Legends

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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.

Notable Cards

  • Eureka is a powerful spell that has been a favorite of many players for years.
  • Mana Drain is the most powerful counterspell ever printed, but is not strictly better than Counterspell because in some situations it can result in its caster taking damage. While technically reprintable (as an uncommon, it is not on the Restricted List), many employees of Wizards of the Coast have promised that it will never be reprinted.
  • The Abyss is a powerful anti-creature World enchantment that had two effects: first, it ruined creature-based strategies; and second, it made many other World enchantments that much more popular, if only to serve to destroy The Abyss.
  • Underworld Dreams was a powerful enchantment that punished an opponent for drawing cards, something an opponent fundamentally wants to do. It is reprinted in Eighth Edition and Ninth Edition and has since proven itself not to be as powerful as it once was.

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 Limited Edition (Alpha) set. 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:

  • 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.

Creature Types

Most of the creature types used in Legends were new, and some are unique. Early expansions had creature types only for flavor reasons, resulting in many unusual types.

The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Abomination, Ant, Archer (later changed to Soldier), Avenger, Bat, Beast, Bee, Being, Berserker, Boar, Bull, Cat Warrior, Cobra, Dervish (later changed to Monk), Devouring Deep, Dragonfly, Drake, Drill Sergeant, Effigy, Elder Dragon Legend (later changed to "Legendary Creature - Elder Dragon"), Entity, Evil Eye (later changed to Eye), Falcon (later changed to Bird), Ghost, Gnome, Gypsy, Hag, Hell's Caretaker (later changed to Horror), Horror, Horseman, Keeper, Kithkin, Kobold, Legionnaire, Leviathan (later changed to Serpent), Lost Soul (later changed to Minion), Legend (later changed to "Legendary Creature" without a creature type), Lycanthrope, Manticore, Master, Medusa, Mold Demon, Monster, Mummy, Nightstalker, Ooze, Phoenix, Pixie Queen, Priest, Rider (later changed to Elf), Satyr, Scorpion, Slug, Spawn, Sphinx, Spirit, Spuzzem, Taskmaster, Turtle, Villain, Vulture, Walking Dead, Wolverine Pack, Wombat, Wretched, and Yeti.

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Angel, Ape, Druid, Efreet, Elemental, Faerie, Giant, Guardian, Lord, Smith, Wall, and Wurm.

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 includes a rules card, which explains all the abilities and card types introduced in the set, and also includes 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. They were removed with the release of the Ice Age expansion in 1995.
  • 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 originally called "Berserk" but was changed because a card already used that name. An early version of Rampage allowed a creature to attack some additional number of times in a turn, with creatures only able to block the first attack. This mechanic was designed to be reused in future sets, but 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.
  • Legends contains eleven Walls and ten cards that reference Walls, which is more cards in 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 3U 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.
  • 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."
  • 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=MC2. 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 3W. It inspired the creation of Think Tank.
  • 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 has the greatest combined power and toughness among monocolored red creatures in Legends. It cost 6R 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.
  • 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 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Whirling Dervish was inspired by the ability of the "Pawn" card from the original Chess cycle that didn't make it into the set.

External Links

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