Mirror Mirror (Part 2 of 3)

Last time I postulated that the health of an activity is due to the amateur, the non-professional.  In the case of Magic, if the casual player is playing, this is good for the game.  Professional players do not primarily care about how fun a Tier 1 deck is, only can that deck win a tournament.  Casual players on the other hand, want a fun experience.  A professional player would never ever consider a tribal deck of walls; something I concocted to better success than one would expect.

The folks in the ivory tower know this.  This is why “un-fun” cards like Armageddon, Stone Rain, and Counterspell have been removed.  We’ve also seen deck archetypes nerfed to make them less appealing, decks like Land Destruction and Hand Destruction.

These same folks took a look at the Legends rule and decided that it needed tweaking.  How many games have you seen where a person plays a Legend, strictly as a defensive measure; either as an expensive kill spell, or as a one-turn Status? Professional players understand such nuances of the game and do not care, so long as they can gain an advantage, no matter how small.  But to the casual player, who has only one (1) or two (2) Legendary cards, to finally get a chance to actually play it meaningfully, and only to have it removed because the opponent randomly added it to their deck, is totally un-fun.

So the ivory folks decided that the Highlander aspect of the Legends Rule needs to be removed.  This will have little effect on the professional player.  But to the casual player, it means a little more fun.

But the real impact of this change will be in future cards.  Instead of a handful of Legends and Planewalkers, Wizards can now make these cards in the uncommon and even the common rarity.  This would allow for Planewalker-drafts to be interesting.  And to the casual player, interesting is what you want Magic games to be.