Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria

The Art of Magic: The Gathering

by James Wyatt

Magnificent hardcover art books featuring the incredible images and lore of Magic: The Gathering®!

Step aboard the legendary airship Weatherlight and explore Dominaria, an ancient world whose stories are known throughout the Multiverse. Dominaria has weathered one apocalypse after another and emerged into a time of rebirth and renewal. In these pages, lavishly illustrated with the award-winning art of Magic: The Gathering®, you can step into the world where it all began. Whether Dominaria is new to you or as familiar as an old friend, you’ll find enough lore and legends here to make you feel at home.

A new age is dawning on Dominaria. Come and be a part of it!

Genres: Art, Fantasy

240 pages, Hardcover

First published July 3, 2018

About the author

James Wyatt is an award-winning game designer at Wizards of the Coast, and now holds the position of Design Manager for Dungeons & Dragons. He was one of the lead designers for D&D 4th Edition and one of the original designers of the Eberron Campaign Setting, and has written and co-authored dozens of game supplements. He grew up in Ithaca, New York, and now lives in Washington State with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Cloak88 · Rating 5 out of 5]

As both a Artbook and a Lorebook this has to be the gold standard 5 stars!

Dominaria is one of the main settings for the Tradig Card Game Magic the Gathering. Set in an elaborate fantasy world it provides both the background and driving forces behind the narrative of the game. This absolutely beautiful book encapsulates and explains this wonderful world while accompanying it with a breath of amazing art-pieces. As the setting of my first MTG cards this book drew me right in and showed me so much more than I was expecting.

While choke full of art, each bit of it is accompanied with lore-text explaining its significance. The Plane of Dominaria is full of history and characters that make it a wonderful place to learn about. Even more so as a old-school MTG fan who now gets to look back on the Bocks of yesteryear and see the changes that have been wrought as a result of the narratives in each block. The history of Urza and the war with Pherexia, the rise and fall of the god Karona and the involvement on the gate-watch.

In all a wonderful book and definitely worth a look!

[Thomas Mihalich · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of MtG is usually told through short stories on the Wizards of the Coast website and pieced together through the card text. With this alone, it's difficult to get a full grasp of the world of the planes that the setting takes place on and the stories of the various characters throughout. This book focuses on the lore and world of Dominaria which is the "default" or original setting of MtG and a lot of what there is to know about the worlds and major characters originate here.

The book is structured like a tabletop RPG lore/setting guide and could certainly be used as such. Anyone looking to create their own magical world could stand to learn from how cleanly yet completely everything here is described in just enough manner to be clear without being overly detailed. It is also illustrated by hundreds of images from the cards' art. Not a single page goes by without more of the series art.

If you're a fan of Magic the Gathering's lore, this is a phenomenal jumping off point. There's one of these for almost every major plane in the setting and I'm going to be diving into more of them.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Art of Magic: The Gathering book I've read, but - based on how good this was - it won't be the last. Partially it was just great to read up on all the old lore I was both familiar with and unfamiliar with, partially it was great to flip through all of the artwork, and partially just a load of nostalgia. I do wish there'd been a little more of the older artwork mixed in considering Dominaria covers such a wide swath of MtG's history that there are plenty of iconic artworks that could have been included. But other than that, a very satisfying book.

[Harrison Delahunty · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s some great art and some mildly interesting information here, though they skip out on a lot and there are some rather repetitive bits especially near the end. It feels like this book could maybe have been split into two, with how much material could hypothetically be covered.

For what it is, though, it’s quite solid.

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as good as the previous Art of Magic: The Gathering books!

[Bahman Naraghi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great art and great intro/refresher to MtG.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the artwork and the background stories.

[Doc Kinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another well done, lavishly illustrated history for Magic: The Gathering. Like the game? Read the Lore.

[Nessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.