Legends/Trivia

Trivia by color

• Active Volcano and Flash Flood are similar to Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast, respectively.
• Crimson Manticore and D'Avenant Archer were the first creatures to have the ability to deal damage to attacking or blocking creatures. Later this ability would be seen much more strongly as strictly white.
• Darkness and Holy Day are the only two cards remaining of a Fog cycle supposed to be printed in Legends, but the blue and red ones were removed in development and it was decided that the Fog itself did not need reprinting at the time.
• Gauntlets of Chaos and Juxtapose introduced the idea of exchanging permanents. They inspired the creation of Donate.
• Hyperion Blacksmith and Relic Barrier inspired the creation of Voltaic Key.
• Land Tax and Untamed Wilds are the first cards to allow a player to search his or her library for land. This type of card, usually in green, has since appeared in almost every block.

White

• Cleanse inspired the ability of Major Teroh.
• Clergy of the Holy Nimbus is the first white creature printed with regeneration.
• D'Avenant Archer is strictly worse than Crossbow Infantry, first printed in Mercadian Masques.
• Divine Intervention is the only card ever printed with the sole purpose of causing the game to end in a drawn game. It was banned from sanctioned play for a period of years because the DCI wanted to discourage games from ending in a draw. It inspired the creation of Celestial Convergence.
• Divine Offering was originally to be named "Divine Sacrifice", but it was changed when the term sacrifice was given rules significance.
• Divine Transformation was designed to have a dramatic effect on the creature it enchants by giving it the largest single power and toughness boost without a drawback. It inspired the Embrace cycle of Auras in Urza's Saga.
• Elder Land Wurm was designed based on a specific flavor. According to Steve Conard, "once there were multitudes of Elder Dragons in Dominia. After the Great War of the dragons, many were beaten to the ground, stripped of their title, never to fly again.", on Elder Land Wurm flavor.
• Kismet did not inspire the creation of Root Maze (it evolved from a different but similar idea instead).
• Moat was called "Chasm" in playtesting and had a cost of and "only flying creatures can damage the caster". It inspired the creation of Teferi's Moat.
• Petra Sphinx is the first card to ask a player to name a card and rewarded players for having large amounts of information about the game. It inspired the creation of Scrying Glass.
• Presence of the Master depicts Albert Einstein and is one of only a few cards that depicts a real-world figure in its art. Modern cards purposefully avoid real-world names, symbols, events, and figures.
• Righteous Avengers is the first of only a handful of creatures with Plainswalk, the rarest of the basic landwalk abilities. Ironically, two cards, Great Wall and Lord Magnus, were also printed in Legends with the ability to negate the Plainswalk ability.
• Seeker was originally designed to make the creature it enchanted completely unblockable, but was later changed to mirror Fear.
• Spirit Link depicts a character which was later chosen to be the reference for Jolrael, Empress of Beasts. Jolrael played a big part in the Mirage block, and was made into a card in Prophecy.
• Thunder Spirit likely would have been reprinted at some point if it hadn't been added to the Reserved List on the merits of being a rare card from an early expansion. It inspired the creation of Sky Spirit to serve as its "reprint".

Blue

• Acid Rain printed to mirror Tsunami is called a "bad blue card" by Mark Rosewater because it gives blue mass destruction of lands, something it is not supposed to be able to do.
• Anti-Magic Aura and Spectral Cloak are the first cards to have some form of untargetability. In fact, Spectral Cloak is the first card to use true untargetability. Similar Auras are called "cloaks" and these inspired the creation of others, including Mystic Veil, Robe of Mirrors, Diplomatic Immunity, and Aboshan's Desire.
• Boomerang is the iconic bounce spell; a spell that returns a permanent to its owner's hand is sometimes called a "boomerang."
• Brine Hag was simply called "Hag" in playtesting and was a 3/3 with a cost of and "any creature who kills the Hag is reduced to 1/1."
• Enchantment Alteration inspired the creation of Aura Graft.
• Field of Dreams was called "Reverse Gravity" in playtesting and caused players to "turn their libraries upside down and draw the card that is showing" and had a cost of . It inspired the creation of Think Tank.
• Land Equilibrium inspired the creation of Territorial Dispute.
• Psychic Purge is the first card to punish an opponent for causing discard. It inspired the creation of a few other cards, including Guerrilla Tactics.
• Puppet Master inspired the creation of Disappear.
• Recall and Part Water are the first cards to have in the casting cost.
• Recall was added to the Restricted List in September of 1994 because it allowed the recycling of other powerful cards on the Restricted List. It was later removed from this list in April of 2003 due to a lack of competitive use, thanks to better ways to perform its effect.
• Relic Bind was originally worded to allow it to enchant any artifact, creating a two-card instant-win combo with Basalt Monolith at the time. Relic Bind was quickly corrected to allow it to only enchant an opponent's artifact.
• Time Elemental inspired the creation of Temporal Adept.
• Venarian Gold inspired the creation of Sleeping Potion.
• Wall of Wonder follows in the footsteps of Black Vise, The Rack, and Cursed Rack: all of these cards are illustrated by Richard Thomas and include "Stuffy" the tortured doll in the art.
• Zephyr Falcon and his functional reprint Bay Falcon were the only real monoblue creatures with vigilance until Planar Chaos introduced vigilance as a blue ability as part of its colorshifting theme.

Black

• All Hallow's Eve's card type was subject of errata twice. First it was made an enchantment since it remains in play for two turns, later it was changed back to sorcery again with the unique Oracle wording it has now. It was the first mass graveyard recursion card and has inspired many cards, including Living Death and Twilight's Call.
• Cyclopean Mummy wasn't reprinted in Fifth Edition because a customer survey after Fourth Edition showed it to be the most hated card in that set.
• Giant Slug was originally called "Slug Bug", then "Smeltonian Slug", and lastly "Slaughter Slug" before achieving its final name.
• Greed introduced the idea that black should be able to exchange life for cards. It has inspired nearly every black life-for-cards card to follow, including Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena.
• Hell Swarm is strictly worse than Marsh Gas, which was printed in The Dark immediately following Legends.
• Hell's Caretaker inspired the creation of Shallow Grave, Corpse Dance, Recurring Nightmare, Victimize, Apprentice Necromancer, Body Snatcher, and Zombify, among others.
• Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore's name possibly relates to David Ormsby-Gore, a famous British diplomat with a tragic family life.
• Syphon Soul is the first card to reference multiple other players, acknowledging multiplayer play for the first time.
• Takklemaggot inspired the creation of Screams from Within. It also inspired the creation of Curse of the Fire Penguin in Unhinged.
• Transmutation inspired many cards including Dwarven Thaumaturgist and About Face.
• Underworld Dreams was once restricted in Vintage because of its interaction with Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune, but has since been reprinted in a Core Set. It inspired the creation of Malignant Growth.

Red

• Ærathi Berserker was printed with the name "rathi Berserker" because the "Æ" symbol did not exist in the card name font used.
• Beasts of Bogardan was the only Beast until the Tempest expansion was printed.
• Falling Star is one of only a few cards found on the Vintage banned list for being a "Dexterity card", or a card that requires some physical skill to use well.
• Firestorm Phoenix inspired the creation of Squee, Goblin Nabob.
• Glyph of Destruction influenced the ability of Goblin Bomb, causing it to deal 20 damage instead of simply winning the game. Mark Rosewater, who in part developed the Weatherlight expansion, argued that "Magic needs more double-digit numbers on cards."
• In the Eye of Chaos inspired the creation of Ice Cave.
• Land's Edge inspired the creation of Seismic Assault.
• Pyrotechnics inspired the creation of many cards, including Rolling Thunder.
• Quarum Trench Gnomes is the only non-artifact Gnome.
• Raging Bull is the only common red creature in Legends with a power greater than zero.

Green

• Arboria is the only uncommon World enchantment in Legends. It inspired the card Impatience because Arboria rewards players for doing nothing, while Impatience punishes players for doing nothing.
• Avoid Fate was improved when interrupts were changed to instants, giving it more potential, yet still very narrow, uses.
• Cat Warriors has the creature type Cat Warrior, which was originally considered to be one type, not two, resulting in it being neither a Cat nor a Warrior.
• Cocoon inspired the creation of Consuming Ferocity.
• Concordant Crossroads is the first card with true haste (Instill Energy and Nether Shadow originally only granted or had the ability to attack, not to tap, when they came into play). It inspired the creation of Fervor, Fires of Yavimaya, and Mass Hysteria.
• Eureka is one of only a few cards to depict a real-world object, in this case Albert Einstein's famous theory of relativity equation E=m*c². This card partly inspired the creation of Dream Halls.
• Floral Spuzzem was called "Rat King" in playtesting and had "if not blocked the Rat may chomp & destroy an artifact. No damage to opponent". The original printed wording on Floral Spuzzem still implies that the decision to destroy an artifact is made by the Floral Spuzzem itself.
• Hornet Cobra is strictly worse than both Land Leeches which was printed in The Dark immediately following Legends, and Elvish Archers, which came before it in Beta.
• Living Plane inspired the creation of Nature's Revolt.
• Master of the Hunt is the first card to allow more than one token creature to be created in a single turn with mana as the only cost.
• Rabid Wombat inspired the creation of other creatures that gained a bonus when enchanted, including Fledgling Osprey, Metathran Elite, Rayne, Academy Chancellor, and Thran Golem. It also inspired the creation of Wordmail from Unhinged.
• Rebirth was the first card with the number "20" in its ability.
• Rust inspired the creation of Interdict and Bind.
• Storm Seeker inspired the creation of Sudden Impact.
• Sylvan Library inspired the creation of Rowen, Mirri's Guile, and Abundance.
• Whirling Dervish was inspired by the ability of the "Pawn" card from the original Chess cycle that didn't make it into the set.
• Willow Satyr likely inspired the creation of Empress Galina.
• Winter Blast is the only green card in the game that can tap multiple opposing creatures outside of combat whether they have flying or not.
• Wood Elemental is often cited as one of the weakest cards ever created. It inspired the creation of Fungus Elemental.

Colorless

• Alchor's Tomb was originally designed as Alchor's Tome, but somewhere along the line it was misspelled at Tomb. The error was not discovered until after the art of a tomb was commissioned. Alchor is the name of Peter Adkison's main Dungeons & Dragons character, and this card was designed by Steve Conard to pay homage to Adkison. Also, a tome was fitting because Alchor was a powerful magician.
• Arena of the Ancients, like the "expansion hosing" cards City in a Bottle and Golgothian Sylex, was created as a way to "hose" legendary creatures in case they proved to be too powerful.
• Mirror Universe introduced exchange of life totals. Until the Sixth Edition rules update, a player only lost the game at the end of a phase, allowing a player to reach zero life during his or her upkeep (perhaps by using a City of Brass) and using the effect of Mirror Universe, killing the opponent. Psychic Transfer and the more recent Soul Conduit are the only other cards to use this type of exchange (excluding Unglued, of course).
• North Star inspired part of Mycosynth Lattice.
• Sword of the Ages inspired the creation of Goblin Bombardment.
• Tolaria is regarded as the weakest of the Legendary lands in its set, but many events in the stories of Magic take place in Tolaria.
• Triassic Egg was to be named "Jurassic Egg" until the release of the movie Jurassic Park. It likely inspired the creation of Summoner's Egg.

Multicolor

• Dakkon Blackblade inspired the creation of Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer and had a comic written to tell his story by Armada in 1995.
• Hazezon Tamar is notable for its ability to create Sand Warrior creature tokens, making Sand a creature type. This oddity inspired Dune-Brood Nephilim to also produce Sand creature tokens.
• Jacques le Vert was inspired by the ability of the "Rook" card from the original Chess cycle that didn't make it into the set.
• Jedit Ojanen had two comics written to tell his story by Armada in 1995.
• The Lady of the Mountain was inspired by one of Steve Conard's Dungeons & Dragons characters.
• Livonya Silone is the first of two creatures to have legendary landwalk. The other is Ayumi, the Last Visitor.
• Marhault Elsdragon was named after a Dungeons & Dragons character in a campaign belonging to designer Robin Herbert.
• Nebuchadnezzar is the only legendary creature to survive with a real-world name. Others, including Hiawatha, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Lancelot, Circe, Achilles, and Jason, were renamed. It inspired the creation of Cabal Therapy.
• Ramirez DePietro was named after a Dungeons & Dragons character belonging to designer Robin Herbert.
• Ramses Overdark was named after a Dungeons & Dragons character in a campaign belonging to Robin Herbert.
• Rubinia Soulsinger was originally called "Titania", but that name was already used in Antiquities. This and other creatures with the ability to tap to gain control of others inspired the creation of many cards including Coffin Queen.
  • The model for Rubinia Soulsinger was Carol Monahan, the first head of sales at Wizards of the Coast.
• Stangg inspired the creation of Gemini Engine.
• Tetsuo Umezawa is the first creature card with the inability to be enchanted (although Tetravus was capable of creating token creatures with an inability to be enchanted as well).

Top power & toughness

Sorted by decreasing combined power and toughness:

• Cosmic Horror (7/7) has the greatest combined power and toughness among all monocolored creatures in Legends.
• Akron Legionnaire (8/4) has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored white creatures in Legends.
• Elder Spawn (6/6) has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored blue creatures in Legends.
• Craw Giant (6/4) has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored green creatures in Legends. Its name and power/toughness refer to Craw Wurm.
• Frost Giant (4/4) has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored red creatures in Legends. It cost in playtesting, was 5/5 and "creatures of 3 or less toughness will not block the giant."
• Bronze Horse (4/4) has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in Legends.