Recently, there has been little news about the upcoming Action-RPG Magic: Legends. However, development is steadily progressing and seems fairly advanced. Principal Lead Designer Adam Hetenyi exclusively spoke with MeinMMO author Benedict Grothaus about the new class, the features of Magic: Legends, and the upcoming beta.
Magic: Legends aims to transfer the legendary card game Magic the Gathering into the format of an Action-RPG for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, utilizing several unique mechanics. The developers have already sketched a rough picture of the game but haven’t revealed too many details so far.
In an interview about the upcoming MMO, Principal Lead Designer Adam Hetenyi met with me virtually to exclusively share some interesting details about Magic: Legends.
The core of the interview centers around the new class of the Sanctifier and classes in general, but I took the opportunity to also get some information about the beta, the release, and the future of Magic: Legends.
What is Magic: Legends?
In terms of genre, Magic: Legends is an Action-RPG that somewhat resembles famous games like Diablo 3 or Path of Exile. However, this is almost exclusively limited to the controls and the isometric perspective (“viewed from above”).
Magic: Legends uses the eponymous Magic the Gathering, the most complex game in the world. Legends combines the famous cards with the ARPG system, where you build your decks and play with them. The decks consist of spells and summons.
Instead of skills exclusive to certain classes, you create decks with cards that have been partly taken from Magic and partly newly created for Legends, as Adam tells me.
As a player, you take on the role of a “Planeswalker,” some of the most powerful beings in Magic who have the ability to travel between different worlds. You wield powerful magic with which you can summon creatures, burn opponents, or strengthen and heal allies. Magic is the focal point of everything in Magic: Legends.
The game can be played solo or with a group of up to 3 players who embark on adventures together. The story and the campaign are important points in terms of gameplay. The narrative is supposed to evolve continuously, encouraging you to explore.
At release, there should also be features like PvP and increasing difficulty. Thanks to an interesting difficulty adjustment system, Legends ensures that it never gets boring.
Magic: Legends is one of the special cases in the 16 exciting MMORPGs we expect at MeinMMO from 2020 – because it is not an MMORPG, but an ARPG, yet it still should be mentioned there.
The Classes in Magic: Legends – Something for Everyone
What are classes? The core of the game is building so-called “decks” for your classes. The character you play has a specific class that provides him with certain core abilities available: a primary attack, a secondary attack, and a supportive ability.
So far, known and playable were the red Geomancer and the blue Mindmage, as well as the green Beastcaller, which I was one of the first to play exclusively at PAX East 2020. The classes roughly indicate which playstyle you can follow, but they are not as bound to roles as in traditional RPGs.
What classes are there? At the release of Magic: Legends, there should be five classes, one for each color. So far, four of them are known:
- Red – Geomancer
- Blue – Mindmage
- Green – Beastcaller
- White – Sanctifier (new)
- Black – Not yet known
I tried to extract some information from Adam about the black class, but it is simply too early to discuss it. Based on my experience with Magic, I suspect it will be a class that plays heavily with sacrifices and life points.
However, Adam revealed an interesting detail: each class will also receive “variants” in the form of multicolored classes. Many details about this are still lacking, but it sounds like several new classes may be possible in the future.
This is the new class: The Sanctifier is the class for white mana and was exclusively introduced to us first. Adam describes it as “a holy spellcaster and rather defensive ranged fighter” with the following class abilities:
- a powerful ranged attack (primary)
- a slow wave that heals allied targets and damages affected enemies (secondary)
- and a large-area healing that conjures a supportive angel (supportive)
To illustrate, we received some exclusive artworks of the Sanctifier in advance:
Exclusive image: Effects of the Sanctifier. 
Exclusive image: The spells of the Sanctifier. 
Exclusive image: The spells of the Sanctifier. 
Exclusive image: The weapon of the Sanctifier. 
Exclusive image: Artwork of the Sanctifier.
As such, the Sanctifier suits as an entry class for all players who enjoy healing and taking on the support role. Even in solo play, this is supposed to work by summoning huge armies of creatures and keeping them alive with your abilities.
The Sanctifier focuses on survival and strengthening but operates best from a distance, as he is rather designed for range. However, Magic: Legends allows you to freely choose how you want to play each class.
When I asked Adam what he liked best about the class, he replied:
I love sending an army of ‘little guys’ into battle. There are two red spells that work well with such a white deck. One of them summons goblins for each mana spent. So I use all my mana to create 11 goblins. And the second is an enchantment that creates temporary goblins when casting a spell.
I have these two red spells in my white deck, with which I summon archers and more. […] In the end, I have an army that I equip with shields to keep them alive with my class ability. That is my idea of white decks: create an army of soldiers and send them into battle.
No Fixed Roles – Create Your Class Yourself
What is special about Magic: Legends? The class and skill system is something that no other role-playing game has attempted in this form so far. Instead of fixed classes with specific roles and skills, you receive a collection of cards that are available for each of the classes.
According to Adam, there will be over 100 different cards, with the trend increasing. These represent your possible skills and come in five colors. Each color has rough, but not exclusive, areas for which it is more or less known:
- Red – Offensive spells and powerful creatures
- Blue – Control spells
- Green – Robust creatures and buff spells
- White – Healing spells, buffs, and many creatures
- Black – Sacrifices, life drain, and resurrection
This is how classes and decks work: Each class comes with a starter deck, but one of the core features of Magic: Legends is that you build your own deck that has strong synergies.
From the collection, you assemble decks of 12 cards, usually from one or two different colors. You play the cards with “mana” of the corresponding color, which charges over time.
The first special aspect is that you only have four spells available to choose from at a time. You rotate the cards. When you use a spell, it gets shuffled back into the deck, and one of the remaining 8 is chosen as a replacement. This roughly simulates drawing from the stack in the real Magic game.
Additionally, you have hardly any restrictions on how you want to build the decks. Each of the available classes can be equipped with any deck – and assume any role. Adam told me:
There are no fixed boundaries between tank, DPS, and support classes. The classes have their core abilities, and you can build your deck to match the idea of that class if you want. But you could also easily build a tank from any of the classes if you bring a deck that supports such a play style. […]
Some class kits are more efficient at doing this, but you have the option to do pretty much anything. The Beastcaller, for instance, is a fairly obvious tank. […] The Sanctifier would also be a good tank, but may not be as ideal [as the Beastcaller], because his main attack is a ranged attack.
Beta Still in 2020 – Release in 2021
When can I play Magic: Legends? The Open Beta for Magic: Legends is supposed to come in 2020, open to all interested parties. Before the Open Beta, there will also be a closed one, although I was not given specific dates for either.
The release is then scheduled for 2021. According to Adam, they are currently working hard to prepare for the beta launch.
Here you can find out how to sign up for the beta of Magic: Legends.
What does the future look like? After the release of Magic: Legends, the game is supposed to continue being supported as a service game. This will happen in the form of free updates. However, Adam could not concretely tell me how often these will come.
There have also been discussions about Season Passes, one version of which is already in the game. However, Adam was not allowed to reveal much about it yet, except: “We have something that is similar, just not really a Season Pass.”
A good example might be the season model of Diablo 3 with temporary characters, progression, and rewards that can then be transferred to your account. Diablo has had such a system for a total of 21 seasons now.
The team behind Magic: Legends aims to work closely with Magic the Gathering. Events could be organized to announce a new card set or something similar, at least that is Adam’s wish. However, there is nothing concrete about this yet.
Is it worth taking a look at Magic: Legends?
When asked who should take a look at Magic: Legends, Adam replied with a laugh:
I’m tempted to give a cheeky answer like: ‘Everyone.’ But I would say: If you are familiar with Magic in general, then this is a cool experience that feels very much like Magic in a new way. Alternatively, if you don’t know Magic at all but like Action RPGs, then this is a very cool new Action RPG that utilizes mechanics you probably haven’t seen before. […]
These are the two cores. People who like Magic but don’t play Action RPGs will have a lot of fun. People who play Action RPGs but don’t know Magic will also have a lot of fun.
And the intersection of players who play Action RPGs and like Magic will surely be thrilled.
There was a huge crowd at PAX for Magic: Legends. People there reportedly waited an hour and a half to two hours just to play a little. One girl was so excited that she kept getting back in line with her father just to play again during her entire visit.
I personally am very convinced of Magic: Legends. I have previously called it a competitor to the highly anticipated Diablo 4, but even if it doesn’t fully meet my expectations, it will always remain a strong secret tip that I am really looking forward to.
I am really looking forward to it!
Already at PAX, Magic Legends intrigued and captivated me, so I am now very glad to have received new information. The Sanctifier sounds quite interesting, even if it’s not a class for me.
The deck system is a novelty that I have high hopes for. I’m not necessarily the best at building decks, but since I only have to assemble twelve cards here, I think even I can create cool combos. It has played out interestingly so far, more than any other ARPG I know.
My only concern is that too much may come. Too much PvP, too many features, too many cards. Something that overloads the game and overshadows the really good ideas.
For the future, I am particularly looking forward to the black class – that is the color I used to play most often. I am curious to see what else will come.
Benedict Grothaus
Freelance author at MeinMMO (and a big fan of Magic)
