Legends/Trivia

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Revision as of 20:56, 10 August 2008 by >Deepsloth (Added some Trivia and References)
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Main article: Legends
  • 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.[1]
  • 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.[2]
  • 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.
  • 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 {3}{U}and "any creature who kills the Hag is reduced to 1/1."
  • 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.
  • 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.[3]
  • 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."[4], on Elder Land Wurm flavor.
  • 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=MC^2. This card 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 {3}{W}. It inspired the creation of Think Tank.
  • 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 the Floral Spuzzem itself.
  • Frost Giant has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored red creatures in Legends. It cost {6}{R} in playtesting, was 5/5 and "creatures of 3 or less toughness will not block the giant."
  • Giant Slug was originally called "Slug Bug," then "Smeltonian Slug," and lastly "Slaughter Slug" before achieving its final name.[5]
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Kismet did not inspire the creation of Root Maze (it evolved from a different but similar idea instead).
  • 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.
  • 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 {4}{W} 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.[6] It inspired the creation of Cabal Therapy.
  • 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.
  • Raging Bull is the only common red creature in Legends with a power greater than zero.
  • Ramses Overdark was named after a Dungeons & Dragons character in a campaign belonging to Robin Herbert.
  • Rebirth was the first card with the number "20" in its ability.
  • 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 given errata to allow it to only enchant an opponent's artifact.
  • 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.
  • Syphon Soul is the first card to reference multiple other players, acknowledging multiplayer play for the first time.
  • 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).
  • 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."
  • Tolaria is reguarded as the weakest of the Legendary lands in its set, but many events in the stories of Magic take place here.
  • Whirling Dervish was inspired by the ability of the "Pawn" card from the original Chess cycle that didn't make it into the set.

References

  1. ↑ Template:Askref
  2. ↑ Template:Arcref
  3. ↑ a b c magicthegathering.com's Card of the Day - June, 2002
  4. ↑ magicthegathering.com's Card of the Day - April, 2003
  5. ↑ magicthegathering.com's Card of the Day - May, 2002
  6. ↑ Template:Arcref
  7. ↑ magicthegathering.com's Card of the Day - March, 2002
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