Magic: The Gathering’s “Legends” (1994)
When it was released in 1994, Legends was a capital letters Big Deal. Legends was the first Magic: The Gathering series to be released in 15-card booster packs and the first 300+ card “full” set rather than the shorter sets like Antiquities and Arabian Nights. It also introduced the multi-colored Legends cards and mechanics like poison counters that would become a mainstay of the game. Legends was almost universally well-received and continues to be well-regarded. Despite the reputation, it is not without its early-Magic goofiness. Join us on a journey through a selection from this massive collection of Magic cards.
Steve: I bought so many packs of this. Seriously, I think I had a whole one of those long cardboard card boxes full of Legends cards.
Zack: I looked up the prices on them and they are worth a fortune.
Zack: How Magic cards have retained so much value I will never understand.
Steve: Oh, I traded all mine in long ago for credit at a hobby shop to buy more RPG books and paints.
Zack: There goes your kids’ college funds.
Zack: Should have invested in Bitcoin like me. They even used the same trading website.
Steve: It’s all good, I’m building a Funko Pop! nest egg now.
Zack: I wouldn’t worry too much. We’re all going to be boiling alive in the vapor storm from the rad desert or getting eaten by cannibals by the time we retire.
Steve: Such a pessimist.
Steve: By the time I’m 65 I’m going to be on the holodeck kissing Marilyn Monroe.
Zack: Alright, Father John Misty. Just sounds like another haunting vision of our dark future.
Zack: This guy definitely has a Tinder picture that looks like somebody from One Direction.
Steve: Any time I see a van with tinted windows I imagine somebody like this driving it.
Zack: Oh, I think we’re talking about the same guy.
Zack: Known to police as the Houston Craigslist Cenobite.
Steve: I went on Craigslist Casual Encounters once to see what the dating stuff was about.
Zack: Uh-huh, how’d that go?
Steve: There was one option that was like M4WW.
Steve: So it’s a guy on the Internet looking for two single ladies. Do you think that hookup has ever happened from Craigslist?
Zack: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Zack: “Meet me and my MILF friend out in the woods” and it’s two Craigslist Cenobites.
Zack: Making that clacking teeth sound as you are dragged into their van.
Steve: Good thing I went back to shopping for Funko on Craiglist instead of answering that double MILF ad.
Steve: He doesn’t really look all that jovial.
Zack: He’s still working open mics to get that tight five minutes.
Zack: Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big Urza’s Chuckle Orb welcome to Jovialll Evillllll.
Zack: “Hey there everybody I was just summoned so I cannot attack this round.”
Steve: *Heckler from the back* “Counterspell!”
Zack: “So, uh, anybody ever notice that uh, creatures with plainswalk, I mean, uh, it’s just a plain. That’s like the optimal walking environment for everything, so why do they get some special way to move. Is what I’m wondering. Anybody?”
Steve: *The same heckler* “Unsummon!”
Zack: We’re not going to cover the good stuff too much, but Legends features some really cool Lovecraftian/horror artwork.
Steve: The 7/7 Cosmic Horror monster was MY dude. I built decks around him.
Zack: I built a deck over a treestump once and got termites in the deck.
Zack: I ended up tearing the whole thing deck up and had to hire a guy to dig the stump out.
Steve: Sounds like property damage is the real cosmic horror.
Steve: Bless Phil Foglio.
Zack: Yes, bless that pervert.
Steve: I like his art but it is a poor fit for Magic.
Zack: After he got cut loose he went on to make XXXenophile, a collectible card game about fucking.
Steve: Well, I guess, uh, things turned out alright?
Zack: As far as I know he is not in jail.
Steve: All the kobold art is goofy.
Zack: The Kobold Drill Sergeant has a picture of a WW2 drill sergeant only it’s a Kobold.
Zack:But at the same time, art like this and art like Phil Foglio’s are what gave Magic a lot of its vibe to me.
Steve: Totally. They smoothed off all the rough edges with awesome artists and lost something when they got rid of the weirdos.
Zack: It’s fine. They could all go make space vibrators for XXXenophile.
Steve: *dinosaur sex swing shrugs* It’s a living!
Steve: Dang Spyro grew up.
Zack: He got on that rock.
Zack: Messed him up.
Steve: Actually it might be what the baby from Dinosaurs grew up to be.
Zack: “You had better be the mama or you are fixing to get blasted, fool.”
Steve: You are usually the one to point this out, but your Dinosaur baby is sounding a little too “urban.”
Steve: It’s making me uncomfortable.
Zack: Eh, don’t worry about it, Steve. Racism is good again in America.
Zack: I’m imagining the instructions to the artist on this one were, “Create the most boring monument possible.”
Steve: The tomb of the wizard Jon Smith.
Zack: He lived a humble life and accomplished little.
Steve: His magic was mostly based around trying to create a better type of parchment.
Zack: And he failed.
Steve: So we honor him with this… over there… that thing.
Zack: Pay your respects or not. Whatever.
Steve: You want to talk about artist’s instructions?
Steve: The artist on this one was told in bold text DO NOT MAKE HIM JEWISH. PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT MAKE HIM JEWISH.
Zack: It looped all the way around and turned into a ginger pimp.
Steve: Somewhere in Boston there is one really offended guy with an incredible mustache.
Zack: Thankfully the already tiny ginger pimp demographic has no Venn Diagram crossover with Magic the Gathering players.
Steve: You know he wanted 12-foot tall Candlehenges for his concert. But he wrote 12″.
Zack: This is what backstage at every Danzig concert used to look like.
Steve: A bunch of shirtless guys with swords?
Zack: It was Danzig practicing swinging a broadsword. When he got tired he would collapse to his knees and thank a werewolf or something. Now his backstage concerts are like him with his feet in epsom salt while he watches Fox News and drinks a Coke Zero.
Zack: Congratulations. You found a picture of me.
Steve: Are we sure this isn’t a XXXenophile card?
Zack: It doesn’t have a pun or nonsense name, so we’re clear.
Steve: Just saying, I don’t like looking at this picture.
Zack: It’s no evening on the holodeck with Marilyn Monroe.
Zack: You did it to yourself, buddy.
Zack: Says right here in the OSHA manual that you need to wear a filter mask when wielding staves, amulets, or projecting gems.
Steve: Hell of a lawsuit though.
Zack: Oh, yeah, for sure. Bill breathed in too much wand dust and caught the Mesothelioma and he walked away rich.
Steve: Has to breathe through a brass beetle now though.
Zack: Company pays for it. Two colorless mana per turn.
Steve: But at least the lawsuit set them up with a dragon.
Zack: Yep. Put his kids through college with that thing.
Zack: I’m just… just… my heart isn’t in berserking anymore, Grabnard.
Steve: I could tell. You weren’t cleaving through enemies with the same gusto.
Zack: It’s the hours.
Zack: I get done berserking and I don’t have the energy to spend time with my family.
Steve: Same. Just punch out, wipe the blood off my face and “Timber!” right into the bed.
Zack: What we need is a union.
Steve: Chief Slaughterbeard is exploiting our labor.
Zack: Cut to Slaughterbeard’s war wagon with the berserker’s heads impaled on spikes.
Zack: Seems silly, but the concept of trees having teeth is horrifying.
Steve: They would bite the hell out us for everything we have done to them.
Zack: “You make… houses out of us? You tap us for our blood?”
Steve: Only the Maples!
Zack: Treants would fuck us up so bad.
Steve: Thank goodness we have hunted them to extinction.
Zack: That is there one weakness: extremely easy to hunt down since they are in the same spot they have been in for the last 300 years.
Steve: What I am gathering is that the forest really needs better dental hygiene.
Zack: This is what happens when you eat a bunch of sunlight and don’t brush your teeth.
Steve: Aboreal Dentist. 2/1, Forestwalk. Tap Arboreal Dentist to untap any one Green Creature.
Zack: There have been so many Magic cards I suspect this one actually exists.
Steve: There has definitely been a dentist of some sort.
Steve: Going to guess Goblin Dentist.
Zack: OK I Googled it and it isn’t a real card but it exists:
Steve: I will assume I brought that into existence through sheer willpower.
Zack: This guy totally interrupts an employee explaining store policy with, “Ehhhhh-I need to speak with your manager.”
Steve: The Wizard Who Will Argue About Suing Burger King From His Car at the Drive Through.
Zack: Can we blame him? Capitalism is violence.
Steve: Tap capitalism to tap an opponent’s lands and add a +1/+1 counter to any black creature.
Zack: More like white creature.
Zack: It’s a trick card that causes damage to the caster.
Zack: Because as we all know the only REAL prejudice is REVERSE prejudice.
Steve: Is that where you’re racist against yourself?
Zack: Correct.
Zack: And then you say “cuck” all the time online.
Zack: And vote to have your own healthcare taken away.
Steve: Do not attempt to enchant me or my son ever again!
Zack: I think this is how my cousin got Netflix at college.
Zack: Only he cast it on my uncle’s password recovery email.
Steve: Your cousin sounds like a real jerk.
Zack: Everyone has their vice. Some people like cigarettes or booze, my cousin just had to see Samurai Gourmet.
Steve: Understandable that old dude rules. I wish I had a magic samurai telling me to eat more.
Steve: Instead I just have nobody and I eat more anyway.
Zack: Maybe… you are the samurai?
Steve: Heck yeah that samurai would go to town on White Castles.
Zack: Only if the shogun demands it.
Steve: This is what cookie monsters dream about.
Zack: “You think I’m called ‘monster’ because of cookies? No, it’s what happens when you don’t give them to me.”
Steve: Fortunately for us we live in a wold where plates of easily-crumbled cookies are on almost every table.
Zack: That cookie monster, THE Cookie Monster, is a gelded pet. A wild cookie monster will tear the limbs and entrails out of campers in search of one granola bar.
Steve: We never should have built that road through the Cookie Forest.
Zack: This guy is a total neurotic wreck. He spends hours getting dressed in this armor.
Steve: Stangg must look good to please the Queen.
Zack: More like to please Mother.
Zack: She would say such mean things to me if a single one of my cowl skulls was out of alignment.
Steve: Oh no, is that a smudge on my sword!
Zack: Squire, please, let the other knights know I am not feeling well.
Steve: I will not be able to attend the siege.
Steve: Holy crap, it’s SNAKE DANCE!
Zack: What?
Steve: Lord Magnus is for sure a Mechwarrior.
Steve: Remember this:
Zack: Oh my god ahahha yes YES!
Zack: He emerged from the elven forest to fight in the arenas of Solaris City.
Zack: So she paralyzes her enemies by gazing upon the majesty of rainbows.
Steve: Hell yeah I would look at rainbows with her.
Zack: That’s just her picture on Mishraslist. “Lady Evangela and her MILF friend need a special guy to satisfy them.”
Zack: But you get out to that rainbow and it’s a brass chariot with tinted windows.
Steve: Sounds like somebody is going to the graveyard.
Steve: Five years earlier! Darth Maul was stolen from Magic: The Gathering cards.
Zack: The one good thing in the prequels.
Steve: Yeah, I mean, other than EVERYTHING ELSE.
Zack: Thanks for reading, folks! And thanks for supporting us on Patreon!
Steve: I want to play Magic now.
Zack: I want to sleep like an exhausted berserker.