Homelands

Template:Expansion Nonblock Homelands, released in 1995, is the seventh Magic expansion. It was the second expansion of Ice Age block until July 2006, when it was replaced by Coldsnap in this role. The mechanics found throughout the Ice Age block, such as Snow lands and Cumulative Upkeep, were absent from Homelands. This and the fact that it didn't follow the Ice Age block storyline made it a poor fit in its former block. It was sold in 8-card booster packs, each bearing the same image.

Mechanics and Themes

Homelands introduced no new mechanics to the game. It had a number of themes, including a large number of real-world creature types, clockwork artifact creatures, Legendary creatures, and a number of "tribal" effects that enhanced only one creature type.

Homelands explored popular characters including Sengir and Serra and had a strong flavor, meaning that the cards were designed to fill specific roles. The flavor text on the cards can also be used to piece together parts of a story.

Notable Cards

Serrated Arrows saw tournament play not only as a result of the high prevalence of cards like Order of the Ebon Hand in Standard at the time, but also because of a short-lived rule requiring constructed tournament decks to include at least five cards from each legal set.

Merchant Scroll, reprinted in Eighth Edition, is a blue tutor card that remains a passable card in many formats.

Ihsan's Shade is among the iconic and flavorful legendary creatures of the set. Others include Autumn Willow, Eron the Relentless, and Baron Sengir.

Design & Development

Homelands was developed, as many of the earlier sets were, without much comunication between designers of various sets. It was devloped with a flavor-first design philosophy, which, along with its separate story line, resulted in its stark difference from the Ice Age and Alliances expansions to which it was related in time. This flavor-first design also led to oddities in abilities. For example, many abilities were found in colors that normally do not recieve them, such as flying in green or vigilance and trample in black, although this philosophy was not as developed in 1995 as it is today. Mark Rosewater wrote that "Homelands was a poorly designed set"[1].

Cycles

Homelands has one cycle:

• Tri-color land cycle: Aysen Abbey, Wizards' School, Castle Sengir, Koskun Keep, and An-Havva Township are each uncommon lands with "T: add 1 to your mana pool. 1,T: Add C to your mana pool. 2,T: Add D or E to your mana pool." where D and E are the allied colors of C.

Creature Types

Homelands, like many early expansions, has many creature types that are unique to the creatures they are found on. Many of these are real-world animals and types of people, grounding this expansion more in the real world than other expansions.

There are a few cards in this expansion that reference specific creature types, but most of these are not well supported, often with only one creature in this expansion with the referenced creature type. Those that are referenced are Dwarf, Faerie, Falcon (later changed to Bird), Hero, Minotaur, and Vampire. The best supported creature types were Minotaurs Dwarves, and Faeries.

The following creature types are introduced in this expansion: Albatross, Alchemist, Ambush Party, Autocrat (later changed to Human), Badger, Bureaucrat, Caravan, Carriage, Constable, Crusader, Ferret, Folk of An-Havva (later changed to Townsfolk), Hound, Inquisitor, Lizard, Mist, Narwhal, Noble, Oyster, Pony, and Speaker.

The following creature types are used in this expansion but also appear in previous sets: Bat, Bear, Bodyguard (later changed to Minotaur), Cleric, Dwarf, Faerie, Falcon (later changed to Bird), Fiend, Gargoyle, Ghost, Hero, Lycanthrope, Minotaur, Paladin, Serpent, Ship, Spider, Troll, and Wolf.

Points of Interest

• Prophecy, Jinx, Headstone, and Renewal almost form a cycle of common cantrip spells, except there is no red cantrip spell in Homelands.

• Serra Aviary, Mystic Decree, and Koskun Falls are the only three World enchantments in Homelands.

Outside Links

• Official product page