"I recall a 365-day tear-page calendar that had numerous discrete storylines for individual cards from the early sets" (And no, its not the one GavinVerhey has been posting, that one barely has any cards from Legends.) Most interestingly would be the entry for Elder Land Wurm in that calendar
Titan of Littjara is just that card
But if there is one consistent thing that WoTC manages to do, it is that you can be generally sure that the card designs will always attempt to be as faithful to the material as they can realistically be, mechanically and art-wise
Voltron deck strategies are plentiful in Magic: The Gathering's Commander format
Humans are easily one of most prevalent creature types in the game, with Scryfall telling us there are 3,576 of them
Diffusion Sliver is extremely important for protecting your Slivers as much as possible, and Sentinel Sliver makes Returned to the Ranks a lot easier to cast just because its white