https://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-set/commander-legends-battle-for-baldurs-gate/

BG3 characters so far getting cards are Gale, Lae'zel, Raphael, and there is an Instant called Wyll's reversal.

Mechanics revealed so far are Initiative, Undercity (dungeon) , Adventure, Myriad, Dice Rolling, and hinted by Lae'zel's card Experience Counters and\or Energy, Backgrounds.

Also characters from BG1&2 are in the set, one from Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus and weirdly one from Ravenloft, Strahds nursemaid, one is new character, and one is the God Bhaal.

I love Raphael, Fiendish Savior, the best so far. Demons, Tiefling, Devils, and Imps get 1\1 and life link, he has flying, and each turn when a creature card enters the graveyard you get a 1\1 Devil with when it dies deal 1 damage to any target. He has the obviously batched Lord synergies, but also good in sacrifice and mill decks.

So based on this Anyways, cool, at least someone is giving us a few crumbles of information to speculate about BG3 (yes, Larian, looking at you, do something).

LMFAO. I remember Dineheirin being dead by BG2, maybe BG3 goes crazy with True Resurrection spells?

Being present in a masters set or equivalent does not mean the character is still alive in the current timeline. Example: Urza was printed in Modern Horizons 1, a masters set a couple years ago. Urza was last seen alive like 20+ years ago. Apocalypse, june 2001 at least, maybe a set or two afterwards.

They most likely included Dynaheir and Firkraag and company by similar logic. They are there for fanservice and name recognition.

This isn't a Masters set, but it's true of the OG Commander Legends set too.

PS

Lae'zel is going in straight into my Serra and Master of the Flowers (Planeswalker) brawl decks.

sorry color me confused. is MTG and forgotten realms the same thing? why are they appeared as MTG cards?

MTG and WotC are both owned by Hasbro, and have crossed over several times. There is an entire crossover series of digital publications called Planeshift, where they detail MTG worlds for 5e mechanics. And this is not the first time we've had Realms characters and monsters as cards.

Separate IPs. There is crossover in the medium used though. For example, MTG is planning Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40k cards in the future-it doesn't mean that space marines and Gandalf could team up with Jace the Mind Sculptor. Similarly, Pathfnder publishing adventures in the 5e ruleset doesn't mean that Pathfinder is in the same 'universe' as Darksun.

i see. much thanks. that will be quite interesting. wish to see if there's rpg to be made on MTG worlds.

I wish! I would have killed to have a crpg based in the early mtg timeline when I was a kid! Original Phyrexian invasion and all that would have been really fun to see IMO. At least WoTC is throwing tabletop rpg fans a bone with the books to game some of the more recent settings using the 5e system.

Well there are table top rpg campaign settings books MtG for Ravnica, Theros, and sort of Arcvios.

The Theros book is actually one of my most favourite books! I really want to play a game in that world someday. The Ravnica book is less to my taste, but still really well done.

But here is a link to all the planeshift publications for people.
https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Plane_Shift

We've seen Lae'zel who appears to be a well made as is Gale, but not Shadowheart, Astoria, or Wyll.

Given its 5 BG3 Companions so far, I think one tied to each colour of the MtG colour pie makes sense. Lae'zel has white, Gale blue, and while Wyll's creature card hasn't been spoiled yet, he has an instant spell named after him Wyll's Reversal which which basically allows him to redirected a targeted instant or sorcery to new targets, and if he gets a luck die roll he can copy the spell his redirecting and choose new targets again, this suggests his card is going to be red (and interact with dice rolling). Alternately maybe he will have Legendary Mizora creature token when he enters the battlefield, the way Minsc has Boo, or maybe both Dice Rolling and a D20.

That leaves just black and green, I'm leaning towards black for Astarion and green for Shadowheart, but that doesn't fit right, although I did not expect Lae'zel to be mono white either.

Yay for Halsin getting a card!

pretty interesting, thanks for sharing.

The connection is even deeper than that! Wizards of the Coast bought TSR, the company that created DnD, in 1997 and have published DnD ever since. Magic the Gathering and DnD have shared plenty of staff over the years.

The first ever crossover was a single card called Sword of Dungeons & Dragons published in a joke set in 2017. There have been other IP crossovers since, but none with deeper ties to Magic than DnD.

Asterion card (Asterion, the Decadent) that is a Legebdary 4/4 Vampire Elf Rogue with Death Touch and Life Link, and at his end step you can choose between two options.

1. Food: Openent loses life equal to the life they lost this turn.

2. Friend: You can life equal to the total life you gained this turn.

It's different from Gale and Lae'zel surprisingly as I was expecting the card to be mono colored with Choose a Background, but instead it's black & white instead.

This leaves just Wyll and Shadowheart, who I had assumed would be mono colored with Background, buy now I'm not certain at all what they will look like.

Anyone want to guess what they will be like?

i really like to see some cRPG games set in MTG settings or dragonlance. i'm not so much of a spelljammer or space person. dnd may not really be the answer but i've grown to love for turn-based. so it will be great to see more genre or franchises but i really like it as an cRPG. if they are going for a real-time action RPG.. i really don't want anything to do with MMOs. love big cRPGs that are single player ala skyrim? witcher? etc. definitely not MMOs.

It doesn't matter who is dead/old for non-standard Magic sets. This set won't be carrying any particular narrative, and may include anything connected to Baldur's Gate from any time period.

Right, I thought it would stick close to the latest cannon or something, didn't know it was more of a 'world of BG approach', was always only vaguely aware of the story behind MTG editions besides the general themes and factions.

Gale’s card mentions

Hey Hey, we can do one of those clickbait internet personality quizzes for each character

What Color Are You?

Green!🐻

I was talking BG3 silly....though I would have pegged you as white with that kind overwhelming positivity.

Like Gale I think Blue-Black...but with dragons somehow.🐉

Great to find out Karlach is a barbarian.😊

so Zevlor with tentacles..right.

In EA I was surprised when I offered to help Zevlor with Kagha, and he asked to have her assassinated! That’s not the kind of help I meant.

Yep https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/ut7ep0/clb_karlach_fury_of_avernus/

Not only is she red, she has even the fussy mtg investor types who have been crying because they haven't seen Jeweled Lotus & Dockside Extortionist, just drooling over her. I mean extra combat turns, grants first strike and untaps your creatures, and on top of that she's mono red, but with choose a background, so she can fit in any red deck, even mono red, but she can still be a Commander for R/W, R/B, R/G, and R/U decks. Sooooo many crazy things you can do with her, which given she's likely an Origin Character for BG3 includes playing and fucking her LMFAO. She literally does everything!

What? O_o

I really hope she get ingame model of that awesome hammer. :3
I would have problem switching it to stronger, but most certainly not as cool weapon tho.

Have you seen this?
https://twitter.com/wizards_magic/status/1526597496352407553/photo/1

The baby bear is adorable!

Anyone think there's enough here to speculate on new potential companions? https://mythicspoiler.com

soo if assuming karlach and halsin are comfirmed companions...

Laezel Fighter
ShadowHeart Cleric
Astarion Rogue
Karlach Barbarian
Gale Wizard
Wyll Warlock
Halsin Druid

Paladin
Monk
Bard
Ranger
Sorcerer

Then there are 5 more classses that no companions filled the roles yet. Just guessing since Paladin is among one of the most popular classes, perhaps Larian would leave it a spot as PC. Played Ranger in Solasta too kinda nice but Paladin still my best choice (in Solasta). If Karlach and Halsin are confirmed companions, that's 7 total companions already and i doubt Larian would release more.. Not unless on DLC.

love the looks of jaheira and not sure if possible if she could return in bg3.. would love to romance her.

There is a card for a displacer kitten. I wonder if we will get one as a pet!😊

There is also a datamined bard companion I haven’t seen a card for yet…

@ Archaven:

that would be great if they can bring jah too <3

Just throwing 2 cents here :

The Paladin Class is not implemented yet. But it would make sense for either Lae'zel or Karlach to be Paladins eventually (in the former case, Lae'zel being a Fighter currently would be just a temporary thing).

It's also possible that Larian will give us some options to choose our Companions' Classes when this not required by their backstory (Shadowheart, Gale and Wyll must be Cleric of Shar, Wizard and Warlock). Lae'zel works equally well as Fighter, Barbarian or Paladin, in my view. Astarion could be Rogue, a (Dex-based) Fighter, or even an Urban Ranger (prowling at night, hunting for preys).

I don't know, I think fighter really fits Lae'zel the best imo. I picture Karlach as the paladin, but according to her card, she will be a barbarian. I hope, that is not yet canon.

That would be pretty lazy solution to fill all classes. :-/
I hope companion will have fixed class ... and we get "at least" (at the VERY least) one per class ... two per class would be preffered tho (with different aligment).

Karlach is full of surprises ...
Especialy when you start icluding datamined stuff. O_o

She appeared in datamined material (both written lines and interactions with Helsin and items) - so she is likely to make an appearance.

I am still not buying Helsin as a companion due him not being an origin. If Minsc will be a companion/origin, I wouldn't discount a possibility of Jaheira being one as well. That said those would be two "legacy" characters, and that's not something that we have seen in BG3 so far. I haven't seen Larian as much interested in continuing BG2 too directly - or maybe they are keeping those things to themselves for 1.0. I would peg Jaheira for a meetable (important?) NPCs.

You are quite correct. Dineheir and Khalid are quite dead at the start of BG2 (their bodies are found in Irenicus' lab). Of the BG1 companions that survived into BG2 and show up was Imoen, Minsc, Jaheria, and Viconnia. Vic (if you don't romance her), she'd still be alive and around for BG3 and seeing her and seeing how she interacts with Shadowheart would be *very* interesting.

The adorable displacer kitten is ready to go to my camp!

Ok. I want one too. 😁

Jaheira is a rare with choose a background, just like Wyll, Gale, Lae'zel, and Shadowheart, so that could je a hint they plan to make her a companion.

The game really needs a none evil, attractive female origin character.

Speaking of Shadowheart and Wyll, Shadowheart is straight up one of the best card draw cards in mono black. Wyll on the other hand is the dice lord. First mono red Warlock (Warlocks were supposed to be secondary in red, but then AFR and Innistrad happened). Wyll is going to be very popular in Farideh and Delina decks. Ozolith goes well with him too.

You meet more companions from BG1 in BG2: Quayle, Coran, Ajantis to name a few ( although I'm not sure, If Ajantis was part of Unfinished Business).

I am not sure Halsin would become a companion. There are cards for both him and Zevlor, and Zevlor is very unlikely to become one, I suspect they are just two important NPC for the plot.

However, I did not see a card for the datamined bard companion. If Larian decided to remove her, maybe Halsin has a chance to become her replacement.

seeing halsin has been actively promoted by larian (halsin appeared as fanart in their tweets) it will be conflicting with halsin since jaheira is a fighter/druid. larian probably wanted to promote their own characters rather than said old returning ones. if larian can only bring her in as a cameo then the only hope we have probably just from mod. but again due to voiced companions it will be terribly strange to include modded characters that doesnt speak . due to popularity i would say larian bringing in minsc has higher chance than said jaheira. saw an imoen card too will be great if we get to see her as well.

🤞🤞🤞 that Halsin is a companion!!!

For Zevlor from his cards it looks like

I'm wondering, if some (many ? ) of characters of "Battle For Baldur's Gate" trading card game will be in BG3, that means that Mahadi could be there ? If so, it means that Rakshasa will be modelized in game ? Can we dream to be allowed to play as Rakshasa in BG3 ? (At least in a mod maybe...)

Tbh apart from Anomen, Minsc is the least character, I want to see return, sadly that seems to be a done deal.

Same here. Don't particularly like the idea of having Minsc in my party. But for my good-only party I will have no choice.

I like Minsc. He was one of my favorites in the first two games.

That said, it's weird to me that he's still alive in any way, shape or form. Like Volo, it's bizarre and feels forced. Jaheira's enough of a stretch, but Minsc is human. It's been like 120ish years since 1 and 2. Come on now. Let the man rest in piece - him and Boo both.

It is explained in comics ... mindreaker was its name i believe?

I agree. It sounds very "comic-booksy" to me - no character that can make money for the company will die (at least not permanently). Of course, it all depends on how it will be pulled off narratively. One can forgive contrivances if the end product is better for it.



Still not sold on the idea.

I agree. The explanation given for why he's alive is utterly ridiculous. And I did like him in the old games. But now, 20 years later, I need a little more depth to my party companions. That's why I worded it as "I don't like the idea of Minsc in my party," and not that I don't like Minsc.

the only thing that i hate minsc was that purple circle on his bald head. wondering what's that for and if serve a purpose otherwise i like it removed though.

Well, it is a little silly explanation ... true ...
But (and feel free to corect me) Minsc allways seemed from my limited resources, like a little silly character.

Yeah true. But at least he had a more reasonable and intelligent backstory. He was a little crazy because of a head injury, and so what made him so funny and enjoyable was that he was a little nuts in the head.

But him being alive with some ridiculous story about the Statue of him, it just seems a bit of a forced stretch.

But hey, I'm not just picking on him. Volo's, "I'm still alive even though I'm human" story is equally stupid.

Shouldnt we first know the reason he is alive, before we judge it as stupid?

I have not read the comics. But as I understand it Minsc & Boo were turned to stone at some point after BG2. Then healed back to normal a little bit before Descent Into Avernus I believe(not sure how/why/when exactly).

Personally I don't have a problem with this. It is 100% possible to happen in this universe...hell we fight Drow that have been turned to stone for longer than Minsc & Boo in the Spectator fight in the UD.

No, it's much worse than this. The actual Minsc from the original games is dead. In Baldur's Gate, a statue was erected to celebrate Minsc as one of the heroes of the city. A surge of wild magic in the area of the statue caused the statue to come to life. *That's* who the current Minsc is! Seriously stupid.

Again, execution is what matters. If “the statue of Minsc” is a compelling character, then why not? If it’s just Minsc, brought into 5e for no good reason then it is not.

Since I just had that scene right now - it is actually your character that suggest that Kagha should ... go. Zevlor says that he hopes for anotehr outcome, but when it comes to Kagha or the tieflings, then he is all for offing Kagha (paraphrasing here). I totally get tha tsentiment. We are talking about a woman, who put a childs life in harms way after all.

Actually, it was confirmed somewhere that it is an ordinary statue and not a Minsc turned to stone for some reason?

I must have misinterpreted the dialogue choice, then.😆

As someone who has not played the first two Baldurs Gate games - my first digital experience with D&D was Neverwinter Nights - I only recognise SOME of the following as belonging to the old games. Some of you folks might be able to tell which ones are NPCs that we have not yet seen in any D&D medium. Might give us a clue as to what is to come.

edit: I know some of them are part of the greater setting, like Baba Yaga and Tasha.

List of Legendary Creatures in MTG: Battle for Baldurs Gate

Ok yeah I completely didn't understand that correctly. I really would have been fine with what I said, but I agree the reality of the situation is off.

Idk, a statue brought to life(stone to flesh) with wild magic is effectively a flesh golem. It can't have Minsc's memories or even part of his "soul" attached. I can't really see it being a person, closer to something like a Warforged maybe if it is suppose to be self aware, but it is in no way Minsc.

I suppose the point could be that it thinks it is Minsc so hard that it is? I'm not really buying that.

Wouldn't that imply it wouldn't have all it's memories?

You all should read the Descent into Avernus adventure and the Baldur's Gate comics: Minsc and Boo were indeed petrified somewhere around 137X D.R. (can't remember the exact date). So the ''statue'' that had supposedly been comissioned to put in Baldur's Gate for everyone to see was initially Minsc and Boo, petrified. The ''statue'' stayed there until 1480 D.R. when it was unpetrified by a wild surge. The ''statue'' has since been replaced by a real statue.

So yeah, the Minsc we'll probably meet in BG3 is the genuine article.

Sounds good to me. ^_^

If that is the case, then that is a clear retcon of previous canon lore, which of course is par for the course with WotC these days. Something from years of canon doesn't quite fit what some jackass writer/producer/game developer wants to do today, no problem. Just retcon it! To these people the FR setting is just a cash-cow and they clearly have no love or respect for it.

What was the previous situation/canon ending for Minsc? Do they have an official death/ending anywhere? I really do not know.

I've seen posts about the Minsc statue actually being him as Gt27mustang explains since early in the EA as people speculated on possible companions/cameos from previous games. I'm fine with that explanation for why Minsc & Boo are alive in the time of BG3. It isn't even a case of Larian homebrewing it in somehow. It actually works within the gameworld. If it is counter to previously established canon then yeah it is all for the $$$ but I mean can you really blame WoTC. We are talking Minsc/Boo here, possibly the single most recognized & remembered character(s) from the old series. Barring if it does directly conflict with a previously established endpoint for Minsc/Boo, personally I think it was a great way for WoTC to bring forward a fan favorite from the timeperiod of the earlier editions of d&d.

You are refering to what, Minsc's epilogue at the end of BG2? If so, personnally, I never considered it canon as it was written for a videogame. I prefer the version of WotC. It allows Minsc to be used in the FR's current timeframe. Also, I don't know about other people, but I liked the story/canon they made around Abdel Adrian, how they made him a true hero and one of the grand dukes of BG.

Am I incorrect, or wasn't Minsc developed for and had his first appearance in BG1??? Thus making the BG video game series THE canon source for Minsc.

the way i see it if a character is popular enough regardless they are dead or disintegrated, they have to find excuses or any form of method to bring them back simply because many people wants them. and TBH, i don't really mind what kind of excuses but i be happy to see Minsc and Boo again!. that's for a fact though.

but.. still no explanation on that purple halo on minsc's head?

That.

I have no clue what you are talking about. As a fan of BG1&2 (the videogames) and no futher interest in the setting used for those games, my only concern is if Minsc in BG3 will make sense/work as continuation of BG1&2.

Maybe. Pretty sure he will work/make sense in relation to the current lore written by WotC and related works (Descent into Avernus, Baldur's gate comics), since it is already know that BG3 is related/intertwined with the Descent and that Minsc, in the comics, plays a big part in that story line. My guess is they will go by that. This is what I was talking about.

I noticed an interesting trend - in MTG BG3 companions have 2 cards - 1 their own and 1 their special ability. These exist for Gale, Wyll, Lae'zel, Astarion and the Timeless Hero ranger companion. I did not notice ability cards for Shadowheart and the tiefling barbarian potential companion, but they are very likely to be the companions still. Surprisingly, female druid from previous BG games named with a J has a character and ability separate cards as well. There is also no Helia card present. Might be a sign that Helia was scrapped, but we could have 2 returning companions instead of 1...

Thanks for the heads up!!! I hope u are not right bout the Jaheira thing, though. I really want new faces in this game to party up with.

I hope it isnt.

What would be really cool is if Larian does what some other games like DA and Witcher have down, which is to include a survey for players at the start of the game asking them about some of the major choices they made in the first two BG games, so that some of that info could be factored into character, environment, and lore reactivities in BG3. For instance, if they had a question asking if your PC romanced Jaheira in BG2, then there could be some reference to that in BG3 if Jeheira is a companion who can be romanced by your BG3 PC. Something like, "Hey, you remind me of someone I was with for a brief time a century ago."

This could also go a long way to blunt criticism that BG3 is not very connected to the older games.

There is a problem and that is WotC. It is not known how much freedom Larian has in the case of canonical events.
After all, the canonical bhaalspawn was Abdel Adrian and I am betting two possibilities here, either he will be mentioned directly or the hero of the previous games will be completely left unmentioned.

In this case, Larian may have nothing to say.

I like this idea. Kind of like the beginning of PoE: Deadfire, where they ask you: ''what were your choices during the first pillars of eternity? We'll adjust according to that.''

Tricky to do though, since WotC canon lore is often quite different from our BG1/2 playthrough, and they are unlikely to want to let Larian randomly revert/subvert the lore ( WotC reserve that right for themselves ).

To be fair, many of the epilogues from the old BG games were deliberately vague, allowing you to read in what you will. For example, in BG2 the Minsc epilogue stated that he was feted as a hero in Rasheman for an undisclosed number of years before going off in search of adventure and disappearing. A few epilogues, like Keldorn's, seem to explicitely state death. And some characters, like Viconia can be dead or alive, depending on your in-game actions ( she dies in her epilogue if you romanced her ).

In the end, I think WotC will provide whatever rationale is needed for returning BG1/2 characters. After all, they have destroyed and reinstated regions, worlds and whole pantheons, seemingly at a whim, in recent years, so I imagine returning a few old BG characters, that you might expect to be dead, will be a simple matter.

Yes but I was saying to do this only for things that are personal to our games and not anything that is a part of FR lore. And furthermore, by WotC"s own statements, what happens in video games is not canon. So this would be entirely about Larian giving each of us a tiny little bit of a feeling of personalization within the game that would go a long way towards fans of the original BG games feeling like they have been taken into consideration in BG3.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect there aren't more than a few dozen players who would get anything out of this.

Those games were a long time ago. Plenty of people either never played them or completely forgot their major decisions. I doubt there are many players left who still feel connected to their old characters outside of some passing nostalgia.

I think the equivalent "previous choices" survey was quite popular in DAI, although I don't recall it making much difference while playing DAI. You could certainly do something similar in BG3 at a fairly low development cost, but I just don't think it likely that WotC would want anything that goes against the canon outcomes.

Kanisatha's suggestion of alluding to romance would be OK, because it doesn't really matter in terms of canon outcomes. For what it's worth, I do think there will eventually be a lot of links back to both the original games, and subsequent lore, but the links will likely be canon, rather than based on our previous choices.

Personally, that's fine with me, since the BG1/2 character is long gone, and was not one I had a particularly strong connection with.

If this is in any way true, and I don't believe it is, then it immediately brings back that pesky question of why even bother to call this game BG3?

People can be aware of the brand and interested in it without have played the originals. Or without remembering all the details of their original playthrough.

For instance, I played the original so many years ago that I don't remember much about the character I played. I recall some big scenes and maps and a handful of NPCs, but was I originally a wizard, a fighter, a rogue? I don't know.
Not to mention, I played more than once with different characters.

None of that changes my interest in playing BG3. I still remember the basic plot thread, and even if I didn't, it's easy to read up on and learn about in the BG3 community.

Obviously, I don't have any marketing information at hand, but I think my opinion is reasonably grounded.

It's also worth pointing out that BG1->BG2 wasn't exactly seamless. You could import your character and some gear, but the game completely ignored your BG1 playing companions.

In my first game of BG1, the only interaction I had with Minsc was for him to say "My hamster doesn't like you!" when I tried to speak to him. In fact, that particular party ended up with none of Minsc, Dynahir, Imoen, Jaheira or Khalid, yet that was the canonical party they gave you for BG2.

So, in the same spirit, I will be perfectly content to play a new character in BG3 while accepting the canonical state of the world.

Has there been a game at this point that had save ports? I can't think of a game that would do that before Mass Effect.

Frankly I don't think there was enough major decisions in BG1&2 to really demand continuity.

That said I would appreciate it. I don't think it needs to be a big feature but something like in Kotor2 - where we can express who Raven was. I don't think it has much, if any, impact on the game but is a nice touch.

This is all I was suggesting to begin with.

Well, EA content is not necessarily how the final released game will start; some of it definitely seems like placeholder content to give you a way of assembling a party. So anything is possible, even reincarnating our past TOB spirit and their exploits as part of character generation

Wizardry had this in the early 90's (specifically wizardry 6 to wizardry 7).