Homelands/Trivia

Homelands

 

Trivia

 

Points of interest

• Prophecy, Jinx, Headstone, and Renewal almost form a cycle of common slowtrip spells, except there is no red cantrip spell in Homelands.
• Abbey Gargoyles and Hazduhr the Abbot both have the greatest combined power and toughness among white creatures in Homelands.
• Abbey Gargoyles and Sea Sprite are the first creatures with both flying and protection from red. Abbey Gargoyles was the largest creature with protection from red until Sabertooth Nishoba and the largest creature with both these abilities until Iridescent Angel.
• Due to a misprint in Legends, Æther Storm is the first printed English card name to include the ash ligature ("Æ").
• Aliban's Tower was named after an anonymous friend of the head designer.
• An-Zerrin Ruins is the first card that allows a player to choose a creature type and truly began the continuing crusade to change creature types into more useful types.
• Apocalypse Chime is the last "expansion hosing" card to be printed. The others are City in a Bottle and Golgothian Sylex.
• Autumn Willow was the first creature with shroud (the inability to be targeted by spells or abilities).
• Aysen Crusader had only three Heroes to power it up: Benalish Hero, Kjeldoran Warrior and Beast Walkers. In the Grand Creature Type Update, however, its type was changed from Crusader to Knight, and rather than Heroes, it gained a bonus from Soldiers and Warriors, making it substantially more viable.
• Aysen Highway gives all white creatures plainswalk, which is unusual due to the rarity of plainswalk in comparison to other landwalk abilities. It's a pendant of Hidden Path from The Dark.
• Baron Sengir has the greatest combined power and toughness among black creatures in Homelands. At the time it was printed, it did not have the Vampire creature type, but it did have a super-powered Vampire ability and the ability to regenerate target Vampire. Unfortunately, there were no Vampires printed in Homelands and Sengir Vampire and Krovikan Vampire were the only Vampires in existence at the time. In the Grand Creature Type Update, however, its type was changed to Vampire and its ability changed to regenerate another target Vampire.
• Beast Walkers is the last Hero to be printed, which was unfortunate for Aysen Crusader until the Grand Creature Type Update.
• Chandler and Joven mirror each other as 3/3 red Legendary creatures with a converted mana cost of 5 and an activated ability to destroy either artifact creatures or noncreature artifacts for the cost of , .
• Clockwork Gnomes is the first artifact Gnome and does not have the typical clockwork mechanic of adding and removing +1/+1 counters despite its name.
• Clockwork Steed is a miniature version of Clockwork Beast that also cannot be blocked by artifact creatures.
• Clockwork Swarm is a miniature version of Clockwork Avian that also cannot be blocked by Walls. Despite its picture, the Clockwarm Swarm cannot fly, unlike the Clockwork Avian.
• Didgeridoo is an Aboriginal instrument that creates a deep droning sound.
• Dwarven Sea Clan has an ability that, like Desert can only be used during the end of combat step.
• Dwarven Trader, in the style of Mons's Goblin Raiders, is a creature that depends upon other cards that care about Dwarves to be of much use.
• Ebony Rhino has the greatest combined power and toughness among artifact creatures in Homelands.
• Eron the Relentless has the greatest combined power and toughness among red creatures in Homelands.
• Feroz's Ban was later reprinted in 5th Edition although it was (mistakenly) on the Reserved List at the time.
• Ghost Hounds is the only monocolored black creature with Vigilance.
• Heart Wolf was named in homage of the Throat Wolf legend.
• Hungry Mist has the greatest combined power and toughness among green creatures in Homelands.
• Ihsan's Shade was one of five uncommon former Ice Age block Japanese language cards offered as a promotion in Japan. The Ice Age block was not released in Japan.
• Ironclaw Curse references the ability of Ironclaw Orcs.
• Jinx was named as part of an inside joke, referencing one of the "words of power" in "The Game," played by members of the Research and Development team.
• Joven's Ferrets shares the "doesn't untap next turn" mechanic found on many Snakes in the Kamigawa block.
• Labyrinth Minotaur is the only monocolored blue Minotaur.
• Leeches is the only card in Homelands to reference poison counters. In fact, this card removes poison counters, and yet the expansion contains no means for a player to gain poison counters.
• Leaping Lizard was based on the first "joke" card that appeared online with the same name.
• Marjhan has the greatest combined power and toughness among all creatures in Homelands.
• Memory Lapse was designed as part of the reverse-cantrip cycle in the Mirage expansion and was moved to Homelands after another card was removed from the set.
• Mystic Decree is apparently designed to pair with Island Sanctuary, making the controller of this combo incapable of being attacked.
• Primal Order is the second card to reference non-basic lands and the first green card to do the same.
  • The name references The Primal Order, a role playing game produced in the early days of Wizards of the Coast.
• Root Spider is the first of only a few Spiders to have power equal or greater than its toughness. Others include Plated Spider, Goliath Spider, Aquastrand Spider, Needlepeak Spider, Gloomwidow, Sentinel Spider, Archweaver, Skysnare Spider and Willing Test Subject.
• Roterothopter is an upgrade of Ornithopter, but with the cost of instead of . They both received the creature type Thopter later.
• Rysorian Badger was named for editor (and assistant director of the Duelists' Convocation) Rhias Hall, who was also known at the time as "Auntie Badger".
• Shrink introduced the power reduction mechanic in green, which was later moved to blue.
• Soraya the Falconer became more powerful when Falcon and other creature types were condensed to Bird.
• Timmerian Fiends is the ninth and final card created to have an effect on Ante.
• Trade Caravan was named in honor of the "WotC Caravan Tour," an early promotional tour of Wizards of the Coast employees and contracted artists to stores in order to promote Magic.
• Veldrane of Sengir is the only monoblack creature to ever have activateable forestwalk.
• Winter Sky is a unique card with the coin flip mechanic because both of its potential effects are symmetrical.