Alright I'm gonna do a vorthos deep dive here to explain why the legend rule is perfectly in flavor. So in the story Loran's Smile Feldon of the Third Path learns how to summon creatures from a white mage. The mage explains that a summoned creature is a construction made from Mana and shaped from your memories. Old Planeswalkers used to be able to actually bring creatures from modern planes but most can not after the mending. As such when you summon a creature you are forming Mana into your impression of that creature. When it is a legendary creature instead of fitting into some concept it fits into a memory of a specific person. You can't control two since you can't hold the concept of an individual in your mind twice and keep them separate, but your opponent can hold one impression of a person and you can hold another. As such it makes sense why each mage can have a single copy of a legendary out at a time as they can each have their own memory of an individual.
What a cool explanation! I remember in the old Magic books this is how Magic worked. Purely as a thought exercise, what if two planeswalkers remembered a legendary person differently? Would their abilities be different?
When Soren-Tron came onto my radar I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is very into trying to find ways to explain strange play combos in Magic. We pretty quickly decided it wasn't multiple Sorens. It was an increasingly more powerful single Soren who gained or lost power as the game pieces came onto or left the board. Just my two cents.
Nah. It's the same as legendary creatures, we are summoning our memories of Sorin at a specific time in his life. This is after all why summoned planeswalkers can't use all their powers, but only the kind of powers we saw them use in the time the memory was formed. If that was not the case, the planeswalker in question could cast their own spells but they cant
I tend to just explain the presence of a single Legendary creature or planeswalker in multiples, on either or both sides of the field, as being Temporal Bullshit. Soren-Tron is just Soren being pulled from multiple points in his personal timeline. Or possibly from different timelines. There has to be SOME consequence for Terefi's shenanigans.
Any Voltron deck is going to be like that. You should see my Kemba, Kha Regent commander deck. She can be found wearing 2 pairs of boots, 2 sets of armor, carrying up to 12 swords and a banner.
I like to believe that multiple instances of the same legend - especially planeswalkers - is the same person. Say you have 3 Jaces on the field: Vryns Prodigy, Mind Sculptor, and Cunning Castaway. You only control one ACTUAL character - Jace. He has every ability on each card. He never lost them. You, as a player, just need to cast multiple spells and get multiple cards on the table in order to use Jace to his full potential.
I know I’m a bit late on this but it’s ironic you use Jace as an example considering he’s wiped his memory between each of those incarnations (once when he beat Vryn, again when he stopped being the mind sculptor)
Under mirror universe rules Thespian Stage could still copy Dark Depths and not have any counters on it. The only difference is you would get to keep the original Dark Depths with the ice counters on it because you never have to sacrifice it to the legend rule. The copied one would still trigger Marit Lage due to having no counters. RE: 12:45
I'm pretty sure the Dark depths combo still works without the legend rule, as its not the sacrifice of the dark depths, its that thespians stage/dark depths never enters the battlefield so it doesn't get the counters. The legend rule was just a nuance that players had to acknowledge to perform the combo. Still, sweet vid.
Ah yes, I remember when the legend rule let clones kill any legend you saw. It was absurd gameplay-wise, but it also twisted the color pie. Blue is not supposed to be good at directly destroying creatures. So glad we have the more functional and fun rule now.
That is funny. But you can still kinda do that with clones since you can still sac one of them. Still kinda bends that color pie though...I wonder what MaRo thinks about that? (Also Senpai noticed me!)
I like to think of equip costs as using mana to rework the artifacts into a form that whatever you're equipping it to can use: so turning the "sword" of fire and ice into some kind of claw augment Bolas could use costs 2 mana. I'm making an equipment deck for Tromocratis, the big fat kraken, so I've been thinking about this :)
a little over 4 years later the count more than doubled from 1,032 to 2,132, which is wild in of itself. There are times I might miss the old legend rule and others that I'm just simply happy Evil Twin works way better now
I’d argue that the legend rule makes sense if you compare MTG to war games like WH40K or Warmachine. If two players have the same legendary commander, it’s seen that one of them is an imposter. And the commander who wins is obviously the real legendary person at the end of it all.
Legend rule also adds a bit more nuance to deckbuilding when building around them. Legends often have unique abilities that make you want to build around them, and so it can be an interesting balance to figure out how many copies are worth playing.
The only thing I don't care for about the Legend rule is its interactions with clones. I literally can't make an illusionary copy of a legendary creature, despite, you know, it being an ILLUSION. Space and time have no respect for cosplay it seems.
That's true. It could be fixed by making cards which say "becomes a copy of target creature except it loses the legend supertype". Or you could take the view that Legendary creatures are too complex to become believable illusions.
Sure, I can use my clone spells to copy huge eldrazi monstrosities, large mobs of people, any average demon or dragon or whatever have you, but copying Konda's special dog is way too complicated and difficult. TBH I kind of like that explanation, it's just goofy enough for me
The legend rule not applying would be a buff to Thespian Stage + Dark Depths. The stage would still turn into marit lage, you'd just get to keep the old Dark Depths.
I kinda feel that the change to the planeswalker rule let a possible design disappear. After the gatewatch, I kinda expected "Nissa and Chandra" team-up cards appear. I felt that while some planeswalkers were overused, others could use new iterations and could fuel mechanics based on planeswaker subtype (they appeared in planeswalker decks but have yet to be printed at constructed power levels)
Your videos go so far beyond just Magic. I have posted this on several videos I'm sure, but I am under the belief that anyone with an appreciation for art and history would love these videos.They do an excellent job at putting perspective on the game we have all grown to love
The point about interaction of mechanics creating absurd results was great and got me thinking of some of my best memories playing MTG...such as a river boa equipped with kitesail and an axe wrecking my face on one late night kitchen table match which left everyone involved in stitches. Great video once again!
I watch a lot of "video essay" channels on TH-cam, and while most of them are film-related, I think you're the best of the channels I watch, period. The structure, use of examples, and PACING are perfect. You just make an easy-to-follow argument that makes sense. Always look forward to your videos, even though I don't play MTG anymore. Keep up the good work, man.
I got into magic back in highschool with Kamigawa (which I still love, sad we will never see it again) and the mutually assured destruction of Legendary creatures back then. I get all the rule changes around the Legendary cards, but I still kind of like the M.A.D. legendary rule. It made sense to me that only one instance of a legendary creature could exist at one time without some kind of paradox happening.
Writing from WAY after this video came out: Just seeing the reference to "The Adventure Zone" in this video is making my worlds collide. Who knew Sam was a fan of the McElroys!
My favorite thing that happened in a game as far as flavor was back in my second year of magic (this is my 5th year btw so im still fairly new) I'd cast a genesis hydra for 22 and gave him featherfleet sandles i think it's called, the equipment from theros that gives flying and haste. Human sized sandles allowing a beast the size of a trailer park to just... fly. Ah flavor
it always surprises me when you upload something new because I always think it's something from the past and I missed it, but always good content and great voiceover!
Flavor-wise it never bothered me when legends doubled as removal. Back when I learned the game, creatures were still understood as "summoning spells" so it made since that if both planeswalkers could summon the same legend, one could use their spell to unsummon the other. They aren't "looking at each other", rather you are "closing the portal". I would make it exile rather than sacrifice, though
Fantastic video as always. I'm not even a fan of the game but hearing someone passionate for it examine all sorts of things related to the series is entrancing, your editing is absolutely on point, and you make consistently interesting content.
yeah, the Legend rule is one of my favorite rules of the game, and I was fine with the planeswlaker thing, given that the different planeswalkers are just snapshots of different individuals at different points in time, just the same as Jhoira of the Ghitu and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. or having planeswalker nicol bolas and creature Nicol Bolas. or having Pit Fighter Kamaal and fist of Krosa Kamaal... or Time Spiral Braids and Normal Braids. MTG players are less 'wizards' duking it out and more gods. the power to bring about God's judgement and a literal armageddon is at our fingertips. we can take a stroll through time and imbue ourselves with mind-bending knowledge via use of necromantic powers to stab ourselves in the brain 19 times. OF COURSE we can teach a colony of rats to fly a helicopter or if you wanna get really daring, a mutating pile of rocks that can shape itself into everything and nothing at the same time. (seriously, Mutavault is such a mindfuck to me). I love it when Magic gets stupidly silly! I regularly do necromantic selections in my Muldrotha deck to nuke the board and get Muldrotha back... who is already an elemental made up of some sort of bog out in the middle of Yavimaya. and somehow... I dunno,t he moss or water or dirt she's made up of is now necrotic tissue of some sort so she can continue in undeath to imbue more undeath into anything and everything that happens to fall into the graveyard she tends? the absurdity there makes me smile!
besides being a limp for some of the stronger cards, the legend rule on can also lend itself to some interesting decision making in deck building, as you have to actually weigh the risk vs reward rather than just blindly throwing in 4, which is something I really wish we saw more of.
These videos are so incredibly cool! Would you consider doing a series going throughout the Magic storyline? I have been looking for something like that for a long time, but I cant imagine anyone as nice to listen to as yourself. Keep it up!
10:40-11:00 the best part by far. I love these videos, but this part has been the one to make me double over in my chair for a few minutes clutching my sides. Thank you for the much needed laughter.
Lin Sivvi was a card that pushed R&D into changing the Legend Rule, but, Akroma was the straw that broke the camel's back - Onslaught Block Constructed was defined by "who could cast their Akroma first," and the Legend Rule that prevented a player from casting their copy second was changed the following year, just in time for Kamigawa Block.
Killing like always, Sam! Though, I would like to state something, Isamaru was not Magic's first 1 mana 2/2. There were a couple of those before him, you should probably have stated it was Magic's first VANILLA 2/2, as all the previous ones had some sort of downside to them. Still love the video though. Keep it up, dude!
I watched all of your videos rather quickly. I haven't played mtg in over a decade but I greatly appreciate all of your content, especially the art analyses. Cheers
Let's be honest, most of us would die to three squirrels if they were focused solely on trying to kill us. There's a reason why Squirrel Girl is so OP in Marvel comics ;)
@Rubarack that doesn't make sense. Squirrels are 1/1. 3 squirrels can kill Jace as he is a 3/3; him being a "superhuman" isn't relavant; the stats tell the story. If he is superhuman, the squirrels are super squirrels. And forget about laurence's comment not being relavant; it isn't even correct, generally speaking Do I really need to mention that even drinking too much water can kill a normal human? Anything can kill a human; what is relavant is how likely it is to happen.
The Dark Depths+Thesbian's Stage Combo would absolutely keep working if the Legend rule were done away with. When you copy the Depths, the stage doesn't get Legend Ruled, it gets sacrificed to its own ability. The only difference is that the original Dark Depths would stick around.
If you think about it, the players of magic are planeswalkers summoning things from different times and spaces so it makes perfect sense to have two sorins in play as long as they are from different times
Planeswalkers don't really summon planeswalkers. Also it depends how time functions. That only makes sense if multiple timelines exist simultaneously independent of each other.
Great video Sam! I did a little video on Helm of the Host a few weeks back, and I too realized how rare it is for wizards to name and mess with game rules like that. They did a great job on the wording for helm which doesn't reference the rule, but just makes the copies non legendary. Would you consider Rules Lawyer as a card that references actual game rules? It doesn't use the word rule, but indicates that state based actions no longer apply. Food for thought.... Anyway love the video!
Where will I turn up next!?!? Actually, Sam and I play at the same shop occasionally. I don't get the chance to watch a ton of content anymore, but Sam does such great work that I cant not watch his videos. The card frame video, and the John Avon series....killer.
Commander Replay that's really cool that you two know each other irl. I agree, Sam's videos a really good. I love the in depth analysis of cards and backstories. I enjoy your videos too. You have great editing that streamlines the gameplay and doesn't get boring.
This video was lovely, but all it made me think about was Jason Aaron's run on Thor from a few years ago. Young Thor (pre hammer) Avengers Thor (current) and Allfather Thor (from the extreme future) find themselves face to face against a time traveling god killer. That's what I think of when I see a Planeswalker. A snapshot in time, there for a moment to assist the player in a battle. It might make more sense to me as a fan of comics ha ha.
Yes the legend rules is a bit of a strange one when you think about it. Whenever me or my opponent plays multiple copies of a planeswalker I always think of them as growing in power, sort of like one planeswalker being able to activate two abilities each turn with more loyalty. If we both have the same legendary on opposite sides of the field I figure that the character has mixed alliances, sometimes working for one army, sometimes they other. Works for me, but you do you. Great work on the video as per usual.
This video touches on a fantastic series of topics, but one that it shipped over is one that is especially important in EDH/COMMANDER format- Previously, when it was impossible to play a legendary creature while your opponent had a legendary creature of the same name, edh decks that ran the same general could not oppose each other- the game devolved into a question of who went first, and typically whoever did was the victor, unless the other player's deck contained a large amount of cards like "act of treason" It was quite common in my friend group for players to suspend the legend rule before entering a game so that the second player could participate- otherwise, whoever won the coin flip won the game. When the rule was changed from "you can't summon this card if your opponent has already done so" to "if you summon this card after your opponent has, both are destroyed" the commander format hit a huge shift. Suddenly the game became about whose deck ramped Mana easiest, whose deck worked best without their general, or in some cases, whose deck could win in the same turn that their commander was played. This was huge! And it forced combo decks to rethink the way they played, or sideboard another general in the same colors so that they could keep going. When the rule was finally changed to "no two legendary creatures with the same name on the same field," however, the game changed to what it is now- players now can realistically expect to enter a game without worrying about what general the opponent is using- or at least, not worrying that they themselves should have brought a different card.
I wish they'd just change it all the way back to limiting you to one per deck. It would make them more unique, and, hopefully, less expensive. Great video BTW
I now understand why people used to play vanilla Jace Beleren during the Mind Sculptor days. Had that doubt ever since I saw your Mind Sculptor video. Love your videos even though I don´t play Magic. Keep it up!
Just a note: Even before the Planeswalker rule change, there were still examples of the same character with different english names being allowed in play at the same time for over a decade. Ertai, for example, had a mono blue and dimir version even before the modern 8th edition card frame and could both be in play at tye same time.
I heard a metaphor somewhere - either somewhere online or from a buddy at my LGS, not entirely sure - about the existence of planeswalker tron. The flavor of MTG is that you yourself are also a planeswalker, able to cast powerful spells and summon creatures to aid you in battle. If this is the case, casting a Planeswalker spell isn't summoning a Planeswalker, it's being aided by one. Example: You have a deck with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Jace, the Living Guildpact. On the board, you cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor for 4 mana. In the lore, you turn to Jace Beleren who is sitting nearby and pay him 4 mana to come and help you in your battle. He agrees and takes your orders, performing the actions listed on Jace, the Mind Sculptor. You can ask him to perform an effect on Jace, the Living Guildpact, but you only paid 4 mana, so he won't help you there. The game continues and you cast Jace, the Living Guildpact on the board. In lore, you offer Jace Beleren another 4 mana to help you further. He agrees again, and tells you he will not only perform the abilities on Jace, the Living Guildpact, but will help you twice now. The game continues somehow, despite the fact that you have two Jaces (Jace helping you twice as much) and your opponent attacks Jace, the Mind Sculptor with his creatures, dealing enough damage to kill him. Lorewise, Jace just got smacked in the face by a demon, and is fed up with this, as you didn't pay him enough to deal with it. He tells you he's done, and unless you pay him more mana, he's only going to help you out once, like before. TL;DR - Planeswalkers on the board are a singular entity helping you out the more mana you give them. Having 3 Sorins in play means that Sorin is giving you 3 abilities to use a turn. Planeswalkers are bipartisan and greedy as hell, so if your opponent offers them mana too they help them as well, playing both sides of the field.
You are a legend for including the link to the Soren Tron video. Couldn't for the life of me find it on TH-cam. Thank you! Edit: Heh. Just saw the adventure zone reference towards the end.
I feel like the flavour solution is to say that when two wizards both summon a legendary creature that creature is in a kind of quantum superposition and fighting for both masters at once? Like a kind of split timeline thing? Maybe they go back to their home plane afterwards like 'wow that was weird' and gain two contradictory sets of memories. Planeswalkers have always had that vaguely sci-fi twist to them messing with the space time continuum and that? Idk this is probably the best ruling mechanically we may as well make the best of it flavour wise
In LoR, we have a very similar element to Legendary creatures called Champions. You're normally only allowed to have one of each champion in play per side/player. But when you have a champion in play and you also have that same champion in hand, the champion transforms into a spell, that when played, shuffles the champion back into the deck again following the spell's resolution. This meant it was literally impossible to play multiple copies of a champion from hand since additional copies ceased to exist in hand. So the game didn't have a hard rule about champions on the field, it had a rule that incidentally prevented champion duplicates from being played mechanically. However, by the same token, there was absolutely *zero* restriction on summoning additional champions without playing them from hand. Summons from deck, clones, revives, all on the table. Imagine if every legendary was an adventure card, but the adventure mode was both only available to and the mandatory way to cast the card when you had the same legendary in play, basically.
I think that the way it was before was better. It meant that deck building was a lot more limited in what you can do. Amd while that may seem like a bad thing, there are a lot of PWs that werent meant to be able to play with their older counter parts and lead to ridiculous combos. For example, is you have a Garruk Caller of Beasts, and a Garruk Primal Hunter, you can get a big fatty from the -3 off Caller and draw a bunch of cards off Hunter. Or +1 caller to draw up to 5 cards, then draw even more off of Hunter. Those aren't even the tip of the iceberg, imo, either. I think it's cool in premise, but in execution it causes a lot more frustrating situations to deal with than it does fun games for people to play.
I don’t personally play MTG much (I prefer cooperative games, for starters), but these videos that analyze rules and the sort of history of concepts are really cool.
Sorin-tron was the inciting inspiration for my favourite commander deck: Nicol Bolas Tribal. Most cards in the deck reference Nicol Bolas directly in some way (in either the art, name, or flavor text). But most importantly, it runs every version of Nicol Bolas, and the truest win condition of the deck for myself is to have Nicol Bolas the creature, the 4 Nicol Bolas planeswalkers, and the double-faced Nicol Bolas transformed to Nicol Bolas the Arisen.
I always saw the flavour application of actual legend rule in mirror matches as two wizards fighting for the loyalty of a single entity. Both wizards made a pact with Bolas, but Bolas in all it's mighty knows what's better for him, not letting any interest surpass it's own. The same might be applicable to double Niv-mizzets in one's side (dracogenius and firemind). That wizard reached certain level of synergy with Mizzet that it is capable of taking more advantage from the character than ordinary spellcasters. The manifestation of the characters will always be one, but their bound with its invoker(s) is unique.
Alright I'm gonna do a vorthos deep dive here to explain why the legend rule is perfectly in flavor. So in the story Loran's Smile Feldon of the Third Path learns how to summon creatures from a white mage. The mage explains that a summoned creature is a construction made from Mana and shaped from your memories. Old Planeswalkers used to be able to actually bring creatures from modern planes but most can not after the mending. As such when you summon a creature you are forming Mana into your impression of that creature. When it is a legendary creature instead of fitting into some concept it fits into a memory of a specific person. You can't control two since you can't hold the concept of an individual in your mind twice and keep them separate, but your opponent can hold one impression of a person and you can hold another. As such it makes sense why each mage can have a single copy of a legendary out at a time as they can each have their own memory of an individual.
Wow, that actually is a really interesting explanation!
#VorthosFTW
What a cool explanation! I remember in the old Magic books this is how Magic worked. Purely as a thought exercise, what if two planeswalkers remembered a legendary person differently? Would their abilities be different?
wow! that was awesome!
So in lore when you summon 3 Sorin you’re actually remembering him at 3 different points in his life? I really like this take on what’s happening.
When Soren-Tron came onto my radar I had a discussion with a friend of mine who is very into trying to find ways to explain strange play combos in Magic. We pretty quickly decided it wasn't multiple Sorens. It was an increasingly more powerful single Soren who gained or lost power as the game pieces came onto or left the board. Just my two cents.
I agree with this interpretation
Nah. It's the same as legendary creatures, we are summoning our memories of Sorin at a specific time in his life. This is after all why summoned planeswalkers can't use all their powers, but only the kind of powers we saw them use in the time the memory was formed. If that was not the case, the planeswalker in question could cast their own spells but they cant
I tend to just explain the presence of a single Legendary creature or planeswalker in multiples, on either or both sides of the field, as being Temporal Bullshit. Soren-Tron is just Soren being pulled from multiple points in his personal timeline. Or possibly from different timelines.
There has to be SOME consequence for Terefi's shenanigans.
This is exactly how i picture it.
That’s pretty creative and makes sense
Imagine a hissing quagmire crewing a smugglers copter equipped with a basilisk collar.... Like honestly wtf is even happening there?
UltimateOmbuStorm You can have a runaway carriage crew a train.
And how is emrakul suposed to fit in that thing?
Emrakul doesn't pilot it, I kill her with a 15 unit 1/1 squirrel army. Nothing gets past 15 squirrels.
Emrakul flies over your squirrels.
Any Voltron deck is going to be like that. You should see my Kemba, Kha Regent commander deck. She can be found wearing 2 pairs of boots, 2 sets of armor, carrying up to 12 swords and a banner.
I like to believe that multiple instances of the same legend - especially planeswalkers - is the same person. Say you have 3 Jaces on the field: Vryns Prodigy, Mind Sculptor, and Cunning Castaway. You only control one ACTUAL character - Jace. He has every ability on each card. He never lost them. You, as a player, just need to cast multiple spells and get multiple cards on the table in order to use Jace to his full potential.
I know I’m a bit late on this but it’s ironic you use Jace as an example considering he’s wiped his memory between each of those incarnations (once when he beat Vryn, again when he stopped being the mind sculptor)
And now, he has been completed yet again under our queen to yet again, lose his memory. All Planes Walkers Will be One :D
A new Rhystic Studies video? Today is a good day
dzeeff Magic pack opening when?
I would have to agree
Big fan Dz!
Today is a day
A Legendary Day !
It's always an honor to have one of my rants sampled
You provide the most thorough and informative MTG videos on TH-cam. I always look forward to your content.
Skadoosh!!
Oh hi
Yet Baller on a budget kinda fights for that 1# spot mate ;)
Anyone know wh the "Nate" he was talking about, the one who described Geist?
Under mirror universe rules Thespian Stage could still copy Dark Depths and not have any counters on it. The only difference is you would get to keep the original Dark Depths with the ice counters on it because you never have to sacrifice it to the legend rule. The copied one would still trigger Marit Lage due to having no counters. RE: 12:45
I'm pretty sure the Dark depths combo still works without the legend rule, as its not the sacrifice of the dark depths, its that thespians stage/dark depths never enters the battlefield so it doesn't get the counters. The legend rule was just a nuance that players had to acknowledge to perform the combo. Still, sweet vid.
yep, you are correct, and this was my mistake confusing how it worked. thanks for the heads up.
Ah yes, I remember when the legend rule let clones kill any legend you saw. It was absurd gameplay-wise, but it also twisted the color pie. Blue is not supposed to be good at directly destroying creatures. So glad we have the more functional and fun rule now.
I kind of liked the Kamigawa version. Cloning something like your own Kokusho or Yosei after an attack was pretty funny.
That is funny. But you can still kinda do that with clones since you can still sac one of them. Still kinda bends that color pie though...I wonder what MaRo thinks about that?
(Also Senpai noticed me!)
I like to think of equip costs as using mana to rework the artifacts into a form that whatever you're equipping it to can use: so turning the "sword" of fire and ice into some kind of claw augment Bolas could use costs 2 mana. I'm making an equipment deck for Tromocratis, the big fat kraken, so I've been thinking about this :)
"Wielding 3 swords even though he only has 2 hands."
Someone's never seen One Piece.
Like Bolas would not have some sort of telekinesis at his disposal...
Sam says its in a perfect place.
wotc "WE CAN FIX THAT FOR YOU"
1:59 oh baby I love those transitions
Interesting to see you here, I often forget two of your first videos were about MTG
YOU PLAY MTG. I love this man
a little over 4 years later the count more than doubled from 1,032 to 2,132, which is wild in of itself.
There are times I might miss the old legend rule and others that I'm just simply happy Evil Twin works way better now
I’d argue that the legend rule makes sense if you compare MTG to war games like WH40K or Warmachine.
If two players have the same legendary commander, it’s seen that one of them is an imposter. And the commander who wins is obviously the real legendary person at the end of it all.
Legend rule also adds a bit more nuance to deckbuilding when building around them. Legends often have unique abilities that make you want to build around them, and so it can be an interesting balance to figure out how many copies are worth playing.
The only thing I don't care for about the Legend rule is its interactions with clones. I literally can't make an illusionary copy of a legendary creature, despite, you know, it being an ILLUSION. Space and time have no respect for cosplay it seems.
That's true.
It could be fixed by making cards which say "becomes a copy of target creature except it loses the legend supertype".
Or you could take the view that Legendary creatures are too complex to become believable illusions.
Sure, I can use my clone spells to copy huge eldrazi monstrosities, large mobs of people, any average demon or dragon or whatever have you, but copying Konda's special dog is way too complicated and difficult. TBH I kind of like that explanation, it's just goofy enough for me
Faultiplayer. Well, it´s not the best explanation :P
But clones aren't illusions - they're shapeshifters that literally copy something so well that they become indistinguishable from the original.
They're illusions, Michael.
He returns!
seeing The Adventure Zone content in this brought a smile to my face
The legend rule not applying would be a buff to Thespian Stage + Dark Depths. The stage would still turn into marit lage, you'd just get to keep the old Dark Depths.
It started with Seth. I can only be good!
I kinda feel that the change to the planeswalker rule let a possible design disappear. After the gatewatch, I kinda expected "Nissa and Chandra" team-up cards appear. I felt that while some planeswalkers were overused, others could use new iterations and could fuel mechanics based on planeswaker subtype (they appeared in planeswalker decks but have yet to be printed at constructed power levels)
Your videos go so far beyond just Magic. I have posted this on several videos I'm sure, but I am under the belief that anyone with an appreciation for art and history would love these videos.They do an excellent job at putting perspective on the game we have all grown to love
The point about interaction of mechanics creating absurd results was great and got me thinking of some of my best memories playing MTG...such as a river boa equipped with kitesail and an axe wrecking my face on one late night kitchen table match which left everyone involved in stitches. Great video once again!
"I block your Eldrazi with 15 squirrel tokens..."
I watch a lot of "video essay" channels on TH-cam, and while most of them are film-related, I think you're the best of the channels I watch, period. The structure, use of examples, and PACING are perfect. You just make an easy-to-follow argument that makes sense. Always look forward to your videos, even though I don't play MTG anymore. Keep up the good work, man.
Once again you blow me away. Keep it up man - as always, fantastic content.
INCREDIBLY convincing argument, brilliantly written, absolute joy to watch. Some of the best magic content out there.
I got into magic back in highschool with Kamigawa (which I still love, sad we will never see it again) and the mutually assured destruction of Legendary creatures back then. I get all the rule changes around the Legendary cards, but I still kind of like the M.A.D. legendary rule. It made sense to me that only one instance of a legendary creature could exist at one time without some kind of paradox happening.
This video had me in stitches. The zoom! Your videos are getting better every time. Always looking forward to the next video
Writing from WAY after this video came out: Just seeing the reference to "The Adventure Zone" in this video is making my worlds collide. Who knew Sam was a fan of the McElroys!
Yess, It's been a while! I love your content!!!
Phew awesome vid as usual. I love seeing Magic through your eyes.
Your editing and musical choice gives me goosebumps too haha.
Thank you.
My favorite thing that happened in a game as far as flavor was back in my second year of magic (this is my 5th year btw so im still fairly new) I'd cast a genesis hydra for 22 and gave him featherfleet sandles i think it's called, the equipment from theros that gives flying and haste. Human sized sandles allowing a beast the size of a trailer park to just... fly. Ah flavor
it always surprises me when you upload something new because I always think it's something from the past and I missed it, but always good content and great voiceover!
As always, appreciate the thoughtfulness in these videos. Happy to support
Flavor-wise it never bothered me when legends doubled as removal. Back when I learned the game, creatures were still understood as "summoning spells" so it made since that if both planeswalkers could summon the same legend, one could use their spell to unsummon the other. They aren't "looking at each other", rather you are "closing the portal". I would make it exile rather than sacrifice, though
FINALLY! I was already memorizing every single one of your other videos by watching them over and over again.
Thank you, again, for these videos. Every time I come back to watch, I am floored & amazed by your talent & insight.
this is my favourite channel on yt, and it saddens me to wait for the next vid. Good work, like always. 👏
Fantastic video as always. I'm not even a fan of the game but hearing someone passionate for it examine all sorts of things related to the series is entrancing, your editing is absolutely on point, and you make consistently interesting content.
yeah, the Legend rule is one of my favorite rules of the game, and I was fine with the planeswlaker thing, given that the different planeswalkers are just snapshots of different individuals at different points in time, just the same as Jhoira of the Ghitu and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. or having planeswalker nicol bolas and creature Nicol Bolas. or having Pit Fighter Kamaal and fist of Krosa Kamaal... or Time Spiral Braids and Normal Braids.
MTG players are less 'wizards' duking it out and more gods. the power to bring about God's judgement and a literal armageddon is at our fingertips. we can take a stroll through time and imbue ourselves with mind-bending knowledge via use of necromantic powers to stab ourselves in the brain 19 times.
OF COURSE we can teach a colony of rats to fly a helicopter or if you wanna get really daring, a mutating pile of rocks that can shape itself into everything and nothing at the same time. (seriously, Mutavault is such a mindfuck to me). I love it when Magic gets stupidly silly! I regularly do necromantic selections in my Muldrotha deck to nuke the board and get Muldrotha back... who is already an elemental made up of some sort of bog out in the middle of Yavimaya. and somehow... I dunno,t he moss or water or dirt she's made up of is now necrotic tissue of some sort so she can continue in undeath to imbue more undeath into anything and everything that happens to fall into the graveyard she tends? the absurdity there makes me smile!
What a fantastic way to start out the summer.
besides being a limp for some of the stronger cards, the legend rule on can also lend itself to some interesting decision making in deck building, as you have to actually weigh the risk vs reward rather than just blindly throwing in 4, which is something I really wish we saw more of.
These videos are so incredibly cool! Would you consider doing a series going throughout the Magic storyline? I have been looking for something like that for a long time, but I cant imagine anyone as nice to listen to as yourself.
Keep it up!
10:40-11:00 the best part by far. I love these videos, but this part has been the one to make me double over in my chair for a few minutes clutching my sides. Thank you for the much needed laughter.
You always provide a unique lens to view these topics through. Always appreciate the insight
Lin Sivvi was a card that pushed R&D into changing the Legend Rule, but, Akroma was the straw that broke the camel's back - Onslaught Block Constructed was defined by "who could cast their Akroma first," and the Legend Rule that prevented a player from casting their copy second was changed the following year, just in time for Kamigawa Block.
Removal of the legend rule wouldnt remove the Thespian depths combo you would just keep the original depths rather than sacrificing both
Killing like always, Sam!
Though, I would like to state something, Isamaru was not Magic's first 1 mana 2/2. There were a couple of those before him, you should probably have stated it was Magic's first VANILLA 2/2, as all the previous ones had some sort of downside to them. Still love the video though. Keep it up, dude!
I watched all of your videos rather quickly. I haven't played mtg in over a decade but I greatly appreciate all of your content, especially the art analyses. Cheers
YOU are the Legend, for making such amazing content. TY.
Continually impressed by the topics chosen and their quality, keep it up man!
I always wait for videos from you, they are far between but the quality of the content is unparalleled by any other channel
Friendly reminder that three squirrels can kill Jace the Mind Sculptor. ;)
Let's be honest, most of us would die to three squirrels if they were focused solely on trying to kill us. There's a reason why Squirrel Girl is so OP in Marvel comics ;)
Or that a Soldier, fully clad in armor and weapons, will die fighting a squirrel
Rubarack Then, by that logic, two squirrels can take on a bear. As said, it leads to circular loop of logic.
@Rubarack that doesn't make sense. Squirrels are 1/1. 3 squirrels can kill Jace as he is a 3/3; him being a "superhuman" isn't relavant; the stats tell the story. If he is superhuman, the squirrels are super squirrels.
And forget about laurence's comment not being relavant; it isn't even correct, generally speaking
Do I really need to mention that even drinking too much water can kill a normal human? Anything can kill a human; what is relavant is how likely it is to happen.
@@laurencebrown3822 someone who knows who Squirrel Girl is!? :O
The Dark Depths+Thesbian's Stage Combo would absolutely keep working if the Legend rule were done away with. When you copy the Depths, the stage doesn't get Legend Ruled, it gets sacrificed to its own ability. The only difference is that the original Dark Depths would stick around.
Sam, I wish you put out content more often. I live everything you've put out.
If you think about it, the players of magic are planeswalkers summoning things from different times and spaces so it makes perfect sense to have two sorins in play as long as they are from different times
Planeswalkers don't really summon planeswalkers.
Also it depends how time functions. That only makes sense if multiple timelines exist simultaneously independent of each other.
@@CGoody564 they do summon planeswalkers. The planeswalkers come and help you was retconned to deatg
The zoom in on the bird token broke me! As always thank you for the amazing content!
You know it's going to be a good day when there is a new rhystic study video
Hey Rhystic studies, I have just stumbled upon your channel and so far, the videos has been amazing. Thank you for your work.
Been waiting for another videos, these are always so good
I literally just wanted to know what the rule did. This was above and beyond, great work! Going to be watching more for sure.
I was waiting for a New Video! Finally! Thanks
Almost 5 years later and the number of legends has doubled, 2,265, At time of writing. Crazy
It's always a good day when this channel uploads. :D
Fantastic Video. Thanks for taking the time putting it together.
I wish this kind of content didn’t take so long to make, I want more
It’s worth the wait tho
I love this channel it’s like the CGP Grey of mtg channels
Great video Sam! I did a little video on Helm of the Host a few weeks back, and I too realized how rare it is for wizards to name and mess with game rules like that. They did a great job on the wording for helm which doesn't reference the rule, but just makes the copies non legendary. Would you consider Rules Lawyer as a card that references actual game rules? It doesn't use the word rule, but indicates that state based actions no longer apply. Food for thought.... Anyway love the video!
holy crap! i did not expect to see Commander Replay in the comments!
Where will I turn up next!?!? Actually, Sam and I play at the same shop occasionally. I don't get the chance to watch a ton of content anymore, but Sam does such great work that I cant not watch his videos. The card frame video, and the John Avon series....killer.
Commander Replay that's really cool that you two know each other irl. I agree, Sam's videos a really good. I love the in depth analysis of cards and backstories. I enjoy your videos too. You have great editing that streamlines the gameplay and doesn't get boring.
This video was lovely, but all it made me think about was Jason Aaron's run on Thor from a few years ago. Young Thor (pre hammer) Avengers Thor (current) and Allfather Thor (from the extreme future) find themselves face to face against a time traveling god killer.
That's what I think of when I see a Planeswalker. A snapshot in time, there for a moment to assist the player in a battle. It might make more sense to me as a fan of comics ha ha.
Yes the legend rules is a bit of a strange one when you think about it. Whenever me or my opponent plays multiple copies of a planeswalker I always think of them as growing in power, sort of like one planeswalker being able to activate two abilities each turn with more loyalty. If we both have the same legendary on opposite sides of the field I figure that the character has mixed alliances, sometimes working for one army, sometimes they other. Works for me, but you do you. Great work on the video as per usual.
This video touches on a fantastic series of topics, but one that it shipped over is one that is especially important in EDH/COMMANDER format-
Previously, when it was impossible to play a legendary creature while your opponent had a legendary creature of the same name, edh decks that ran the same general could not oppose each other- the game devolved into a question of who went first, and typically whoever did was the victor, unless the other player's deck contained a large amount of cards like "act of treason"
It was quite common in my friend group for players to suspend the legend rule before entering a game so that the second player could participate- otherwise, whoever won the coin flip won the game.
When the rule was changed from "you can't summon this card if your opponent has already done so" to "if you summon this card after your opponent has, both are destroyed" the commander format hit a huge shift. Suddenly the game became about whose deck ramped Mana easiest, whose deck worked best without their general, or in some cases, whose deck could win in the same turn that their commander was played.
This was huge! And it forced combo decks to rethink the way they played, or sideboard another general in the same colors so that they could keep going.
When the rule was finally changed to "no two legendary creatures with the same name on the same field," however, the game changed to what it is now- players now can realistically expect to enter a game without worrying about what general the opponent is using- or at least, not worrying that they themselves should have brought a different card.
I really like this deep dive into the rules of the game from a flavor and function perspective.
Yesssss Rhystic Studies + TAZ
+
I wish they'd just change it all the way back to limiting you to one per deck. It would make them more unique, and, hopefully, less expensive.
Great video BTW
I now understand why people used to play vanilla Jace Beleren during the Mind Sculptor days. Had that doubt ever since I saw your Mind Sculptor video. Love your videos even though I don´t play Magic. Keep it up!
I absolutely love your videos and the unique view you have on things. I hope there will be many videos to come!
please never stop making videos
Your content is seriously incredible. Thorough and informative as always 👍
Brilliant insight
We have a quote in our play group. It goes like this: 15 squirrels can kill emrakul. When we talk about flavor vs gameplay.
Everyone else is contributing to the discussion but I just wanted to say I love your inclusion of TAZ in the background
Good to see you!!
Always awesome! Why do you have such a calming voice.
So much love for your work. Thank you for taking the time and making these thoughtful videos
Just a note: Even before the Planeswalker rule change, there were still examples of the same character with different english names being allowed in play at the same time for over a decade. Ertai, for example, had a mono blue and dimir version even before the modern 8th edition card frame and could both be in play at tye same time.
I heard a metaphor somewhere - either somewhere online or from a buddy at my LGS, not entirely sure - about the existence of planeswalker tron.
The flavor of MTG is that you yourself are also a planeswalker, able to cast powerful spells and summon creatures to aid you in battle. If this is the case, casting a Planeswalker spell isn't summoning a Planeswalker, it's being aided by one.
Example: You have a deck with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Jace, the Living Guildpact. On the board, you cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor for 4 mana. In the lore, you turn to Jace Beleren who is sitting nearby and pay him 4 mana to come and help you in your battle. He agrees and takes your orders, performing the actions listed on Jace, the Mind Sculptor. You can ask him to perform an effect on Jace, the Living Guildpact, but you only paid 4 mana, so he won't help you there.
The game continues and you cast Jace, the Living Guildpact on the board. In lore, you offer Jace Beleren another 4 mana to help you further. He agrees again, and tells you he will not only perform the abilities on Jace, the Living Guildpact, but will help you twice now.
The game continues somehow, despite the fact that you have two Jaces (Jace helping you twice as much) and your opponent attacks Jace, the Mind Sculptor with his creatures, dealing enough damage to kill him. Lorewise, Jace just got smacked in the face by a demon, and is fed up with this, as you didn't pay him enough to deal with it. He tells you he's done, and unless you pay him more mana, he's only going to help you out once, like before.
TL;DR - Planeswalkers on the board are a singular entity helping you out the more mana you give them. Having 3 Sorins in play means that Sorin is giving you 3 abilities to use a turn. Planeswalkers are bipartisan and greedy as hell, so if your opponent offers them mana too they help them as well, playing both sides of the field.
You are a legend for including the link to the Soren Tron video. Couldn't for the life of me find it on TH-cam. Thank you!
Edit: Heh. Just saw the adventure zone reference towards the end.
Saw that there was a new video. Need to go home and "set the mood" and prepare my mind and body for this experience
I feel like the flavour solution is to say that when two wizards both summon a legendary creature that creature is in a kind of quantum superposition and fighting for both masters at once? Like a kind of split timeline thing? Maybe they go back to their home plane afterwards like 'wow that was weird' and gain two contradictory sets of memories. Planeswalkers have always had that vaguely sci-fi twist to them messing with the space time continuum and that? Idk this is probably the best ruling mechanically we may as well make the best of it flavour wise
Sam: makes intelligent video on intricacy of function vs. flavor
Music: Kiss ya homies before you sleep.
Can we get an art video on Steve Argyle? Love you Sam!! Keep pumping out the aesthetically pleasing content!
In LoR, we have a very similar element to Legendary creatures called Champions. You're normally only allowed to have one of each champion in play per side/player. But when you have a champion in play and you also have that same champion in hand, the champion transforms into a spell, that when played, shuffles the champion back into the deck again following the spell's resolution. This meant it was literally impossible to play multiple copies of a champion from hand since additional copies ceased to exist in hand. So the game didn't have a hard rule about champions on the field, it had a rule that incidentally prevented champion duplicates from being played mechanically.
However, by the same token, there was absolutely *zero* restriction on summoning additional champions without playing them from hand. Summons from deck, clones, revives, all on the table.
Imagine if every legendary was an adventure card, but the adventure mode was both only available to and the mandatory way to cast the card when you had the same legendary in play, basically.
Thanks for the birthday gift Sam!
I think that the way it was before was better. It meant that deck building was a lot more limited in what you can do. Amd while that may seem like a bad thing, there are a lot of PWs that werent meant to be able to play with their older counter parts and lead to ridiculous combos. For example, is you have a Garruk Caller of Beasts, and a Garruk Primal Hunter, you can get a big fatty from the -3 off Caller and draw a bunch of cards off Hunter. Or +1 caller to draw up to 5 cards, then draw even more off of Hunter. Those aren't even the tip of the iceberg, imo, either.
I think it's cool in premise, but in execution it causes a lot more frustrating situations to deal with than it does fun games for people to play.
I don’t personally play MTG much (I prefer cooperative games, for starters), but these videos that analyze rules and the sort of history of concepts are really cool.
Sorin-tron was the inciting inspiration for my favourite commander deck: Nicol Bolas Tribal. Most cards in the deck reference Nicol Bolas directly in some way (in either the art, name, or flavor text). But most importantly, it runs every version of Nicol Bolas, and the truest win condition of the deck for myself is to have Nicol Bolas the creature, the 4 Nicol Bolas planeswalkers, and the double-faced Nicol Bolas transformed to Nicol Bolas the Arisen.
I always saw the flavour application of actual legend rule in mirror matches as two wizards fighting for the loyalty of a single entity.
Both wizards made a pact with Bolas, but Bolas in all it's mighty knows what's better for him, not letting any interest surpass it's own.
The same might be applicable to double Niv-mizzets in one's side (dracogenius and firemind). That wizard reached certain level of synergy with Mizzet that it is capable of taking more advantage from the character than ordinary spellcasters.
The manifestation of the characters will always be one, but their bound with its invoker(s) is unique.