If I recall, MaRo a year-or-two ago was experimenting with ABU dual lands that were legendary and snow on his blogatog. Trying to circumvent the RL with cards that were just unique enough to be printed.
He has been pretty vocal that both Snow duals amd Legendary Duals break the apirit of the Reserved list, evem if they technically do not break the list itaelf.
The good thing about legal, contractual obligations is that you only have to follow the letter.
While somewhat true, the context he spome ofnit in is that they have no intention of breaking even the apirit of the RL by printing technically different cards.
Equally, the concept that Wizards has some legal obligation to abide by the RL due to promisary estoppal laws amd some form of contractural obligation is spurious, at best.
The honest reason why they have no intention of breaking the RL any time soon is because Legacy is bad for lomg term business. Legacy players are one and done customers. If they encpurage to many people to join the format, they will nuke their customer base. Which is good for nobody long term.
The honest to god truth is that they would stand to gain far less than they lose by breaking the RL, simply from market factors.
They'd have to print something that is more like a variation of an existing non-reserved list dual land or create a new legendary snow land that does something more than what the old dual lands did. Kind of like the kamigawa lands.
Also to expand on that comment earlier on snow and parasitic mechanics: Snow was a template mechanic, not a parasitic mechanic. Snow lands were just basic lands that had the sub-type snow, and while there were many cards that required the use of lands with the snow subtype to do things, it wasn't like energy where the entire thing is just annexed from normal magic and the only way to do anything with it was to use energy specific cards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
While somewhat true, the context he spome ofnit in is that they have no intention of breaking even the apirit of the RL by printing technically different cards.
Equally, the concept that Wizards has some legal obligation to abide by the RL due to promisary estoppal laws amd some form of contractural obligation is spurious, at best.
The honest reason why they have no intention of breaking the RL any time soon is because Legacy is bad for lomg term business. Legacy players are one and done customers. If they encpurage to many people to join the format, they will nuke their customer base. Which is good for nobody long term.
The honest to god truth is that they would stand to gain far less than they lose by breaking the RL, simply from market factors.
Also to expand on that comment earlier on snow and parasitic mechanics: Snow was a template mechanic, not a parasitic mechanic. Snow lands were just basic lands that had the sub-type snow, and while there were many cards that required the use of lands with the snow subtype to do things, it wasn't like energy where the entire thing is just annexed from normal magic and the only way to do anything with it was to use energy specific cards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)