Mitos y Leyendas (lit: Myths and Legends) is a Chilean trading card game, launched in the year 2000 by Salo. Gameplay-wise, the game is heavily based on Magic: The Gathering, pretty much like most collectable Trading Card games, but there are three points that made this game remarkable. First one is the art, featuring Chilean illustrators such as Mauricio Herrera
and Genzoman. The second is that it features characters and elements from legends, mythology and history around the world; since it was (originally) produced for Latin America, it included a lot of folklore and legends from Latin America that are rarely seen anywhere else. Having a card based on San Martín is something you don't see everyday!
The third point is the gameplay itself. The game has 5 types of cards:
- Allies, aka. characters with which you can attack your opponent's deck or block your opponent's attacks to your own deck.
- Totems, cards with continuous effects that stay active as long as they're on the battlefield.
- Talismans, cards with one-use effects, going straight to the cemetery once they're activated.
- Weapons, equip cards that can be wielded by Allies. Generally give Strength bonuses, but they can also have effects.
- Gold, cards required to play other cards. You have to pay the cost of an Ally, Totem or Talisman in your hand to play it (unless they have an special ability that indicates otherwise).
The objective is to destroy the opponent's Castle Deck — that is, to reduce the amount of cards in their deck (either by attacking it with Allies or otherwise sending their cards to the Cemetery, Exile or... not the deck) until it has no more left. In short, the number of cards in your deck is Mitos y Leyendas's equivalent of Hit Points.
Since the game was produced with the Spanish-speaking market in mind (and not globally like Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic: The Gatheringnote ), due to this and problems with how Salo managed their other properties and album prizes, the company who produced the TCG went into bankruptcy in 2009, leaving the game on "undefined hiatus". A Deviantart page meant to compile the artwork from the game was created in the meantime.
In 2014, Klu! and Fenix Entertainment launched the new edition "Furia", thus bringing the game back to life, with more than 15 new editions being released since. Only catch? They're uncompatible with previous versions of the game (down to having new versions of characters previously appearing pre-discontinuation), and, for the time being, only sold in Chile. You can find the Mitos y Leyendas official website here, and its official social media accounts here (Facebook) and here (Instagram).
In late 2018, a free-to-play online version of the game was announced under the title Myths and Legends Online for Steam. The game will be available for free in English and Spanish. A closed alpha of the game (available for people who got a code from the physical Legendary Collections) was released in May 30th, 2019, with an official teaser being released the day before. It also has an official website and Facebook page.
The Steam version is currently in open alpha and available to the public, but still suffers from some glitches, untranslated text and lag due to its unfinished state.
Compare with Mampato, another popular Chilean work that focuses heavily on world history and mythology with educational purposes.
This game provide examples of:
- Ancient Grome: Averted. Greece and Rome have gotten separate editions in both runs: Helénica (Greece) and Imperio (Rome) in the original run, and Àguila Imperial (Rome) and Olimpia (Greece) in the post-hiatus run.
- Alice Allusion: Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland appears in the "Alicia" card.
- Art Evolution: Compare the very first edition ("El Reto") to the ones that came after. The individual styles of the illustrators evolved throughout the years, generally becoming more realistic and diverse. This is also true of the post-revival Klu! editions, which (along with the returning illustrators) has a lot of new artists whose styles are more realistic and painting-like. This is particularly noticeable in new versions of old cards.
- Badass Normal: Taken up to eleven by the Heroes and Crusades sets. Ship captains like Arturo Prat and people like Saladin are put on the same power tier as frickin' Zeus and Apophis.
- Badass Santa: Father Christmas himself has appeared on quite a few different cards, along with a handful of other similarly themed holiday entities like his workshop elves. Speaking of which...
- Christmas Elves: These guys also appear as well in cards such as Elfos Navidenos alongside Santa and other Christmas themed artworks.
- Collectible Card Game: One of the most prominent coming from Latin America.
- Content Warnings: The Steam version of the game has a brief warning from the devs that some artwork may be considered inappropriate in other countries due to occasional nudity, including a few bare breasts and nipples.
- Creator Provincialism: While the game deals with all kinds of cultures, there's some focus on Latin American and especially Chilean culture, up to and including an edition entirely focused on Chilean historic figures.
- Culture Chop Suey: The premise of the game is to feature characters and history figures of all places and cultures around the world, with a lot of emphasis placed on education.
- Depending on the Artist: The art style, while cohesive, varies wildly, even between cards of the same edition featuring the same characters (compare the various cards featuring Thor, for example). This is deliberate, as one of the main purposes of the game is to showcase Chilean illustration, thus making the illustrators' different styles easily distinguishable.
- Everything's Better with Samurai: Editions Espíritu de Dragón (original run) and Bushido (new run) heavily feature Japanese culture, including samurai.
- Expansion Pack: Some editions got expansions, such as Cruzadas for Espada Sagrada, Sol Naciente for Bushido, and Midgard for Asgard.
- Extrinsic Go-First Rule: The instructions themselves tell players to decide who plays first for whatever external means they choose (throwing a coin, rock-paper-scissors, etc.).
- Fairy Sexy: Far too many to list. If any sort of fairy, pixie or other fae shows up in the art of a card you can bet they'll be female, attractive and pretty light on clothing at least 90% of the time.
- Fanservice: Goes much further than either Yu-Gi-Oh! or Magic: The Gathering with its attractive character designs. Expect lots of buff shirtless men and ladies in skimpy clothes to appear fairly regularly. The online PVP Steam version of the game even comes with a brief warning that the artwork may be considered a bit mature in some countries.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Dragons, vampires, pirates, samurai, fairies, demons, wizards, warriors, knights, gods...
- Gothic Horror The second edition — appropriately titled "Gothic World" — has this theme, featuring vampires, werewolves, hunters, etc.
- Historical Beauty Update: While guidelines are given to the artists for cultural/historical accuracy, sometimes the artists take... liberties. Some of Genzoman's illustrations (especially in "Héroes de Chile") are pretty egregious examples.
- Hit Points: A variation where it's the number of cards in your deck (named Castle Deck). If your deck runs out of cards, you lose the game.
- Knight Templar: the edition crusade featured many historycal templars and a templar card on itself.
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Licensed Game: Myths And Legends Online, which is still in production. - Nipple and Dimed: Notably averted (likely due to the game originating in Chile) with artwork featuring plenty of nude and nearly nude artwork from both men and women, including quite a few bare chests and nipples.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The game features dragons of different cultures, and thus different forms and shapes.
- Power Creep: Matches got shorter with every new edition.
- Shout-Out: Some of the characters featured in the game come from literature. The Steampunk edition in particular features Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Peter Pan, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Fu Manchu, C. Auguste Dupin, The Horla, King Solomon's Mines and the Cthulhu Mythos — and even features Real Life figures such as Helena Blavatsky and Ada Lovelace.
- Steampunk: The Steampunk edition.
- The Movie: Made in 2010 based on this game and starring Chilean martial artist Marko Zaror (Undisputed III, Kiltro, Mirageman) as part of the cast. It wasn't a good idea, by the way.
- Tournament Play: Tournaments of the game are played in various places in Chile to this day, including periodic official national leagues.
