Legends

Legends is the third Magic expansion and was released in 1994.

Legends introduced multicolor, or "gold," cards, legendary lands and creatures, World enchantments, Poison counters, and the mechanics Rampage and Bands with other.

Design & Development

Legends was designed by Steve Conard and Robin Herbert in Vancouver after they were introduced to an early version of Magic by Richard Garfield. They quickly became addicted and started making their own cards for fun on their own time based on the epic fantasy that both of them enjoyed. Many of the ideas for Legends came from notes taken by Conard on Wizards' Christmas recreational outing to Mt. Rainier. One of those ideas was to create a more unique, heroic kind of creature that would have a sense of depth and strength. This led to the creation of legendary creatures, as well as other mythical-sounding creatures, such as Hell's Caretaker and Evil Eye of Orms-By-Gore. Many of the ideas used for legendary creatures came from the Dungeons & Dragons campaigns enjoyed by those involved. The idea behind the World enchantments was that they were magics so powerful, they transported the battle to another plane altogether. Also, the set originally contained six cycles of cards based on the game of Chess, with each color having a similar card for each of the six Chess pieces; these cards did not make it into the set, although some of the abilities that were used in the theme were reused elsewhere. The expansion was originally named "The Legend Continues," in order to pay homage to the original game, but it was shortened to just "Legends" by those involved. Peter Adkison later asked to review the set they had created, and it was quickly accepted. Originally, Richard Garfield believed that it was alright for the larger expansions (such as Legends and Ice Age) to optionally use common cards from the original Alpha Edition. The Ice Age expansion, which included Alpha's commons, was originally to be released after Antiquities, but Alpha was released while it was being created and it became obvious that the fans would not be pleased with rehashed commons so soon. Legends, which had all new commons, was put on the fast track to be published in Ice Age's place, which was postponed until more new cards could be created for it. Development of Legends followed, which was complicated by communication issues. As the language found on cards was not yet standardized, it was sometimes difficult for the developers, who were across the country in Philadelphia, to understand what the cards were intended to do. After a face-to-face meeting between the design and development teams, however, many cards' intentions were clarified. There was not much concern over casting costs, so when an effect was too powerful or in the wrong color, instead its casting cost was increased. After Legends was released, it went on to win the GAMA award for best game accessory of the year.

Cycles

Legends has eight cycles:

Bands-with-other land cycle: Cathedral of Serra, Seafarer's Quay, Unholy Citadel, Mountain Stronghold, and Adventurers' Guildhouse are each uncommon lands with no mana ability and each have an ability that grants legendary creatures of a particular color the "Bands with other legendary creatures" ability.

Elder Dragon legendary creature cycle: Chromium, Nicol Bolas, Vaevictis Asmadi, Palladia-Mors, and Arcades Sabboth are each rare legendary creatures with the creature types Elder and Dragon. They are 7/7, have flying, a casting cost of 2CCDDEE, an upkeep cost of CDE and at least one other ability.

Glyph cycle: Glyph of Life, Glyph of Delusion, Glyph of Doom, Glyph of Destruction, and Glyph of Reincarnation are each common instants with a casting cost of C and an effect that interacts with Walls. Each was illustrated by Susan Van Camp.

Anti-landwalk enchantment cycle: Great Wall, Undertow, Quagmire, Crevasse, and Deadfall are each uncommon enchantments with a casting cost of 2C and an effect that allows creatures with landwalk abilities to be blocked as though they didn't have them.

Color-wash cycle: Heaven's Gate, Sea Kings' Blessing, Touch of Darkness, Dwarven Song, and Sylvan Paradise are each uncommon instants with a casting cost of C and the effect of changing the color of any number of target creatures to a particular color.

Legendary land cycle: Karakas, Tolaria, Urborg, Hammerheim, and Pendelhaven are each uncommon legendary lands that produce one color of mana and have an additional activated ability that had some interaction with creatures and required only tapping the land to activate that ability.

Mana Battery cycle: White Mana Battery, Blue Mana Battery, Black Mana Battery, Red Mana Battery, and Green Mana Battery are each uncommon artifacts with a casting cost of 4 and the two activated abilities "2, T: Put a charge counter on [this]" and "T, Remove any number of charge counters from [this]: Add C to your mana pool, then add an additional C to your mana pool for each charge counter removed this way," where C is a specific color of mana.

Flavor text legendary creature cycle: Halfdane, Gwendlyn Di Corci, Bartel Runeaxe, Jaques le Vert, and Angus MacKenzie are each rare legendary creatures with a casting cost requiring at least three allied colors and flavor text referring to one of the legendary lands from the cycle above.

Points of Interest

Legends is sold only in booster packs of 15 cards, each with the same simple Magic design on it.

Each pack of Legends came with a rules card, which explained all the new abilities, card types, and a few rule clarifications.

Despite the set's large size, Legends contains no basic lands and thus is not considered to be a stand-alone expansion.

Legends was the last black-bordered expansion to use real-world quotes in its flavor text, and the only expansion to use quotes from the Bible (modern white-bordered Core sets still use real-world quotes).

The Legendary supertype replaced the "Legend" creature type when the Legend rule was updated in 2004 with the introduction of the Kamigawa block. This left many legendary creatures without any creature type.

Originally, the Restricted list included every legendary creature for flavor reasons.

There are 55 legendary creatures in Legends. They are organized in a pattern that is detailed in a link below.

All the multicolored cards in Legends are legendary creatures, and all the legendary creatures are gold cards.

There are no white World enchantments in Legends.

No creatures are printed with the Bands with other ability. However, Master of the Hunt can produce creatures with this ability and the lands of the bands-with-other land cycle detailed above can give legendary creatures this ability.

Rampage was designed to be reused in future sets. Unfortunately, due to the "beyond the first" clause, keyworded Rampage was phased out in favor of a similar ability without the drawback.

Poison was the first alternate win condition introduced (alternate from decking or damaging, that is). Only two cards, Pit Scorpion and Serpent Generator, had or could create creatures with this ability.

"Range strike," or the activated ability to deal damage to an attacking or blocking creature, was first introduced in Legends, as seen on D'Avenant Archer and Crimson Manticore.

The Elder Dragon legendary creatures are the first true creature cycle, the first multicolored cycle, and the first creatures with multiple creature types. They inspired the creation of the multicolored legendary Dragons in the Invasion expansion.

The Kobolds, Crimson Kobolds, Crookshank Kobolds, and Kobolds of Kher Keep, are 0/1 red creatures with a casting cost of 0 and are the only functionally identical cards ever printed in the same expansion.

Legends contains eleven Walls and ten cards that reference Walls, which is more of each category than any other set.

Acid Rain has been called "a bad blue card" by Mark Rosewater. It was printed to mirror Tsunami and is called a bad blue card because it gives blue mass destruction of lands, something it is not supposed to be able to do.

Active Volcano and Flash Flood are similar to Red Elemental Blast and Blue Elemental Blast, respectively.

Ærathi Berserker was printed with the name "rathi Berserker" because the "Æ" symbol did not exist in the card name font used.

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 comissioned. 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.

All Hallow's Eve was misprinted as a sorcery. It was the first mass graveyard recursion card and has inspired many cards, including Living Death and Twilight's Call.

Anti-Magic Aura and Spectral Cloak are the first cards to have some form of 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.

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.

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.

Avoid Fate was improved when interrupts were changed to instants, giving it more potential, yet still very narrow, uses.

Beasts of Bogardan was the only Beast until the Tempest expansion was printed.

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 3U and "any creature who kills the Hag is reduced to 1/1."

Cleanse inspired the ability of Major Teroh.

Clergy of the Holy Nimbus is the first white creature printed with regeneration.

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.

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.

D'Avenant Archer is strictly worse than Crossbow Infantry, first printed in the Mercadian Masques expansion.

Dakkon Blackblade inspired the creation of Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer and had a comic written to tell his story by Armada in 1995.

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.

Divine Intervention is the only card ever printed with the sole purpose of causing the game to end in a draw. 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 the Urza's Saga expansion.

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."

Enchantment Alteration inspired the creation of Aura Graft.

Eureka partly inspired the creation of Dream Halls.

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.

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 3W. It inspired the creation of Think Tank.

Firestorm Phoenix inspired the creation of Squee, Goblin Nabob.

Floral Spuzzem was called "Rat King" in playtesting and "if not blocked the Rat may chomp & destroy an artifact. No damage to opponent."

Frost Giant cost 6R in playtesting, was 5/5 and "creatures of 3 or less toughness woll not block the giant."

Gauntlets of Chaos and Juxtapose introduced the idea of exchanging permanents. They inspired the creation of Donate.

Giant Slug was originally called "Slug Bug," then "Smeltonian Slug," and lastly "Slaughter Slug" before achieving its final name.

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 Weatherlight, argued that "Magic needs more double-digit numbers on cards."

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, uncluding Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena.

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.

Hell Swarm is strictly worse than Marsh Gas, which was printed in The Dark expansion 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.

Hornet Cobra is strictly worse than both Land Leecheswhich was printed in The Dark expansion immediately following Legends, and Elvish Archers, which came before it in Alpha Edition. It is also the only remaining card with the creature type Cobra yet to have its type changed to Snake.

Hyperion Blacksmith and Relic Barrier inspired the creation of Voltaic Key.

In the Eye of Chaos inspired the creation of Ice Cave.

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.

Kismet did not inspire the creation of Root Maze (it evolved from a different but similar idea instead).

Land Equilibrium inspired the creation of Territorial Dispute.

Land's Edge inspired the creation of Seismic Assault.

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.

Living Plane inspired the creation of Nature's Revolt.

Livonya Silone is the first of two creatures to have legendary landwalk.

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.

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 is the only other card to use this type of exchange (excluding Unglued, of course).

Moat was called "Chasm" in playtesting and had a cost of 4W and "only flying creatures can damage the caster." It inspired the creation of Teferi's Moat.

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.

North Star inspired part of Mycosynth Lattice.

Part Water and Recall are the first cards to have XX in the casting cost.

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.

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.

Pyrotechnics inspired the creation of many cards, including Rolling Thunder.

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.

Rubinia Soulsinger and other creatures with the ability to tap to gain control of others inspired the creation of many cards including Coffin Queen.

Rust inspired the creation of Interdict and Bind.

Storm Seeker inspired the creation of Sudden Impact.

Sword of the Ages inspired the creation of Goblin Bombardment.

Sylvan Library inspired the creation of Rowen, Mirri's Guile, and Abundance.

Syphon Soul is the first card to reference multiple other players, acknowledging multiplayer play for the first time.

The Lady of the Mountain was inspired by one of Steve Conard's Dungeons & Dragons characters.

Time Elemental inspired the creation of Temporal Adept.

Transmutation inspired many cards including Dwarven Thaumaturgist and About Face.

Underworld Dreams inspired the creation of Malignant Growth.

Venarian Gold inspired the creation of Sleeping Potion.

Wood Elemental is often cited as one of the weakest cards ever created. It inspired the creation of Fungus Elemental.

Outside Links

• "The History of Legends" by Steve Conard
• "Legendary difficulties" by Skaff Elias
• "Designing Under the Influence" by Mark Rosewater
• Magicthegathering.com's Arcana on Legend patterns
• Magicthegathering.com's Arcana on the Chess theme
• Magicthegathering.com's Ask Wizards concerning Acid Rain, June 4, 2003
• Magicthegathering.com's Card of the Day on Elder Land Wurm flavor