Discovering Multiple legendary Spells

Multiplayer Discussion
1

So I wanted to see what other think about this. Recently what I have come to notice, and this has primarily become more common since the rotation, is that legendary spells are discovered multiple times within a game. So for example, a Priest can discover Soul Mirror 3 times or Evocation by a mage and so on.

SO the question is …

Should Legendary spells be able to be discovered multiple times in a match or should they be only be able to be played once per match, and why?

Would love to hear what people think.

1 Like
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I think that any especific exclusion kinda digs at the non-complexity the game tries to attain.

I partic ularly think there’s no reason to block discovery of legendary spells, since it’s not problematic per se.

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Discovery is fine, It can feel broken right now and it is certainly especially powerful right now.

The card pool(s) are as shallow now as they will ever be, so the likelihood of finding a specific card is above average.

Soul Mirror can be pretty crushing, at the same time there are 29 Standard Priest spells, Palm Reading gives you the best odds (since it can’t discover itself) but that still means it’s 3 cards from a field of 28.

1 Like
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This is an old conversation, but a fair question.

(Some) People have always thought that ANY Legendary should only be able to be used ONCE in a deck. That’s why they are LEGENDARY and you can only add ONE copy to your deck! Makes sense? BUT NOPE.

A lot of ppl have complained about discovery in general.

Maybe if you discover a Legendary thats already in your deck, it works like Tracking, and you simply lose the one in your deck…??

If you already played said Legendary, you can not re-discover it.

Seem fair?

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Why should Legendary spells be treated any different from Legendary minions in this regard?

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Or you change explanation on the keyword to exclude legendary cards unless otherwise specified.

In general while i can see the appeal discover is one of the mechanics we even could use a time without it.

The fact you have 3 options makes it feel like a rigged dice game where the first to not roll 6 loses.
It’s fun to deal with it from time to time but shouldn’t be a evergreen mechanic.

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Mages only ever seen to discover legendaries or that ‘dormant for 2 turns then spell damage +2’

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So, in the TTRPG community, it’s a very common practice to homebrew rules for the system. In that way, most people at least dabble their hands on design.

One of the common errors is adding rules for the sake of themselves. It’s a very common occurrence: The rogue should only be able to sneak attack when sneaking! The armored knight should suffer movement penalties because he is in heavy armor!, and so on.

When asked why though, people mostly respond with something along the lines of “it keeps verissimilitude”. Essentially, it adds nothing to the game; sometimes, it burdens the game with an unnecessary rule with unforeseen consequences.

You see, on some level, you’re right, legendary spells are supposed to be more powerful and rare, right? Why should they be discovered mid game then? Aren’t the deckbuilding rules in there to prevent exactly that? But then, what stands to be gained from that? What does it adds to the game?

If you ask me: “Izizero, then, why are we only allowed to put one of these in the deck”? I will say: Probably to avoid the consistency hard-running two of these would bring. But discovering spells methods are by nature inconsistent, so you are adding a wide reaching rule to “fix” a cornercase, that does not necessarily needs to be fixed, you see?

So then, the question before any homebrew, wherever: Why? What stands to be gained? Is there any very powerful interaction, or future limitation being caused by the ability to discover legendary spells?

2 Likes
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It’s actually a little simple.

Retire the most powerful cards brings predictability increasing people hability to play around.

One thing is to play around something like an AoE that in the end of the day is just about not overcommit to board or buff your minions.

The other is playing around cards like soul mirror were you have to be attentive to many factors due to the increasing complexity of the card.

Said complexity is mostly brought with legendary cards in general.
So 1 of would be enough.

It’s both more skill intensive and fun when those kind of cards act like silver bullets where you have only one chance.

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Let’s go by parts.

I think we can agree legendary spells are frequently not the most powerful option. In some cases they are, but those are more rare.

By how much? Sure, it, in some amount, decreases the number of options you have to think of, but decreasing say, a 1/30 chance of finding a certain spell, a chance that will go lower as the expansions drop, is worthy of a new rule? Like , could you think of a case in standard where there’s a p roblematic interaction that is not soul mirror?

I mean, even soul mirror isn’t problematic, it’s just probably the most powerful effect that comes to mind of this interaction right now. So, what are we aiming to fix here? Especifically priest’s capacity to clear a board? Or is warlock Deck discovery problematic too? Is there even, historically speaking, a situation where discovering a legendary spell ruled the meta?

That’s subjective. It’s easy to understand why someone would find fun being able to find and play a spell that can, theoretically, turn the game. It’s somewhat wasy to see also, that it may be frustrating to get the game turned, but that’s more than a problem with discover than with Legendary Spells.

Let’s brainstorm it here: Which legendary spells are being, even remotely, run right now?

There’s soul mirror, there’s Evocation, and there’s Deck of Chaos.

Of those, when was the last time you remember losing to a discover from one of those? But on the other hand, when was teh last time you lost ot a discover of Fireball, Runed Orb, Apexis Blast, an early power word from priest on a sethek or bloodweaver or a Skull of Gul’dan? Yeah, i think it’s easy to see that Legendary spells aren’t that powerful, and even if they were, to have a problem with discovering something capable of overturning the game you would need to have a problem with everything that can be discovered.

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Like I said.

It isn’t about necessarily being too powerful but because they are a little too complex to play around more than a single time.

Remember evocation nerf to 2 mana?

Also I personally not only talking about spells here.
But about legendary cards in general since most of they have very elaborated effects.

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They are really not. What’s so complex? You can’t play around most of them: Neither evocation or deck of chaos, and the one you can, Soul Mirror, is equally complex each time. You need to have a very specific minion situation for it to not simply be a board clear. If you want to play around it, you regard it as a board clear and that’s that.

Evocation nerf had little to do with it’s complexity, the problem was that you could find too many copies of it between cobalt spellkin and wand seller and use it at no cost with aprentice. It was too consistent at that time.