Since the legendary supertype was introduced (albeit not in its most current form) in the Legends expansion, years ago, nearly every expansion set has contained legendary permanents, usually legendary creatures, but also a significant number of legendary artifacts.
However, lands and enchantments have far less frequently been printed as legendary permanents, so I wonder why that is. The most recent sets to have had legendary lands were those in the Kamigawa and Time Sprial blocks (Eye of Ugin in Worldwake notwithstanding), despite the fact that numerous lands in both the Ravnica and Zendikar blocks clearly referred to specific locations (i.e., Orzhova, the Church of Deals or Emeria, the Sky Ruin), which is the one of the most important traits of a legendary permanent. Can anyone here offer insight into that situation? Specifically, why have legendary lands been far fewer in number than legendary creatures and artifacts, and why were the lands in the Ravnica and Zendikar blocks not legendary, despite clearly being unique places?
As for enchantments, why were there never legendary enchantments until the kamigawa block? I find it difficult to believe that it took that long for WotC to conceive of that idea, despite having had legendary permanents of every other type before then. And why have there been no legendary enchantments since then? Were they unpopular? What insight can anyone offer into that situation?
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Yeah, I always felt that any card that has a name like [name, title] ought to be Legendary. I always assumed Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle WAS legendary until I actually looked at it one day and was like wtf
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
Legendary, first and foremost, is a _flavor_ mechanic. A legend is something that is both very well known and _unique_, quite likely cannot be duplicated, and noteworthy in the magical sense.
Places and people can easily be legends.
_knowledge_ on the other hand, is almost impossible to be unique. The only way knowledge can be unique is if it is a secret, the complete opposite of very well-known.
(We may not know the 11 secret herbs and spices of KFC, but then should we consider KFC chicken to be legendary?)
Thus, flavorwise, is weaving magic is considered knowledge, an enchantment is very hard to be legendary.
Since Mark Rosewater did not explain exactly how or why legendary lands are unfun, will you please do so? And what about legendary enchantments?
He did, just not on that link provided. Hang on while I do some google-fu.
Part of the problem was apparent during the height of boseiju, who shelters all. Players were putting boseiju in decks even if they couldn't use the ability. They put it in decks just to kill an opposing boseiju. Also, having multiple legends in hand kinda suck. Of course, those things are inherent effects with legends, but lands are 0cc.
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
a cycle of flagstones of trokair in all colors would have been cool. if i'm playing a majority white deck in modern, odds are they'll go in there somewhere.
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Only being able to have one copy of a card in play, and having that copy able to be destroyed by your opponent playing the same card, is a pretty significant disadvantage, especially on a land. On top of that, if you take the fact that you don't want to draw multiple copies of the card into account when building decks, it means you don't need to get as many copies of the card, which means that card is contributing less to sales. Legendary creatures are popular because the flavor is cool and Commander is a thing, but making non-creature cards legendary is pretty much only done to keep the card's power in check (like in the case of Mox Opal). Legends matter themed sets such as Kamigawa are obviously an exception.
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perceptive would still be fundamentally
unprepared for the truth of House Dimir."
Since Mark Rosewater did not explain exactly how or why legendary lands are unfun, will you please do so? And what about legendary enchantments?
1) You have an untapped Legendary land, holding up mana, during my turn. I play my copy of it, sending both of our lands to the graveyard without you being able to tap in response for mana, nothing else in the game can stop you from casting your instant spell in response.
2) You draw a 2nd copy of your Legendary land, since the first is likely not going to die you just drew a complete blank.
3) You finally draw your 4th land to cast your spell, but wait its legendary and your opponent already played a copy of it.
The gameplay of Legendary lands is very different from that of other Legendary permanents, which causes much more frustration. Other permanents aren't required for you to play the game and are also more likely to be destroyed by your opponent. Legendary creatures can force your opponent to deal with them in some way or block. Legendary lands have no way to be reliably "used up" and allow your additional copies to have value.
1) You have an untapped Legendary land, holding up mana, during my turn. I play my copy of it, sending both of our lands to the graveyard without you being able to tap in response for mana, nothing else in the game can stop you from casting your instant spell in response.
2) You draw a 2nd copy of your Legendary land, since the first is likely not going to die you just drew a complete blank.
3) You finally draw your 4th land to cast your spell, but wait its legendary and your opponent already played a copy of it.
The gameplay of Legendary lands is very different from that of other Legendary permanents, which causes much more frustration. Other permanents aren't required for you to play the game and are also more likely to be destroyed by your opponent. Legendary creatures can force your opponent to deal with them in some way or block. Legendary lands have no way to be reliably "used up" and allow your additional copies to have value.
None of that is so much "unfun" as it is "having a downside"
The flavor explanation is that a land, even if it represents an unique place, can still support many different mana bonds. So you and your opponent can both have 4 copies of Vitu Ghazi, the City Tree in play at the same time.
There used to be legendary enchantments - kind of. They were called world enchantments, and you would only have one world enchantment on the battlefield at a time. Another one would invoke the world rule and both cards would go to the graveyard.
There used to be legendary enchantments - kind of. They were called world enchantments, and you would only have one world enchantment on the battlefield at a time. Another one would invoke the world rule and both cards would go to the graveyard.
The World Rule leaves the most recent World Enchantment in play -- only the older one is put into the graveyard. (If two World Enchantments enter play at the same time, they'll both go to the graveyard.)
Legendary is a drawback meant to curb the power of some cards. WotC has more or less stopped printing good lands - only Cavern Of Souls and Zen fetches have made a real splash in eternal in the last six years! With no powerful lands, there is no reason to reign in their power.
Legendary enchantments do not make sense flavour wise. Enchantments are intangible and do not represent a unique thing. If an enchantment were unique, it would make more sense that it could only be cast once per game instead of only one in play. World is a better supertype for enchantments of this nature.
It always annoyed me that the uncommon lands from Ravnica has legendary names. I understand why they are bad for gameplay, but it's such a failure in the flavor department. At the very least they could have gone with just "Church of Deals" or "Restless Tomb" or something less specific to compensate for the flavor disconnect.
I also think legends should work the same way planeswalkers do in terms of keying off the character represented rather than the name of the card. It makes absolutely no sense (outside of Planar Chaos) for there to be 2 Mikaeus, or 2 Kamahl or whatever. They should have re-tooled legendary permanents when they introduced planeswalkers so that my big stupid angel and your big stupid angel can't be the same big stupid angel at the same time. Otherwise what's the point of even including it as a supertype?
It always annoyed me that the uncommon lands from Ravnica has legendary names. I understand why they are bad for gameplay, but it's such a failure in the flavor department. At the very least they could have gone with just "Church of Deals" or "Restless Tomb" or something less specific to compensate for the flavor disconnect.
I disagree. They just happen to have more than one possible mana bond.
I disagree. They just happen to have more than one possible mana bond.
Ok, so why even have a Legendary supertype at all? Can't Jace be fighting a past version of himself? Can't my St. Traft is from a different parallel version of Innistrad than yours is? If you read up on contemporary theoretical physics, you'll find that reality may in fact composed of infinite possible universes, and it's perfectly plausible that a several mages, wizards, or chaos warlocks could summon the same individual from disparate time streams and superimpose them into our reality under multiple simultaneous quantum states!
You can stretch to explain away inconsistencies, but that completely defeats the point of having the Legendary mechanic in the first place. I remain steadfast in my claim that it bothers me. Would anyone else care to disprove this claim?
Legendary is a drawback meant to curb the power of some cards. WotC has more or less stopped printing good lands - only Cavern Of Souls and Zen fetches have made a real splash in eternal in the last six years! With no powerful lands, there is no reason to reign in their power.
Legendary enchantments do not make sense flavour wise. Enchantments are intangible and do not represent a unique thing. If an enchantment were unique, it would make more sense that it could only be cast once per game instead of only one in play. World is a better supertype for enchantments of this nature.
Modern Valakut says "hi".
Wizards has been bitten by strong lands in the past, and I think they are gun-shy to push the power level. There are a LOT of ways to tutor lands, and lands are the most flexible of all permanents. Making anything new that is high power can have a huge impact on eternal formats.
Modern Valakut says "hi".
Wizards has been bitten by strong lands in the past, and I think they are gun-shy to push the power level. There are a LOT of ways to tutor lands, and lands are the most flexible of all permanents. Making anything new that is high power can have a huge impact on eternal formats.
I agree completely that WotC makes lands good enough for Modern and type two. Since I play Legacy almost exclusively, my standards for playable are somewhat higher. Since Future Sight (2007) I've seen one cycle of (unoriginal) colour fixers and one utility land. That's not very much for twenty-two sets; and none of them are strong enough to warrant legendary status.*
I don't think WotC are worried about breaking eternal formats - those are full of insane lands already. More likely WotC don't want OP lands in Modern (which has no Wasteland) or Standard. Also WotC seems to have boosted the power of creatures while nerfing all other card types (except PWs) - that way every standard deck has to run creatures. In fact, one of the six good lands I mentioned only works with creatures.
Maybe we'll see more powerful lands based on synergy with creatures.
*EDIT - I forgot about Mutavault - but that was also 2007 and also only run in tribal decks. It also is arguably only a fringe card in Legacy.
WotC decided back in 2002 or so that unique places could support more than one mana bond at a time. They did this not to print the Ravnica guildhalls, but a cycle of common lands that were not Legendary.
I also think legends should work the same way planeswalkers do in terms of keying off the character represented rather than the name of the card. It makes absolutely no sense (outside of Planar Chaos) for there to be 2 Mikaeus, or 2 Kamahl or whatever. They should have re-tooled legendary permanents when they introduced planeswalkers so that my big stupid angel and your big stupid angel can't be the same big stupid angel at the same time. Otherwise what's the point of even including it as a supertype?
This would be a logistical nightmare. It's not always obvious that two cards represent the same character, such as Crovax the Cursed and Ascendant Evincar, or Jeska, Warrior Adept and Phage the Untouchable (and Karona, False God). It's fixable, with some duct tape and some clunky errata, but really, it's just one of those flavor things you ignore for the sake of gameplay - oozes can carry swords, you can hit a lightning elemental with a lightning bolt, and Niv-Mizzet sometimes looks at his older self across a battlefield.
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Legendary is a drawback meant to curb the power of some cards. WotC has more or less stopped printing good lands - only Cavern Of Souls and Zen fetches have made a real splash in eternal in the last six years! With no powerful lands, there is no reason to reign in their power.
Legendary enchantments do not make sense flavour wise. Enchantments are intangible and do not represent a unique thing. If an enchantment were unique, it would make more sense that it could only be cast once per game instead of only one in play. World is a better supertype for enchantments of this nature.
I see this kind of thought error in many mediums from movie criticism to music.
What you're doing is you're comparing the first 12 years of magic to the last 6.
if wizards printed good lands at a consistent rate over time, you should expect almost twice as many good lands from the first 12 years than in the last 6
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However, lands and enchantments have far less frequently been printed as legendary permanents, so I wonder why that is. The most recent sets to have had legendary lands were those in the Kamigawa and Time Sprial blocks (Eye of Ugin in Worldwake notwithstanding), despite the fact that numerous lands in both the Ravnica and Zendikar blocks clearly referred to specific locations (i.e., Orzhova, the Church of Deals or Emeria, the Sky Ruin), which is the one of the most important traits of a legendary permanent. Can anyone here offer insight into that situation? Specifically, why have legendary lands been far fewer in number than legendary creatures and artifacts, and why were the lands in the Ravnica and Zendikar blocks not legendary, despite clearly being unique places?
As for enchantments, why were there never legendary enchantments until the kamigawa block? I find it difficult to believe that it took that long for WotC to conceive of that idea, despite having had legendary permanents of every other type before then. And why have there been no legendary enchantments since then? Were they unpopular? What insight can anyone offer into that situation?
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
Since Mark Rosewater did not explain exactly how or why legendary lands are unfun, will you please do so? And what about legendary enchantments?
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
Places and people can easily be legends.
_knowledge_ on the other hand, is almost impossible to be unique. The only way knowledge can be unique is if it is a secret, the complete opposite of very well-known.
(We may not know the 11 secret herbs and spices of KFC, but then should we consider KFC chicken to be legendary?)
Thus, flavorwise, is weaving magic is considered knowledge, an enchantment is very hard to be legendary.
He did, just not on that link provided. Hang on while I do some google-fu.
Part of the problem was apparent during the height of boseiju, who shelters all. Players were putting boseiju in decks even if they couldn't use the ability. They put it in decks just to kill an opposing boseiju. Also, having multiple legends in hand kinda suck. Of course, those things are inherent effects with legends, but lands are 0cc.
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"I am confident that if anyone actually
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perceptive would still be fundamentally
unprepared for the truth of House Dimir."
1) You have an untapped Legendary land, holding up mana, during my turn. I play my copy of it, sending both of our lands to the graveyard without you being able to tap in response for mana, nothing else in the game can stop you from casting your instant spell in response.
2) You draw a 2nd copy of your Legendary land, since the first is likely not going to die you just drew a complete blank.
3) You finally draw your 4th land to cast your spell, but wait its legendary and your opponent already played a copy of it.
The gameplay of Legendary lands is very different from that of other Legendary permanents, which causes much more frustration. Other permanents aren't required for you to play the game and are also more likely to be destroyed by your opponent. Legendary creatures can force your opponent to deal with them in some way or block. Legendary lands have no way to be reliably "used up" and allow your additional copies to have value.
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None of that is so much "unfun" as it is "having a downside"
Urborg, Tolerian Academy etc are all still worth it.
The 1st point is pretty valid, and probably the real reasoning, however.
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Legendary enchantments do not make sense flavour wise. Enchantments are intangible and do not represent a unique thing. If an enchantment were unique, it would make more sense that it could only be cast once per game instead of only one in play. World is a better supertype for enchantments of this nature.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
I also think legends should work the same way planeswalkers do in terms of keying off the character represented rather than the name of the card. It makes absolutely no sense (outside of Planar Chaos) for there to be 2 Mikaeus, or 2 Kamahl or whatever. They should have re-tooled legendary permanents when they introduced planeswalkers so that my big stupid angel and your big stupid angel can't be the same big stupid angel at the same time. Otherwise what's the point of even including it as a supertype?
I disagree. They just happen to have more than one possible mana bond.
Ok, so why even have a Legendary supertype at all? Can't Jace be fighting a past version of himself? Can't my St. Traft is from a different parallel version of Innistrad than yours is? If you read up on contemporary theoretical physics, you'll find that reality may in fact composed of infinite possible universes, and it's perfectly plausible that a several mages, wizards, or chaos warlocks could summon the same individual from disparate time streams and superimpose them into our reality under multiple simultaneous quantum states!
You can stretch to explain away inconsistencies, but that completely defeats the point of having the Legendary mechanic in the first place. I remain steadfast in my claim that it bothers me. Would anyone else care to disprove this claim?
Modern Valakut says "hi".
Wizards has been bitten by strong lands in the past, and I think they are gun-shy to push the power level. There are a LOT of ways to tutor lands, and lands are the most flexible of all permanents. Making anything new that is high power can have a huge impact on eternal formats.
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I agree completely that WotC makes lands good enough for Modern and type two. Since I play Legacy almost exclusively, my standards for playable are somewhat higher. Since Future Sight (2007) I've seen one cycle of (unoriginal) colour fixers and one utility land. That's not very much for twenty-two sets; and none of them are strong enough to warrant legendary status.*
I don't think WotC are worried about breaking eternal formats - those are full of insane lands already. More likely WotC don't want OP lands in Modern (which has no Wasteland) or Standard. Also WotC seems to have boosted the power of creatures while nerfing all other card types (except PWs) - that way every standard deck has to run creatures. In fact, one of the six good lands I mentioned only works with creatures.
Maybe we'll see more powerful lands based on synergy with creatures.
*EDIT - I forgot about Mutavault - but that was also 2007 and also only run in tribal decks. It also is arguably only a fringe card in Legacy.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Indeed, but at the time they still printed plenty of legendary lands. It was a separate decision to stop that practice
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
This would be a logistical nightmare. It's not always obvious that two cards represent the same character, such as Crovax the Cursed and Ascendant Evincar, or Jeska, Warrior Adept and Phage the Untouchable (and Karona, False God). It's fixable, with some duct tape and some clunky errata, but really, it's just one of those flavor things you ignore for the sake of gameplay - oozes can carry swords, you can hit a lightning elemental with a lightning bolt, and Niv-Mizzet sometimes looks at his older self across a battlefield.
Hoi, hoi, u embleer hrair
M'saion ulé hraka vair.
I see this kind of thought error in many mediums from movie criticism to music.
What you're doing is you're comparing the first 12 years of magic to the last 6.
if wizards printed good lands at a consistent rate over time, you should expect almost twice as many good lands from the first 12 years than in the last 6