Sets (AFR) Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Previews- Dripping with Flavor, and Excess Words!

[sigh]

It's just in MTG almost all legendary characters have given names that match what they actually do, or feats they accomplished, etc. So it is just a little jarring. This is why 90%+ of legendary creatures have the comma (name, given name). Even without the comma, MTG characters usually have presumably given names.

Take Brion Stoutarm for example. His name is Brion. The name Stoutarm is likely a given one, based on the fact that he, well, has a Stout Arm which he uses to good effect.

arni brokenbrow is another good example, and arguably from a very similar vein of historical reference (the Norse warrior caste sort of thing).

 

[Onderzeeboot]

True, probably because D&D is way more lore-oriented than MtG. I mean, there is a story, but most consumers of Magic the Gathering do so exclusively through the cards, so it helps spelling out the identity of a card in the name on the card. That's why Magic so heavily relies on epithets.

 

[Rowan_CB]

I also think the fact that he uses an axe and is named Battlehammer was at least a little tongue-in-cheek

 

[Rowan_CB]

At the same time, the same author chose to name his main character Drizzt, for what that's worth.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Y'all think we're getting duals with this set?
Skullport, Waterdeep, Menzobaranzan (Sp?)

Oh! they're legendary, tap for both colors and the downside is they've 11 lines of flavor text each XD

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Y'all think we're getting duals with this set?
Skullport, Waterdeep, Menzobaranzan (Sp?)

Oh! they're legendary, tap for both colors and the downside is they've 11 lines of flavor text each XD

I'ld be so down for that!

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh this set's going to be standard legal isn't it.
Legendary duals aren't exactly standard power level

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh this set's going to be standard legal isn't it.
Legendary duals aren't exactly standard power level

I don't know about that. I think Watery Grave is better than Skullport, and Watery Grave was really good, but not too good for Standard.

Edit: the real problem is WotC doesn't much like printing legendary lands anymore.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I feel like maybe without types we have a bit of an argument.
Maybe.

But yeah legendary lands argument kinda kills it

 

[Velrun]

Yes it was! Maybe annoyed is the wrong word, but I'ld argue it's not at all poor writing, if anything it's strong writing. It's not a very important topic for me either, but as an avid D&D player and DM, I do like debating over worldbuilding (which this essentially comes down to) I do get what you're saying, you can indeed make names and flavor match up when you're making up the entire world. My point is, if you're worldbuilding, that is not always the angle you're shooting for. Wizard of the Coast (or the writer of Bruenor, in any case) envisioned him as a member of the Battlehammer clan. There's an entire history to this clan, and the family name Battlehammer predates the clan. Not all of that history is written out, but that doesn't really matter. Just like how in the real world the Baker surname can be traced back to a common ancestor who was indeed a baker when surnames were formally introduced, in this fictitious universe, you can imagine it would be possible to trace back the family name Battlehammer to an ancestor who did indeed wield a battlehammer when dwarven family names were formally introduced. I think it's beautiful that a Battlehammer wielding a bearded axe implies a richer worldbuilding than one lazily naming fantasy characters after what they are or do. The worldbuilding for the Forgotten Realms, in this regard, mimics reality, and personally I like that.

Of course, if in spite of all my yammering you still can't get yourself to appreciate this deeper lore and would prefer more on the nose character naming, that's fine too! I didn't mean to judge, I just wanted to provide a broader perspective!

I do appreciate lore. You all know this about me. However it would be less on the nose if the character was wielding a bow, a wand or a short sword.

Legolas Greenleaf doesn’t deal in herbology. He’s an archer.

If you’re saying it just happen to be the only Battlehammer who just happen to wield a weapon similiar to his name, then fair. And what a crazy coincidence! How super unlikely.

 

[Velrun]

Man I have wanted more legendary lands (when it made sense and only when it made sense) for ages. Don’t get my hopes up with your theorizing

Those lands would be too powerful. Any deck would want to run at least one with no downsides. It would be a cheap way to get duals into a singleton cube, though

 

[Brad]

I had a teacher in 5th grade named Ms. Baker and I remember thinking she was a poorly designed character.

 

[LadyMapi]

At the same time, the same author chose to name his main character Drizzt, for what that's worth.

Funnily enough, Drizzt was a last-minute addition. R. A. Salvatore made him up to replace another side character in one of his books, because the publisher nixed the previous character and needed a replacement immediately.

If that never happened, we never would have had a plague of Drizzt Clones. So it's a mixed bag.

(Ol' Drizzle is also kinda fantasy racist if you think about it — a lot of his character hinges on the Drow being Always Evil. Since WotC is moving away from that, I'd think they'd de-emphasize Rainy Boy.)

 

[SirFunchalot]

I highly doubt we ever see a cycle of legendary duals for a couple reasons.

1. lands sell boosters and especially in standard legal sets a big reasoning is because players need a full playset. Legendary lands conflict with this as decks would play less than 4 fairly frequently.

2. legendary lands are honestly frustrating and poorly designed for 60 card constructed formats. Obviously legends in general are and Rosewater has stated several times he wants to make the super type more of a flavor thing than a thing with meaningful drawback rules text. It honestly sucks to play a deck with something like 4x Urborg and then draw a hand with multiples as it’s like taking a mulligan and the card just rots in your hand doing nothing.

 

[ravnic]

Personally, I liked the old legend rule, where you could only run one of in your deck. No feel back and more variety/challenging deckbuilding.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Personally, I liked the old legend rule, where you could only run one of in your deck. No feel back and more variety/challenging deckbuilding.

Wait. That has never been the legend rule. Not in Magic at least. The legend rule went through the following changes iirc.

* Original rule: You can't play legendary cards if a legendary card with the same name is already on the battlefield.
* Kamigawa change: When you play a legendary card, if a legendary card with the same name is already on the battlefield, they both get sacrificed by their owner.
* Current rule: When you play a legendary card, if you already control a legendary card with the same name, choose one of them to keep, sacrifice the other.

The original rule meant rebel mirrors during Mercadian Masques came down to whoever resolved Lin-Sivvi, Defiant Hero first, until it got banned.
The Kamigawa rule meant people started sideboarding (sometimes even mainboarding) Umezawa's Jitte in creature light decks, simply as a way to blow up opposing Jittes.
The current rule might not make the most sense from a flavor standpoint (insert Spider-Man meme here), but it does play the best of them all. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they completely abandon the rule though, as MaRo has gone on record to say he doesn't like the legend rule existing, period.

 

[alvoi]

The current rule might not make the most sense from a flavor standpoint (insert Spider-Man meme here), but it does play the best of them all. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they completely abandon the rule though, as MaRo has gone on record to say he doesn't like the legend rule existing, period.

So, Legendary would become just a flavour thing and not a mechanical aspect (besides some Karakas things)? And Mirror Gallery would become a five mana Darksteel Relic without indestructible?

 

[Zoss]

Yes.



...well, it would matter as a tag for Commander and for a spell being counted as Historic, but those are both edge cases (okay, one is a very large edge case). Kind of like the Tribal supertype, Legendary would be mostly decorative outside of these specific scenarios.

 

[Brad]

So, Legendary would become just a flavour thing and not a mechanical aspect (besides some Karakas things)? And Mirror Gallery would become a five mana Darksteel Relic without indestructible?

There's actually already a useless 5 mana artifact that doesn't have indestructible. It's called Mirror Gallery.

 

[ravnic]

Wait. That has never been the legend rule. Not in Magic at least.

Oh, really? Well then I'd vote for changing the rule to that. Give those constructed chads a little singleton feeling.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yup, what Zoss said I mean, it's not that dissimilar from arcane, really

 

[Chris Taylor]

Wait. That has never been the legend rule. Not in Magic at least. The legend rule went through the following changes iirc.

* Original rule: You can't play legendary cards if a legendary card with the same name is already on the battlefield.
* Kamigawa change: When you play a legendary card, if a legendary card with the same name is already on the battlefield, they both get sacrificed by their owner.
* Current rule: When you play a legendary card, if you already control a legendary card with the same name, choose one of them to keep, sacrifice the other.

The original rule meant rebel mirrors during Mercadian Masques came down to whoever resolved Lin-Sivvi, Defiant Hero first, until it got banned.
The Kamigawa rule meant people started sideboarding (sometimes even mainboarding) Umezawa's Jitte in creature light decks, simply as a way to blow up opposing Jittes.
The current rule might not make the most sense from a flavor standpoint (insert Spider-Man meme here), but it does play the best of them all. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they completely abandon the rule though, as MaRo has gone on record to say he doesn't like the legend rule existing, period.

Back in LEGENDS they were restricted as ravnic says.

Originally, only one creature of the same name, with the creature type Legend, could be in play at the same time. For a while, they were even on the restricted list, meaning there could be only one creature of the same name in each deck. This was changed around the time of Ice Age (Source)

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Back in LEGENDS they were restricted as ravnic says.

Originally, only one creature of the same name, with the creature type Legend, could be in play at the same time. For a while, they were even on the restricted list, meaning there could be only one creature of the same name in each deck. This was changed around the time of Ice Age (Source)

This is a bit pedantic, but Ravnic implied that being restricted was part of the legend rule, but that wasn't the case (source). They explicitly put all legends on the restricted list for flavor reasons when Legends debuted, only to remove them from the restricted list a little over a year later. So the rule stating that you couldn't include more than one legend in your deck stemmed from all the legends being on the reserved list, not from the legend rule itself.

 

[Chris Taylor]

This is a bit pedantic, but Ravnic implied that being restricted was part of the legend rule, but that wasn't the case (source). They explicitly put all legends on the restricted list for flavor reasons when Legends debuted, only to remove them from the restricted list a little over a year later. So the rule stating that you couldn't include more than one legend in your deck stemmed from all the legends being on the reserved list, not from the legend rule itself.

You are correct! I had thought it was part of the legend rule itself, but apparently not

 

[MilesOfficial]

Rabblemaster Land!

Unbelievably easy include for me, I'd want this in my list no matter my size or power-level because it's both so flexible and so fair. I'm legitimately in love.

I'm trying to figure out if I like the showcase frame though -- it's aesthetically very fun, but it 1) doesn't look like a land, 2) I prefer more "out-there" frames on instants and sorceries so as to not add complexity to board, and 3) seriously, is that a land? The art's not helping at /all/ here.

It's much more radical than any showcase frame since Amonkhet, but I like it all the same...but not looking like a traditional Magic card increases even draft complexity more than I'm super comfortable with. Very conflicted.