Domination is back. And better than ever.

Much, much better, in fact. We’ve listened to your feedback about Dom and created a mode that we hope will become the new favorite event for many of you.

Debuting this week with Deron Williams as the top reward, the new Domination will look familiar in a few ways. There’s still a map of 30 NBA arenas. You still battle to occupy arenas. You’re still in competition with a specific group of users for control of those arenas, and still using many lineups. Basketball is still the sport you are playing.

Otherwise, this will feel like a completely new event.

Eight users will be placed into a map together, each starting with ownership of one of the eight “home” arenas (POR, LAC, SAN, ORL, MIN, DET, PHI or BOS, assigned randomly). The other 22 arenas will be occupied by bots. When ready, you can attack any arena adjacent to your home arena, and then proceed to attack arenas adjacent to any of your owned arenas.

As you work your way around the map, you compete with the other seven users to win the Map Objective. That will vary for each map you play. Some examples of Map Objectives: Conquer a certain amount of arenas, occupy a certain amount of arenas simultaneously, occupy arenas on the West and East coasts simultaneously, or have a certain amount of Bench Players on the map. More on Bench Players in a second.

Once someone completes the Map Objective, the map ends and you can then go join a new one and do it all over again with a new group of opponents.

Domination will favor those with a deep, versatile collection of cards from many NBA franchises. The reason being that cards stay to defend the arenas they successfully attacked and therefore can’t be used to attack others until they are conquered. So the deeper your collection, the easier it will be to move across the map.

But another reason? Bench Players are cards you can place on the map to help protect the arenas you own. To be placed, Bench Players must match the NBA franchise of the arena (and the position requirement of the bench slot), meaning you can only use Knicks cards as Bench Players in Madison Square Garden (NYK). More on how Bench Players make an impact in a bit.

Plus, some of the Map Objectives and Side Hustles are related to how you utilize Bench Players and how many of them you can successfully get on the map. Side Hustles are a new way to earn event points in addition to the ones you get after each game. It’s kind of like an extra Stat Line but with event points. Some examples of Side Hustles: Hit a certain amount of 3-pointers, fill a certain amount of Benches, and win an attack by a certain amount of points.

New Side Hustles will emerge as you complete them. So, if you’re focused on getting your progression rewards, you could stick to Side Hustles and gobble up event points. Winning the Map Objective will put you on the global leaderboard, where all users have a chance to get the top event reward regardless of their tier (Deron Williams in this case) just like in other events.

The leaderboard will be sorted by maps won, which are represented by the Map Trophy you get for completing the Map Objective. The tiebreaker on the leaderboard will be total event points.

Style bonus can be earned by using cards from the current theme (and Courtside cards) in a couple different ways. First, by having them in lineups when you attack and defend arenas. And second, by including them as Bench Players. When you enter a game in Dom, all current theme cards and Courtside cards you have on the map in that moment will give style bonus (up to 100%) no matter where they are. So if you have two on Benches, one defending an arena it successfully conquered and another in your lineup while attacking a new arena, you’ll have an 80% bonus for that game. (You don’t accumulate event points for just defending arenas, unlike the original Dom. You need to play games to earn points.)

Although you can’t get more than 100% for a game, it can be beneficial to put more than five cards eligible for style bonus on the map. When one of your arenas is conquered, the cards that resided there are removed from the map, so they no longer give style bonus. But they are immediately returned to your collection, ready for use. And since all remaining cards on the map still apply style bonus, you could still be at 100% for your next attack.

The exception for style bonus is your home arena, which is automatically defended by your best possible lineup in terms of PWR. Those five cards don’t give style bonus for defending that arena. However, Bench Players that give style bonus can be slotted in, and those five cards can be used to attack and defend other arenas (or as Bench Players) and give you style bonus in that way.

Complicated stuff, we know! But wait, there’s more. Details about Bench Players as promised:

• You can slot in up to three Bench Players per arena, and the positions can be altered by using Position Rolls just like 3v3 Gauntlet. Benches can be filled at any time – doesn’t need to happen right after you conquer an arena.
• The impact of your Bench is determined by star counts of the cards you use. Each star the cards boast counts as a one-point deficit for the user that attacks the arena. So if you use cards that are 1 star, 3 stars and 4 stars respectively, the user attacking your arena will start the game trailing by eight points. (If an arena has no Bench Players, the game starts tied.)
• The point deficit created by Bench Players in your home arena is double the normal amount for all other arenas, stated above.
• After your arena successfully defends an attack once, the deficit created by the best Bench Player in that arena is removed. So if you have those 1-star, 3-star and 4-star cards on a Bench, the point deficit the 4-star card creates is gone. The deficit created by the other two cards will remain for attacks going forward.
• Unused Position Rolls do not carry over to future Dom or 3v3 Gauntlet events.

More key details to know about Dom:

• You are eliminated from a map if someone conquers your last remaining arena (you can then go play another map). On the other hand, eliminating someone will earn you extra event points.
• If you are the only one left standing on a map, you automatically win the Map Objective no matter what it is.
• You need to win in order to conquer an arena. A tie game is an unsuccessful attack.
• Winning a Map Objective earns you extra event points in addition to the trophy.
• Tenacity Bonus is a PWR boost you get while re-attacking an arena you just unsuccessfully attacked. Each consecutive attack on an arena is a 10% PWR boost. There will be a 30-second period after unsuccessful attempts in which you have first priority to re-attack and other users cannot attack.
• If you reclaim your home arena after it had been conquered, it is defended by the lineup that you attacked with rather than your best possible lineup.

OK, take a deep breath. This is gonna be fun. And to add to the fun, there’s a group Chat within the event where you can talk to people on your map.

Meantime, prep your lineups and get ready to dominate!