Retrospectives, part 7: Homelands
October 23rd 2010 23:20
“Finally, I understand. Home isn’t where you rest. It’s what you fight for.”
-- Elspeth Tirel
If you started playing in the last ten years or so, you have probably heard of Homelands, despite its antiquity. It is widely considered the weakest set in the history of Magic – in the early days of Standard, there was a rule that you had to include at least one card from every set legal in the format, which was made largely because Homelands was well below the power level of the rest of the format. It has become a by-word for underpowered cards and poor design, with Mark Rosewater going so far as to cite it as one of the game’s greatest mistakes.
But if you started playing in the decade before that, especially around the time of Homelands’ release in 1995, your view of it may be a lot less negative. Its mechanical weakness was nowhere near as pronounced as it is now, given the much smaller card pool and relative unpopularity of organized play. At the time, many players were content to appreciate the storyline, the artwork, and the characters shown in the cards. And the fact remains that even if Standard players hadn’t been forced to play with Homelands, the cards they chose probably would have seen play anyway. Ihsan’s Shade was nearly unkillable in that era, Eron the Relentless and Autumn Willow were (and technically still are) efficiently costed, and Serrated Arrows bent the color pie in much the same was as Nevinyrral’s Disk did.
And no matter when you started playing, you can easily see the problems in Rosewater criticizing Homelands (and other early sets) for their flavor-based design, then, albeit a few years later, writing a State of Design article where he praises flavor-based design and talks about the need to bring “resonance” to expansion sets. I have to state up front that there is nothing wrong with changing his position per se – Magic lives and dies by the fans who appreciate Autumn Willow and Malfegor more than those who chase after Force of Will and Umezawa’s Jitte. But if Wizards of the Coast’s position has changed, then it’s time to make that position consistent, to rehabilitate the early expansions. Sometimes, you can go home again.
-- Elspeth Tirel
If you started playing in the last ten years or so, you have probably heard of Homelands, despite its antiquity. It is widely considered the weakest set in the history of Magic – in the early days of Standard, there was a rule that you had to include at least one card from every set legal in the format, which was made largely because Homelands was well below the power level of the rest of the format. It has become a by-word for underpowered cards and poor design, with Mark Rosewater going so far as to cite it as one of the game’s greatest mistakes.
But if you started playing in the decade before that, especially around the time of Homelands’ release in 1995, your view of it may be a lot less negative. Its mechanical weakness was nowhere near as pronounced as it is now, given the much smaller card pool and relative unpopularity of organized play. At the time, many players were content to appreciate the storyline, the artwork, and the characters shown in the cards. And the fact remains that even if Standard players hadn’t been forced to play with Homelands, the cards they chose probably would have seen play anyway. Ihsan’s Shade was nearly unkillable in that era, Eron the Relentless and Autumn Willow were (and technically still are) efficiently costed, and Serrated Arrows bent the color pie in much the same was as Nevinyrral’s Disk did.
And no matter when you started playing, you can easily see the problems in Rosewater criticizing Homelands (and other early sets) for their flavor-based design, then, albeit a few years later, writing a State of Design article where he praises flavor-based design and talks about the need to bring “resonance” to expansion sets. I have to state up front that there is nothing wrong with changing his position per se – Magic lives and dies by the fans who appreciate Autumn Willow and Malfegor more than those who chase after Force of Will and Umezawa’s Jitte. But if Wizards of the Coast’s position has changed, then it’s time to make that position consistent, to rehabilitate the early expansions. Sometimes, you can go home again.
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