I think that after you've done a lot of forgotten lores for sets, it might be interesting to do a forgotten lore for planeswalkers, covering their entire story that happened in multiple sets. I know the story will come up in individual sets, but it would be awesome to have the whole story in one video.
Will you be doing one on kamigawa? That's the one set I was interested in when I first heard of mtg and I was saddened to find out that they are probably never goin back there
Evan, I dont have any extra scratch right now, but when I do expect a donation! I love you building up the story of Magic and revealing the depth to the game so easily forgotten in the current state of the game. Awesome job!
Kamigawa was boring as hell and made people who enjoyed playing through Affinity's reign quit the game out of sheer boredom. Omg snoozefest set with the lamest setting ever to boot
h2 While it is a fine opinion, it is an opinion. Kamigawa was underpowered as a set back then, yes. However, it's also quite a good set for draft. The rares in that set were actually quite strong by the contrary. Many Kamigawa cards now command high prices. The set also provided a lot of cards that are very good for EDH as well. The setting was either hit or miss though. It was certainly a hit for many in its Japanese setting.
I love these so much. Never stop making them. Not even when you've done all the sets. Just keep making shit up at that point and I'll still be here watching!
The problem with Homelands is that is it had nothing to back. A fairy pumper with no real fairies, a vampire lord with no vampires, and a goblin king with no goblins. They really should go back there some day and, well, make it better. The Baron is still one of the most iconic characters.
So im developing a dnd version of the garden aka homelands this has been very helpful from a lore perspective. Ive already done the art work and maps. Mostly for my friends but i may publish it for others to play later on.
Theros, Ravnica, Innistrad, Dominaria, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, Ixilan & Zendikar are all we have anything on, so far. I was just curious: did you finish with your homebrew of Homelands?
I also didl add a crystal sphere thats more akin to feroz's ban and less a galaxy and i miniaturized it and it sits inside a skull shaped glass and the way you get to it is your dipped into magical golden slime and it shrinks you. Artwork wise its finished.
If you could do a FL video on Time Spiral block, that would be great. I didn't play at the time, so learning more about this block would be a treat for me.
Homelands drove me away from Magic until a friend bought me an intro pack way back in 2006, and I got the fever again. Magic from my point of view at the time was dying. I started in 1994, and the first boxes I ever bought as a youngin were... Fallen Empires (shudder). Then I had a good time for a while, then came this, and I just lost the urge to continue. I'm happy Magic survived, though, although my bank account would like to argue that point.
There were artifacts that let you sneak in creatures between and before and after didgeridoo and Aether Vial. Triassic Egg came out long before Didgeridoo. Belbe's Portal and a flute in Urza's both let you sneak creature's out too. Not to mention Dragon Arch.
This was a really interesting episode. I will say, I didn't like the focus on the "a story can't make a set", as if the two employees who suggested these things are at fault. It's amazing they gave them a shot and that there's a story. I would love to see Wizards revisit this plane and do it better, because clearly the cards didn't turn out well.
Thank you so much for this. As bad as it was, I've always had a very strong sentimental attachment to Homelands. I used to get boosters for only a dollar, not realizing at the time just how under powered the cards were.
I have one of those booklets from magic the gathering one. It is signed by all the artists and Richard Garfield himself. I have no idea if its even worth anything, but it really cool.
Homelands was the set that made me quit Magic the first time around. Sold all the cards I had (Beta, Revised, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Dark) to get into the hottest new game, Star Wars CCG. Really wish I had all those cards back now. Thanks Homelands!
I can design a card or two that are fun and interesting but I would never try to design a whole set. Props to toughs that have tied. Failure or not, they at least made a good effort. I still use the Giant Clam and hope to see its reprint some day.
I think Homelands was necessary for Magic to be at the point it is today. Like you said, it showed Wizards what works and what doesn't work. But it was still able to recover from the set's unpopularity. I think a lot of really good ideas that we are seeing now come from Homelands in some ways: Top down design, even better mana bases, and designing cards not just for the professionals, but also for the casual player who doesn't exactly care how a card will impact standard. For all its bad points I think Homelands is probably one of the most important sets in Magic's 20 year history.
Fallen Empires was a little weird but had plenty of amazing cards and sideboards options that saw tournament play in any format that allowed them. Just looks at the casting costs and mana abilities for starters.
It's a shame that the designers either didn't or weren't able to take more time in designing the set. I personally loved the story to Homelands, as I did Fallen Empires, and by extention I enjoyed the set. If they could have designed the set to be as interesting as the story behind the set, Homelands could have been far greater than what it is. That said, Autumn Willo and Hungry Mist are still amongst my favorite cards.
I have to ask, did the creators of this video play during the time? The hate for the set is greater now than it ever was back during it's release. This was the first small set released after Ice Age which was the first 300 card set since Legends. The reason for the hate over Homelands stemmed from it's proximity to the vastly superior Ice Age. In short, had Homelands been released closer to the time of The Dark, Antiquities, and Fallen Empires were we wouldn't be hearing so much hate over it. The set wasn't as bad as people make it out to be and meshes well with the other sets during the "Chronicles" era.
I understand the level of Homelands is very crappy, but this story also shows us a lot that makes it seem like Homelands is a set that was so necessary to the development of the game as it has become today.
This makes it appear as though Homelands came out after Alpha/Beta. It didn't come around untill 4th edition. I was playing back then and purchased a box, along with Fallen Empires. A sad time. Well at least latter on I picked up a Alliance box and got 3 Force of Wills.
Go watch taptapconcede, MTG podcast by LRR same people who do Friday Nights, they crack a pack each episode out of a stack by rolling a dice. They have gotten homelands many time
We cannot make a set just on story, just like we cannot make a set just around a bunch of random mechanics. We need both, and flavor and mechanics should be considered jointly.
I know this is a touch late, but I really like Homelands. You focused too much on the negative aspects, while completely ignoring the fact that cards like Serrated Arrows and Merchant Scroll were still construed playable in the modern era or Magic. Homelands is a sweet set. It suffers from many of the same problems that all magic cards suffered at the time; the creatures weren't strong enough, there wasn't enough of a tie-in between concept and mechanics, and cards were just weird. Despite all that, the cards are cool. Frankly, if could get a booster box of HO at a reasonable price, it'd snatch that up. The cards are just as bad as most early magic, but the world-building was there to make them make sense. Homelands may not be the best Magic expansion ever, but as someone who's played magic since Ice Age, only Shards block limited was bad enough to drive me away from the game. Homelands wasn't anywhere near that bad.
Isn't Fallen Empires worse than Homelands? The only competitive FE card I remember is Goblin Grenade. Homelands at least had a few(Spectral Bears, Autumn Willow, Serrated Arrows).
Frommerman Single cards aren't a good indicator of set quality, though. Merchant Scroll is also an "absurdly powerful card" that's restricted in Vintage to this day, and it's from Homelands. Just because FE had cards like Hymn and High Tide doesn't mean the set overall was bad. Plus they over-produced it to make sure that cards found their way to players who wanted it...a bad combination with a lackluster set.
Why don't you pretend to be somewhat intelligent for the first time in your life and look online and find all of the current spoilers. Probably asking a little too much of you though.
I think the worst thing about the set is the art. Granted, when cracked packs of this back in the day, Magic's art was still very inconsistent and hit-or-miss, but still - looking at some the artwork of this set makes my eyes hurt. How did Jeff Menges and Mike Kimble ever get to illustrate cards this far into Magic's life?
These Forgotten Lore episodes are so well put together. It's funny how little we know about a game we've played for so long. Keep up the great work!
I think that after you've done a lot of forgotten lores for sets, it might be interesting to do a forgotten lore for planeswalkers, covering their entire story that happened in multiple sets. I know the story will come up in individual sets, but it would be awesome to have the whole story in one video.
Will you be doing one on kamigawa? That's the one set I was interested in when I first heard of mtg and I was saddened to find out that they are probably never goin back there
I second this notion!
I came to say this!
Do Kamigawa man! It's an underrated set!
Id love one on it also
Hey, good news!
Loved that promo video with the set. Thanks, Evan, great video.
Before Aether Vial, there was Belbe's Portal and Dragon Arch and Quicksilver Amulet and Cryptic Gateway.
+Marshall James Was checking the comments to see if someone mentioned this already. Nice.
Quicksilver Amulet came out way before AEther Vial as another artifact putting creatures into play from your hand.
"Based on certain conditions."
Devon Smith
Paying 4 mana and tapping quicksilver amulet are certain conditions.
How about Dragon Arch... Certain Conditions are met with that handy tool.
kahtfish
cryptic gateway?
I'm suddenly a lot more happy about wizard's new animated trailers.
Evan, I dont have any extra scratch right now, but when I do expect a donation! I love you building up the story of Magic and revealing the depth to the game so easily forgotten in the current state of the game. Awesome job!
"Opening a pack of homelands."
- Magic term for "Experience unbearable pain"
I wonder which set is coming next. Im interested in Kamigawa, even though i never played during that set, but i heard it wasnt a popular one.
I mean set for the forgotten lore series, not the set for standard**
Maro pretty much said that Kamigawa is never coming back except maybe as a ruin destroyed by Eldrazi or Nicol Bolas :(
I meant what lore is Evan going to cover next in his lore videos.
Kamigawa was boring as hell and made people who enjoyed playing through Affinity's reign quit the game out of sheer boredom. Omg snoozefest set with the lamest setting ever to boot
h2 While it is a fine opinion, it is an opinion. Kamigawa was underpowered as a set back then, yes. However, it's also quite a good set for draft. The rares in that set were actually quite strong by the contrary. Many Kamigawa cards now command high prices.
The set also provided a lot of cards that are very good for EDH as well.
The setting was either hit or miss though. It was certainly a hit for many in its Japanese setting.
I love these so much. Never stop making them. Not even when you've done all the sets. Just keep making shit up at that point and I'll still be here watching!
Love these. Just started playing at the beginning of Theros so it's really interesting to see the history of Magic.
i love this because i always wondered about homelands
Please make a new episode! This serious is incredible!
Do a 15 min vid for every set.fallen empire ice age etc
The problem with Homelands is that is it had nothing to back. A fairy pumper with no real fairies, a vampire lord with no vampires, and a goblin king with no goblins. They really should go back there some day and, well, make it better. The Baron is still one of the most iconic characters.
The Didgeridoo is finally useful now that Wizards has released more minotaurs.
Eron the Relentless is my favorite character from Homelands. Such a boss and haste was such a special ability at the time.
As a historian and a magic player I thank you so much for these!
Keep this series going, man! It is ultra entertaining :D
I want to go back to this plane and do it up right. Anyone else?
So im developing a dnd version of the garden aka homelands this has been very helpful from a lore perspective.
Ive already done the art work and maps.
Mostly for my friends but i may publish it for others to play later on.
Theros, Ravnica, Innistrad, Dominaria, Kaladesh, Amonkhet, Ixilan & Zendikar are all we have anything on, so far.
I was just curious: did you finish with your homebrew of Homelands?
@@draxthemsklonst i did the art and maps, then i got sidetracked doing terrain and making towers for a drow house.
I also didl add a crystal sphere thats more akin to feroz's ban and less a galaxy and i miniaturized it and it sits inside a skull shaped glass and the way you get to it is your dipped into magical golden slime and it shrinks you.
Artwork wise its finished.
If you could do a FL video on Time Spiral block, that would be great. I didn't play at the time, so learning more about this block would be a treat for me.
Homelands drove me away from Magic until a friend bought me an intro pack way back in 2006, and I got the fever again. Magic from my point of view at the time was dying. I started in 1994, and the first boxes I ever bought as a youngin were... Fallen Empires (shudder). Then I had a good time for a while, then came this, and I just lost the urge to continue. I'm happy Magic survived, though, although my bank account would like to argue that point.
If we're talking about highs and lows, there's got to be an Urza's block episode for this.
Holy fuck that 90's promotional video makes me feel like I need to go to the hospital.
There were artifacts that let you sneak in creatures between and before and after didgeridoo and Aether Vial. Triassic Egg came out long before Didgeridoo. Belbe's Portal and a flute in Urza's both let you sneak creature's out too. Not to mention Dragon Arch.
Woooo I love these forgotten lore videos
The promotional videos were amazing
This was a really interesting episode. I will say, I didn't like the focus on the "a story can't make a set", as if the two employees who suggested these things are at fault. It's amazing they gave them a shot and that there's a story. I would love to see Wizards revisit this plane and do it better, because clearly the cards didn't turn out well.
... I am now somewhat sad that my favorite magic card is from Homelands... Ishan's Shade... more for flavor then effect... *shrug*
That sounds like a really cool story though
Just wanna see the Scars of Mirroden so bad
Thank you so much for this. As bad as it was, I've always had a very strong sentimental attachment to Homelands. I used to get boosters for only a dollar, not realizing at the time just how under powered the cards were.
Very interesting, keep it up!
I'll say this much on Homelands, it's got incredible potential lorewise. The idea of revisiting makes a vorthos like me drool
I've always had a soft spot for Homelands. I think it was the flavor and Legendary creatures.
Great series!
Honestly one of my fave sets.
I have one of those booklets from magic the gathering one. It is signed by all the artists and Richard Garfield himself. I have no idea if its even worth anything, but it really cool.
Homelands was the set that made me quit Magic the first time around. Sold all the cards I had (Beta, Revised, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Dark) to get into the hottest new game, Star Wars CCG. Really wish I had all those cards back now. Thanks Homelands!
OMFG, ive been to the place where the angle and menator were fighting. its either in washington or oregon.
Awesome new series!
Homelands had a great story. Kudos for that, at least, to the guys that made it. :)
Recently found my collection of Magic cards from back in the day. Ugh, SO many Homelands cards :(
I can design a card or two that are fun and interesting but I would never try to design a whole set. Props to toughs that have tied. Failure or not, they at least made a good effort. I still use the Giant Clam and hope to see its reprint some day.
I think Homelands was necessary for Magic to be at the point it is today. Like you said, it showed Wizards what works and what doesn't work. But it was still able to recover from the set's unpopularity. I think a lot of really good ideas that we are seeing now come from Homelands in some ways: Top down design, even better mana bases, and designing cards not just for the professionals, but also for the casual player who doesn't exactly care how a card will impact standard. For all its bad points I think Homelands is probably one of the most important sets in Magic's 20 year history.
YES! I love this series more than anything ! :D
more more more. love these videos
Aether Vial? What?
What about Quicksilver Amulet...
Such a cool story, but damn I remember how bad that set was. I remember buying a single box and just being so sad.
Can we get an episode on Fallen Empires? I thought it was the set generally considered worst, not Homelands!
Fallen Empires was a little weird but had plenty of amazing cards and sideboards options that saw tournament play in any format that allowed them. Just looks at the casting costs and mana abilities for starters.
this set story is so neat, way better than Jace and his crap, I'd love to see a return to Homelands or Arabian Nights set
As a kid I used to buy homeland pack because they were half the price of other sets at the time. If only I knew how bad it realy was lol
Is there a place where I could find and watch the rest of that Magic video it seems old and stupidly fun to watch but I can't seem to find it.
Man, of all the early magic sets to have a full set of I had to choose this one. Junior high me was such an idiot.
HOMELANDS!!!!!!!!!!!! i love this set i knew a comic shop that had these while most people were buying invasion i was buying these
Homeland's story was pretty cool, better than the theros story.
this is like the history/discovery channel of MTG
It's a shame that the designers either didn't or weren't able to take more time in designing the set. I personally loved the story to Homelands, as I did Fallen Empires, and by extention I enjoyed the set. If they could have designed the set to be as interesting as the story behind the set, Homelands could have been far greater than what it is. That said, Autumn Willo and Hungry Mist are still amongst my favorite cards.
Homelands was largely responsible for me leaving magic the first time around.
I have to ask, did the creators of this video play during the time? The hate for the set is greater now than it ever was back during it's release. This was the first small set released after Ice Age which was the first 300 card set since Legends. The reason for the hate over Homelands stemmed from it's proximity to the vastly superior Ice Age.
In short, had Homelands been released closer to the time of The Dark, Antiquities, and Fallen Empires were we wouldn't be hearing so much hate over it. The set wasn't as bad as people make it out to be and meshes well with the other sets during the "Chronicles" era.
I understand the level of Homelands is very crappy, but this story also shows us a lot that makes it seem like Homelands is a set that was so necessary to the development of the game as it has become today.
Yeah, Eron!
Is that comic available anywhere? The art looks really good.
Every now and then a copy will show up on Ebay, but it'll be pricey as hell.
good stuff
So many cards that could be your commander
3:07 YEAH JOVEN!!!
Do innistrad plz!? Where do you find all of your information for the sets?
Noah Golden The books, the mtg articles online, the comics...
This makes it appear as though Homelands came out after Alpha/Beta. It didn't come around untill 4th edition. I was playing back then and purchased a box, along with Fallen Empires. A sad time. Well at least latter on I picked up a Alliance box and got 3 Force of Wills.
It did come out after alpha and beta. They were the first 2 sets.
perfectzero001 He meant that this makes it sound like Homelands came RIGHT after Alpha and Beta, don't be a smart ass.
Lurrus makes jovens ferrets alot better j.s.
I have discussed to make this into a cube in combination with fallen empires
Daniel Schafer Oh, you monster
Go watch taptapconcede, MTG podcast by LRR same people who do Friday Nights, they crack a pack each episode out of a stack by rolling a dice. They have gotten homelands many time
where's the shocked Garruk reaction?
We cannot make a set just on story, just like we cannot make a set just around a bunch of random mechanics. We need both, and flavor and mechanics should be considered jointly.
Got a friend who owns this set & even named his LGS after it.
When do we get Consperisy set review:D
Do scars block or mirridion block
MOAR MOAR MOAR!!!!!!!!!
I can design a magic set, I just need some lore
Roterothopter tho
M15 review.
Do a FL vid about urza please😆
i kinda sorta really want to get into magic.. but none of my friends play. guess i'll stick to hearthstone -_-
Hearthstone is awesome! :D
Well there is Duels of the Planeswalkers for your magic fix. A new ones coming soon.
Cards are weak ok but the flavor is real.
I’m sold for any « Back to Homelands » or better « revised Homelands » with old frame.
Lol that promotional video was garbage even for 90s standards
Homelands was great....for Black, Ha.
I know this is a touch late, but I really like Homelands. You focused too much on the negative aspects, while completely ignoring the fact that cards like Serrated Arrows and Merchant Scroll were still construed playable in the modern era or Magic.
Homelands is a sweet set. It suffers from many of the same problems that all magic cards suffered at the time; the creatures weren't strong enough, there wasn't enough of a tie-in between concept and mechanics, and cards were just weird. Despite all that, the cards are cool. Frankly, if could get a booster box of HO at a reasonable price, it'd snatch that up. The cards are just as bad as most early magic, but the world-building was there to make them make sense. Homelands may not be the best Magic expansion ever, but as someone who's played magic since Ice Age, only Shards block limited was bad enough to drive me away from the game. Homelands wasn't anywhere near that bad.
Belbe's Portal was wayyy before Aether Vial.
And Dragon Arch.
So who wants to do a 5 pack/player draft of Homelands?
I thought Fallen Empires was the low point
Sweet, thanks for the magic movie spoiler
This set was soooo bad but the story is soooo open to have all of the planeswalkers visit other places and so much story.
I don't care what you say, my Joven EDH deck is not Homeland-icapped. It's just straight up terrible.
Isn't Fallen Empires worse than Homelands? The only competitive FE card I remember is Goblin Grenade. Homelands at least had a few(Spectral Bears, Autumn Willow, Serrated Arrows).
Fallen Empires also had Hymn to Tourach, an absurdly powerful card which still sees tons of play in Legacy.
Frommerman You're right. Completely forgot about it.
Frommerman Single cards aren't a good indicator of set quality, though. Merchant Scroll is also an "absurdly powerful card" that's restricted in Vintage to this day, and it's from Homelands. Just because FE had cards like Hymn and High Tide doesn't mean the set overall was bad. Plus they over-produced it to make sure that cards found their way to players who wanted it...a bad combination with a lackluster set.
IlGreven Those are part of Magic's baby steps. Mistakes have to be made.
No x 10000000
I had a box of around 100 homelands boosters. I could not even give the away! No kidding at all. No one would touch them.
How about the theros block, it was shit, I'm glade its over.
Wile the set had trash cards we owe it for giving us lore first cards later which in many ways is what made magic what it is today
Are you kidding? Seriously? I love these but seriously, I want M15 Spoiler videos! Not this!
Don't be so greedy, yeah?
Why don't you pretend to be somewhat intelligent for the first time in your life and look online and find all of the current spoilers. Probably asking a little too much of you though.
Go to Star City Games website
xlaleclx
I think he knows where to find current spoilers, he just wants a video by Evan about it. However, the way he asked was quite rude.
Thank you! I know where to find the spoilers but his videos get me excited about the sets and they're my favourite magic videos.
for the cards you could have said they sucked end of story
:-D
I think the worst thing about the set is the art. Granted, when cracked packs of this back in the day, Magic's art was still very inconsistent and hit-or-miss, but still - looking at some the artwork of this set makes my eyes hurt.
How did Jeff Menges and Mike Kimble ever get to illustrate cards this far into Magic's life?