March of the Machine: Minotaur Set Review

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifacts/Lands | Gold I | Gold II | Reprints | cEDH| Battles

Hello everyone! Welcome to another instalment of the Minotaur Set Reviews.

The Phyrexians are invading the multiverse. Not only are all of our favourite planes and characters in danger, but so are the Minotaurs from each of these worlds. From Theros, to Dominaria, to Amonkhet, to Ulgrotha, and to Zendikar, nowhere is safe from the conquest of Phyrexia, but with a multiverse of conflict and carnage, comes new tech cards for Minotaur decks and I'm excited to see what we have in store.

Now I do have to address something, that despite this set taking place on the entire multiverse of MTG, we did not get any new Minotaurs. However, we did get two "Target Minotaur" cards, which is better than nothing. For those that don't know, Target Minotaur refers to an old trend, that trend being whenever WotC needed an art of a creature being hurt by a spell, Minotaurs were often chosen. It's not exactly clear why WotC had it out for Minotaurs back then, but regardless this set is a good reminder that the trend continues to this day.

Now as always, this review is targeted to Pioneer and Commander, as to me, that is where Minotaurs really shine, but the spirit of this article is to inspire a brewer's mindset, so, dear reader, if you have a Modern Minotaur deck, don't feel like I'm leaving you out. Let's dive into this multiversal war and see what oil slick treasures we can discover.

Black

Archpriest of Shadows

This card I find very intriguing, but difficult to evaluate. My first impression is that this is the closest thing we have to a black Sun Titan, which is fairly powerful, and Backup can make this effect happen the moment the card enters the battlefield.

The question then is whether this is an effect Minotaurs want and at this cost. If the goal is to return Minotaurs to back from the grave, Raise the Draugr costs two mana and recurs two Minotaurs, or for five mana, the same cost as the priest, you can play Patriarch's Bidding and get back all your Minotaurs to the battlefield.

So, while Archpriest is powerful, and can be used, I'm not sure if its the most effective option for this type of effect.

Breach the Multiverse

This is a trap card, plain and simple. While using mana ritual cards, like Mana Geyser or Irencrag Feat, can accelerate you to cast this card early, it's still a trap. The reason is that your spending all this mana to get back your best creature that your opponents might have. At this cost, in order for this to be worthwhile all three of your opponents need to be playing creature-based decks, which isn't always going to be the case.

Now compare this to Etali, Primal Storm, a card that's one mana cheaper and can repeatedly steal cards from your opponents, not just the creatures, so while Breach could create a value swing, Etali is just better in nearly all cases I can imagine.

Collective Nightmare

Here we have our first Target Minotaur card. Showing us a Phyrexian Minotaur being consumed by what I think is supposed to be Ashiok's nightmares. It's very striking art and probably one of the best in the set.

As for the actual card, I don't think it's good in any constructed format, but in EDH, Sethron's tokens do help with the Convoke ability, but even using two Minotaur tokens makes this effectively a black Lightning Bolt. So why not just play Bolt?

Corrupted Conviction

Sacrifice a Sethron Minotaur token, draw cards, Profit! All for one black mana, and it being at instant speed means we cash in a creature about to die or being the target of a spell we want to prevent, so this seems like a strong card to keep up our sleeve for the right moment.

Hoarding Broodlord

I see this Dragon being used for one important role: it can guarantee us Deathbellow War Cry or any other combo piece and protect it from our opponents' interaction. I can't tell you how many times I've seen combo pieces fall to hand attack or be milled, so I'm very excited to try this out with Sethron.

Red

City on Fire

Anyone that has played EDH should certainly know that Fiery Emancipation is freaking dangerous! Triple damage is no joke and will kill at least one player when cast. City on Fire is the exact same but costs two more and has Convoke, meaning with a large enough board state you can play this for free and eliminate a player out of nowhere! Unfortunately this also slots in well with other red creature-based decks, like Goblins, so beware or it might be your city that's on fire.

Etali, Primal Conqueror//Etali, Primal Sickness

Unfortunately because of EDH mana restriction rules, only Tahngarth can use this card. However, it is interesting that he transforms into a creature comparable to Blightsteel, so if you can pay the flip cost the turn after casting it, it doesn't have summoning sickness, so with the proper timing, you can just kill a player on the spot. That's admittedly a bit of a pipe dream as it costs a lot of mana to flip Etali, but that doesn't seem to hard too pull off in red and green.

Furnace Reins

Here we have our second Target Minotaur spell, depicting a Minotaur mid-compleation. This card I think can see some utility. It's like any other Act of Treason spell. The difference is, if the stolen creature hits our opponent, we get a Treasure token, meaning in terms of mana it's really a two-mana spell, which is the cheapest version of this effect we've ever seen. I think this might have a home in Minotaur Pioneer as a way to, at worst, remove a blocker and bolster our attackers.

Invasion of Kaldheim//Pyre of the World Tree

This card doesn't have any explicit synergy with Minotaurs, but doubling our hand size for a turn seems really good. This is a great way to dig for answers or even combo pieces, then if you defeat the battle to flip it, we get an outlet to turn unneeded lands into Shock at any time.

This means going forward, anything we draw can be used to win the game, and I know from experience that ever point of damage matters when your racing an opponent.

Invasion of Mercadia//Kyren Flamewright

So this is basically Tormenting Voice, which is good, as it facilitates the discard synergy and digs us deeper in the deck. However, now that we live in a world of Thrill of Possibility, Tormenting Voice largely doesn't see play (instant speed is just strictly better than sorcery speed).

So, in order for this card to be playable, the backside needs to be worthwhile, and Kyren Flamewright has some potential as a discard outlet. It adds tokens to go wide and than gives all our creatures haste for the turn, which is a useful way to add mass haste redundancy alongside Kragma Warcaller. In addition, if we're playing Maskwood Nexus or Conspiracy, then the Elemental tokens it creates will also be Minotaurs!

Path of the Pyromancer

Oh, sweet Momma, that's a lot of discard! This is a great way to wheel our hand and then have the mana afterwards to be able to cast our refreshed hand or pay for any Madness costs on the cards we discarded. What's interesting is that most wheel effects, like Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Misfortune, or Windfall, impact all players, where this one only applies to us. In some ways I think this is good, because some decks want their graveyards bigger and many other players don't like cycling their hands, so by only wheeling our hand, in some ways you protect yourself.

The Will of the Planeswalkers ability I can't really evaluate as there is no way to know which Planechase card is in play. However, it does give you the ability to curry favour with another player and potentially forge an alliance, which may be the difference to win the game.

Uncivil Unrest

This card offers a really interesting choice for us. Either our Minotaurs can enter the battlefield with haste to stay on the offensive, or we can buff up our Minotaurs and have them hit like a truck on following turns. Given how much the Minotaur Lords, like Rageblood Shaman, Kragma Warcaller, and Neheb, the Worthy, already buff our creatures with keywords and power, it's going to put your opponents in a very bad position.

The one issue, though, is that most cards played in Minotaur decks don't play with +1/+1 counters, so Uncivil Unrest is probably the only way to get the counters on our cards, which seriously limits the potential this card has for us.

Multicolor

Rankle and Torbran

There is so much value packed on this card. Given all their keywords, I think it's guaranteed to hit a player when it enters. In addition, the other abilities are all really helpful, and we can choose the one that's the best for the board state. The one I want to focus on is the last one, as it adds two damage to all our creatures for the combat, which really helps speed up the game.

However, there is a massive issue with this ability, and that's when Neheb, the Worthy is in play. Because Neheb gives all our Minotaurs first strike they would strike at the same time as Rankle and Torbran, so the last ability would have no meaningful impact, but the other abilities can be just as useful, so this isn't a complete loss.

Colorless

Sword of Once and Future

The last of the "Sword of" cycle is finally here, and it does not disappoint. Blue and black Protection is obviously useful as a way to protect against a lot of targeted removal spells that might be used on us. The other abilities are a little less relevant however.

Surveil 2 is useful to dig through our deck for gas. However, the second ability is a little useless in EDH. Since Minotaur decks are largely creature-based, we don't have many spells let alone ones that cost two or less. So, in EDH you would really only use this Sword for the protection.

In Pioneer we do run a lot of low-cost instants and sorceries:

This might have potential there, but it seems pretty slow to be doing that, not to mention that this costs three mana and historically three-mana cards are reserved for our various lord cards. So there isn't all of room to add in a sword like this.

Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus

This is a nice reference to Sword of the Animist, a card that is an all-star in my Minotaur decks because Rakdos is frankly terrible when it comes to land ramp, so having an Equipment that tutors out basic lands on combat, in decks focused on combat, has saved me a lot of games. This Living weapon adds redundancy with the Sword of the Animist and hopefully will speed up Minotaur decks in EDH.

Herald's Horn

This is a reprint, but a welcome one. Not just for Minotaurs, but any tribal deck really. This artifact is critical to use curving out our Minotaurs. Pair it with Ragemonger, and suddenly a lot of our Minotaurs become free or incredibly discounted. It also has the effect of drawing us an additional card each turn, since most of our cards are Minotaurs allowing us to always being on curve and have a board presence.

Multiverse Legends

Firesong and Sunspeaker

Here we have the one and only Minotaur card in the set: a reprint of the Buy-a-box promo from Dominaria in a gorgeous new stained-glass art.

Now, I'll admit I'm a little out of my element with this card. It's a fairly popular commander from my understanding, but it's not a commander meant for Minotaur tribal. Instead, these bovine Clerics take Minotaurs in bold new direction, that of damage and life gain spells.

I have never played this kind of a deck before, so I can't offer much comment on it, but it seems like a really fun deck building challenge and maybe this is the perfect opportunity to try it out.

Obosh, the Preypiercer

Obosh is a card that feels like it was made for Minotaurs. Given that so many odd mana cost creatures make up the backbone of Minotaur tribal, so all our odd mana creatures punching for double is a big deal.

However, I don't think Obosh should be built for it Companion restriction. Having a deck with only odd costing spells is too restrictive and heavily cuts down on the number viable Minotaurs we can play. Therefore Obosh is better used as a card in the 99 for when you need to hit a bit harder.

Conclusion

And with that we come to the end of this war. The Multiverse is saved, and New Phyrexia is defeated. But with all those planar breaches who know what new possibilities can arise.

Fortunately, we won't have to wait long to find out as March of the Machine Aftermath releases next month. Maybe then we see what has befallen our Minotaur brethren.

Be sure to check out the other set reviews found on the Commander's Herald for other perspectives on this new set.

See you later.