Legend (Magic: The Gathering)

In the Magic: The Gathering trading card game, a Legendary card or Legend is a card that represents a unique individual or thing with a specific name, rather than the generic, unnamed things that most cards represent. For example, while the card could be any goblin, the card is a specific goblin with a personality and a history.
Printed legendary cards are indicated by the word "Legendary" before their card type (e.g. "Legendary Artifact") to replace the original "Creature — Legend" or "Summon Legend", a change made in Champions of Kamigawa.
The associated Magic: The Gathering novels often deal with the characters represented by legendary cards in the game.
Gameplay
Only one copy of a given legendary card may be in control by a same player at the same time. If multiple copies of a legend are under control by a same player, the player choose one of them, and all of the rest are put into the graveyard (discard pile).
Most legendary cards are creatures; legendary artifacts, lands, sorceries and enchantments also exist.
Planeswalker cards' uniqueness rule was heavily influenced by Legend Rule. The only difference is they refer to the type of the card. This basically eliminated any possibility of having two same Planeswalker under a player's control as each different Planeswalker is assigned with a one unique Type for all cards refer to the same person. The only exception, however, is if a Planeswalker is also represented by a legendary creature as two rules are operated independent to each other. For example, and can be controlled by a player at the same time even though they represent the same person.
History
Legendary creatures and lands were introduced in 1994 with Legends, the game's third expansion set. Although some cards printed prior to Legends represent unique individuals and would logically have been legendary, they were and are still treated as non-legendary. The first legendary artifact, , was printed in the Stronghold set in 1998, and the first legendary enchantments were printed in Champions of Kamigawa in 2004.
The way the legend rule functioned when it was first introduced differed from its present form: if a legendary card came into play when another copy of the same card was already in play, the recently played legend would be put in the graveyard, but not the one that was already in play. This could be a significant advantage to the player who played the legend first, and was particularly an issue with legends that could be played cheaply and quickly, such as .
Initially, legendary creatures were printed with "Legend" as their creature type. At the time, most creatures other than artifact creatures (which had no creature type at all) could only have one creature type, so "Legend" replaced any other creature type they might have had. Later, some legends were printed with additional text giving them extra creature types: for example, while has "Legend" as his creature type, the card's text reads "Barrin, Master Wizard counts as a Wizard", effectively giving him the Wizard creature type as well. Beginning with the Urza's Destiny set in 1999, legendary creatures were simply given multiple creature types: for example, is simply printed as a "Wizard Legend", making the "counts as a Wizard" text unnecessary. The status of "Legend" as a creature type could be exploited using the card : a player could eliminate an opponent's creatures by changing them into Legends, triggering the legend rule. As a result, new, cheap legendary cards have been printed in subsequent sets.
In 2013, the Legend rule was changed to its current form, reducing its range of influence from the whole battlefield to a single player's side of the battlefield. It was no longer possible to use the legend rule as a means to remove opponents' legendary cards by playing another of the same legendary card or by making a copy of it.

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