Wow, memories... Just to add a perspective, "cringe" is all I felt in regards to the "advertisement" played at the beginning of this episode, as well as all of the ads produced by WotC at that time. I don't know exactly why the Production department at WotC was not considered as a resource when creating a team to produce those things (other than being way to busy with something else I presume) but I (Anson M), Sandra Everingham, Daniel Gelon, Jesper Myrfors, Tom Wanerstrand, Chris Rush and other were certainly available for input. Regardless of the fact that I would have shot the whole thing down if I could have with "aah, no, that is not something we could make look good with anything other than brilliant directing and cinematography, essentially misdirection and "less is more". After we got back to the office in Renton, having just returned from the New York event you mentioned, Jesper knew how badly I reacted with my first impression of the Minotaur costume so (as usual) he turned it into a comedy campaign, often sneaking up behind me while I sat at my desk working, he would go.. ".....ah....aHEMmm !! AAAaarrRROOOOOOOOOooooooo!!!!!!" ... which was the sound the minotaur-wearing, hired talent would make every couple of minutes at the event, his voice muffled as if he were inside of an oversized, as you say, Paper Mache head. The "ahem" at the beginning was the "minotaur" clearing his throat as if it were a professional vocalist who was about to honor the listeners. Before the ads were made, many of the other departments were expressing feelings of being unfulfilled, artistically, and wanted to be included on some of the fun elements that were coming up. Marketing, customer relations, R and D, the Duelist Convocation, just about every department other than Production might have a chance to put their own spin on something. I probably shouldn't have included R and D with the others, R and D could have made some brilliant contributions, as long as marketing deemed it worthy. While I had no idea that it was being made, I think that another artist could possibly have made an incredible minotaur costume, there just isn't any way that it could have been worn and enacted realistically. Anyway, in the future, if I listen to one of your episodes while I am working, I will have to keep in mind that I may get farther behind when I hear something that I have to comment on. Keep up the great work you two, Oh and Cedrick, when Mark Tedin, Andi Rusu and myself went to the Essen toy fair for the first time in the early 90's, Mark and Andi both had bought new shoes for the trip, anticipating all of the walking we were probably going to do and both of them suffered horribly for the decision from numerous friction blisters that ....well, you can imagine, and if not, I have pictures. so thanks for letting me rant! -Anson

highlight of the episode: Cedric Phillips discovering that leeches still exist in the real world

LoadingReadyRun did a podcast of “awful MTG ideas” and Graham suggested “Homelands Remastered” which would be a 5-card secret lair “to really pare it down to the best cards in Homelands”

Maybe you should be called the Rewatchables considering how many times I rewatch these vids.

"There are no falcons, Baron Sengir killed them all" I laughed way too hard at this. I love ya'lls sense of humor.

Woah, that magic comic book fully arted by Rebecca Guay is amaaaaazing. I need to find a copy of that.

I don't know why but Cedric asking "are leeches still out there in the world?" has me dying 😂

Eight months without a set now would be a godsend.

The start of this episode was a treat

That "no it didn't" might be my favorite line from the series so far! Had to pause the video cause I was living so hard.

Love this episode and the flavor of Homelands! Fun fact (or additional trivia): Some of the artworks for the commons with two versions form a panorama when aligned next to each other, for example Dark Maze (by Rob Alexander) and Trade Caravan (by Kaja Foglio). I stitched both of these together using photo editing software, and they look so cool when combined.

Cedric asking if leeches still exist killed me

Serra's storyline in the Homelands comic is absolutely amazing. She basically did a Padme before Padme. She lived through Homelands, which scarred her so much that in the epilogue, she lost her will to live and when attacked, she just decided to die instead of easily saving herself.

The art of Homelands is amazing. A few friends and I a couple years ago had a project where we took Modern staples and paired them with art on unplayable cards in the original frame. Homelands was a great resource for art.

That opening intro was great. Seeing the old 90s commercials brought to a modern audience is a delight.

Today (the day after this video dropped), I played a Modern RCQ, in which I played Boros Burn. I have always been a Red player, going all the way back to the beginning of my FNM days, back in Tempest Block. I sat near to another player in the tournament who was also playing Boros Burn, and he had a deck full of signed cards and old cards. I commented on how much I liked his deck, and he showed it to me after the match. He had 2 Arabian Nights Mountains in that deck which were signed by the artist, and he then mentioned that they were also signed by Patrick Sullivan, asking if I knew who that was. I have been loving your videos since I became aware of them when you reviewed Fallen Empires, and I mentioned that to him. I also have a tremendous affinity for Arabian Nights Mountains, having about 10 of them in my pet deck,

1:51:41 lol Small moments like this is what made your SCG coverage so good

Homelands had amazing flavour. I wish WOTC would go back and explore the plane once again. I love that ad showcasing some of the most unimpressive lands ever printed

the one no one was waiting for, but we're here, and let's go can't wait to see this.

Aether Storm was never great, but it was errata'd to work slightly differently than it did when it was printed. The colored creatures of the time had "Summon X" on the type line, but artifact creatures just had "Artifact Creature", so everyone could still cast artifact creatures with an Aether Storm on the battlefield.

The worst part of the End of Combat step is that there's almost no functional difference between it and the Combat Damage step, especially now that combat damage doesn't use the stack. The only issue is when first strike creates an additional damage step.

Just airing the old short makes this worthy of a thumbs up. But sadly, that's the highlight of this set -- a natural '2' if there ever was one. Time to watch the whole video and see if you agree!

Homelands was one of my favourite card sets. I love the sets that feel like the cards all fit together, both with the lore of the game and with the game play. Too many people play the game to win at all costs, so they only look for the best and broken cards in the set. Homelands had some cards that were good, but not broken, and fun to play with. Even years after the set, I was looking for more cards to drop into my minotaur deck, vampires for the Baron Sengir deck, or new ways to use Autumn Willow against blue and black decks. This and Fallen Empires were fantastic for this kind of play. Too bad they don't make expansion sets that feel like Homelands anymore.

Joven's Ferrets was the card to have. It was not good, but I had a ferret as a kid and loved the card.

Gosh, the "Homelands" comic painted by Rebecca Guay is looking fantastic, I wish I owned a physical copy. The lines, the colors, truly spectacular. Great that they got the artist on board from Alliances onward to illustrate so many cards.

I really enjoyed this episode. As someone who started playing Magic during Ice Age when I was a little kid, I especially enjoyed the deep dive into the lore, your enthusiasm for the worldbuilding and storytelling made it really fun to go down memory lane. I still remember opening Baron Sengir and just being blown away by him, even if he was really not good as a game piece. He just seemed so iconic and cool.

I watched a pack wars of homelands at the Dragon's Maze Prerelease. Veldrane's activated ability was the only way damage got done.

The comic excerpts in the video make it sound like that is the source for all the lore, but there is also a "Planeswalker's Guide to Ulgrotha" out there that has lore for every single card! For example, Faerie Noble has this little story: "There is supposedly a Noble who has taken the River Bridge for his own, and will let anyone cross who does not bear the anger of the Autumn Willow. At a single command the faeries and sprites will drive any invaders from the River Bridge into the rushing waters and thus to their deaths. The Noble is the spitting image of Veldrane, the Baron's Vassal, a joke created by the Autumn Willow. Nothing could be more disconcerting than being attacked by a host of faeries, led by a six inch high replica of yourself shouting orders."

You forgot to mention the MASSIVE print run. Compare all you want to The Dark, but Homelands was so overprinted I was buying boxes for $10. It’s one thing to fail and we quickly brush it aside, it’s another when we see it on a shelf for three years.

Played against Richard Garfield and MaRo at a Worlds in 2008, can confirm, it was just a line. Side note, Richard was crazy fun to play against because he had a deck completely made of doodled blank cards that did extremely mechanically broken things, like putting opponent's cards in your hand.

I am a college student and greatly wish yall could co-teach a class. The way Cedric presents information (especially the little additions/clarifications while reading the story) and patrick expounds on it is a joy to listen to and is so easy to learn from

I never had enough magic-playing friends to mess with Emperor or Star as a kid, but man I wanted to. I remember at one point building decks for each "seat" for Star just to see what it would look like, I had totally forgotten about that. Thanks for the nostalgia hit, Patrick!

1. Jeegus! Discussing Shandalar while wearing that shirt Cedric.... 2. Essen is only really important IMO for Spiel des Jahres. 3. Ravi and the Baron are still among my favorite characters in MTG. Too bad she's desparked now, but maybe we'll get to visit Ulgrotha in a playable set one day.

The card Prophecy reminds me of my favorite trivia question to ask friends and new acquaintances: how many Magic sets share their name with cards? For example, Urza's Saga, Prophecy, Conflux, etc.

Yeah Brian David Marshall (think I spelled his name right) Was the organizer and God Father of Magic in NYC in the 90's. I believe he owned Nuetral Grounds, The one stop shop for MTG Products in Manhattan, NY. He was always in his office and came out to play when the older players arrived. I was probably 14-15 years old at the time (Mirage - Tempest Block Years)

I remember that the rules of Type 2 for a brief time were that you had to have at least 5 cards from every legal set in your deck. People struggled to find cards that were playable from Homelands. Serrated Arrows was the one card most people chose. It was really good against the "pump-knights" of the time like Knight of Stromgald.

I love Patrick's take on the commander award. I played a ton of low power multi-player games of magic in the late 90s and early 2000s. Just 6 people sitting around a table with 60 card decks with no format to speak of. Emperor or star just required too much work, lol. That's where a lot of my experience with these old cards comes from. I'd much rather hear him come from that space than to think about commander when he doesn't play it much.

Peak 90's intro. Love it

I’ve been calling for a Shandalar remake for years. It’s totally available as vapoware. I have and play it all the time. Only place you can play 4x Contract from Below!!

I have been absolutely loving this series. I still go back to old coverage from SCG Tour tournaments because I love the way Cedric and Patrick play off each other, and the chemistry is top notch here. I started playing shortly after Tempest - that was the first block I remember, and I remember playing the Urza’s Saga prelease. I know we have a ways to go, but can’t wait to get to Mirage block and beyond episodes, as that was my early adulthood in college.

I love this series! Really hope you guys keep rolling. Things are about to get really good soon, and powerful.

Been waiting for a new one! Needs to be weekly series! Thank you so much for these.

I think our first booster box was of Homelands. We played limited with it. The set was kinda sucky, but man, what awesome memories!

The card Arena is not rancid! It does a lot of work in old school singleton! truly.

Just about the Lord's in alpha, there was no 4 of restriction when Alpha released...I think the idea WAS to get someone making a deck that was just Lords of Atlantis and as many Merfolk of the Pearl Trident as they could trade for...they never even knew the game would be a successful of any new Goblins or Merfolk would ever come out.

this was such a great episode! are yall gonna be doing the tournament reviews again once we get to the era of OP?

Awesome episode, made me like the set a lot more! However, as a tribal lover, strong disagree with the creature type update - i think it allows a lot more freedom for unusual choices for edh which is, in reality, the only place these cards will ever be played with nowadays.

Homelands was the first new set to release after I started playing, and the first set I completed. It was never part of Ice Age block, because blocks didn’t exist at the time it released, or until years later when Mirage “block” got its third set. Ice Age getting a reprint of Icy Manipulator was huge in my area, where nearly nobody had it. Fallen Empires was also a draft staple in our area for years, and Homelands was nice and easy to mix in being also 8 card packs and relatively inexpensive. (Still not much help in finding more goblins to go with Goblin Grenades or Goblin Warrens though.)

okay now it makes sense that grandmother sengir is a human wizard rather than a vampire

Honestly, Homelands would be fun for them to go back to and expand on again. I realize its still just Dominaria, but this particular region and story would be awesome to return to.

Blocks didn't exist when Homelands was released. Mirage was the first block. Ice Age became a block retroactively.

1:33:30 if the actual cards are so counter to what is expected, does that open the door enough for updates in new sets? Or is darksteel tabernacle and pro black / robot abyss enough of a meta to keep their design intact? ETA - tabernacle was changed to sacrifice, then changed back

19:42 I very much remember the Acclaim Mortal Kombat comics. Those were awesome

Vorthos update on Baron sengir: at the eve of the great mending (aka the end of the future sight block story) the baron himself is last seen entering the dwarven portal at the head of a massive vampire army led by his ihsan shade. As of today the barony is held by grandmother ravi sengir (as seen in invasion of ulghrotha in march of the machine)

with the recent flattening of Viashino and Naga into Lizard and Snake, i understand patrick's dislike of the creature type updates more than i used to

What did I use my 13th birthday (late October) money on? A box of Homelands!!! Yeah boy!

Somewhere out there on Internet land was once an updated version of Shandalar, it was modded to include tons of new cards, I cannot seem to find the link anymore though.

Little known fact: Joven’s Ferrets was an homage to the set’s lead designer, which was actually just a bunch of ferrets in a trench coat disguised as a human that somehow got past HR.

EMPEROR!!!! love this podcast- I got a family of 5 that all play mtg- we are always looking for a 6th person to be the right flank!!!

Can we just do Shandalar on mobile and charge $10 for it upfront?

Great ep! For best limited card, it might be Roots, Broken Visage, or believe it or not Leaping Lizard. I mean compare it with any other flier in the set. It owned the skies!!!

Those HarperPrism books were foundational to my 12 year old self. Greensleeves was my jam.

We could go eight months without a set now, no problem. I'm still needing Kamigawa and Brother's War and would like to touch up some other sets.

LOVED you guys talking about the lore here, made me laugh so many times "That's the just the floor settling" 😂

I love the shoutout for Hungry Mist. One of my absolute favorites. Unfortunately, the 2 toughness means the one place it could shine (Fallen Empires/Homelands 40), it just dies to aeolipile which is a 4x in every single deck. Torture and Dry Spell are both pretty useful cards as well, and Aysen Crusader with modern errata can be a monster. The power level here isn't high but Prophecy isn't near the top5 in the set.

Booster Tutor says it best "real men use Homelands"

Can't wait for the next episode on Alliances!

How many cards were affected by the creature type update?

Production is through the roof on this one guys, awesome work! Love that opening vid of that _ancient_ promo. Very early star trek-y feel to it.😂

I also quite enjoyed Cedric reading out the lore. In this set especially, I feel like without knowing the backstory, everything in the set makes very little sense.

Another great episode guys

I love Autumn Willow.

re: plainswalk, it makes sense that if a creature is especially agile or fast, it would have plainswalk, as it can manuver around other creatures, stopping them from blocking it, similar to flying

@58:00 I would have said "He's playing chess while the others are playing Wyvern" LOL

The very first pack of MtG I ever opened was a Homelands booster. The rare was the An-Zerrin Ruins, not a bad card tbh. There's no place like Homelands . . . 🌳🐴🌹

It does connect to the Ice Age story line. It's fast forwarding 600 years later, when they rediscover the ravaged world.

2:14:55 at my LGS, the only choices were Fallen Empires, Homelands, and Ice Age for the longest time.

Why do Joven's Ferrets need to do anything specifically with artifacts? I'm pretty sure the flavor here is that they help him do his job by serving as a distraction. Sure, at 1 power they're not actually very dangerous... but if you decide to try and catch them (blocking) you'll find the little critters surprisingly resilient (the toughness boost) and ultimately should you survive the scuffle, no matter how handily you beat them in combat you'll still be out of commission for a while afterward (block trigger forcibly taps and skips untapping for a turn) and who knows what might disappear in that time. A mox, your life total, your sanity, personal relationships, mana to pay for stasis... the list goes on.

Honorable Mention to Arena of the Ancients for 'expansion hosers'.

Shandalar is absolutely the pinnacle of digital M:tG, and has never been matched.

Another great episode of the podcast. Honesty, you sold me on the lore of this set being cool. Definitely made me much more interested. Quick question though. Are you no longer showing the cumulative rankings of every set or was it just not included for this one?

Driving to the rugby, got this on blast to make the drive go smooth

So i won a pioneer locals event tonight. Picked up Baron Sengir because of this episode.

As a vorthos love getting a nice juicy lore section, Baron Sengir really was just Nicol Bolas before Bolas was an actual fleshed out character. I hope WotC will pay some more lip service to Homelands in the future, the set was bad but the setting is great, it'd be cool to see it through modern lens like we got with Brother's War

These videos are such a treat on each drop

One of the all-time great intros right here

Merchant scroll is a great design. It is very narrow and encourages instant speed decks to tap mana on their turn. It's only busted in Vintage which is cool. Making it 3 mana makes it unplayable. Why do you want to make the one good card from homelands worse besides memory lapse?

When I came back to playing Arena after quitting around when Homelands came out, I thought people were saying “Plainswalk”ers when talking about “Planeswalkers”

For the record, Essen Spiel and Gen Con are roughly the same size (and in fact Gen Con might have passed Spiel this year). Gen Con and Spiel count their attendance differently - if one person attends each con all four days, Gen Con counts that as one attendee but Spiel counts it as four attendees. If Gen Con used turnstile attendance like Spiel, it might well have been over 200,000 this year.

I've legitimately been locked out of a game and indirectly killed by Feroz's Ban. So I'm playing a legacy+ Reanimator deck, and my opponent was playing Shops. He plays a Mox, then Workshop into Trinisphere. Nothing out of the ordinary for now. I play a land, pass. He then plays Ancient Tomb and legitimately casts Feroz's Ban. Now my stuff costs 5 mana at the least. His next turn he cast a second Ban, then played Metalwork Colossus for free. I conceded on the spot. Game 2 I Thoughtseize a Lotus on turn 1. He then plays a Mox, Ancient Tomb, and Tangle Wire's me. Not much there. Game 3 I Dark Ritual, Entomb + Reanimate a Griselbrand, and he Maze of Ith into Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Lodestone Golem. This game would grind out, with him ultimately winning by sacrificing Tangle Wires and Sphere of Resistances to recur Metalwork Colossus, which were cast for free thanks to... Feroz's Ban. Since that game I've had a worry respect of the card, and fear anyone balsy enough to use it, let alone in a legitimate Vintage Deck.

to echo patrick’s point about making previous sets better by turning random names and places into a full story. I started playing just after mtg origins so despite never opening a pack i had a lot of commons and uncommons. for a few years most new set had names and places that appeared on seemingly random cards in origins and it did a lot for my appreciation of magic lore and world building. they did that with intention and 20 years experience designing magic which only makes it more impressive that they did it here with 2 years experience

Its mean, its green, but the contents are lean

Patrick leaning hard into back in my day mode is great

This makes me so excited for the lore portion of later sets

About Shandalar, It’s abandonware and free to download. Can get ur to run with minimal tech needed.

44:25 favorite moment on the channel

I played this set alot. Not out of want... Same thing, it was SOO much cheaper than any other boosters. My mom bought it me alot of it. Only Positive was I was able to run the first version of a toolbox deck with merchant scroll. Search for counters, Red and green hosers, etc. I loved that card.

Each segment Patrick gets more fed up with the devs of this set. By the end he is just “do your jobs!”

It's odd that 1. The lore expects us to care about goblins and whether they're getting enough to eat (the Koskun goblins) 2. There are no actual goblins or mentions of goblins in the set.

"Lean" would be the rhyme you were looking for at the top. As in lean pickings.