Not that bad, although I wish there was a little more flavour behind this card...
Aaron_Forsythe
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(21 votes)
Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #5, 10/1/10 Nostalgia is what makes this card at all palatable to me. I have countless Chronicles versions of this doof filling up some box in my garage, but the Legends version still has some mystique to it. Yes, I have cast this guy. No, he wasn’t impressive, even to my less-savvy 1995-era self.
The way the Legends set introduced “gold” (multicolored) cards was interesting--they tied the weird mana costs to the brand-new creature type (that would later become a supertype) “Legend.” Each of those first gold cards had two significant drawbacks: they were harder to cast than normal cards, and there could only be one of each in play at a time… heck, for a long time there could only be one of each in your deck at a time! The modern designer/developer in me immediately wants to counteract those two drawbacks by making awesome cards, you know, like Doran, the Siege Tower and Dralnu, Lich Lord. But the Legends folks didn’t do that. THEY MADE THEM ALL REALLY BAD. Well, almost all of them bad, but the point still stands. I mean, look at poor Kei here. His value versus Samite Healer is questionable--he costs twice as much in two colors and can’t prevent damage to players. He is flat-out shamed by Sanctum Custodian. A legendary creature in modern Magic gets you something like Captain Sisay, a steady card-advantage machine. Kei is lame-sauce, representative of the whole inaugural clàss of gold cards. Yet people loved--LOVED--them. They had uniqueness, they had flavor, they had awesome frames, awesome names, and some of them had gaudy powers, toughnesses, and abilities (not Kei). Packs of the Legends set flew off of shelves in hours.
As far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
Of course, what leaves me scratching my head is the question of just how intentional that perfect rollout was. Did the Legends teams know that they were slow-rolling all that multicolored cards were capable of, or were these their honest best attempts at splashy, powerful creatures? Maybe it’s a little bit of both, but I know the makers of Ice Age, Mirage, Invasion, Ravnica, and every other set that leverages multicolored cards thanks them, not just for inventing the mechanic, but for leaving it so much room to grow.
Anyway, back to Mr. Takahasi here. Even though his card text is forgettable, he played a notable role in some of Magic’s early novels, although you'd never know it from his lack of flavor text--odd for a legendary card from this set. You can read all about Kei on MTGSalvation’s storyline wiki (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Kei_Takahashi). (Kei is apparently a “human/eumidian hybrid”, whatever that is.)
GainsBanding
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
Totally good in Masters Edition 3 draft online.
Avatar_of_Wurms
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(3 votes)
@Aaron_Forsythe The reference to Captain Sisay is interesting, since an EDH deck of her is one of the few that would seriously consider playing this chap. At least in my opinion.
MasterOfEtherium
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(3 votes)
GARBAGE
bay_falconer
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(2 votes)
Average, which for a legend from Legends, is as good as it gets. They must've thought "legendary" was a good thing back in those days. It's still a mostly-good set, but it has cards that have "since these early sets were designed by college students, we can assume this is a 4/2 for 0 mana." Also, they lock you into two colors; this poor chap locks you into green and white, which already have good damage prevention.
This card should have flavor text. These legends are supposed to be characters, but in those days, we had nothing to go by.
DarthParallax
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(4 votes)
Legends doesn't get enough love.
I don't think most of the other Legends cards will get much Gatherer traffic, but this has an 'Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day' on it, so I figure if I'm going to rant about Legends, I might actually be noticed on this one:
Legends was awesome. @bay_falconer, I think there is no greater divisive issue between Vorthos and Spike than what your comment said. "They must have thought being legendary was a good thing back in those days."
Being Legendary is the best thing that a Designer or Developer can put on a creature, hands down, bar nothing to Vorthoses. Because of that, hard-core Vorthos would prefer 1 copy of any given Legend from Legends in his deck than 4 copies of Squadron Hawk.
Normally, the idea that 'Spikes just want to win' and 'Vorthos is just a bad player' is not nearly close to the truth, but for Legends, well that may almost be the case. BUT! there is one major thing that Legends has that no other set will ever (likely) do:
It's got the Mega-Super Cycle to End All Mega-Super Cycles in the history of Magic.
These 5 cards alone are the greatest cycle in the history of Magic. They spawned an entire format: EDH, which you may know now as Commander. If any of those 51 new cards in the Precons strikes you as impressive, you have Legends to thank for its existence. There have been at least 2 cycles off the top of my head that have been based off of them to my knowledge.
They were just the tip of the iceberg. There were 3 addition 'Shard' Legends under each Elder Dragon, and on TOP of that, all the rest of the 2-colored Legends fit into a vast Mega Cycle of Mega Cycles.
I'm rather shocked, in fact, that not a single Legends card made it into From the Vault, Legends. Certainly one of the Elder Dragons would have made a VERY FINE addition, unless they're Reserved? As a humorous nod to the set, even a 'junk rare' like Hazezon Tamar could have been a pleasant addition.
Doaj
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Hazezon isn't a junk rare. He's on the reserved list, and sells for $30 a piece. He's a great EDH commander.
Arachnos
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(1 vote)
At least he's not in 3 colors like most other Legends legends.
Technetium
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
You could pay $130 for an unopened booster pack of Legends and pull this two-in-one Samite Healer as your rare.
Comments (11)
Nostalgia is what makes this card at all palatable to me. I have countless Chronicles versions of this doof filling up some box in my garage, but the Legends version still has some mystique to it. Yes, I have cast this guy. No, he wasn’t impressive, even to my less-savvy 1995-era self.
The way the Legends set introduced “gold” (multicolored) cards was interesting--they tied the weird mana costs to the brand-new creature type (that would later become a supertype) “Legend.” Each of those first gold cards had two significant drawbacks: they were harder to cast than normal cards, and there could only be one of each in play at a time… heck, for a long time there could only be one of each in your deck at a time! The modern designer/developer in me immediately wants to counteract those two drawbacks by making awesome cards, you know, like Doran, the Siege Tower and Dralnu, Lich Lord. But the Legends folks didn’t do that. THEY MADE THEM ALL REALLY BAD. Well, almost all of them bad, but the point still stands. I mean, look at poor Kei here. His value versus Samite Healer is questionable--he costs twice as much in two colors and can’t prevent damage to players. He is flat-out shamed by Sanctum Custodian. A
As far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
Of course, what leaves me scratching my head is the question of just how intentional that perfect rollout was. Did the Legends teams know that they were slow-rolling all that multicolored cards were capable of, or were these their honest best attempts at splashy, powerful creatures? Maybe it’s a little bit of both, but I know the makers of Ice Age, Mirage, Invasion, Ravnica, and every other set that leverages multicolored cards thanks them, not just for inventing the mechanic, but for leaving it so much room to grow.
Anyway, back to Mr. Takahasi here. Even though his card text is forgettable, he played a notable role in some of Magic’s early novels, although you'd never know it from his lack of flavor text--odd for a legendary card from this set. You can read all about Kei on MTGSalvation’s storyline wiki (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Kei_Takahashi). (Kei is apparently a “human/eumidian hybrid”, whatever that is.)
The reference to Captain Sisay is interesting, since an EDH deck of her is one of the few that would seriously consider playing this chap. At least in my opinion.
This card should have flavor text. These legends are supposed to be characters, but in those days, we had nothing to go by.
I don't think most of the other Legends cards will get much Gatherer traffic, but this has an 'Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day' on it, so I figure if I'm going to rant about Legends, I might actually be noticed on this one:
Legends was awesome. @bay_falconer, I think there is no greater divisive issue between Vorthos and Spike than what your comment said. "They must have thought being legendary was a good thing back in those days."
Being Legendary is the best thing that a Designer or Developer can put on a creature, hands down, bar nothing to Vorthoses. Because of that, hard-core Vorthos would prefer 1 copy of any given Legend from Legends in his deck than 4 copies of Squadron Hawk.
Normally, the idea that 'Spikes just want to win' and 'Vorthos is just a bad player' is not nearly close to the truth, but for Legends, well that may almost be the case. BUT! there is one major thing that Legends has that no other set will ever (likely) do:
It's got the Mega-Super Cycle to End All Mega-Super Cycles in the history of Magic.
Arcaddes Sabbaoth. Chromium. Nicol Bolas. Vaevictis Asmadi. Palladia-Mors.
These 5 cards alone are the greatest cycle in the history of Magic. They spawned an entire format: EDH, which you may know now as Commander. If any of those 51 new cards in the Precons strikes you as impressive, you have Legends to thank for its existence. There have been at least 2 cycles off the top of my head that have been based off of them to my knowledge.
They were just the tip of the iceberg. There were 3 addition 'Shard' Legends under each Elder Dragon, and on TOP of that, all the rest of the 2-colored Legends fit into a vast Mega Cycle of Mega Cycles.
I'm rather shocked, in fact, that not a single Legends card made it into From the Vault, Legends. Certainly one of the Elder Dragons would have made a VERY FINE addition, unless they're Reserved?
As a humorous nod to the set, even a 'junk rare' like Hazezon Tamar could have been a pleasant addition.