The Circle of Loyalty

Artifact Cycle Explanation

Hello Mark, may I ask why The Circle of Loyalty is a bit disconnected from the rest of the legendary artifact cycle from Throne of Eldraine? While all of the other artifacts need to do something common to their color, the White one needs you to control Knights. It feels way more restricted compared to any of the others.

It was a top-down knights round table.

Artifacts Colors Knight The Circle of Loyalty Throne of Eldraine Throne of Eldraine Top Down White

Flavorful Interaction Miss

During design, was there any time in design when someone wanted to allow Tournament Grounds tap for white when casting The Circle of Loyalty? (Yes, I'm in the middle of a match on Arena where it is messing me up). It just feels like it flavorfully sjould work

To limit rules text length, we have to shorthand things which means the occasional flavorful interaction falls through the cracks.

Flavor Magic Arena Rules Tap / Untap The Circle of Loyalty Tournament Grounds White

Arthurian Legends in Magic

Hey Mark, so the Circle of Loyalty is I assume Arthur's Round Table, the Magic Mirror is the Magic Mirror, the Cauldron of Eternity is the Holy Grail, Embercleave is Excalibur, but what's the Great Henge? Stonehenge doesn't make much sense to me but it's the only thing I can think of

It’s Stone Henge. It plays a small role in some old Arthurian tales and is implied to have magical properties.

Embercleave The Cauldron of Eternity The Circle of Loyalty The Great Henge The Magic Mirror

Circle of Loyalty Art

It sounds like The Circle of Loyalty ended up with art which didn't match the design or flavor of the card. Instead of a flavorful Round Table card, we got something which looks like an enchantment from a distance and has very confusing flavor. Do you have any plans to stop this from happening in the future?

I’m passed along the note about Circle of Loyalty to the creative team as it’s fundamentally a card concepting note. It’s similar to you pointing out a misprinted card and ask what I’m going to do about it. It’s downstream of me (meaning it happens after I’m no longer daily involved with the set), so all I can do is make sure those responsible for fixing the issue are aware of it.

Art Card Printing Enchantments Flavor The Circle of Loyalty

Artifact Representation

While I get why The Circle of Loyalty was designed to be an artifact since it is modeled off of The Round Table, I think the issue is that doesn't really come through in art. The art just makes it looks like a magic circle and not an artificial one.

That’s an issue with the card concerting, not the card design.

Art Artifacts The Circle of Loyalty

Artifact/Enchantment Flavor

On the whole artifact/enchantment distinction discussion, I hope I'm not too late to get heard. I think what might be getting people is that there are already flavor overlaps in addition to mechanical ones. "The Circle of Loyalty" seems much more of an enchantment flavorfully (a big magical blue symbol enchanted on the ground) but its an artifact because it taps i guess? But youve been saying that mechanics dont matter here. So if 1 set in we are struggling with flavor distinctions...

The Circle of Loyalty was The Round Table in design. It was quite artifact-y.

Artifacts Blue Enchantments Flavor Mechanics The Circle of Loyalty

Circle of Loyalty Nature

The Circle of Loyalty seems more like an enchantment to me. Why make it an artifact (minus the fact that is has a tap ability)?

It’s circular and knights pledge loyalty around it. Remind you of anything? : )Also, it’s a magical object and not just a mystical force.

Artifacts Enchantments Knight Tap / Untap The Circle of Loyalty

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