Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Their Number Is Legion: MTG Forums React to the Card
The moment Wizards of the Coast dropped Their Number Is Legion, the MTG forums buzzed in a way only a cross-over like Warhammer 40,000 Commander can provoke. A rare from the Warhammer 40,000 Commander set, this sorcery arrives with an X in its mana cost and four black mana in addition to the variable colorless price. In practice, that means you’re dialing up huge board presence or a potent life-swing with the tap of a few black mana. The community reaction was a rollercoaster of excitement, skepticism, and a flurry of spicy theory crafting 🧙♂️🔥. The text reads like a spell carved from a black moodboard: create X tapped 2/2 Necron Warrior artifact creature tokens, then you gain life equal to the number of artifacts you control. Exile the card from your graveyard to cast it again. A self-contained engine that invites reanimation, recursion, and artifact synergy in black’s wheelhouse 💎⚔️.
What the card does and why it matters
- Mana cost: {X}{B}{B}{B}{B}. The X means your tempo is variable, but the four black mana in the cost anchors the card to mono-black, with potential for explosive starts in Commander or other long-form formats 🧙♂️.
- Type and rarity: Sorcery, rare, from the Warhammer 40,000 Commander set (Universes Beyond). The set’s painterly blend of grimdark lore and staple Midnight-Black removal energy gives players a thematic hook alongside mechanical heft 🎨.
- Effect: Create X tapped 2/2 Black Necron Warrior artifact creature tokens. Then you gain life equal to the number of artifacts you control. Finally, exile the spell from your graveyard, with an optional recast from the graveyard. This is a goldmine for artifact-heavy builds and reanimation shenanigans 🔥💎.
- Color identity and synergy: Black-only mana cost means it slots neatly into mono-black or highly artifactized black decks. Since the tokens are artifact creatures, your board presence scales with artifact count, feeding lifegain, deterrence, and sacrifice-themed lines ⚔️.
- Strategic note: The ability to cast from the graveyard adds resilience to the spell—your opponents must treat it as a recurring threat, not just a one-off investment. In play, a player can seed artifacts early and then flood the board with Necron Warriors later, tapping into lifegain to offset aggression across the table 🧙♂️🎲.
Two hands, one card: strategy and deck-building thoughts
Several forum posters highlighted the card’s potential as a late-game finisher or as a component in a soft-lock control shell. The core idea is deceptively simple: cast for enough X to flood the board with artifact tokens, then ride the lifegain to swing swings or stall long enough to outvalue opponents. In practice, you’ll want a plan for artifact generation and artifact maintenance, since every token is both a body and a lifeline for your life total. The lifegain trigger rewards you for building a robust artifact suite—the more you control, the higher the life swing. It’s a self-feeding engine that can outpace slower decks in multi-player formats 🧙♂️🎲.
In a world where reanimator and graveyard strategies are often fringe but potent, Their Number Is Legion fits as a genuine threat to grindy archetypes. The exile clause adds a dimension of redundancy, allowing you to prep a backup loop in which you rekindle the spell from the graveyard after a board wipe or a political vote from the table. Think Griselbrand-level resilience with a Necron twist—yet without needing to pay life or a heavy mana tax to recast the card in a pinch. Critics on the forums debated whether the power level is too potent in the W40k crossover context, but many agreed the design encourages creative, synergistic builds rather than a dull clone of existing archetypes ⚔️.
For curious players, people suggested pairing this with cards that generate or protect artifacts, and with effects that multiply your artifact count quickly. For instance, artifact-themed sacrifice nodes or mana rocks that survive disruption can turn a single spell into a multi-turn pressure plan. There’s also excitement around how the Necron Warriors’ 2/2 bodies scale when X is large—your battlefield becomes a cadre of relentless, metallic foot soldiers that can dominate combat or clog the board as needed 💎🎨.
Voice of the community: sentiment snapshots
“A brilliant fusion of lore and gameplay—the Art, the Theme, and the payoff feel like a full-circle moment for Warhammer fans in MTG.”
Many posters celebrated the flavor infusion from Warhammer 40,000. The Universes Beyond stamp together a familiar grimdark vibe with MTG’s strategic tempo, and players loved the thematic resonance of Necron Warriors marching in lockstep across a black mana-laden battlefield 🧙♂️.
“It’s not just a big X spell; it’s a layered engine. The graveyard recast option makes for surprising plays in multiplayer where table politics can swing on a single decision.”
Other voices warned that the card demands careful mana planning and a deck built to maximize artifact counts. A few argued that the lifegain could outpace opponents in cream-of-the-crop tribal or artifact-heavy builds, while others cautioned about overreliance on a single effect in a crowded table. All in all, the discourse skews positive, with a shared appreciation for the cross-genre spark and the potential for big, cinematic plays 🔥⚔️.
Why it sticks in the memory for MTG fans
It’s not merely a flashy crossover; it’s a clever design that leans into MTG’s strengths—card advantage, token generation, and parity between offense and defense. The artwork, the lore tie-in, and the mechanic’s scalability with artifact count create a narrative moment players can discuss at the kitchen table or during a tournament break. The card’s rarity and non-foil status keep it accessible, while the underlying engine invites experimentation in a variety of black-centered strategies 🧙♂️🎨.
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Whether you’re a Warhammer devotee dipping a toe into MTG’s multiverse or a long-time planeswalker chasing a new synergy, Their Number Is Legion gives you a structured, thematic pathway to build around black’s malevolent magic. The Necron Warriors, the lifegain calculus, and the graveyard recast option together form a memorable package that prompts discussion, experimentation, and, inevitably, a few dramatic tabletop moments 🎲.
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