Magic: Legends

Somewhere in 2015-2017, Wizards of the Coast (or more likely Hasbro) looked upon Magic: The Gathering. The corporate overlords thought to themselves, "Well, it's certainly doing good, but it could be so much more profitable!" Magic was enjoying it's status as one of the Big Three Paper TCGs, alongside Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, but it didn't really have a presence outside of that. Both competitors had quite the expansive multimedia empire to themselves, and Pokemon eventually became the BIGGEST multimedia empire in the world! And considering D&D was shaping up nicely in the multimedia realm, why not do the same with another of WoTC's IPs? The overlords went to correct this wrong and thus began to expand their multimedia empire to expand their profits. To this end, several different projects were greenlit and stamped with the Magic logo: 2 (technically 3 but no one cares about puzzle quest) mobile games, an actually decent card simulator in the form of Magic Arena (followed by an aggressive advertising campaign that would make Evony blush), a somewhat renewed cycle of novels and e-novels, and a godsdamned Netflix adaptation directed by the Russo brothers of Infinity War fame. Among these projects was a supposed Magic MMORPG that was announced to exist in 2017, but with no further details at all. Just when it was thought to be vaporware lost to the annuals of time, Magic: Legends was announced... to be in pre-alpha development.

EDIT: Nevermind, It's gone

The Game Proper

Magic: Legends is an ARPG MMO Diablo-clone, made by Perfect World Entertainment, specifically Cryptic Studios, the same team that did the Neverwinter MMORPG as well as City of Heroes. In the game, you play as a Planeswalker taking on several different roles/classes/loadouts as you travel through the multiverse killing dudes for loot. Along the way, you collect new cards, shards to enhance said cards, and artifacts (but that part is only hinted towards). The developers are avid Magic fans and want to bring the world of Magic to life, with them doing most of the work and WoTC offering advice on worldbuilding and the like. PvE is a big focus, but PvP will be present. One thing that is constantly repeated is the use of an AI Director system, similar to the one used in Left 4 Dead, which allows for the replaying of content through adaptive difficulties.

Mechanics

The weirdest/most interesting point about the game is the way that abilities are handled. Outside of the abilities that are burned into every class, each class is customizable via a deck system. You assemble a deck of 12 different abilities from any 2 of the 5 colors of mana between Sorceries (things that let the character blow stuff up), Enchantments (things that buff up the player and their minions), and Creatures (minions and creeps you can spawn). You can have any number of any kind of these three types of abilities within the 12 card deck limit, so you can have a deck split between creatures and enchantments, just blast dudes with sorceries, or any other combination. On the field, 4 abilities are drawn from the deck at a time, with a little indicator telling you what ability is coming up next. Once you use an ability, it gets shuffled back into the deck, which prevents people from just spamming the same skill over and over again ad nauseam. Mana gradually fills up by waiting around or by hitting dudes with your class abilities, and the bar size changes depending on the density of a specific color in your deck; if you have more white cards in a blue/white deck, the bar will change to reflect that. Aside from that, it seems to be your standard Diablo fare: kill dudes, complete quests, repeat.

Classes/Colors of Mana

There are currently 5 different classes teased for the game, but the head of development hinted there may be more coming down the line. Each of the 5 classes is emblematic of the 5 main colors of mana and comes with a main spammable ability, a cooldown ability, and a movement ability. While the classes are emblematic of one of the 5 colors, it's stated that you don't necessarily have to use that color in your decks, mixing as many as 2 completely different colors alongside your main class abilities that are baked in. You can also swap freely between the different classes during downtime.

• The Mind Mage, the emblematic kit for Blue and heavily inspired by Jace Beleren. The kit revolves around staying back and controlling the battlefield with shifting and pushing abilities. He shoots mind bullets, warps around, and pushes people back. Blue spells push enemies back, slows them down, and messes up their attacks.
• The Geomancer, the emblematic kit for Red and heavily inspired by Koth of the Hammer. Her kit revolves around aggressive melee attacks and generating shields to pad her health. She punches dudes, leaps into combat, and blasts people with her shields. Red spells revolve around damage over time, pushing people towards you, and big summons that don't last for a long time but hit hard.
• The Beastmaster, the green-colored kit styled upon Garruk Wildspeaker, before he got the black taint from Lilliana. As the name implies, the Beastmaster creates beasts on a cooldown as part of their main kit, and strikes with an axe. Green spells revolve around creatures, with many of their sorceries actually taking the form of summons.
• An as of yet unnamed Black class styled on Liliana Vess or Ob Nixilis.
• An as of yet unnamed White class styled on... Serra? Ajani Goldmane? It's not really clear. White spells summon lots of little dudes, buffs them up, and then blasts with big nova spells.

Story/Setting

Magic: Legends seems to follow the canon events of Magic somewhat, but puts the conflict near the main storyline, rather than directly on top of it. The initial area is Dominaria, with most footage focusing on Benalia. Based on characters and events, the game takes place before the events of the set Dominaria, but close enough that most of the modern characters, like Josu Vess, Lyra Dawnbringer, and Danitha Capashen are still relevant and around. Of note for the main quest is that when you go to different areas of Dominaria, different colors become the main villains/heroes of focus. On Benalia, white-aligned people are considered to be the good guys and black the bad guys, but on Shiv, white-aligned people are the bad guys, while red-aligned folk are the good guys, which is something we don't often see, even in the paper game.