Pentafail

I guess I get to pick on Legends some more.

What's your favorite keyword? It's probably either something that does something interesting, or is overpowered somehow. If you're one of the four guys who said "banding", congratulations! Today's post will probably offend you somewhat. Or perhaps not, if you're into that sort of thing. I don't judge.

In any case, I have a special surprise for you today. Not only do I have a card to share with you, I've got four bonus cards for you too! Isn't that swell?

Oh... I guess, not really. I mean, uh... they've gotta do something, right?

Actually, no.

Let's run through a scenario. Outside of specific deckbuilding scenarios, you're realistically never going to have more than two legends on the field at any given time. Most competitive decks only run one or two in total, and not even the most casual of players would slap a deck together that was full of legends without that being the point in the first place. Even EDH gives a pretty big blank stare to running significant amounts of legends (unless you're running a specific general, of course). So, realistically, you're going to have, on average, about .25 (give or take) legends on the field. That seems reasonable, right? Sure.

But now think about what your Cathedral of Serra is bringing to the table. It's utterly worthless in one of those average decks, since it doesn't tap for mana and literally does nothing if you only have one legend lying around. So, you have to draw two legends of that particular color, making this part of a 3-card combo that doesn't do anything on its own. That's fantastic. Other combos can at least win you the game. What do you get after all that hard work of slapping down two white legendary creatures and a specific land that doesn't tap for mana?

They get banding. Feel free to insert sarcastic jazz hands here.

Oh, yeah, that's a greaaaat card.

All that work for a mediocre ability that's grossly limited in what it can do? Call me crazy, but I like my combos to either win on the spot or do something awesome. This does neither. You get a marginal combat ability on two (or possibly more) specific creatures. And you're even discouraged from playing more copies of the creatures you'd want to play, since they're all legends. There's so much fail involved here I think I might faint.

You know how these cards would be nine billion times better? Add this text:

"T: Add 1 to your mana pool."

And, voila! It's no Wasteland, but at least now you have a land you're not embarrassed to play with.


SIDE NOTE!

We're approaching critical mass for what seems to be an acceptable card pool for the contest I mentioned a few posts back. I promise I'll have more information soon, for reals!