Homelands Restored: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Homelands Restored: (Generated at 2025-08-07 23:57:09)
| Homelands Restored: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Skeleton |
Recent updates to Homelands Restored: (Generated at 2025-08-07 23:57:09)
You probably don't want this pointing out, but... this is a bit confused about whether it applies to all Birds, or just ones you control. The original gave all Birds +1/+1 but gave you the activated ability to choose what gained banding. This way you're giving all Birds +1/+1, giving all Birds guard (but reminder text that refers to creatures 'you control'), but only granting the P/T bonus to things guarded by your Birds.
Something else to bear in mind when tweaking this back to +2/+2 (which I agree is a sensible change).
I admit, this is more a choice of something I could do, then something I had to do. Torture appeared in Shadowmoor, and there were no complaints. Removal isn't as good as it was four years ago. The old card was fine.
But the old card could be like this. There are times when you'd rather have this, and times you'd rather have Death Wind. Since this set is about giving Homelands the best tools, I went with this version. It's a pity that this card doesn't feel as much like torture, though...
Also upped to uncommon, due to black not getting as much good removal lately and the intense amount of black needed to activate this. May have to bump it back down to common, though. There isn't a lot of removal in this set...
Original card: Torture
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Increased rarity to uncommon
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Added "When Torture enters the battlefield...".
I really like this breaking down guard into two abilities. I'm not so fond of the +X/+Y, though. When I fix Beast Walkers, I plan to use +2/+2, which is a little odd, but seems fair enough. It's much more annoying using +2/+2 on an entire tribe. What if I got a couple of Aven Fateshapers? Should that extra p/t mean something?
Meh, probably not. Trying to make the rules work in a way that covers all scenarios is a hallmark of bad design. Guess, I'll set this back to +2/+2 soon.
Oh, also, this card is now a Bear Spirit. Need to edit.
I thought about increasing the Bear's power to 4, but it don't look right. I suppose if a person is playing black and they have an Icy Manipulator they can get twice the mileage out of it. Not much I can do about that without making the card more complicated. Still a great card in multi-player, so there's that.
I'm considering moving it to common, but Homelands doesn't have a lot of cards in it, and I'm not sure about the idea of making one of the seven green commons be anti-black.
Original Card: Spectral Bears
- Removed non-token permanent restriction.
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Changed 'untaps as normal' to 'gains vigilance'.
Thank, Alex. One of those two should do much better.
Huh. I thought I remembered recent cards sacrificing themselves once they were used up... but Necrogen Censer, Shriekhorn, Sphere of the Suns, Surge Node, and Tumble Magnet disagree with me. The only sortof-exception is Mana Bloom, and that's a plant for Constellation anyway. So yes, this looks like a spot-on adaptation.
Library of Lat-Nam suggests that the modes would be clearer with a "you" prefix.
The second mode is confusing because it's slightly mistemplated: when a target is referred to the second time, cards say "that artifact" rather than "target artifact" (which would indicate the card could target two different artifacts).
I also suggest you swap the order of the modes, so that the bit that refers to the artifact is closer to the original choice of the target.
Ooh. Hmm. At one point you say "that opponent", but actually, as currently written this can target one of your own artifacts, as a sideways Zombify. That probably needs rephrasing. In fact, there's also the annoying niggle that this wording uses modal templating, but the "mode" is only chosen on resolution. So in fact, this shouldn't use bullets at all. Trying out a couple of wordings:
>
, Sacrifice ~: Choose target artifact an opponent controls. That player puts the top five cards of their library into their graveyard. Then you put a creature card from that player's graveyard onto the battlefield under your control, unless that player has you gain control of that artifact.
>
, Sacrifice ~: Choose target artifact an opponent controls. That player puts the top five cards of their library into their graveyard. Then you gain control of that artifact, unless that player has you put a creature card [of your choice] from their graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.
Also, name should have two 'm's in it. Not sure if the two modes should say the word 'You' in front of them. I don't know if that makes it any less confusing. Maybe I should have repeated "artifact's controller" in the first mode.
Straight up? I like ante in a limited environment. But obviously, we can't have nice things because someone will break them, so we can't have ante.
This card is trying to do something very funny. Black can't destroy/gain control of artifacts. But a card that let's the opponent choose to lose their precious artifact because they might lose something better? That's just mean. And maybe it's Black.
So, I tried to keep that functionality. And since we were playing with graveyards already, I gave an option between a Super-Ashen Powder or Steal Artifact. Strong, but often weak, since your opponent is in control.
On the plus side, between this and the improved Reef Pirates, blue black has a mill strategy in draft. So that's cute. Do you cut your Clockwork Steed if you know your opponent is playing the fiends?
Original card: Timmerian Fiends
- Moved from rare to uncommon.
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Activation cost reduced by
.
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Removed ante functionality. Changed ability to "I'mma Steal Artifact, unless you let me Tome Scour then Ashen Powder you."
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Increased power and toughness by +1/+1.
Original Card: Soraya the Falconer
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Added comma to name, for reasons that drive me nuts
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Switched out Banding for Guard keyword
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Removed Activation cost
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Increased toughness by +0/+1.
Note: Guard originally granted +X/+Y where X+Y were equal to power and toughness of the bird. That was a trap. Switched to +2/+2.
Original card: Shrink
Probably the easiest choice I had to make in the entire set. See also, Hydrosurge.
Two things I wish I could do. I wish I could change 'arrowhead counters' to something better, but there's no real need to, so I didn't. I also wish I could change the casting cost to
and use 5 counters, since there are five arrowheads in the artwork. Seriously Wizards? Either inform the artist, or change your card when you see the art. Ah well... this comes from a time before people cared about this sort of thing.
Also, nowadays we don't see too many artifact that self-sacrifice when they run out of counters. Extra words and not enough benefit. You're more likely to want to bounce or flicker the artifact than raise it from the grave anyway.
Original Card: Serrated Arrows
- Moved from common to uncommon.
- Removed "At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are no arrowhead counters on..."
I couldn't find a version of this card that I really liked. Vigilance and Samite Healer together is kind of cute. That's why Militant Monk was made, after all. Something about turning this into a Militant Monk kind of bothered me, though. Not sure why.
So, instead, I tried to create a card that was reminiscent of Order of Leitbur. Though, I think I overshot with both abilities. Not sure. I thought this card would be easy, but I can see I'm going to monkeying with it quite a bit before I give up on it.
Original Card: Serra Paladin
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Changed name to make this card plural.
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Moved from common to uncommon
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Changed from activation of Samite Healer to all creatures you control get Samite Healer's ability.
- Removed the tap symbol and changed activated ability from "target creature gains Vigilance" to "Creatures you control have vigilance."
Note: In my original version, I tried to scale this back to be a Order of Leitbur variant. It wasn't working.
Couldn't come up with anything on first pass. Part of the problem is that this shares mindspace with Rashka, the Slayer, and part of the problem is that this set has waaaaaaay too much color hate and not enough reasons why.
So, if those problems didn't exist, I'd say this card could be a 4/4 with Bushido against Black creatures 2 or 3. But Rashka, Death Speakers and even Abbey Gargoyle are making my job difficult.
It doesn't help that the flavor is all wrong. These guys act like warriors, not inquisitors. I don't know. I have been thinking about using 'name a color'. I might go that route.
Original Card: Serra Inquisitor
- Changed from 'When a black creature' to 'When a creature of the color of your choice'
- Upped the bonus from +2/+0 to +3/+3.
- Increased power and toughness by +1/+1.
Oh, yeah, one actual problem. Man, these guys want to be vampires. I wonder how weird it would be to have the line 'Creature - Vampire Bats'? Meh. Doesn't help that these look more like Flying Foxes than actual Vampire Bats.
This one's simple. While I wouldn't print it, black could get Wind Drake if it wanted.
is Wind Drake with a minor ability.
Original Card: Sengir Bats.
- Increased power by 1.
- Added 'vampire' to creature type line.
Really, I didn't need to touch this card. With a star rating of 3.76, the Autocrat is doing fine in public perception.
I think he's still marginally underpowered, though. It's tough to figure out how much by. His closest parallel appears to be Dread Drone, but Eldrazi Spawn can be sacced for mana (and the drone is a common.) Maybe I overdid it. But I don't like the idea of fan favorites suddenly being bad cards compared to the rest of the set. Seems wrong.