Also: Bomb goblin from what looks to be Tarkir?

We will in fact be getting him. UR as well.

Vial smasher was in fact in an uncharted realms from tarkir. One of the few URa I ever read.

Vial Smasher is like a tiny, inverted Kaervek the Merciless...

More, every enemy pair... pair will be creatively linked. So, Bruse Tarl will be getting a partner. Potentially a legendarily stubborn Ox.

You know, the descriptions of these factions are quite creative.

Like the -less one; I never connected the dots and figured that was the only colour to not "grow". Not dealing with flesh that way, and even when building it's usually individual works of art, not actual progress.

Great, another character that shouldn't even exist in this timeline getting a card. And I guess she's legendary because she talked to Sarkhan once? I'm sure they could've found a better character for that slot. I would probably have been okay with this being Ashnod for example. They're stretching the term 'legendary' quite a bit with some of these.

I believe that if they get called out by name in a UR or on flavor text, they're up for a legendary printing. I mean, it seems like their new plan for Commander is to use it as a vehicle to print legendary cards for story characters that didn't get cards in their original sets. If they blew their load on old characters in the first two years of this endeavor (especially seeing as there will be so many legendaries this year because of Partner), then they'll have nothing left to work with in future products.

Bottom line? I expect to see two or three old characters in each Commander product going forward along with a gaggle of UR characters that people latched on to, named characters in flavor text that people liked, and some new characters that tease past and future sets and worlds. For a supplemental set that comes out pretty much every year now, that seems reasonable and covers a wide variety of player interests.

I'm kinda cool with most of the Partner legends being relatively minor characters (Anybody named in a UR once) because they also seem to mostly be pretty basic designs (likely needed because they're each half a commander). I think Sidar Kondo is the only one we've seen so far that has a decent storyline weight/history, and even then his biggest claim to fame is being someone else's dad. Okay, I guess Silas is also a little more relevant... Anyway, my point being, I think I'd be disappointed with Vial Smasher being Ashnod because there's a ton of stuff Ashnod does that I'd want to see at least hinted at. She makes Transmogrants. She invented and wields the Staff of Zegon. She sacrifices dudes on the altar of science, but ultimately was willing to lay down her own life to save the world. She's a murderer, torturer, and defiler but there are plenty of hints in The Brothers War that maybe she was just a gifted person trying to survive in a world going mad thanks to the conflict between Urza and Mishra. Would ANY of that be communicated by slapping her name and image onto Vial Smasher?

Like Feldon before her, Ashnod is a character that deserves some time and effort. Yeah, she was Mishra's right hand and weird frenemies with Tawnos so maybe I could see her having Partner in abstract, but I also don't really see her being half a commander.

Another UR character is here:



Reyhan was the leader of the Abzan coalition against the Dromoka after Daghatar surrendered the clans to the dragons! She appears in the story Khanfall: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/khanfall-2015-02-18

I like her

She's presumably Legendary because she's an individual character, and "shouldn't even exist in this timeline" seems like an incredibly arbitrary reason made up for the express purpose of having a complaint. It's about as valid as "shouldn't even be alive", which I don't have the impression that you would support.

Also an elf from Keld!



Also this weaver lady?

Interesting. I thought she was , but as it turns out she was all along.

This gives new meaning to her being a "half khan". In retrospective, of course.

Aaand, 4 color Esper lady.

Also plains art:

Oooooh, that's a sweet Plains.

Reyhan means there's probably no Belbe, but that's alright. I really like the spirit of the call back to unprinted characters, but other than Sidar and Silas, they haven't reached too far back. Theros, Zendikar, Innistrad, and Tarkir are the most recent planes we've visited.

So many cool things.

And now for a very out of place thing!



Scratch you head over this one. I'm not sure why he (she?) was reprinted....