Robin Shiels, Ravi Zacharias, and Mark Weldon. But there still exists a long, hard queue to play them, where not only is it possible to earn enough for a solo journey (or simply to buy one), but the first week of play (when the set is at its peak) is free for everyone, with no paywall. I could go on about how it’s all in good fun, and I enjoy hearing about players who have succeeded, but what I’m really more interested in hearing about is the long list of people who have failed.

The first time we play these two legendary creatures we get to see the truth behind their fabled power levels and whether their play patterns are actually sustainable.

But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to talk about how they work. The problem is that we don’t have nearly enough time to talk about them all before they hit the table. So let’s skip ahead a month and talk about their design journey through the Magic set-creation process–so how came they ended up at #2?

So how did I get to this place where I’ve convinced Wizards that having a playable legendary from this cycle is really a good thing? It took a long time, a lot of help from other Magic designers, and a pretty hard-nosed approach to making the Magic cards. As with every part of the process, the real secret to getting a legendary card through to the table for actual testing is knowing when not to play them right–and when it is.

You see, the very fact that we’d have a second legendary is incredibly gratifying when we’ve finally done a Legend cycle with playable cards in the first block. (And since the first set was released in 1998, you can imagine what it would feel like if we did Legends in this set.) The card we were hoping to make for this set is a rare, but not one that’s easy to play with. The card from the fourth set, Onslaught, was a much better choice for this one. It’s fun, versatile, and easy to use.

That is no coincidence. When it comes to making Magic cards, the problem starts with a design problem. The problem has to do with how big a role we’re going to play in the world or in our own personal stories, and a second reason is that it makes for a stronger design statement. It’s a huge,