Thread by @EthanFleischer

LEGENDS RETOLD MEGATHREAD

I led the design process for the box toppers for #MTGDominaria. These cards are updated designs representing characters that appeared as legendary creatures in the 1994 Legends set.
#WOTCstaff
1/X

Before we get into card-by-card discussions, let's talk about constraints! It's important to have constraints when designing things, even if those constraints are pretty arbitrary.
1. Each card should correspond with a legendary creature card from the original Legends set.
2/X

2. Each card should be the same colors as the original card. (Jedit Ojanen is a slight exception.)
3. Each color identity should be equally represented among the cards.
4. There should be 20 cards.
3/X

5. For a character to make the cut, there needed to be a hook for design. That hook could be mechanical or creative in nature.
6. Female characters should be given preference over male characters, since female characters were underrepresented in Legends.
4/X

7. No Elder Dragons, and no Dakkon Blackblade. We'd created updated takes of these characters relatively recently in M19 and MH2, respectively.
5/X

RAMSES, ASSASSIN LORD
In the novels Assassin's Blade, Emperor's Fist, and Champion's Trial, Nicol Bolas ruled the Empire of Madara through three underlings. Ramses Overdark was the emperor's assassin. A flavorful reward for an Assassin theme deck seemed appropriate. 6/X

GENERAL MARHAULT ELSDRAGON
The second member of Bolas's triumvirate was Marhault. This character didn't have a lot of screen time in the novels, so we riffed off the rampage mechanic for his second outing. 7/X

TETSUO, IMPERIAL CHAMPION
In the novels, Tetsuo Umezawa, the Bolas's third minion, is described as one of the most powerful battlemages of his generation, using his weapon as a spellcasting tool. 8/X

AYESHA TANAKA, ARMORER
Ayesha is Tetsuo's armorer. She brings a portable forge with her on missions, and is a potent artificer. 9/X

TOR WAUKI THE YOUNGER
Characters named Tor Wauki appeared in two different novel trilogies set centuries apart. We name-dropped Tor Wauki the Elder in the Ghost of Ramirez DePietro's bio, implying that there were two different characters of that name: magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar… 10/X

Tor Wauki the Younger represents Tetsuo's second, a skilled archer.

We designed a phoenix crest to visually tie Tetsuo with his retainers. 11/X

ORCA, SIEGE DEMON
Lady Orca was a gigantic demon summoned by Ramses Overdark to attack the outlying islands that were in revolt against Madara. He had Orca wear Tetsuo's phoenix crest in an effort to discredit the champion. 12/X

XIRA, THE GOLDEN STING
Xira Arien was a eumidian (waspfolk) minion of Ramses Overdark with a great sense of fashion and a nasty habit of implanting her victims with her parasitic eggs. 13/X

OHABI CALERIA
Lady Caleria is described as a patron goddess of archers in the first Legends trilogy, and as the ruler of the island of Argenti in the second Legends trilogy. Some have theorized that theses are two different characters, and some that they are one in the same. 14/X

JEDIT OJANEN, MERCENARY
Jedit was the star of his own comic books series, and had pride of place in the novels Hazezon. A Jedit from an alternate universe appeared in Planar Chaos. 15/X

The new card references both previous versions, and implies the gathering of heroes that is the Robaran Mercenaries. 16/X

THE EVER-CHANGING 'DANE
The shapeshifter known as Halfdane killed and replaced several characters in the Legends II trilogy. Surprisingly, we'd never made a card with this relatively simple ability, so we jumped on it here. 17/X

HAZEZON, SHAPER OF SAND
Hazezon Tamar was already a popular commander. We riffed off his Sand Warrior tokens, but the new deckbuilding angle is Deserts-matter. We threw desertwalk (last seen on Arabian Nights' Desert Nomads) on for funsies. 18/X

JASMINE BOREAL OF THE SEVEN
While Jasmine Boreal wasn't the only vanilla legend to receive an update here, she does have the unique distinction of having appeared on the Time Spiral bonus sheet. We made a vanilla-matters legend so that Jasmine can go in a deck with herself. 19/X

THE LADY OF OTARIA
The Lady's story is told in the short story "The Lady of the Mountain" in the Myths of Magic anthology, where she is described as the daughter of the gods Gaea and Fiers. She is the creator of the dwarves. 20/X

The Lady has three names, and three dwarves can summon her three times in when they're in great need if each of them says one of her names. The Sarpadian dwarves summoned her to evacuate them from Sarpadia to Terisiare when their empire fell. 21/X

It's implied that she would be summoned during the Phyrexian Invasion, leaving one more summoning sometime in the future.

The attempt to capture the story with a top-down design ended with a weird RG Dwarf reward. I'm sure we'll print more green Dwarves eventually! :) 22/X

RAMIREZ DEPIETRO, PILLAGER
Like most pirates, Ramirez loves treasure and he loves to steal things. We summarized his unbelievably complicated backstory here: magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar… 23/X

RASPUTIN, THE ONEIROMANCER
What little we know of Rasputin's backstory comes from Tividar of Thorn's biography on the Wizards website: magic.wizards.com/en/articles/ar…. We fused the original Rasputin's mana generating mechanic with Knight tokens. 24/X

ROHGAHH, KHER KEEP OVERLORD
We felt like the original Rohgahh's design was in the right place, but it was a little too weak and conditional. We added a Dragon element in reference to cards like Scourge of Kher Ridges and Prossh. 25/X

STANGG, ECHO WARRIOR
Stangg's original schtick was pretty compelling, but not quite up to the refined standards of the modern Magic deckbuilder. We found a new angle with a directional deckbuilding hook. 26/X

SIVITRI, DRAGON MASTER
This card clearly needed to have something to do with Dragons, but in blue-black?!? Achieving a critical mass of Dragons in the UB deck isn't practical. Fortunately, tutoring makes a Dragon-themed control deck without too many Dragons plausible. 27/X

TOBIAS, DOOMED CONQUEROR
What little we know about Tobias is from the Encyclopedia Dominia, a short-lived online reference work: web.archive.org/web/1999050419…. We told his story in card form. 28/X

TORSTEN, FOUNDER OF BENALIA
We also know about Torsten von Ursus from the Encyclopedia Dominia (web.archive.org/web/1999022004…). Upon his death, his seven lieutenants shared rulership over the newly formed nation of Benalia. 29/X

There were several characters who we couldn't fit in that would have been cool! Did you know that Ur-Drago is an undead horror with crab claws, covered with living rock? Tuknir Deathlock is an explorer of the Æther who wears a triceratops skull for a hat! Maybe next time! 30/30