Alrighty, today I’m checking out the final gal in Funko’s Magic The Gathering Legacy line. The first two figures, Chandra and Nissa, not only impressed me, but they’ve put almost all my fears to rest about quality issues in the Legacy Collection Firefly and Rocketeer figures that were shown off at Toy Fair this week. Hell, at this rate I may even take my chances with some more of their Game of Thrones figures. But today we’re here to talk about Liliana Vess, so let’s do it!

We’ve already seen the packaging for this line twice, so I won’t dwell on it much more. I like it a lot as it identifies the figure on the side of the box, shows off the goods inside pretty well, and is totally collector friendly. Once again, I will humbly suggest that putting character bios on the boxes would have been a nice idea. I can’t be the only one buying these figures who knows nothing about MTG. Or maybe I am. Either way, a consultation with Wizards of the Coast told me a little bit about our gal Lil. Apparently she’s a century old Necromancer, charismatic, charming, and witty and likes making deals with demons. Wooo hooo.. witch-ay woman… let’s see how high she flies.

And there she is in all her dark beauty. As great as the other two figures were, I’d say straightaway that Liliana is the most impressive at first sight, mainly because of the tattoo scroll work that is etched all over her visible skin. It’s not only a very cool design for the character, but it’s implemented very well on the figure. Ms. Vess’ mostly purple outfit has a bit of a gypsy flavor to me. She’s got a flowing skirt that’s slit up the side so we can see a little leg, and a top that exposes her midriff, (wow, Wizards of the Coast love their bare midriffs!) and a sash over her left shoulder that hooks at the back of her skirt and connects to each of her sleeves at the wrist. She’s also wearing greaves, which are painted with a metallic purple and a gold ram’s horn style tiara.

The portrait here is more complex than what we’ve seen with Chandra and Nissa. Besides the scroll work tatts on her face, Lil is the first of these ladies to have pupils in her eyes and they’re painted nice and straight. The paint used for her lips and eye brows is also crisp and expertly applied. I actually get a little Marina Sirtis vibe off of her,which ain’t a bad thing. After three figures, it’s safe to say that the guys at Funko (or in this case Gentle Giant) know how to craft a pretty female portrait in this scale.

Lilian’s articulation is identical to what we saw with Nissa, but I’ll run through it anyway. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps and hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed with swivels at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have rotating swivels and lateral rockers in the ankles. She has a ball joint just under her chest and another in her neck. Once again, I had absolutely no troubles with frozen joints or breakage, although it’s worth noting that Lil’s magnificent mane of hair hinders her neck articulation.

If Liliana has a downside, it’s her total lack of accessories. So far none of the ladies in this line have been over-encumbered with extra goodies, but Nissa’s staff was nice and at least they threw in a fireball with Chandra. Some magic effect parts would have gone a long way to make this feel like a more complete package. I suppose you could argue that Lil’s costume is a bit more complex and uses more plastic than the other two. Either way, it’s not a deal breaker for me.

Well, that’s it for the three figures that I picked up from this line, but if you’ve liked what you’ve seen then fear not, I’ve already ordered the rest of the wave so there will be more Magic The Gathering to come. I mentioned at the start of these Features that I got these three figures for a deal, around $11 each, but I would have been pretty happy even if I had shelled out full retail. Indeed, two of the remaining figures ran me a lot closer to retail and I have no worries. If Funko can keep showing the improvements they’ve been making in the Legacy line, I look forward to having a lot more of these figures on my shelves. In fact, with how proficient they are at grabbing up licenses, I’m rather excited to see what the future holds for this line.