Yeah you would kill them with the two damage before you deck them, man homelands was badly designed.
Aaron_Forsythe
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(20 votes)
Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #9, 10/8/10
There are a lot of ways I could go with this card. I could talk about the ancient practice of printing commons with multiple pieces of art. I could talk about how Tom Wänerstrand got to paint so many Ship cards. I could talk about the elimination of the “Ship” creature type. I could talk about how I actually like the mechanical design of this card, as there is a psychology to milling that rarely involves using it as a win condition.
Instead, I’ll talk about this card’s place in its set—the oft-maligned Homelands—and how I think the lessons from it are applicable to this year’s Great Designer Search.
As with many things in Homelands, we have to start with the flavor text to understand the card:
"Corpses for crew don't sit well with me. Zeki and his dead ship had best keep their distance." —Joskun, An-Havva Constable
If you peruse the rest of the set’s flavor text, you’ll find about a half dozen other quotes attributed to this Zeki character, as well as the two Reef Pirates texts about him. He’s apparently kind of a big deal. Further digging shows that on the world of Ulgrotha, there aren't lots and lots of reef pirates (they aren’t “common”), but rather just Zeki’s one ship of zombie raiders. The ship depicted on this card is essentially legendary, but here it is as a common 2/2. What a mismatch! Why is that?
Based on various conversations at work as well as my own critical anaĺysis, it seems Homelands started design as a story first, replete with lots of intrigue and tons of characters, without much thought as to how that would translate into a Magic set. Magic sets need only a tiny number of significant, unique characters—the bulk of the important work is coming up with the dozens of denizens that will make up the commons and uncommons. Those cards are how the majority of the audience will inteact with the set. Magic worlds, as they are applied to card sets, need breadth, not depth. Having a decent idea about what a medium-sized white flying creature could be in your world is much, much more important that figuring out which of the Druid King’s advisors is really a double-agent from the Shapeshifter Cooperative.
It appears the makers of Homelands were far more worried about the tapestry that their flavor text would weave than having interesting mechanics or good gameplay. They did a decent job of meeting their goal, too—I think the backstory behind the set would actually be worthy of revisiting, were the distaste from the boring designs and low power-level not still so strong in players’ mouths even now, fifteen years later.
Don’t design like this! Don’t try to write Lord of the Rings 2 or A Game of Thrones and jam it into a Magic set, or else you’ll end up with no good mechanics and your sweet legendary pirates as common 2/2’s because there’s nowhere else to put them (I mean, we all agree that Narwhals are rare, right?) and there’s nothing else in your world to fill that space.
Leave the intrigue for the creative worldbuilders and novelists. You need a very good top-line, strong flavorful mechanics, and lots of ideas about world-shaping stuff that can be on commons.
izzet_guild_mage
★★★★☆ (4.1/5.0)(5 votes)
Interestingly, this is a Zombie. A blue zombie. No mention of black at all. How odd.
The_Cardfather
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(3 votes)
To me the idea of pirate ships at common makes sense since even though they are legendary in flavor, the threat that they could be there at any given time fits well at common. The mill effect goes well into that flavor as well.
Aaron: I disagree with not wanting to re-visit Ulgrotha. I'm not sure I would want to see an entire block there, but there are many players who would want to know what happened to it. If you can do Mirrodin II right, then Ulgrotha should be no problem.
IncendiarySaint
★★★★☆ (4.3/5.0)(3 votes)
For some reason I feel like this would be perfect if it had the same ability stack as Thada Adel, Acquisitor. It seems very pirate-like to Islandwalk and steal people's artifacts.
keeds4
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(3 votes)
Works with Memory Lapse or any card that allows you to manipulate your opponent's library.
4sythe
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(5 votes)
Wow, I'd never even considered the possibility of returning to Homelands. Despite how dubious the set was, it had some interesting flavour. I for one, would love Magic to return there - but with a rather more modern take on power level, please! (I also wouldn't be averse to seeing Serra and/or Feroz appear as planeswalkers - I'm sure you can get around that whole 'death' thing by using a convenient "A wizard did it!" excuse).
Lord_of_Atlantis_02
★★★☆☆ (3.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I was there when Homelands came out, and it had the most boring and generic flavor. Stories are a dime a dozen. Yet this set which started as a supposedly nice story background was the least interesting flavorwise.
I'd rather hear about why Wizards hasn't made milling into a keyword action and why there are no keyword mechanics involving offensive milling.
bay_falconer
★★★☆☆ (3.3/5.0)(3 votes)
Homelands is generally bad, mostly because of the lack of mechanical design. I think of world enchantments, and...that's about it. And rarely-used tribes.
And Zeki? Your crew's been replaced by the Roo***er Thief for a miller. The only way you're better than him is 1) Crovax, or 2) Bloodchief Ascension.
willpell
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(6 votes)
I miss those multiple arts; I think they were a beautiful way to add value to commons. Of course, commissioning art costs money, so the policy's cessation is not a huge surprise.
Arachnos
★★★☆☆ (3.9/5.0)(4 votes)
Albeit this is pretty bad, the best thing about it is being a Zombie Pirate. Hell yes.
To the TV Tropers out there - all it needs now is to be an Artifact Creature - Zombie Pirate Ninja and you've got yourself a litteral Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot! XD Liquimetal Coating can help, now all we need is a card that can make it a ninja...
Also, izzet, Innistrad has a fair amount of pure blue zombies.
Lord_of_Tresserhorn
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(3 votes)
WHOA!!
Revolutionary!
I mean, this is Homelands. I would have expected:
"If Reef Pirates attack and are not blocked, you may choose to have Reef Pirates deal no combat damage. If you due, defending player places the top card of their library into their graveyard." or so.
madoli
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@bay_falconer: It took me a second to figure out why root_water thief was censored in the middle. The auto-censor function on this site was designed by beavis and butthead, I guess...
tavaritz
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@Aaron: I'd like to see Ulgrotha revisited and I suggest that you read all discussion on all Homelands cards and also check the ratings and you find out that the image of bad set is not supported by the comments and ratings.
Comments (15)
There are a lot of ways I could go with this card. I could talk about the ancient practice of printing commons with multiple pieces of art. I could talk about how Tom Wänerstrand got to paint so many Ship cards. I could talk about the elimination of the “Ship” creature type. I could talk about how I actually like the mechanical design of this card, as there is a psychology to milling that rarely involves using it as a win condition.
Instead, I’ll talk about this card’s place in its set—the oft-maligned Homelands—and how I think the lessons from it are applicable to this year’s Great Designer Search.
As with many things in Homelands, we have to start with the flavor text to understand the card:
"Corpses for crew don't sit well with me. Zeki and his dead ship had best keep their distance." —Joskun, An-Havva Constable
If you peruse the rest of the set’s flavor text, you’ll find about a half dozen other quotes attributed to this Zeki character, as well as the two Reef Pirates texts about him. He’s apparently kind of a big deal. Further digging shows that on the world of Ulgrotha, there aren't lots and lots of reef pirates (they aren’t “common”), but rather just Zeki’s one ship of zombie raiders. The ship depicted on this card is essentially legendary, but here it is as a common 2/2. What a mismatch! Why is that?
Based on various conversations at work as well as my own critical anaĺysis, it seems Homelands started design as a story first, replete with lots of intrigue and tons of characters, without much thought as to how that would translate into a Magic set. Magic sets need only a tiny number of significant, unique characters—the bulk of the important work is coming up with the dozens of denizens that will make up the commons and uncommons. Those cards are how the majority of the audience will inteact with the set. Magic worlds, as they are applied to card sets, need breadth, not depth. Having a decent idea about what a medium-sized white flying creature could be in your world is much, much more important that figuring out which of the Druid King’s advisors is really a double-agent from the Shapeshifter Cooperative.
It appears the makers of Homelands were far more worried about the tapestry that their flavor text would weave than having interesting mechanics or good gameplay. They did a decent job of meeting their goal, too—I think the backstory behind the set would actually be worthy of revisiting, were the distaste from the boring designs and low power-level not still so strong in players’ mouths even now, fifteen years later.
Don’t design like this! Don’t try to write Lord of the Rings 2 or A Game of Thrones and jam it into a Magic set, or else you’ll end up with no good mechanics and your sweet legendary pirates as common 2/2’s because there’s nowhere else to put them (I mean, we all agree that Narwhals are rare, right?) and there’s nothing else in your world to fill that space.
Leave the intrigue for the creative worldbuilders and novelists. You need a very good top-line, strong flavorful mechanics, and lots of ideas about world-shaping stuff that can be on commons.
Aaron: I disagree with not wanting to re-visit Ulgrotha. I'm not sure I would want to see an entire block there, but there are many players who would want to know what happened to it. If you can do Mirrodin II right, then Ulgrotha should be no problem.
I'd rather hear about why Wizards hasn't made milling into a keyword action and why there are no keyword mechanics involving offensive milling.
And Zeki? Your crew's been replaced by the Roo***er Thief for a miller. The only way you're better than him is 1) Crovax, or 2) Bloodchief Ascension.
To the TV Tropers out there - all it needs now is to be an Artifact Creature - Zombie Pirate Ninja and you've got yourself a litteral Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot! XD Liquimetal Coating can help, now all we need is a card that can make it a ninja...
Also, izzet, Innistrad has a fair amount of pure blue zombies.
Revolutionary!
I mean, this is Homelands. I would have expected:
"If Reef Pirates attack and are not blocked, you may choose to have Reef Pirates deal no combat damage. If you due, defending player places the top card of their library into their graveyard." or so.