This is the best new LRR content, straight up! Easily digested in just a few minutes (in between work breaks in my case). G has such an incredibly natural and fun way of just shooting the shit about both absolutely horrible and objectively broken MTG cards. Love you all and thanks for the time spent doing these! Let's be real, cracking packs is fun as hell in the first place though. lol
I remember Homarid Spawning Bed. Fun Card. My friend when I started playing in '99 had a deck using it with Polar Kraken/Deep Spawn, Hell's Caretaker and some discard outlets and small creatures to start. Also ran Sunken City for a mighty army of Camarids; And there I was trying to beat it with a Rebels deck after getting my first Masques Tournament pack and a few boosters. Good old pre-modern magic.
I still remember getting fistfulls of FE packs at Walden books on my way through the mall and being super hyped to build a homarid deck at one point in my youth
With Farrell’s Zealot it’s for killing small utility creatures people have. People are often fine taking 3 damage if that means they get to keep their combo piece. This way if they don’t block you can just get rid of their thing anyway.
I get the reasoning, but...like Graham said, it's a 2/2 yet the ability pings for 3. It would just make more sense if it only did 2 damage to a creature. If the target is an X/3 why would they not simply block the Zealot?
It also can kill tapped creatures (either from using their abilities or from attacking you). Sure it can’t kill that 3/3 now, but it will die to this 2/2 next turn.
It's kinda nice that Homarid's stats equal the number of counters on it (1/1 when 1, 2/2 when 2, 3/3 when 3)... except the brief period where there's 4 and the entire turn when there's 0.
Same as last time; *Druid* is the pick if this is Draft pack #1. If it's pack #3(and you are already in Blue), then the correct answer is *Spawning Bed*
So far in our big Crack-a-Pack Draft Pool, the blue creatures we have available to sac to the Homarid Spawning Pool for shenanigans are: * Sailor of Means * Wind Drake * Niblets of Frost * I guess technically the tokens from Ashiok, Nightmare Muse (but given they have 0 mana value, not exactly ideal) Turning a Sailor of Means into three 1/1s isn't the worst, I guess? But I'm not sure I'd describe any of this as "value"...
Hey Graham, I think the idea of why the thrull creates a 1/2 counter is because the thrull's "unarmored" statline is 0/1, i think Tevesh Szat's thrull's are actually a reference to this card (also being 0/1's) given the distinct rarity of thrulls as a tribe. Armored thrull is a rather interesting proto-equipment proto-living weapon card.
3:24 I feel the mechanic is very flavorful just very wordy and the card is definitely not worth reading all those words. I like how they implemented the idea on Bounty of the Luxa from Amonkhet, one of my favorite "do nothing" enchantments.
I think these days, they'd make Homarids a major tribe and make them DFCs that are either high tide bound or low tide bound, with some condition on how the game switches between them. New Kiora which can alter this with a -ability. And make the whole plane underwater, with continental shelf Plains, Mid ocean ridge Mountains, Brackish swamps, Coral reef Forrests and Ponds as Islands.
It'd still be somewhat wordy and complicated but they could probably make it a BIT simpler these days if it was just a 0/0 that starts with 2 +1/+1 counters and then somehow added or removed counters each upkeep. The problem is I have no idea how you'd realistically handle knowing which way it was going when it has 2 counters.
They could do a pretty good homarid using double-faced cards. Something like "At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature. If you do, transform it. If you don't, put a +1/+1 counter on it"
Nah, more likely they'd be "tidebound" and the game would track tides like it does day/night. That would also synchronize all tidebound permanents, for simplicity.
I think the Zealot is a great tool if you have a way to make it unblockable (Looking at that time frame for that set, Dwarven Warriors comes to mind). Also, great fun in multi-player games, where you can attack opponent A, and let them know that you don't plan on hurting them, but instead plan on eliminating annoying utility creature that opponent B has.
I think the flavor for the spawning bed is supposed to be that the creature (ideally a homarid) dies after spawning, like an octopus or doctor Zoidbergs species.
You know, these cards are trying to do so much creative stuff there. A tweak here, a lessened mana cost there, and they could be actually be pretty fun to play with today! Not game-breaker good, but interesting and tricky for draft.
There's a common cycle in Future sight (the Augurs) with strong activated abilities but they can be activated only in your upkeep, a nod to those quirky abilities from magic's past.
I actually drafted fallen empires like 15 years ago because the boxes were insanely cheap and we wanted to try an older set. The secret was Thorn Thallid. It pings something every 3 turns but that was good enough to take down order of the ebon hand and order of leitbur. 😅
Miscut Night Soil, Oooh already a decent first card. OH SNAP! Homarid Spawning Bed is genuinely one of the better cards you could have opened. It's honestly undervalued still because it's faded far from people's memory. Check it out with cards like Mulldrifter/Aethersnipe and it can do some silly things in aristocrat style decks that normally Blue can't get involved in heavily. Edit: Here are a few other pieces that fit into blue aristocrats for commander: Murder of Crows, Keiga, the Tidestar, Reef Worm, Floodgate, Chasm Skulker, Purple-Crystal Crab, Palace Familiar, Oculus, Blue Exploit critters, Barrin, Master Wizard, Jeskai Sage and Nim Deathmantle. There are also combos with River Kelpie and Solemnity. It's a very unusual and good card.
Homarid Spawning bed is great with Scornful egotist Only 7 mana for 8 creatures, and you can spread that mana out over 2 to 3 turns if you want to I brewed a kitchen table 60 card deck around this interaction at one point and it seemed promising
I have a "sea theme" EDH deck and Homarid Spawning Bed generates tons of value in that deck. If something is going to die just feed it to the spawning bed.
Night soil is one of the better cards in my Slimefoot commander deck. Make saprolings and stop opponents graveyard shenanigans with it what more do you want!
I wonder if someone thought up Homarid Spawning Bed as a way to get players to be less sad about Leviathan, the most giant of all creatures in the old days that never worked out as impressively as I feel Wizards intended it to. Don't feel like running this glorious 10/10 trampler just cause it costs two Islands to untap it and another two Islands to have it attack? Well at least you can use it for fish food to make nine whole creatures!
The return to the Homarids sounds cool... hear me out, what about an UNDERWATER PLANE... that's something we haven't seen before... and it could be interesting how some things are reinterpreted
I quite like the flavor of Icatian Scout giving another creature first strike, like it's reporting to them the enemy's location for an ambush. Advance Scout and Viashino Bladescout seem to have a similar concept.
Nightsoil is actually a card I loved and would want a misprint of. I have a good memory of trying to draft fallen empires and it being a great card in my deck that night.
I engage with more LRR (heck most internet video content) at x1.5 or x1.75 speed, simply because I can and it saves time. But Crack-a-Pack? Always x1, I get to really vibe and absorb the weird tangents Graham goes on. It's just a salve to my busy day. As for that miscut Night Soil, I'd LOVE that card! It's a really solid piece of anti-graveyard tech, it gets played in some of my Commander decks today still.
Real question for that druid card if you bring up all your Forrest as 2/3s when they get destroyed do they go back to being lands or are they put in the grave cause that's hella risky then if they don't return as lands
Yeah if you make a land into a creature and it dies it goes to the graveyard! Very risky! Nowadays some cards that animate lands also give them indestructible, but it depends on the card.
@@CharlotteMimic cool thanks for explaining sometimes reading some of the old cards and what they do is really confusing. Even some of the new cards i get confused on what they do lol.
I've been a part of a Fallen Empires draft. The teacher in charge of my high school game club had a box of it. Defiantly can agree that it was interesting.
If your opponent has a bunch of 3 Toughness beaters that are tapped currently from just wailing on your face, Farrel's Zealot would be able to kill them once they are tapped out of attackers. Older Magic seemed to do a lot of "This is really useful after getting your face beat in by stuff." Just look at Ice Floe sometime.
Some of these seem like weird prototypes to cards we see nowadays. Like, Farrel's Zealot would eventually become several creatures that do a little bit of everything from it and was more focused about it.
It's always worth mentioning that Fallen Empires has a lot of sex in it for a Magic Expansion. Goblin Warrens, Breeding Pit, Homarid Spawning Bed, and whatever the heck the Thallids were up to. I tried, I really did, to build a deck based around Homarid Spawning Bed and Hell's Caretaker back in the day. It didn't work, but I think it was worth the effort.
Night soil is a perfect card for the edh deckbuilding: cards you should put in your commander deck series. I love this card. It's graveyard hate, a token spawner and in the lategame it's cheaply repeatable when all graveyards are packed with gas My chatterfang edh will get this enchantment asap 😍
I think Farrels zealot is actually a pretty good card, but it could get up to some real shenanigans in commander "let me hit you with my zealot and I'll just bomb the other guys utility creature"
How about Homarids that get a bunch of tide counters and then lose them all like this one, but also every homarid has some sliver-esque ability interacting with them. So there'd be a lord that gives each Homarid +1/+1 for each tide counter on them, or ward x, where x is the amount of tide counters on any given homarid, etc. I think that'd be neat.
I didn't realize what a ..........card that Night Soil is. I just bought all three art variants on TCG Player for $1.08. I think I just Night Soiled myself.
Lol, Fallen Empires is the first pack I ever bought :-) Long time ago. Did you know they are re-making Spellfire? Like the old days, only play to earn and with both physical and NFT cards.
yep, night soil would mean dookie, which is to say, fertilizer man, those old sets had some ambitious and occasionally unfathomable design, like even back then nobody would ever play the moneychanger, nor the spawning bed outside of some wacky combo
This is the best new LRR content, straight up!
Easily digested in just a few minutes (in between work breaks in my case).
G has such an incredibly natural and fun way of just shooting the shit about both absolutely horrible and objectively broken MTG cards. Love you all and thanks for the time spent doing these!
Let's be real, cracking packs is fun as hell in the first place though. lol
Absolutely agree
I remember Homarid Spawning Bed. Fun Card.
My friend when I started playing in '99 had a deck using it with Polar Kraken/Deep Spawn, Hell's Caretaker and some discard outlets and small creatures to start. Also ran Sunken City for a mighty army of Camarids; And there I was trying to beat it with a Rebels deck after getting my first Masques Tournament pack and a few boosters.
Good old pre-modern magic.
For Homarid I am mentally replacing every utterance of "tide counter" with "Tide Pod."
Spoilers:
GRAHAM IS A BLUE CREATURE CONFIRMED
I think Iciatian Scout is the pick here. Being able to give first strike at instant speed makes combat difficult for your opponent.
I still remember getting fistfulls of FE packs at Walden books on my way through the mall and being super hyped to build a homarid deck at one point in my youth
You kinda can do it now with Homarid commander from Mystery Booster playtest cards.
Homarid decks awaken deep, dank feelings inside of us grognards for sure. Lol
I always adore these older pack crackings! And Graham has such a wonderful talent for presentation!
Again, I would adore a fallen empires or homelands lrr draft
Oh why do you want LRR to suffer so. HAAHAHA!
Imagine one of them cracking an Apocalypse Chime..
Why not both? Draft them together like they're part of the same block
5:02 But Graham, they did in *Dominaria*; remember Homarid Explorer?
Only YOU can prevent Forests attacking you by destroying the Thellonite Druid.
With Farrell’s Zealot it’s for killing small utility creatures people have. People are often fine taking 3 damage if that means they get to keep their combo piece. This way if they don’t block you can just get rid of their thing anyway.
I get the reasoning, but...like Graham said, it's a 2/2 yet the ability pings for 3. It would just make more sense if it only did 2 damage to a creature.
If the target is an X/3 why would they not simply block the Zealot?
It also can kill tapped creatures (either from using their abilities or from attacking you).
Sure it can’t kill that 3/3 now, but it will die to this 2/2 next turn.
Farrell's Mantle is better though. It's the same thing but on an aura and is power +2 damage.
@@pillinjer It's not limited to creatures the player attack controls, which gives it extra utility in multiplayer games.
Also if you give it evasion it just mercs things that can't block it.
It's kinda nice that Homarid's stats equal the number of counters on it (1/1 when 1, 2/2 when 2, 3/3 when 3)... except the brief period where there's 4 and the entire turn when there's 0.
When it has no counters, you just read the stats, like other cards with no counters.
Same as last time; *Druid* is the pick if this is Draft pack #1. If it's pack #3(and you are already in Blue), then the correct answer is *Spawning Bed*
cracking packs of fallen empires and homelands. this is the real LRR MTG content.
So far in our big Crack-a-Pack Draft Pool, the blue creatures we have available to sac to the Homarid Spawning Pool for shenanigans are:
* Sailor of Means
* Wind Drake
* Niblets of Frost
* I guess technically the tokens from Ashiok, Nightmare Muse (but given they have 0 mana value, not exactly ideal)
Turning a Sailor of Means into three 1/1s isn't the worst, I guess? But I'm not sure I'd describe any of this as "value"...
$13 pack, $1 worth of cards.
Hey Graham, I think the idea of why the thrull creates a 1/2 counter is because the thrull's "unarmored" statline is 0/1, i think Tevesh Szat's thrull's are actually a reference to this card (also being 0/1's) given the distinct rarity of thrulls as a tribe. Armored thrull is a rather interesting proto-equipment proto-living weapon card.
Whenever I think of homarids I think about Homarid Strike the Power from the RoboRosewater cube stream. Good times.
“At high tide the Homarid is stronger” sounds like one of those vaguely prophetic things you’d hear from an oracle character
3:24 I feel the mechanic is very flavorful just very wordy and the card is definitely not worth reading all those words.
I like how they implemented the idea on Bounty of the Luxa from Amonkhet, one of my favorite "do nothing" enchantments.
I think these days, they'd make Homarids a major tribe and make them DFCs that are either high tide bound or low tide bound, with some condition on how the game switches between them. New Kiora which can alter this with a -ability. And make the whole plane underwater, with continental shelf Plains, Mid ocean ridge Mountains, Brackish swamps, Coral reef Forrests and Ponds as Islands.
It'd still be somewhat wordy and complicated but they could probably make it a BIT simpler these days if it was just a 0/0 that starts with 2 +1/+1 counters and then somehow added or removed counters each upkeep. The problem is I have no idea how you'd realistically handle knowing which way it was going when it has 2 counters.
They could do a pretty good homarid using double-faced cards. Something like "At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature. If you do, transform it. If you don't, put a +1/+1 counter on it"
Nah, more likely they'd be "tidebound" and the game would track tides like it does day/night. That would also synchronize all tidebound permanents, for simplicity.
5:00 we had a homarid in Dominaria. Also, just admit you want Homarid Strike the Power in a standard Magic set :p
I think the Zealot is a great tool if you have a way to make it unblockable (Looking at that time frame for that set, Dwarven Warriors comes to mind). Also, great fun in multi-player games, where you can attack opponent A, and let them know that you don't plan on hurting them, but instead plan on eliminating annoying utility creature that opponent B has.
Me looking at Homarid: Well that's a Sine wave for how the power/toughness changes
I think the flavor for the spawning bed is supposed to be that the creature (ideally a homarid) dies after spawning, like an octopus or doctor Zoidbergs species.
You know, these cards are trying to do so much creative stuff there. A tweak here, a lessened mana cost there, and they could be actually be pretty fun to play with today! Not game-breaker good, but interesting and tricky for draft.
There's a common cycle in Future sight (the Augurs) with strong activated abilities but they can be activated only in your upkeep, a nod to those quirky abilities from magic's past.
I actually drafted fallen empires like 15 years ago because the boxes were insanely cheap and we wanted to try an older set. The secret was Thorn Thallid. It pings something every 3 turns but that was good enough to take down order of the ebon hand and order of leitbur. 😅
Presumably you'd want the Zealot to kill their Moneychanger that's been banking life for the last 3 turns.
7:38 27 years later I notice that the plant behind the druid has a face and is point with the druid.
Love grahams analysis of old card flavor
Good old Fallen Empires. Peak packs to open
The value of the pack is more than a pack of Fallen Empires cost when it was available so that's a win.
Listen, I am only a Feral Thallid on Thursdays.... oh, wait, that's today. Carry on then!
two to the one, from the one to the three, please put me back into the sea - homarid
Miscut Night Soil, Oooh already a decent first card. OH SNAP! Homarid Spawning Bed is genuinely one of the better cards you could have opened. It's honestly undervalued still because it's faded far from people's memory. Check it out with cards like Mulldrifter/Aethersnipe and it can do some silly things in aristocrat style decks that normally Blue can't get involved in heavily.
Edit: Here are a few other pieces that fit into blue aristocrats for commander:
Murder of Crows, Keiga, the Tidestar, Reef Worm, Floodgate, Chasm Skulker, Purple-Crystal Crab, Palace Familiar, Oculus, Blue Exploit critters, Barrin, Master Wizard, Jeskai Sage and Nim Deathmantle.
There are also combos with River Kelpie and Solemnity. It's a very unusual and good card.
If you solemnity at the right time, your homarid will always be at high tide.
Homarid Spawning bed is great with Scornful egotist
Only 7 mana for 8 creatures, and you can spread that mana out over 2 to 3 turns if you want to
I brewed a kitchen table 60 card deck around this interaction at one point and it seemed promising
I have a "sea theme" EDH deck and Homarid Spawning Bed generates tons of value in that deck. If something is going to die just feed it to the spawning bed.
I really want to make a Fallen Empires cube one day.
Night soil is one of the better cards in my Slimefoot commander deck. Make saprolings and stop opponents graveyard shenanigans with it what more do you want!
I wonder if someone thought up Homarid Spawning Bed as a way to get players to be less sad about Leviathan, the most giant of all creatures in the old days that never worked out as impressively as I feel Wizards intended it to. Don't feel like running this glorious 10/10 trampler just cause it costs two Islands to untap it and another two Islands to have it attack? Well at least you can use it for fish food to make nine whole creatures!
Always love a return to my childhood. Definitely have a moneychanger somewhere.
Love watching G crack some packs!
Every time you open one of these old packs, I get reminded of a card I forgot to add to my own version of the strictly worse cube.
Drafting Fallen Empires would be fun to watch Lolz
Ahhh yes, my daily dose of cardboard. Thanks Graham!
Quest for the Janklord vibes intensify~
The return to the Homarids sounds cool... hear me out, what about an UNDERWATER PLANE... that's something we haven't seen before... and it could be interesting how some things are reinterpreted
That spawning bed really wants to be fed some Scornful Egotists, doesn't it?
The editing on this is great, bravo Matt
The Farrel's Zealot's effect is quite the banger when combined with unblockable (i.e. shadow).
It's basically a beefed up WHITE pinger
I quite like the flavor of Icatian Scout giving another creature first strike, like it's reporting to them the enemy's location for an ambush. Advance Scout and Viashino Bladescout seem to have a similar concept.
Actually, I think a lot of these have pretty great flavor in general even if the actual utility of most of them is questionable.
The concept of Homarid seems to be somewhat reprised in "Loopy Lobster" from the Mystery Booster test cards.
Thank you for giving me something to watch on my BDay!!🥰
"Lot's of little 1/1 Camerons" Aww
Icatian Scout looks like it is about to produce Night Soil.
anyone know the name of the background music?
Nightsoil is actually a card I loved and would want a misprint of. I have a good memory of trying to draft fallen empires and it being a great card in my deck that night.
Hullbreaker Horror should have been a Homarid type.
Today I learned that Graham is a blue creature and would therefore lose in a fight against a Karoo Meerkat.
OOOO miscuts. I always love printing/cutting errors
Oh no Graham, Cam has to spawn the Camarids
The thelonite druid is actually a key card in one of my edh decks.
the icatian moneychanger, real good in felisa fang of silverquill lists
Oh good, glad to see that pack didn't come from a demon!
Thanks for this video.
I wonder what kind of equipment Pharrell’s Hat would be.
Farrel's Zealot could bolt something if it wasn't able to block, say if they attacked last turn?
...huh, Homarids could really just be a 1/1 with "put a +1/+1 counter on this each turn" and then a condition where they all go away, huh.
I engage with more LRR (heck most internet video content) at x1.5 or x1.75 speed, simply because I can and it saves time. But Crack-a-Pack? Always x1, I get to really vibe and absorb the weird tangents Graham goes on. It's just a salve to my busy day.
As for that miscut Night Soil, I'd LOVE that card! It's a really solid piece of anti-graveyard tech, it gets played in some of my Commander decks today still.
Ah my first booster pack. Got it from an MtG comic book from the 90s I bought it 2011
Real question for that druid card if you bring up all your Forrest as 2/3s when they get destroyed do they go back to being lands or are they put in the grave cause that's hella risky then if they don't return as lands
Yeah if you make a land into a creature and it dies it goes to the graveyard! Very risky!
Nowadays some cards that animate lands also give them indestructible, but it depends on the card.
@@CharlotteMimic cool thanks for explaining sometimes reading some of the old cards and what they do is really confusing. Even some of the new cards i get confused on what they do lol.
This set must have been out when I was playing as a kid. I remember several of these cards (notably money changer).
I really like that hoodie. G, tell me about the hoodie! Please.
Spawning bed seems like it might work in a dimir sacrifice combo deck. Especially if you can get something else for the sack and then sack the tokens.
I've been a part of a Fallen Empires draft. The teacher in charge of my high school game club had a box of it. Defiantly can agree that it was interesting.
If wizard's is ever brave enough to try homorids again I hope they make tide tracked like day and night
If your opponent has a bunch of 3 Toughness beaters that are tapped currently from just wailing on your face, Farrel's Zealot would be able to kill them once they are tapped out of attackers. Older Magic seemed to do a lot of "This is really useful after getting your face beat in by stuff." Just look at Ice Floe sometime.
Camarid is what Cameron’s fans call themselves
They should do tides like day and night is done in Inistrad.
Some of these seem like weird prototypes to cards we see nowadays. Like, Farrel's Zealot would eventually become several creatures that do a little bit of everything from it and was more focused about it.
Farrel Zealot can deal damage to tapped creature, Graham... it basically forces your opponent to not attack you... :-P
My dad bought so much fallen empires back in the day, because the packs cost like half the price of the others at the time.
Oh hey! Night Soil used to be an EDH GY hate staple!
🦀🦀 Time for Crab 🦀🦀
Now I'm just curious what an actual Fallen Empires draft would look like. 🤔
Pretty sure Thelonite Druid is going to Wrestlemania
Homarid spawning bed is actually shockingly good in my Brudiclad commander deck
The scout looks like Beej
that pherrel
It's always worth mentioning that Fallen Empires has a lot of sex in it for a Magic Expansion.
Goblin Warrens, Breeding Pit, Homarid Spawning Bed, and whatever the heck the Thallids were up to.
I tried, I really did, to build a deck based around Homarid Spawning Bed and Hell's Caretaker back in the day. It didn't work, but I think it was worth the effort.
You also had icatian moneychanger last time but I fully understand why you forgot
Did you make a pact with a demon?
Night soil is a perfect card for the edh deckbuilding: cards you should put in your commander deck series.
I love this card. It's graveyard hate, a token spawner and in the lategame it's cheaply repeatable when all graveyards are packed with gas
My chatterfang edh will get this enchantment asap 😍
I think Farrels zealot is actually a pretty good card, but it could get up to some real shenanigans in commander "let me hit you with my zealot and I'll just bomb the other guys utility creature"
VENGEFUL RESPECT!
How about Homarids that get a bunch of tide counters and then lose them all like this one, but also every homarid has some sliver-esque ability interacting with them. So there'd be a lord that gives each Homarid +1/+1 for each tide counter on them, or ward x, where x is the amount of tide counters on any given homarid, etc. I think that'd be neat.
I didn't realize what a ..........card that Night Soil is. I just bought all three art variants on TCG Player for $1.08. I think I just Night Soiled myself.
I went to scryfall, there is no rares?
Rarity was weird back then 🤔
Crabs are people! Legit or quit!
Considering that I could get packs of Fallen Empires at the (Canadian) dollar store in the 90s, $1.13 in 2021 USD is actually pretty decent.
Guess you wouldn't like my white Moneychanger/Elesh Norn deck.
Lol, Fallen Empires is the first pack I ever bought :-) Long time ago. Did you know they are re-making Spellfire? Like the old days, only play to earn and with both physical and NFT cards.
yep, night soil would mean dookie, which is to say, fertilizer
man, those old sets had some ambitious and occasionally unfathomable design, like even back then nobody would ever play the moneychanger, nor the spawning bed outside of some wacky combo