Homelands Restored: Recent Activity
| Homelands Restored: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Skeleton |
Recent updates to Homelands Restored: (Generated at 2025-08-06 07:06:49)
| Homelands Restored: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Skeleton |
Recent updates to Homelands Restored: (Generated at 2025-08-06 07:06:49)
Trying to work out the uncommon theme for red, but nothing's coming to me. The obvious choice is Dwarf/Minotaur tribal. But after coming down with a bunch of Vampire tribal, I'd like to do something more clever. Anyhow, I'm posting the commons I didn't design here so I can get a better look at them all together.
Geesh. Only four commons. No wonder why I'm having a problem seeing the common theme..
Huh. I capitalized vampire, but maybe I didn't export the image. Will have to look into it.
Templating note: creature types are always capitalised, and get a hyphen in their "non-" forms. See Call to the Grave, Rend Flesh etc. I was surprised to see this turn gold, but it makes sense (Nemesis Trap was pretty weird), and I do love the flavourful almost-trinket "non-Vampire" exception :)
Note to self. Really got to add a Lure effect in green.
Original card. I wanted to see another Vampire 'lord', and wouldn't mind black being more aggressive. I wanted to stick first strike on a lot of vampires with the Sengir ability, so this last card giving it to everyone seemed like a good fit.
At first I planned to have the life gain be equal to the toughness of the destroyed creature. But it occurred to me that the Sengir tribe really wants to punish decks that chump block with little dudes. So I turned the screw up on those decks by making the gain a flat 3.
The overhaul on this card happened here when it occurred to me that this would be a better card if it read non-vampire (you know... mirrors...) I really didn't like the 'attacking' clause in black. But I also had room for a BW rare. And if this was the marquee Black-White rare, then it should be rather powerful for its cost.
My original plan was to reduce the activation cost to
. That worked, but I was kind of annoyed at how much less torturous that was. Recently, though, it occurred to me that Torture could enter the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it. That works better. Now this card is more of a Dead Weight alternative.
Updated version on the way. The text runs a little long, but I don't think there's much I can do about that.
Yeah, that makes sense. I don't really want to punish you if you run out. But making it usually symmetric felt more blue. I'd be happy with any other compromise.
Maybe, "each player may search your library for an island card"? Although that slows the game down while they look at your deck.
Also, today I learned the word "Eagre". I feel I should have known it already (internet says it's especially used of the Severn river, which I grew up by).
I suppose I could enforce that you have to have enough Islands, yeah. It seems like a dangerous choice for 6+ player games if you don't know your Island count... but I suppose that's rare, and not a reason to squelch a mechanic.
Also brings the cost of the spell down, since you decrease decision making on your part. I'd say it would be 'fair' to cost that as
, but I don't think it's reasonable. 
and tapped Islands should be fine.
Something like "Search your library for X islands where X is the number of players. If you succeed, put one of those islands OTB under each player's control. Each player returns a non-land permanent to their owner's hand. Shuffle your library"?
Mm. I'd enforce that everyone gets the Island, but I don't think I can do that. What with 'you may fail to find that many Islands'.
I wish it made sense to have each player go through your library for an Island... but you lose the flavor that way since players aren't forced to return their own stuff. I guess one could cost that spell
since you've lost control... but now it is officially an mana accelerate. I don't want that.
This is blue mana acceleration in the same way Benthic Explorers is. Which, to be fair, isn't really in blue's pie any more either.
I think blue might well be able to get away with "acceleration" if it's in the form of giving everyone Islands. In the same way that Colossal Whale gets away with doing something white (O-Rings) for handwave flavour reasons.
Original card.
More Sengir themed vampire shenanigans. I'd explain the flavor, but hopefully it comes across.
My original stab at a cost was
. I didn't think there was a card that Zombifyed exactly two creatures, but I decided to look for the spell just in case. Turns out they just printed Ever After in Shadows Over Innistrad. Ah well. It was nice to find an original niche while it lasted. Hopefully the flavor push makes this interesting enough to be different. Since I didn't want the card to be a bad choice compared to Ever After, I changed the cost to 
.
@Jack: It's a good idea. But considering the current state of the skeleton, a 1cc discard spell in uncommon makes more sense. Alternatively, I was thinking of making this Ostracize plus upside (since Despise is now an option.) But, like I said before, black has plenty of creature destruction right now. I didn't want yet another way to kill a creature.
Oh, and thank you Jameschanlee. Changing shortly.
wording: "Target player discards a card. If a creature card was discarded this way, put a +1/+1 counter on each Vampire creature you control."
Oh cool. Yeah, this seems like a very thematic vampire discard card.
Maybe it could even cost slightly more and say "discards a creature card, or reveals their hand to show they have no creature cards" or something?
Hmpf. Just realizing this could probably say 'each opponent discards a card. If any opponent discarded a creature' and it probably wouldn't make it cost more (it actually loses value in one on one matches since you can't target yourself anymore.) Hmm...
Original card. Continuing the Sengir Vampire theme.
This card was my first idea. Then I tried switching to a 4 cost kill spell that did the same thing. But after looking at the skeleton I realized there was plenty of creature kill and not enough discard. As it is, I didn't really want to make the trigger be discarding a creature, but it wouldn't make as much sense thematically if it wasn't that. I suppose that's fine, though, since this card discourages players from discarding creatures... that sets them up for the abundant creature kill.
Of note: yes, you can target yourself. It's a poor trick, but whatever works, eh?
Art note: This artwork by Chad King was done as a commission piece for Wizards of the Coast. I don't think WotC used it for anything, though. I did what I thought was a thorough 'Search for this image using Google' search and came up with nothing special. If I goofed, though, and it's actually on an existing Magic card, someone please tell me. I haven't played a lot of Shadows Over Innistrad, but the style doesn't seem to align with that set anyway...
Original card
More 'Sengir' vampires. I originally wanted this to be more of a Prodigal Pyromancer, but the set has too many things that deal one damage. It also has a lot of -1/-1 and +1/+1 counter themes. Unlike 'pinging', it seems the more of those effect the better since they stack much nicer. And you can play your 1/1s into them because they're a limited resource.
Well usually. I guess the Sengir ability on this card means that 1/1s still aren't safe. At least you know it's taking up your opponents time, I guess...