Why Has WotC not Reprinted Homeward Path More Often?
General forum
Posted on Sept. 15, 2024, 9:38 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
WotC has reprinted Reliquary Tower, Rogue's Passage and Thespian's Stage numerous times, to the point that I feel comfortable with saying that those are three of the most frequently-reprinted utility lands, so I wonder why WotC has not reprinted Homeward Path more often, since it is very useful land, given that many players like to steal creatures from other players, so I definitely wish that they would reprint that land more often.
What does everyone else say about this? Why has WotC not reprinted Homeward Path more frequently?
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #3
Even though what legendofa says seems perfectly correct, that's actually a great question. Yes, Path can be weird if you can never use it, but it's opportunity cost is quite low. And considering how frustrating it tends to be when stuff gets stolen permanently, I feel like this would be a great card to reprint every once in a while. Good catch, DemonDragonJ.
September 15, 2024 11:28 p.m. Edited.
wallisface says... #4
There’s a bunch if factors that might influence Wotc’s reprint policy:
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Wotc have incentive to keep valuable cards sought-after. They have reason to hold-back on reprinting high-money cards until it makes business sense for them to do so.
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For booster products, there might not be any logical reason for such a card to be included in the set. There’s pretty-much no set where creature-stealing is a set-archetype, and that makes including this card in the set a hard-sell.
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For booster products, I imagine anyone drafting would loath pulling this card, and it would wheel indefinitely. While all sets have “bad rares”, Wotc aren’t incentivised to actively make play experience miserable.
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Wotc generally try to maintain a specific cost-value-maximum for preconstructed decks and secret lairs etc. I imagine trying to fit this card into such a product would make the remainder of the product comparably weaker and so sell poorly.
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There’s only so much they can reprint each year, especially with how much the populace complains about product-fatigue already - and this card is likely just not important enough to bother with.
My best guess for this showing up in a product, would be for it sneaking onto “the list” at somestage in the distant future.
September 15, 2024 11:30 p.m.
I wouldn't be shocked if it shows up in a commander pre-con in the next year or two. In the past couple of years Wizards has seemed like they want to make sure that commander specific cards like Homeward Path that cost more than they probably should get reprints.
September 16, 2024 10:38 a.m.
Building on the above, Homeward Path does not really have a clear reprint path. For a card to be included in a preconstructed product or a set, there needs to be some worthwhile reason to include it. Path rarely will fit the bill.
For a preconstructed product, Path would need to further that deck’s gameplay. That means you would need to have cards that both give your opponents objects and that you might later want to take back. That is a weird niche - and, while donate might get a precon, I doubt we will ever see a “donate then take back” precon, as that is not an archetype that really exists (outside of very, very niche cases like Karona, False God).
For a set, it would need to be in a set with a heavy theme of theft - enough of a theme to warrant including tech designed to stop it. I doubt we will ever see a set with such a large theft component to justify Path’s inclusion. Theft is one of those things which makes players angry - and thus is seen as not fun by anyone except the theft player. That alone likely means we will not see a significantly theft-themed set.
More importantly than some players being bored, however, is how poorly theft actually plays - when the game is over, you have to go through and sort out whose cards are whose. That is a hassle and leads to non-gameplay elements taking up a disproportionate amount of time at events. That goes past simply getting folks frustrated in game - it makes the event worse for everyone.
As such, since there pretty much is no real reason to print Path, it just does not get printed very often.
September 16, 2024 12:53 p.m.
Yep; donate, then have those things "power up" for opponent, then bring them back to your side, would be a pretty circuitous & flimsy precon archetype.
It would probably have to be some sort of commander legends type of set.
September 16, 2024 1:31 p.m.
I think it's likely to get reprinted in a pre-con not because it'll be super cohesive with the game-plan, but rather just because that's probably the easiest way for Wizards to reprint it. Most pre-cons have a handful of cards that don't really synergize with the rest of the deck and some of those have basically just been pricey cards that need a reprint.
September 16, 2024 4:03 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #9
wallisface, I despise that mentality, as I wish that people would value artistic integrity and fun over profit; why must the world be that way?
September 17, 2024 9:12 p.m.
wallisface says... #10
DemonDragonJ as a business Wotc still get away with a lot of artistic integrity, creativity, and fun. All businesses however still naturally need to appease stakeholders, and they’re no exception to this.
It’s also worth noting that only two of my five points (1 and 4) specifically pertain to profit. There are a lot of valid non-profit reasons to not-bother reprinting this card also.
September 17, 2024 9:36 p.m.
This should be pretty darn obvious, but it is incredibly clear that Wizards cares about artistic integrity. You look at Magic and you will see that they regularly hire some of the biggest names in fantasy art, including going out of their way to commission pieces from famous artists. Folks they catch using plagiarized art or AI art are dealt with, never working for Wizards again. Heck, over in the D&D side of things, they just overturned fifty years of precedent and released a product where the art team was part of the design (as opposed to after-the-fact commissions) so art and design could work together to mesh their collective vision.
On the fun side of things, Wizards is regularly innovating and collecting data on what players find fun, then trying to give us more of that. Here in Magic, MaRo publishes regular articles breaking down what players did or did not find fun about sets and how they will develop the game based on that feedback. He does an annual article looking at the prior year in review and the lessons they learned from fans. Over in D&D, they regularly playtest content and survey customers - and just revised their entire product based on years and years of analysis of what players find fun. Sure, in both Magic and D&D they sometimes read the data wrong and produce something less than enjoyable - but that is not because they are not trying to make things fun; that is because they are talking risks and sometimes risks do not pay off.
Yeah, Wizards is a company that needs to make money. Yes, they sometimes make decisions that are purely financial. But they also very, very clearly care about artistry and fun - and clearly know producing fun, pretty products is the way to make money.
And trying to say otherwise because Wizards is not reprinting a card that is hard to release except in products players would not find fun? That is a bit silly.
September 18, 2024 9:45 a.m. Edited.
DemonDragonJ says... #12
Caerwyn, wallisface, that makes sense, but I simply believe that WotC has an obligation to ensure that their products are easily available and affordable to the players, since a player's financial status should not affect their ability to play the game; I wish to play against the player, not against their bank account.
September 18, 2024 8:19 p.m.
wallisface says... #13
DemonDragonJ there are innumerable options for proxying to achieve the goals you’re after in that avenue. If somebody’s going to complain about proxies in a casual environment, they’ve misunderstood the point of the game (to have fun).
Wotc need a swath of their cards to be sought-after in order for their product to sell, and that means having a degree of scarcity to ensure those cards maintain value (to be clear, I don’t think Homeward Path fits in that bucket - i think that particular card is instead doomed by its awkwardness in bring reprinted in any particular product, while also being a card the majority of people simply won’t care about either-way).
legendofa says... #2
Homeward Path is kind of an all-or-nothing card. If an opponent's using a theft or chaos deck, it's a game changer. Otherwise, it's useless. You have a lot more control over the utility or the other cards.
September 15, 2024 11:16 p.m.