I wouldn't care the speculate about how much research the conceptor did. You have to admit that it's hardly the first time a character has been depicted differently than they have before. Personally, I find the illustration to be delightful, but that's just a matter of taste.



Thank you!

There have been some really out of the blue but really welcomed pulls like Tormod, Nevinyral and Hans (with some really amazing art by Yongjae and Ryan Pancoast )

...but good mother-Trucking-GOD, I am still hella livid that we got a new Radiant.
As much as the art looked amazing... the slot could've been used for a Serran/white character that would've been nice on a card: new Orim? Sosinna? Kiniedern? Heck, Selenia in her old Serran self would've been infinitely much better than that smart-ass of an Archangel.

I hate that we had to wait again for a year... and Commander has rotating themes and all.

Unfortunately, I think this was just a question of logistics. They needed a partner Commander for the UW fliers draft archetype, Radiant was already established as caring about flying.

Yeah, there were plenty of legends designed with gameplay first, who were then concepted as characters they mechanically resembled. Radiant and Kamahl are good examples of that.

I'm not upset about Radiant getting a new card. She was a one shot but very memorable and tragic villain, she deserved something better than what she originally got.

Pity its not it, but thats a story for another day.

I'm not upset we got radiant instead of a new Orim because it means new Orim wouldn't have been saddled with partner uglying up the card.

And Sosinna and Kinidiern could've worked for those~!

Maybe Sosinna could be used as a blinker sort of creature when you have a flying critter around (as a reference to her being exiled with Xantcha) and Kinidiern could've actually still worked if given that Radiant card ability and could've been additional lore points for the set! And they wouldn't have looked weird with Partner... coz well, it's one of their featured things back in the Planeswalker novel.

*sighs*

Who am I to talk tho... I'm not a super biggie gameplay person (stopped playing the cards in Time Spiral, went back for Dominaria, and started Arena back in July) and I've only built janky Standard UB fliers decks...


Oh well, my only "silverlining" about this inclusion was the reaction to that Radiant Commander Legends card.... a lot of them I seen thought that her OG was much better and had doubts of putting her in an angel/fliers deck

_________________________


P.S. The whole set has been SPOILED. Are we not getting the usual themed decks like before or something?

Coz, yeah, I pretty much only need Liesa from all these and some pieces here and there for my "Handsome men in Magic art collection that are not in mythic rarity"

Huh... We got cat legs Akroma. I honestly was expecting more cat on it than it was, but it was something I said I wanted.

Correct me if you're talking about a different card, but I'm pretty sure Akroma, Vision of Ixidor is sword-legs Akroma, from after she lost her legs for a second time while fighting the deathwurm.

Well, they are digitigrade, so I'd just assumed it was creative armor.

Hm, I guess it would make sense to be a bit of both, assuming the metal-spike-legs were built off what remained of her front-cat-legs.

As somebody who never read the books- Akroma had cat legs? Please do share.

My memory is vague and mostly rebuilt off the wiki, but basically...

Akroma: Ixidor, I've failed you! I tried to kill Phage, but she touched my legs and now they're gone!
Ixidor: Don't worry, I'll whip you up some new legs out of this... jaguar! *Dreams a jaguar into existence and immediately kills it. Dreams said jaguar's legs (yes, all four) onto Akroma.*
Akroma: Couldn't you have skipped straight to step 2 there?
Ixidor: Shhhh.

Then later she lost her legs again while searching for Ixidor in the acidic stomach of a giant deathwurm. And then they somehow healed into blades? I think that happened without Ixidor's help. I don't remember how, though, or if it was actually explained. That trilogy was wild.

Phage touched her. Ixidor fixed her.

Sounds like an author with a very specific fetish...

J Robert King's Wild Ride was the most uniquely bad stuff we've gotten in Magic's storyline. Maybe not the worst anymore, but despite its staggering incomprehension of good storytelling it was at least memorable.

And that train of exchanges was exactly why I wanted this card.

Somebody: "Wouldn't blade-leg Akroma be funny?"
Me: "Ha ha! Yes! We should do it!"
Somebody else, two years later: "Ethan, could you please write an article explaining blade-leg Akroma?"
Me: "Fuuuuu..."

Hoist by thine own petard!

Also Ethan.

Kamahl? Really? Was "green mythic with overrun and/or animate effect" a gameplay need? I would have assumed most of the mythics were top-down designs, possibly except for Sakashima who might have started as "mirror gallery in the command zone". Maybe Akroma too, but certainly not Kamahl who just looks like a reinterpretation of his original card.