Ben Bleiweiss and the legendary rule change

[twndomn]

"By changing the Legends rule to allow one copy of each legend in play on each side, you free up a ton of design space to make legendary creatures more powerful than they have been in the past." Ben Bleiweiss - 07/23/2004

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/f...ends-Rule.html

Mr. Bleiweiss, you are a true visionary. You foreshadowed something Wizard will do; after 8~9 years, your prophecy/suggestion comes true. Coincidentally, the next set will be called Theros, which most likely will have the new design space of legendary permanents/creatures you refer to.

PS: sorry if someone else pointed it out in the other thread.

[(nameless one)]

He didn't foreshadow it, he merely suggested it.

WotC found the logic behind his suggestion and change it.

But of course he's not gonna get the recognition for this because it might create "royalty" issues.

[Aggro_zombies]

To be fair, this was a pretty obvious change and I'm sure a lot of people have come up with it over the years. Ben just has a soapbox from which to broadcast his opinions.

[rufus]

The claim that the new rules open up space for 'more powerful' legends and planeswalkers seems a bit specious: eliminating a vulnerability means that the rest of the card needs to be weaker to stay balanced -- getting Jace on the table first is more, not less, important under the new rules. Jitte is more, not less, of a slippery slope.

In principle, this does open up the possibility for printing more legendary utility cards like Mox Opal or legendary lands, but, even in that case, it really makes those cards better, not worse.

[Aggro_zombies]

The claim that the new rules open up space for 'more powerful' legends and planeswalkers seems a bit specious: eliminating a vulnerability means that the rest of the card needs to be weaker to stay balanced -- getting Jace on the table first is more, not less, important under the new rules. Jitte is more, not less, of a slippery slope.

In principle, this does open up the possibility for printing more legendary utility cards like Mox Opal or legendary lands, but, even in that case, it really makes those cards better, not worse.

This is part of the ongoing trend towards all-upside mechanics, though - hexproof was obviously better than shroud and yet they made Geist and Invisible Stalker because why not, right? Only when people bitched about it did they decide to dial down the power level of hexproof creatures.

I expect the new legend rules to cause less consternation among the player base because of EDH. My guess is that people will be less likely to blame the rules and more likely to blame individual cards, although Clones + the Kamigawa dragons will be pretty annoying in that format (particularly Kokusho or Yosei).