Dominator Drone MTG Card
2015-08-28 - Number 51
2015-10-02 - Number 92
| Card sets | Released in 2 setsSee all |
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 3 |
| Rarity | Common |
| Type | Creature — Eldrazi Drone |
| Abilities | Devoid,Ingest |
| Power | 3 |
| Toughness | 2 |
Key Takeaways
- Dominator Drone enhances battlefield pressure and exploits synergies with Eldrazi and colorless spells.
- Ingest mechanic creates opportunities for instant speed interactions, disrupting opponent strategies effectively.
- Its entrance effect and synergy with colorless creatures make it a valuable card in aggressive MTG decks.
Text of card
Devoid (This card has no color.) Ingest (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player exiles the top card of his or her library.) When Dominator Drone enters the battlefield, if you control another colorless creature, each opponent loses 2 life.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Dominator Drone presents an opportunity to maintain pressure on the battlefield while potentially netting additional benefits. Its power lies in its ability to capitalize on having other colorless creatures, creating incremental advantages with each attack. Whether it’s through an extra damage dealt due to its ingest ability or keeping the opponent’s resources in check, this card can meticulously whittle down the competition.
Resource Acceleration: While not directly impacting mana resources, Dominator Drone synergizes well with decks focused on Eldrazi and colorless spells. This synergy can accelerate your overall strategy by supporting and taking advantage of ramp tools within these deck archetypes, indirectly speeding up your access to necessary resources and enabling larger threats sooner.
Instant Speed: Although Dominator Drone operates at sorcery speed, its true strength emerges from the instant speed interactions it enables. With the ingest mechanic—exiling the top card of an opponent’s library upon dealing combat damage—it works hand in hand with cards that utilize exiled cards, often at instant speed, allowing for sudden shifts in your board state and disrupting the opponent’s plans.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Dominator Drone necessitates the player having another colorless creature in order to trigger its ingest ability. This can limit the card’s applicability, especially in decks that do not support a colorless strategy extensively.
Specific Mana Cost: Dominator Drone’s casting cost includes colorless mana, which requires a specialized mana base to ensure consistency in play. Players without access to lands that produce colorless mana might find it awkward or impossible to cast on curve.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: For a creature with only a 3/2 stat line, the three mana cost of Dominator Drone can be perceived as steep, particularly when other creatures in the three mana slot can offer greater impact on the board state or come with less restrictive casting requirements.
Reasons to Include Dominator Drone in Your Collection
Versatility: Dominator Drone offers a flexible option for decks running colorless creatures or focusing on Devoid strategies. It’s a solid addition to any aggressive Eldrazi deck or a tribal deck looking to exploit the ingest mechanic.
Combo Potential: Its ability to cause life loss upon entering the battlefield pairs well with other cards that capitalize on opponent life reduction tactics. Syndicating with cards that benefit from opponents having fewer life points enhances your overall strategy.
Meta-Relevance: For a metagame that’s rich in creature-based strategies, Dominator Drone serves as a good foil by providing a persistent threat that also chips away at your opponent’s life total, potentially turning the tide of creature confrontations in your favor.
How to beat
Dominator Drone is a creature card that brings an interesting dynamic to the battlefield in MTG. This colorless Eldrazi Drone, primarily found in decks running black mana, features the ingest mechanic. It exiles the top card of an opponent’s library whenever it deals combat damage. Alongside that, it boasts a unique ability that causes the loss of life when another colorless creature enters the battlefield under your control. This creates a synergistic effect in colorless creature-heavy decks.
Countering Dominator Drone effectively requires a multifaceted approach. Ensuring you have ample creature removal spells like Murder or Doom Blade can swiftly eliminate it before the ingest mechanic becomes a problem. Additionally, maintaining a board presence with creatures that can stand toe to toe or outright block Dominator Drone without succumbing to its power can limit or prevent combat damage entirely. Lastly, one could employ enchantments or artifacts that restrict the abilities of the opponent’s creatures, neutralizing the life-loss effect and turning Dominator Drone from a threat into a mere nuisance on the field.
To sum up, managing and mitigating the effects of Dominator Drone comes down to preemptive removal, strategic blocking, and altering creature capabilities. Adapt your strategies accordingly, and this MTG card will have minimal impact on your winning potential.
Cards like Dominator Drone
The Dominator Drone emerges as a stealthy creature card within the vast universe of Magic: The Gathering. It finds its parallels in cards like Sludge Crawler, which also tags along the prowess of the Ingest ability. While the Sludge Crawler offers the flexibility of being a one-mana creature, it lacks the immediate impact that Dominator Drone can have, especially when dealing that extra damage upon entering the battlefield if you control another colorless creature.
Closely related in functionality, Benthic Infiltrator serves as another comparable card; a colorless creature with the Ingest ability, but it takes a different approach by being unblockable. The trade-off here is the absence of Dominator Drone’s offensive entrance capability. Then we have Mist Intruder, a flying variant that can evade ground-based defenses, but again it doesn’t initiate the kind of board pressure that the Dominator Drone represents with its conditional damage ability.
Assessing these cards against one another, Dominator Drone stands out in scenarios where aggressive tactics are employed, rewarding colorless creature synergy with direct damage, giving it a unique niche in the MTG card pool.
Cards similar to Dominator Drone by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Dominator Drone MTG card by a specific set like Duel Decks: Zendikar vs. Eldrazi and Battle for Zendikar, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.
For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.
Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.
Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Dominator Drone and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Printings
The Dominator Drone Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2015-08-28 and 2015-10-02. Illustrated by James Zapata.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2015-08-28 | Duel Decks: Zendikar vs. Eldrazi | DDP | 51 | 2015 | Normal | Black | James Zapata | |
| 2 | 2015-10-02 | Battle for Zendikar | BFZ | 92 | 2015 | Normal | Black | James Zapata |
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Dominator Drone has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Paupercommander | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Dominator Drone card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2015-08-25 | A card with devoid is just colorless. It’s not colorless and the colors of mana in its mana cost. |
| 2015-08-25 | Cards with devoid use frames that are variations of the transparent frame traditionally used for Eldrazi. The top part of the card features some color over a background based on the texture of the hedrons that once imprisoned the Eldrazi. This coloration is intended to aid deckbuilding and game play. |
| 2015-08-25 | Devoid works in all zones, not just on the battlefield. |
| 2015-08-25 | Dominator Drone’s last ability checks to see if you control another colorless creature at the moment it enters the battlefield. If you don’t, the ability won’t trigger at all. If you do, the ability will check again as it tries to resolve. If you no longer control another colorless creature, the ability will be removed from the stack and have no effect. |
| 2015-08-25 | If a card loses devoid, it will still be colorless. This is because effects that change an object’s color (like the one created by devoid) are considered before the object loses devoid. |
| 2015-08-25 | If the player has no cards in their library when the ingest ability resolves, nothing happens. That player won’t lose the game (until they have to draw a card from an empty library). |
| 2015-08-25 | Other cards and abilities can give a card with devoid color. If that happens, it’s just the new color, not that color and colorless. |
| 2015-08-25 | The card exiled by the ingest ability is exiled face up. |
