That’s a shame, because the card is an excellent addition to tribal decks, letting you pay for any creature by tapping two others of its type, like some kind of super-convoke.
This is particularly effective in tribes that like to flood the board with tokens, like Goblins or Elves. The latter could likely play out their entire deck in a single turn with the help of the Gateway, if everything lined up just right. It’s also great with bigger tribes too: imagine paying for an Emrakul by tapping two lesser Eldrazi.
3Mind Stone
Mind Stone is the archetypal mana rock; an artifact which taps for mana, typically providing some small extra utility as well. In the Stone’s case, this extra utility is the ability to cash it in for an extra card once it has outlived its usefulness as a mana source.
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This actually addresses one of the main problems of mana rocks — that they’re useless topdecks in the late game. When you can simply ‘reroll’ your Mind Stone for three mana, that becomes much less of a concern, making it a card that’s useful at every stage of a game.
2Crawlspace
Seeing someone drop a Crawlspace onto the Battlefield in a game of Commander is a surefire sign that they’re up to no good. The card limits other players to only attacking its owner with two creatures each combat, making it much harder to deal damage to, and defeat, that player.
This buys a lot of time; time which can be used to ramp up mana, assemble combo pieces, and make the master plan a reality. It’s a brilliant stall card, enabling everything from control, to ramp, to combo decks. Just keep a watchful eye on anyone who plays it.
1Tormod’s Crypt
The rare artifact that lives up to the name, Tormod’s Crypt is one of the oldest cards in Magic, hailing from 1994’s The Dark expansion. It’s also one of the simplest, with an effect that lets you tap and sacrifice it to exile all cards from a player’s Graveyard.
Despite this simplicity, Tormod’s Crypt is the definition of a multi-format all-star; from Pioneer to Modern, from Legacy to Vintage, and, of course, Commander, the Crypt appears wherever deckstake advantage of the Graveyard, letting you deal with problems of that nature any time, and at the lowest cost possible: free. It’s a card that never goes out of style, and a reminder of the excellent design work that made Magic the game it is today.
