Man, God bless Legends. I'm fairly certain that the designers threw darts to figure out the casting costs on some of these creatures. While Magic's got a handful of red knights -- 22, to be exact, six debuting before 8th / Mirrodin and five having been knighted after the Grand Creature Type Update -- the subtype's not exactly a staple of the color. In fact, since paladin was retyped as knight and ranger was eliminated (likely for soldier and scout), we don't actually know what Adun was supposed to be. He's not well sketched out, and I don't believe he's been mentioned in any Magic anthology or comic.
What we do know is that he's Aragorn. No, not kidding -- go back and read that flavor text. That ain't no shade of "Return of the King," it's trimmed from the story and wearing a new name.
Anyway, we'll run with human knight for his creature subtypes -- he's mounted and he's armed, check knight; and he doesn't look like an elf, check human. (No, seriously, that's the entirety of my criteria for human subtype -- doesn't look like an elf.)
Unfortunately, Adun's not much of a knight. He's 1/2 without any special abilities, meaning that, in combat, he's the equal of a Squire. (Ouch.) Of the 22 red knights, 19 are elite combatants. They either have flying, haste, first strike or some other combat-related ability; some are lords, meant to lead warriors or soldiers into battle. The other three are Adun; Jared of the Closed Fist, whose hefty power and toughness betray his combat prowess; or Agent of Stromgald, who are primarily spies. I suppose that, were you to put an Agent on a horse and give him or her a lance, he or she'd be a 2/2 with first strike. (Yes, they're knights without a mount. It's vexing.)
Speaking of giving a man a lance -- that's exactly what we're going to do with Adun. His green and black sides are already well represented, what with his Raise Dead ability, but his combat is lackluster. On top of that, a three-color, legendary creature deserves more than a 1/2 body; he really ought to be, at minimum, a 2/2 with first strike. Flying and flanking are out -- he's lacking enough wings for one while the other's a set mechanic -- and first strike has the flavor of a knight charging in at the head of a phalanx. It's a good fit for a man who's supposed to lead an army of dead warriors into battle.
Then we come to that ability. It's problematic, to say the least. First, we have a knight that's supposed to be leading warriors into battle, but he's got to choose between recruitment or attack. That would be OK if he had some support ability to show how he's leading his men (er, ghosts), but he doesn't. Short of rewriting the card, I can see two fixes: adding vigilance to the guy or changing his activated ability to a triggered ability. I don't like either option -- vigilance is unusual in black and red, and it would be an ability clearly tacked on to address meta concerns; making his ability trigger on combat introduces a disconnect between him leading his forces into battle and actually seeing those forces; and making it trigger on upkeep removes much of the card's flexibility. We could make his ability trigger on combat and put the creature into play and attacking, but that's a problem for two other reasons -- it totally changes the card's original role, and it's a lot like Kaalia.
Again, I'm going to make multiple versions of the card -- a straight-ahead update and then a more imaginative take.
Here, Adun's been upgraded to true knight status. His 3/2 body with first strike gives him combat chops becoming a legendary knight. His ability has been cheapened for two reasons: three colored mana's a lot for a Raise Dead, even if it its repeatable, and red has no business zombifying dudes. I get that the ability matches his casting cost, but with the new guy, 3/2 first strike is pretty red. I'll leave the black and green to the whole "warriors of the dead" concept.
There is a side effect of having Adun in this capacity, and I have mixed feelings about it: He's going to be playing defense a lot. A three-mana 3/2 with first strike is a solid wall; it holds Wild Nacatls, Kird Apes and some other undercosted beatsticks at bay. That would be fine if he were, say, a green-white-black general; unfortunately, he's red-green-black. He's supposed to be aggressive and tricky, not patient and calculating.
As far as triggered abilities go, I'm OK with this card -- and, in fact, would nominate it over the first version:
The only difference is that his ability is now triggered on him dealing combat damage to a player. It costs the same, but it encourages attacking; since it's based on combat damage, the first strike dovetails nicely (and can possibly set up some interesting combos, like returning a creature that grants Adun double-strike). I also like that his abilities become more relevant as the game progresses -- graves and mana are tighter in the early turns. The reason I don't want his ability to trigger off dealing damage to creatures is because I don't want him to be a defensive general -- again, that's more of a GWB schtick.
Of course, I'm a huge fan of playable flavor -- that is, good cards that make sense and have a theme -- and I'd much rather see something interesting in a rare legend than something that's more of a strung-together set of color-pie-filling mechanics.
And here's what I like the most. First, to pay for the better ability, Adun's going to lose a point of power, dropping him to 2/2. I'm dropping first strike because the card's already full of words; he's still better than a Squire, at least (and, in an odd way, it's a bit of an homage to the original's unusually lacking knightly abilities). His new ability triggers on him attacking and puts a knight, soldier or warrior card into play, tapped and attacking. Sure, it's shades of Kaalia, but the flavor here is much more organic -- Kaalia is making deals or enslaving her "allies," but it's not shown what resources she's spending. In a lot of ways, she's acting like a planeswalker, but there's no good explanation of how she both cheats the mana costs on her fat and why her ability is tied to your hand. She's a neat card, but there's a lot of handwaving going on regarding how she works within the setting. By contrast, Adun is resurrecting the spirits of renowned heroes (ie, the ones you've already used this game) by simply going to war. His story makes sense within the context of the game and it fits within the world. Ideally, you could write a short story about your game with Adun; it's difficult to do that with Kaalia. It's a subtle point, and on its own, I don't think it'd be enough to squeak by.
That's why he's also a spirit lord, and the creatures he brings back are spirits. Not only does the combination of that and his resurrection ability imply his leadership, but it also makes those 2/2s much more impressive. A quick search on Gatherer reveals that there are plenty of eligible creatures to make this general EDH-playable.
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