Legendary pulp

The other weekend I went down to Gothenburg again, this time to sling cards at the glorious TribeCon tournament. TribeCon is easily one of the most brag-worthy annual Tribelander tournaments in the world, rivaled only by the World Championship at the WSK convention in Växjö. And while those may also be the only two annual Tribelander gatherings in the world, the street cred and camaraderie is still nothing to scoff at.

Before the party started, I was to pick up a bunch of cards at the Mindstage store which I had acquired during the summer. And at that point it became blatantly obvious what the pandemic had done to me as a Magic player. Because even though I was just about to enter a full-day Tribelander tournament - and my main Tribes of choice this time were Witches and BW Thrulls - I'd clearly not spent any effort on obtaining excellent yet affordable new cards like Witch of the Moors or Damn for my decks. No, current hermit Mg would rather spend like a thousand dollars on unplayable garbage from Legends. Because this guy slowly made a sad shuffle away from picking up game pieces for gatherings, to collecting random cardboard to fill holes in his home-office binders. Well, admitting I have a problem is the first step.

My public reference for the purchase at svenskamagic.com. William (Timecode) combines being both physically attractive and very honest as store owners go. (If you don't read Swedish, good for me here I guess).

Anyway, in the end I was to bring this handsome deckbox with me across the border. Let's check it out.

Tags don't lie.

Ok, so we're starting off with a real card. Beta Wrath of God was extra rad in the sense that its price tag somehow still corresponded to my "price memory". Yeah, it is a very expensive card, but still somehow much cheaper than e.g. a Gaea's Cradle or certain Revised duals, and its price tag has barely moved for over half a decade. So fair enough, I say. Now I have the two Wraths I might need for my Dwarven Warriors deck. And that's it for playables in the box.

Though I can't say this is bad either. Carrion Ants was one of the true chase cards of Legends back in the days. Looking up the price in my Scrye #6 (April 1995, before 4th Edition was released), we find that Carrion Ants had a price tag of $30. This is at a time where e.g. Chains of Mephistopheles was $12, Moat was $17.75, Nether Void was $13.50, and Tabernacle was $15. Carrion Ants was the second most expensive card in the entire 310-card set, just barley edged out by Mirror Universe. And now adult Mg got the chance to buy two for like $12 apiece. The 4th Edition reprint truly did a number on the price tag of this card. But still, if I'm able to pick up 93/94-era chase rares for less than half of the price they demanded in early 1995, I'm not the guy to complain.

And God damn Gosta Dirk is a cool card. Hey, maybe I like collecting Legends after all. This guy is like the blue brother of Lord Magnus; both of them over-costed four-power first strikers that remove landwalk abilities and have complicated gear. Gosta Dirk was also one of the few english Legends cards that could be found in my playgroup in early 1995. Gustav Josefsson had one of these bad boys, to the envy of most of us. 

This card is pretty underwhelming though. It's a seven-mana legendary Craw Wurm that dies to Gosta Dirk. It also dies to Red Elemental Blast, which may come up even more frequently. And how am I supposed to ramp into seven mana in Blue/Black?

Ah, of course. Now everything makes sense. Just need to keep watching out for that Gosta Dirk. And WotC, please errata this one (and Lord Magnus, and a handful other legends from Legends) to the 'noble' creature type. I'd like to build a Tribelander Nobles deck, and need my Lord Magnuses to be format legal.

If you have 3R at disposal and want to mess with plains, maybe play Flashfires. Or maybe this guy, I don't know. Flashfires can't chump Gosta Dirk, so I guess there's that.

If this was simply a 2/2 for 4U that tapped to ping for two - without killing itself while doing it - would you play it? Like no, right? Now the best case scenario is paying six mana over two cards (to get something like Psionic Entity + Holy Strength) to repeatably ping for two, and at six mana and two cards I'd much, much rather summon a pair of Prodigal Sorcerers if that's my jam. This card is ghastly, just barely in the top half of Legends cards. And the price tag is somehow like three times that of e.g. Horn of Deafening, which is an include in any Oldschool Cube worth its salt. Maybe it's the rad van Camp art, expertly referencing the side-facepalm dude on Psionic Blast?

Some more non-reserved Legends bulk rares. All these are less than half the price of Psionic Entity, and I'd argue that all are more than twice as good. Like, Angelic Voices is even reasonable in 60-card constructed. 

This card is rad enough that I feel like doing a single-card blogpost on it in the future. Fun fact until then may be that it was the price pool for the first tournament DFB organized. (If you want a reminder that 2016 was a long time ago in Oldschool years, click that link.)

Dies to Gosta Dirk. Next.

This card is perfect in every way except the rules text. I think I would have been OK with paying top dollars for it if that had been the ask. I mean, it's a way cooler card than Gaea's Cradle and it deals two to anyone with Gosta Dirk in play.

I should buy like 12 more of these. Sure, they are restricted, but if you're playing with madmen you'll only get to tap them once.

Doesn't die to Gosta Dirk. C+.

Some uncommons. Feel free to take any misguided '94 nostalgia for a spin around these parts. If Legends was released today, I suspect it would have tanked the Hasbro stock at best and killed sanctioned Magic at mid.

Though "Lycanthrope" is unarguably a cooler creature type than "Werewolf". Take that, shiny new Innistrad set.

The haul.

 

Around 60 rares still to go, along with a myriad of commons and uncommons. Legends is a strange set to gather. The whole love-hate-love relationship is uncanny, unlike anything I experienced while gathering Unlimited. But maybe this will take a step back now. Maybe, after a year and a half, I'll start getting cards for playing rather than collecting again. A man can hope. Next stop is Italy.