Hall o' Shame: Homelands Nominations

[BigBlue]

This should be interesting...

Abbey Gargoyles
Abbey Matron
Aysen Bureaucrats
Aysen Crusader
Aysen Highway
Beast Walkers
Death Speakers
Hazduhr the Abbot
Leeches
Mesa Falcon
Prophecy
Rashka the Slayer
Samite Alchemist
Serra Aviary
Serra Bestiary
Serra Inquisitors
Serra Paladin
Soraya the Falconer
Trade Caravan
Truce
Æther Storm
Baki's Curse
Chain Stasis
Coral Reef
Dark Maze
Forget
Giant Albatross
Giant Oyster
Jinx
Labyrinth Minotaur
Marjhan
Memory Lapse
Merchant Scroll
Mystic Decree
Narwhal
Reef Pirates
Reveka, Wizard Savant
Sea Sprite
Sea Troll
Wall of Kelp
Baron Sengir
Black Carriage
Broken Visage
Cemetery Gate
Drudge Spell
Dry Spell
Feast of the Unicorn
Funeral March
Ghost Hounds
Grandmother Sengir
Greater Werewolf
Headstone
Ihsan's Shade
Irini Sengir
Koskun Falls
Sengir Autocrat
Sengir Bats
Timmerian Fiends
Torture
Veldrane of Sengir
Aliban's Tower
Ambush
Ambush Party
Anaba Ancestor
Anaba Bodyguard
Anaba Shaman
Anaba Spirit Crafter
An-Zerrin Ruins
Chandler
Dwarven Pony
Dwarven Sea Clan
Dwarven Trader
Eron the Relentless
Evaporate
Heart Wolf
Ironclaw Curse
Joven
Orcish Mine
Retribution
Winter Sky
An-Havva Constable
An-Havva Inn
Autumn Willow
Carapace
Daughter of Autumn
Faerie Noble
Folk of An-Havva
Hungry Mist
Joven's Ferrets
Leaping Lizard
Mammoth Harness
Primal Order
Renewal
Root Spider
Roots
Rysorian Badger
Shrink
Spectral Bears
Willow Faerie
Willow Priestess
Apocalypse Chime
Clockwork Gnomes
Clockwork Steed
Clockwork Swarm
Didgeridoo
Ebony Rhino
Feroz's Ban
Joven's Tools
Roterothopter
Serrated Arrows
An-Havva Township
Aysen Abbey
Castle Sengir
Koskun Keep
Wizards' School

With Thanksgiving etc... Nominations will close 12/3

 

[Shabbaman]

Leeches always seemed pretty pointless to me. If you're building a deck around poison, why use this instead of more poison? If you're using this against poison... you're a moron. Why run this maindeck? There are three people with poison decks.

In the whole world.

Not counting hulk flash combo though.

Another card worthy of nomination is Baki's curse. And it's RARE! Ouch.

 

[BigBlue]

Leeches is pretty bad...

I have a second nomination... What self respecting Blue deck would play Forget? Target player gets to choose 2 cards to delete and replace them... As a sorcery for UU... It isn't even a decent search card since you discard first and it's a sorcery...

 

[Shabbaman]

Forget is a poor card, but is it that bad? If the effect was stacked in reverse the card would be more than decent. Discard wonder, walla, draw two. It's not a card that would kill your deck. I could imagine someone playing it in madness, if Breakthrough didn't exist.

 

[DarthFerret]

As tempting as it is to nominate Dwarven Pony just to ruffle Ransac's feathers...D) I am going to actually nominate Daughter of Autumn.

#1: Any GW deck can use the cc and the ability cost much more efficiently

#2: The artwork is horrible

#3: Does not fit any kind of theme presented thus far (I know many cards have not), especially in this set. Plus, an Avatar? Come on...

 

[Oversoul]

I second the nomination of Leeches. I could nominate something else, like Apocalypse Chime, but I already know I'll be voting for Leeches anyway and I honestly consider it to be just that much worse than every other card in this set. And there are some bad ones. Leeches is a potential candidate for worse card ever. At least Apocalypse Chime can kill Cemetery Gate or Eron or something else pretty decent. Leeches is so bad, we don't even really know what it's for. I can't think of any other card in the game like that (except maybe Lich before the release of Legends with Mirror Universe to combo with it). Is it a poison-hoser or a kill card for a poison deck? It's almost like it can't be either. It can't hose poison because it's clumsy and damages you. The opponent will either finish you off with damage (most poison decks also deal some damage too) or simply rack up poison counters again, because if you couldn't deal with the creatures killing you before, this won't buy you much time. Likewise, it can't be used along with poison because it's white (poison decks are almost always B/G or monoblack) and it doesn't deal enough damage to be even remotely effective. Melting won the vote for Ice Age and it does a lot more than this card. Way more people use snow-covered lands than use poison. And Melting actually hoses snow-covered lands. Leeches just makes a token effort at hosing poison but probably kills you or does nothing instead. Removing 9 poison counters hits your for 9, and that's a lot of damage to be doing TO YOURSELF. Man, this card is bad.

Forget is viable. The reason people don't use it is because there are simply other blue card-drawing spells that are better. I've used it in highlander decks and it works fine.

Daughter of Autumn is just typical Homelands fodder and an example of why Homelands is so despised. It's mediocre. But hall of shame material? Not really.

 

[Melkor]

It's actually kind of interesting that Homelands probably has less true contenders for the Hall of Shame than say Urza's Saga. Homelands is bad because it is just so uninspired with everything costing more than it should and/or doing less than it might. I think Leeches is a pretty clear choice but I'll nominate Koskun Falls as an exemplar of a badly designed card. It's out of color, it has no real flavor, it's an Enchant World but without any sort of effect or scope that makes that make sense. It has got a weird upkeep that doesn't make sense, just makes it worse. The end effect isn't horrible but it is too expensive and it doesn't really go in any deck.

 

[Oversoul]

It's actually kind of interesting that Homelands probably has less true contenders for the Hall of Shame than say Urza's Saga.

I don't know about that. Each set is, for now, only getting one winner for the hall of shame. How many cards get nominated is definitely not a metric showing how many cards in the set are actually hall of shame material. For example, First Edition saw several nominations, but probably all of them were on a lower tier of suckiness than Farmstead, which was really the only card in there with the level of badness we've been seeing in the winners here. Homelands might actually have fewer cards like this than Urza's Saga. After all, Urza's Saga has more than twice as many cards as Homelands, so even if the power of the cards was exactly the same, we'd still expect to see more than twice as many really awful cards in Urza's Saga as in Homelands.

But I still think that's probably not the case. Homelands has a few good cards, some decent cards, a ton of really mediocre crap, and a few really abysmal cards. Urza's Saga has insanely broken cards, good cards, decent cards, mediocre cards, maybe a few of those really bad cards, but I doubt that it has more in that last category than Homelands does. Most of the worst cards that I can think of in Urza's Saga are actually about what I'd expect for a Homelands card. Mediocre and overcosted, but not as pathetic as, say, Baki's Curse...

 

[Spiderman]

How many cards get nominated is definitely not a metric showing how many cards in the set are actually hall of shame material.

True dat. For instance, I keep forgetting to nominate cards to begin with, so that's one less right there...

And the nominations are always subjective to the nominator's thinking anyway - what he considers "bad".

 

[Mooseman]

Alright.... Leeches is the best nomination, but I'll throw up Apocalypse Chime, just because it is totally useless, unless the format is block or mindmaster......
even then it hurts you just as much....

Is Baki's Curse really that bad? Direct damage for blue seems marginally useful. Yeah it's rare and over costed and only good against creature enchantment decks.....but it's untargeted damage..... hmmmm not good, but not totally bad......

 

[Oversoul]

Is Baki's Curse really that bad? Direct damage for blue seems marginally useful. Yeah it's rare and over costed and only good against creature enchantment decks.....but it's untargeted damage..... hmmmm not good, but not totally bad......

Too situational, which is the number one problem with bad cards. I do think Chime is significantly worse, though.

 

[Shabbaman]

Is there any reason Apolypse Chime has a non-token clause? I'm not sold on these "destroy the set" cards being really, really bad though. There are cards that are really poor outside their own set. Like Leeches. Leeches would make sense if it was in a poison themed set. Unfortunately Homelands isn't really full with poison... but it's full of Homelands cards. I'm not sure if they came up with these reset buttons as a joke or as a way to ensure there'd be a reset button if they'd printed something broken. Still, poor design.

 

[BigBlue]

I don't think tokens have expansion symbols... It's probably also because the original said "Bury all Cards"... City in a Bottle from AN doesn't destroy tokens either - which makes it cool for Rukh Eggs in Mindmaster...

RECAP: Today is the final day for nominations

Apocolypse Chime - Mooseman
Daughter of Autumn - DarthFerret
Forget - BigBlue
Koskun Falls - Melkor
Leeches - Shabbaman, Oversoul

Baki's Curse comment.... (Tongue in cheek, but true)... It almost kills a Rabid Wombat on it's own...

 

[Spiderman]

Arg. No time to look over the cards as I'm leaving in about a half hour... hopefully I can make a nomination in the next set.