Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #25 - Homelands

Episode Date: March 15, 2013

Mark Rosewater talks about Homelands, a set he didn't design, didn't develop and wasn't even at Wizards during it.

Okay, I'm pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today I'm going to do something I haven't done before. I'm going to talk about a set that I didn't design, didn't develop, wasn't even in the building when it happened. But I, so, I often get asked, what is the worst magic set of all time? And my go-to answer is Homelands. And so today, I want to give a little more depth to Homelands, because I think that there's a lot more going on in the story, and it's a little unfair. I feel bad. I mean, I do believe it's the worst design set, but there's a lot of factors that go into that, and there's a much bigger picture. So today, I do believe it's the worst design set, but there's a lot of factors that go into that, and it's not, there's a much bigger picture.

So today I want to give the bigger picture. I want you to understand what was going on and how Homelands got made, because it's, I think that, I think my two-second answer does far injustice to the set. And so today, I want to talk a little bit about Homelands and how Homelands came to be. Now, in order to understand this story, because today is kind of a story day, although I guess most podcasts are story days. So let me talk about sort of where Magic was at. And I've touched upon this in previous podcasts, but I'm going to go into a little more detail today. Okay, so

I've talked about how Richard came to pitch a game, RoboRally, and the president of the company, Peter Atkinson, said to him, we can't make that, good game, we can't make that, but what I'm looking for is a small portable game using cards that we can play in between role-playing games. Something quick, fast, and portable. That's what Peter asked Richard for. So Richard comes back with this idea.

I think Richard had an inkling of it, and then once Peter asked for it, so that all came together. I think Richard had said to Peter, I think I might have something for you. And it was something that he had been working on or thinking about, but anyway, he came back and he presented magic.

Peter loved it. And it was pretty clear early on been working on or thinking about, but anyway, he came back and he presented Magic. Peter loved it. And it was pretty clear early on that there was something special about it. I mean, I think everybody involved kind of knew it was a pretty cool thing. But there's a big difference between you getting excited about it and having any idea of where Magic would go, you know what I'm saying? Very few games explode the way magic explodes. So let me talk a little bit about that explosion, because I think that's important to this story. Okay, so what happens is,

Peter, or, you know, Wizards of the Coast, makes what they believe is a six-month supply. And the plan is, Peter is going to drive up and down the West Coast to game stores and show off the game. And the idea was, remember, Peter, Wizards of the Coast, when it was founded, was a little tiny role-playing game company. They made a game, I believe, called Taloslanta.

They made another game called The Primal Order. We'll get to that in a second. And so what happens is they don't have a lot of capital, but to Peter's credit, Peter recognized magic as being something special, and Peter went all in. So they printed as much as they could, what they thought was going to be a six-month supply, and then Peter started driving up and down the West Coast,

demoing to game stores. So what Peter thought was going to last six months lasted a week, maybe a week and a half. Because what happened was, people would see it and fall in love with it. And it quickly spread on the West Coast. Now, once again, remember, this is 93, or, you know, 93 is when the game came out. The internet existed back then, but it was mostly kind of the Usenets and stuff.

It wasn't, you know, the World Wide Web as we know it. You know, there wasn't really graphical interfaces, and the information was more in pockets. So anyway, it wasn't the means of information spreading that it has since become. I mean, it existed, and gamers tend to be more involved in hardcore technical stuff, so yeah, there were people on the Usenet that definitely spread

the news, but a lot of it was word of mouth, and that early magic spread geographically. And that's something to understand. Like, I lived on the West Coast. So, real quickly, plug my version of what's going on here. I, at the time,

was having a rough go at it at writing. I'd already been on Roseanne. That ended. And I had some problems and an agent that quit on me. And anyway, I was struggling

to sort of make my next break. And I was going stir-crazy at home. So I decided to take a job just to get out of the house. I mean, make a little money, but it wasn't so much about the money. Much of it was just interacting with other people.

And so I decided that I wanted to do something that I loved. So I chose to work at a game store. I love games. So I was at a game store. I love games. So I was at the game store. I was working at, it's called The Game Keeper, which, interestingly, later on, wizards would go to buy.

And somebody came in and said, they asked about this game, and they described the game to me. They said, okay, it's a game, and you're wizards, and you're fighting with magic, but all the magical spells are on cards, and they're illustrated, and it you're fighting with magic, but all the magical spells are on cards, and they're illustrated, and it's like a trading card game.

Now, I was sold. All I needed to hear was the description. I didn't even need to see the cards. Just the description hooked me, and I was excited. And then more people came in and kept asking for it. So finally, I think later that summer when I was at Comic-Con in San Diego, I saw them for the first time.

Somebody actually had a deck, and I'm like, oh my God, can I see that? They weren't for sale or anything. Can I see it? And she let me look through them, and I was very excited. And then it was a couple weeks later at a convention in Los Angeles, a game convention, that I actually had a chance to buy some. And I didn't buy enough, but anyway,

that story for another day, or a story I've already told. Anyway, so Peter was going around and showing off the game, and it just started, I mean, the thing about Magic, which obviously most of you should understand is, Magic, all you need to do is really play Magic once, and you can go, oh my god, this is really cool. And I mean, it was unlike anything people had ever seen. Plus, I mean, I think that it had the graphical component. You could hold them in your hand. Something about all that just all clicked.

I mean, like I said, Magic is an awesome game for many, many reasons. But people saw it. It clicked. It went like wildfire. So Wizards made six-month supply, sold in a week. So then they said, okay. Then they made another six-month supply, which is what you know is beta. That sold out in less than a week. So then they said, okay, then they made another six-month supply, which is what you know

is beta. That sold out in less than a week. And so what happened was there was a period of time where Wizards was making product. They would print

as much as they could print based on a combination of how much money they had and how much, you know, printing time they could get from the printer. Originally,

our printer was called Carter Monday and we still use them but now we're big enough that we have more, our printer was called Carter Monday, and we still use them, but now they're big enough that we have more than one printer. And Carter Monday's in Belgium, in Europe. So what happened was, they printed, sold right out.

Went right back on, I mean, it took a while to get it printed. That's why Alpha came out in the middle of the summer, and Beta came out I think in September. But anyway, there's this history where they would make magic. Print as much as they could, sold out. Print as much beta as they could, sold out. Print as much Unlimited as they could, sold out.

Print as much Raven Knights as they could, sold out. Antiquities, sold out. Legends, sold out. I mean, literally, by the way, as someone who went through this, if you wanted to buy the new product, for example, I bought a couple, I bought like $40 worth of cards of Alpha. I bought like a starter deck and three boosters, I think.

Because at the time, I go, a game, that's how much you spend. And they're like, oh, whoops, okay, I need more cards. Beta's coming out. I learned the store, they said the data's coming out. You had to be in line the day it came out to guarantee you were going to get some. You know? And literally, like, you know, they would sell out before the day it came out to guarantee you were going to get some, you know. And literally, like, you know, they would sell out before the day was out, you know.

I remember in Legends, it's funny because I went and bought some Legends, opened it up and like, I need more Legends. And I went back and bought more Legends. But once again, you know, and the guy who I bought from had bought a huge amount of Legends. He went in big. And I believe he saw the Legends in a couple of days. And I mean, he spent a huge amount of Legends. He went in big. And I believe he sold a Legend in a couple days. And I mean, he spent a huge amount of money buying Legends.

So, anyway, what's happening is the game is spreading like wildfire. And it is clear, from Wizards' standpoint, that they have no idea how big it is. Because they just keep revamping and printing more, and it's just not enough. Now, meanwhile, what's happening is magic's still spreading.

It started on the West Coast. Well, now, you know, the middle of the country, and then the East Coast, and I probably East Coast first. I probably hopped Coast first. But anyway, a little bit spreading, so the whole United States is playing. And then other countries start playing, and they need to start, you know, translating.

And anyway, the game's exploding. So what does this all mean? How does this have to do with Homeland? I will get to it. Okay, so what's going on is Richard had understood. So, what does this all mean? How does this have to do with Homeland? I will get to it. Okay, so what's going on is, Richard had understood, I've talked about this, Richard understood that eventually there would need to be expansions. Now, nobody anticipated how fast Magic would sell,

so no one realized the speed. I mean, everyone was like, oh, we need expansions, you know, maybe next year we'll do one. So, Richard had a bunch of different people, a bunch of different groups that were his original playtefters. One group was what we call the East Coast playtefters. That was Scaf Elias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, Chris Page, the people that have gone to do Ice Age and Antiquities and the Fallen Empires and Alliances. Anyway, they were first given Ice Age. That's the set they first worked on.

Then another group, this is the Bridge group. This is where Richard had met through Bridge. So that includes Bill Rose and Charlie Coutinho and Joel Mick and Don Felice and Elliot Siegel and Howard, that was Howard's last name, Kallenberg. Anyway, those are the people that made Mirage, Mirage Invasion. Then the last was his friend Barry, Barry Reich, who went on to make a set called Spectral Chaos that we borrowed part of which to make Invasion.

So the Barry mechanic, the domain mechanic, was from that set. Anyway, so Richard had took some people and had them start making sets. Now, be aware that the playtesting had gone on for a while. It's very easy in the story to make it sound like Richard pitches and Peter says,

can you make this? And Richard goes, bam! And all of a sudden Magic was born. Well, that took a long time. That wasn't just, you know, I believe Richard pitched to Wizards, I think in 91. You know, the game came out in 93. So there was some time. So what that meant was the people that Richard had had been the play testers for Magic, and they actually played for a while, over a year. So when they went to start designing stuff, they had a lot of experience with the game. Now, flash forward. Okay, the world's catching on fire. Everything, like, Magic is a hot commodity. So, they realize they need more sets. So the first thing they do is they go to Richard

and say, okay Richard, we need another set. So Richard designs Arabian Nights. And I believe Arabian Nights was done quickly. I say, okay, Richard, we need another set. So Richard designs Arabian Nights. And I believe Arabian Nights was done quickly. I mean, Richard borrowed it. The reason he did an existing known IP was it was a lot easier to design cards quickly. It was like, well, what am I doing? Okay, I'm doing this world. Okay, well, it's already made. Oh, okay, well,

there's Sinbad and Aladdin and make all these things that already exist rather than have to build the world. And then the East Coast playtesters who were already working on Ice Age were tagged to do a quick set. They did Antiquities.

Now, meanwhile, not only did Richard ask some people to make sets, but Peter, realizing that the explosion they were having, Peter also went to some people and had them make some sense. So what happened was Peter went to his friends and the people he knew and the people in his company to do that. Now, one group of people was a guy named Steve Conard and who was Steve's partner?

Robin. Robin. I don't remember Robin's last name. But anyway, Steve was a role-playing friend of Peter. They played a lot of Dungeon Dragons together. And they, so Steve Connard and Robin were going to make Legends, which came out after Antiquities.

And what happened was, when Legends came in, the R&D folks, so a lot of the playtesters, most of the East Coast playtesters, actually. So Scaf and Jim and Dave and Charlie, who was from the Bridge Group, they came to work at Wizards. Bill would later come, back when I come. So many months later, Bill would come. Although he follows in the story in a second.

many months later, Bill would come. Although he follows in the story in a second. So anyway, they were there, actually, they may not have even been at Wizards yet, but when Legends came in, they knew that Legends needed another pair of eyes, because while Steve was

a gamer, and Steve had done a lot of role-playing stuff, he never designed for a trading card game. I mean, no one really had, but he wasn't even well trading card game. I mean, no one really had. But he wasn't even well-versed. I mean, he had seen Magic, but he had just played it a little bit. He wasn't as well-versed as the playtesters who had been playing it, you know, pretty intensely for over a year.

So when Steve came in, it was very raw. One day I'll do the Legends podcast, and, I mean, cards would say, like, you know, all creatures attack one another, and not define mechanical terms of what that means. So what happened was the playtesters kind of became an ad hoc development team, even though they hadn't been hired yet, I think, by Wizards,

and they sort of molded the set into place. Now, they complained the set was very raw. In fact, if you look at Legends, Legends, I mean, they felt it had a lot of good ideas, and they acknowledged that stuff like legendary creatures and multicolor were all pretty strong, compelling mechanical things. You know, they had also, you know, parallel design come to a similar place. So they were frustrated that it was raw, but they admitted that, okay, you know, this set has some exciting things in it. We see why people will like this set. You know, there are some very compelling things.

And yeah, there's a lot of junk in it. And I mean, Legends has a lot of junk in it, but they're like, oh, okay. So meanwhile, what happened was Peter had asked other people to make sets. So two of the people Peter had asked were people that worked at Wizards of the Coast. One was a guy named Kyle Namvar. Kyle Namvar, I believe at the time, was running the customer service department. I mean, he eventually ran the customer service department, which we now know is Game Support. But I think he was running at the time. Anyway, at the time,

he might have just been a person doing customer service. I think he was running. Eventually, he did run it. And Scott, Scott Hungerford, who was his partner, I mean, who partner designed, he designed,

two people designed Homelands, Kyle Namvar and Scott Hungerford. Scott Hungerford, known as Scooter, was what we then called Continuity, which we now know the creative team. So, for example, when I told my story about naming Forza Will,

the person I was interacting with was Scooter. And so Kyle and Scott, I'm going to call Scott Scooter. Kyle, we called him Scooter. Kyle and Scooter got tagged. I mean, they might have volunteered, but I think what happened was Peter said, we need more sets.

Is anybody interested? And I think Kyle and Scooter came to him and said, we are interested. And he said, okay. So what happened was they were very intrigued by the concept of story. And in fact, to be fair to Homelands, you know, of all the sets that I get asked to go back to,

Ogothra, which is the setting of Homelands, is one of the top requests we get. And every other set I get asked back to are sets that were wild successes, big successes. People wanted to go back to Ravnica. People wanted to go back to Mirrodin. You know, nowadays people are asking for things like Zendikar and Innistrad. You know, our successes.

Like, people want to go back to where we made good sets. So the fact that people asked to go back to a set that, look, the set wasn't good, you know what I mean, mechanically, means that, look, there was a very compelling world. And that is really what Kyle and Scooter did. They said, let's build a compelling world. And so what they did was, Alpha had come out at this point,

so they knew what was popular, and so they really latched on to a couple things. They latched on the popularity of Sarah Angel, they latched on the popularity of Sanger Vampire, and they latched on the popularity of Herloon Minotaur. And so what they did is they went and crafted a world where Sarah Angels made sense and where Sanger Vampires made sense. In fact, what they did is, because neither Sarah Angels nor Sanger Vampires

had any definition or origin, if you will, they made a world in which they did. Now, I don't remember the story exactly, but essentially, Sarah falls in love with Faraz, I believe, and so they make their own little, they tuck away and make their own little world, and on that world is where the Sengir family lives, and Grandma Sengir, and Baron Sengir, and it's where the Sengir vampires come from. And so they created this whole world where, you know, there existed these angels that Ser had made,

and these vampires that were the vampire family, and there was a whole, all these minotaurs. I mean, they weren't Hurtaloon minotaurs, because Hurtaloon was a specific place in Terrasier on Dominaria. But anyway, they really sort of fleshed out and made this cool world that said, okay, people love these things. We're going to make a world

that sort of shows where these things come from. And so, I mean, that's kind of what they did. Now, here was the problem. The problem was, unlike the playtefters, they had not been playing Magic for, you know, over a year. And they, I don't think they'd ever done game design before. I mean, once again, they were gamers, I believe. And so what happened was, they kind of did a top-down design. But they did a top-down design, but they didn't top-down design.

I mean, one of the things I also talk about is I think top-down designs are harder to do than mechanical designs because mechanics are much more rigid than flavor. Like, you can always make something mechanically, and then flavor is very flexible. We can come up with flavor to explain something away. It's a lot harder when you say,

okay, I'm going to start with the flavor and then I have to match it with mechanics. The Champions of Kamigawa had this problem, which is if you lock too close in to what you want before you get mechanics figured out, mechanics aren't that flexible. And so they kind of do this world, and they didn't have the skill to sort of pull down a top-down set mechanically.

So they had wonderful flavor, and the mechanics kind of just didn't quite do what they needed to do. Now, remember, what happened was a bunch of the playtesters had come to Wizards to be the original R&D, and essentially to do development and design as well. But at this point, other people were doing sets, and internal they were developing things.

They weren't designing them. When I got there, we ran out of those external things. We started doing them internal. And Tempest was really the first internal design. Before Tempest, everything had come from external sources. The designers weren't in the building. I mean, a few of them worked in the building, but the design teams were outside the building. So what happened was the Homeland's design comes in. It's supposed to be a set down the road. And R&D at the time looks at it, and they say to Peter, yeah, this isn't good enough. We can't

do this. And Peter was like, no, no, no, no. Guys, I promised these people, I gave them my word, we're going to do this. And there was a big fight, because R&D was like, R&D, for example, they thought Legends was rough, but they saw stuff in Legends that were like,

okay, this is really rough. The design has a lot of rough edges, but there's jewels in it that people will be excited about. They realized there were individual cards and there were concepts like Legendary and Multicolor that really would grab people. But they looked at Homeland and were like, this doesn't have that.

You know, fine, there's a rich story, but the cards mechanically don't really tie well to that and there's nothing that's really going to stand out as being the thing, you know. But Peter put his foot down and Peter said, I promised we're doing the set. But Peter put his foot down, and Peter said, I promised we're doing the set. And the problem was, R&D was very nonplussed, because they're like, we're the experts, that's why you have us.

We're telling you this is not going to work mechanically. And so what happened was, they didn't really know what to do. They're like, you know, and they felt like, well, Peter likes something about this set because he wants to do it. And so they were kind of stuck in the spine, was like, okay, we have to stay true to the set, but we don't think mechanically the set's going to do what it needs to do. And so they did some development on it, but they were put in a very hard spot, which was, you know, nowadays, or modern development, if the set's not working, you rip it apart and you make it work.

You know, but they felt after the fight with Peter, they couldn't rip the set apart. You know, that they had to kind of maintain. Because back then, by the way, another thing is, when all the designers were external, they weren't internal, there was a lot more like, oh, we want to, I mean, even now we try to keep vision. We try to make sure that there's people who

follow through, who understand what's going on, but that we're much more willing now to say, hey, fellow co-worker, this isn't working. And then you work together to try to fix it. But when they're external, it's a lot harder, you know what I'm saying? So anyway,

what happened was, R&D got kind of given an impossible task, which was, don't change this too much, but make it better. And they did, they tried some. That is funny, for example, my favorite card in the set was not actually made by the Homeland Designers. My favorite card set, by the way, is Memory Lapse, which is a very, just a very elegant, cool card. And the reason it's in the set was Bill Rose came out for a weekend to do his interview, which would later lead to his job. And part of his interview process was they had him sit in on a development of Homelands,

and I guess they had made a hole or something, and they needed a blue common, and Bill was like, oh, well, I have the perfect card. It's from my set, Mirage. You know, you guys can use that. And so Memory Lapse actually was made by the Mirage team and it's in Mirage, but it came out first in Homelands because Bill was helping them fill a hole. Now, by the way,

there is some cool cards, you know. For example, like Autumn Willow, for example, was a very interesting card that kind of paved a lot of the way for modern-day Shroud and Hexproof. Serrated Arrows was a popular card that I think had a lot to do with us thinking about charge counters and limited uses. So there are individual cards that, I mean, it's not like it's a complete wasteland. But the problem was a lot of the things they were experimenting with, like I mean, it's not like it's a complete wasteland. But the problem was a lot of the things they were experimenting with, like I said, they were letting flavor lead,

and the flavor made some awkward stuff. Now, that said, there are a couple hits. There are a couple knock-em-out-of-the-park hits. One of my favorite cards, and this is a limited card, but I love the flavor, and it actually plays very interestingly, is Giant Oyster. I mean, that's just an awesome card, you know what I'm saying? I mean, the flavor is basically, your oyster eats them, and you slowly, you know, eat them,

and then whittle them away. You tap them down, and slowly, I think you put minus zero, minus one counters on them. You don't do that anymore, but the flavor is very cool, and like I said, Homeland's had a lot of neat one-off flavor things. What it was lacking was it didn't have a very strong cohesive mechanical hole. It laid a lot on the top down. And that the top down, like one of the things is even when you do a top down, you know, industry did a top down, but there still were graveyard themes, there were tribal themes, you know, there were things that kind of tied them together. And I think what happened was that Kyle and Scooter, you know, understood flavor. And like I said, that's where the set shined.

But they didn't understand mechanicalness. And like, I think they were, you know, neophyte designers trying to do what was one of the hardest things to do design-wise, which is good top-down design, you know. And that I feel like they kind of just bit off more than they can chew. And then, politically, the set was in a place where development didn't feel they could radically change it. And because of that, because they

left it mostly intact, you know, it didn't... That's kind of where it ended up where it was. You know, and that, like I said, I feel like in modern day, if we had a gold thread to work with, I mean, there's some quirky things. I don't quite get the minotaurs.

I mean, I understand Hurdle the Minotaur was popular, but... Like, we actually, by the way, we talked about when Innistrad was first in the early stages, you know, Brady came to me and said, you know, if we wanted to do Gothic Horror, Algothra is, you know, the closest we've ever done to Gothic Horror. We could talk about going back there. And I said no for a couple reasons. One was the year before we were going to Mirrodin,

the year after we were going to Ravnica. So I didn't want, like, three return two years in a row. Also, I wanted a world devoid of commitments because I wanted to match gothic whore the best I could. And the last thing I wanted is what we have to have, minotaurs. Like, minotaurs, what do minotaurs have to do with gothic whore? Nothing, you know. And I knew thing I wanted is what we have to have, minotaurs. Minotaurs, I don't have minotaurs after the gothic core. Nothing. And I knew if I went back to Algothra that we were kind of obligated to do some stuff

to match that that didn't really make sense with gothic core. But also, note, by the way, for the fans of gothic core, I mean, that's the first set with a major theme of vampires. It has the first werewolf in it. I know there's a lot of ghost themes and stuff in it.

The other thing, by the way, that's fun, or a little side note, is one of the things the designers did is they did a lot of cards that referenced themselves and their friends. Now, I don't know all of them, and I did a quick pass to look at a couple of them. But, like, so, for example, Joven's Ferrets. Kyle had a

pet ferret. And I bet Joven was a... I'm not sure if Joven was a name he used for a role-playing character. But anyway, so Joven's Ferret, which is a straight-up reference to Kyle and his ferret. Uncle Isfahan, for example, was a nickname for Steve Bishop. I've talked about Steve Bishop before. The guy that ran Way of the Beginning, ran Organized Play. Back when it was called Events. in the beginning ran organized play.

Back when it was called events. Rysorian Badger was a reference to Raius Hall, who worked on the events team for a long time and was very friendly with Kyle and Scooter. Primal Order

was a card that made reference to a role-playing game that Wizards had made, that Peter Atkinson himself had made. So there were a lot of... Homelands have a lot of little throws. We used to do a lot of what we called vanity cards back then. We don't really do vanity cards anymore.

The concept of a vanity card is it's referencing people who make the game and if done correctly you're not supposed to notice, meaning it doesn't draw your attention. It is a little more so. Like Rhystorian Badgers, a little more so. But we don't draw your attention. It is a little more so, like Rhapsody and Badgers, a little more so. But we don't do them anymore.

We do do references. We do allusions and stuff, like we did Creepy Doll, and we did Wall of Brambles, which is a Plants vs. Zombies reference. We do some pop culture stuff. I mean, we have Easter eggs, but we tend not to do Vandy cards anymore,

mostly because it was thought that, like, you know, it didn't mean much to anything. It was a little... I don't know. I like vanity cards. I'll be dead honest. I mean, I have Morrow, so... I think they're kind of cool, and I think they're

a neat in for people that know, and I think they're a fun way... Anyway, I do not make every decision at work, but, I mean, I do understand the reason behind that know. I think they're a fun way. Anyway, I do not make every decision at work. But, I mean, I do understand the reason behind the decision. I mean, not decision I guess I'd make, but, you know, I respect it. And one of the big things about working in a team is, hey, not every decision is my decision, but, you know, you have to respect the group decision

and work hard to make it happen. And like I said, a lot of things about design sometimes is I want to do something and I'm kind of voted down and then it's like, okay, well, how could I do this in a way that people want to do? So any other last things

about Homelands? Homelands has my most faded, my, sorry, my least favorite card of all time, which is Leeches. My big problem with Leeches is I really liked Poison as being this alternative thing

and I felt as soon as you can remove poison it just felt a lot more like life where if it was this sort of one way thing I felt that it just gave a lot more sense to it it made it a little scarier obviously that's a controversial stance I know there's people that really wanted us to remove poison counters

but anyway maybe the thing that led me down that path was how much I the strong dislike I had for leeches I know there's people that really wanted us to remove poison counters. But anyway, I... Maybe the thing that led me down that path is how much I... The strong dislike I had for leeches. I really hated leeches. So maybe that's one of the things that made me realize that. But anyway, I have pulled into the parking lot. So it is time to end our talk on homelands.

I just want to leave with the following point. This is kind of the reason I wanted to do it today. Is, um, I think that you have to take stuff in context. I believe that when the dust settles, that objectively that Homelands has the worst design from a historical standpoint.

But, that doesn't mean, like I said, just because something goes wrong doesn't mean there's not things that are right in it. I think that Homelands did a very good job of kind of being an early way of showing what residents can do. I think it was an early set that sort of showed some of the appeal of top-down design.

I think it definitely dipped its toe in some areas that we later would go on to explore more. You know, it's's not magic shining moment, but I do feel that in some ways, if you want to understand something, I often talk about how your mistakes are your best learning tools. And I think that Homeland taught us a lot

and it really was an interesting step in sort of making us understand things going forward. Internally, it completely changed the dynamic of how R&D functioned within the company. Because after Homelands, when R&D said, this isn't going to work, people said, oh, oh, yeah, R&D said that last time and it didn't work.

Maybe we should listen to R&D. It definitely changed some of the internal dynamics, I mean, for the better. Much like, I think, Urza Saga paved the way to modern development, I feel that Homelands definitely gave R&D a little more clout to sort of make sure mechanics mattered, you know,

and I think that that legacy is actually a very important one. I think a lot of what R&D's going on to become stemmed from that early working kind of a lesson of, hey, you know, R&D really has their eye on the ball as far as what mechanically will and won't work. Anyway, I've talked a lot while sitting in my parking lot. So, that's all we got for today. A little extra

long homelands. I hope you enjoyed it, and it's time to go make the magic.