The Ultimate Minotaur Deck - Sethron, Hurloon General
Sethron, Hurloon General by Jason Rainville
The Secret Cow Level
Hello, everyone, welcome to the greatest Minotaur deck this side of the multiverse. Minotaurs have held a special place in my heart ever since I first discovered Neheb, the Worthy in 2017, so you can imagine how excited I was when WotC gave me the honor of revealing the Minotaur Jumpstart 2020 pack. Not only was it a great way to represent the Minotaur tribal fan-base I had built up, but it featured the greatest legendary Minotaur to exist, Sethron!
Ever since I started writing my Minotaur Set Reviews, people have been asking me what my Minotaur EDH deck looks like. Until now, I've been quiet, but today I'm here to give you a run-down on how a true Minotaur fanatic builds a true Minotaur, Sethron. This way, you, too, at home can show off the power behind the bovine brawlers.
Head Low & Horns High
The general gameplan we're going for is to build a massive mob of Minotaurs and get as many Sethron triggers as physically possible. With our braying horde, we make minced meat of our opponents before they can say "Filet Mignon". We do this by making combat a nightmare with a swathe of keyword lords, Minotaur abilities and Sethron's own skills.
Because Sethron cares whenever a nontoken Minotaur enters the battlefield, we're running as many Minotaurs creatures as possible. It pains me to admit it, but a lot of Minotaurs are in a word, bad. They're either over-costed, have little board impact, or do not provide any synergy with our other Minotaurs. It might fit the theme of the deck, but we're not going to waste our time with the likes of Hurloon Minotaur. To make up for this, we'll substitute in cards with the Changeling ability, as they will count as Minotaurs.
Another option is to run a bunch of non-Minotaur cards, but use Conspiracy or Maskwood Nexus to make them mechanically Minotaurs. I prefer not to go this route, because relying on two cards to make the deck function is far too inefficient, especially without dedicated tutors. However, it also might make the deck more proactive outside of combat strategies, so keep that in the back of your mind when deciding how you'll build your own Sethron deck.
The Pastures
The Minotaurs
With that out of the way, which Minotaurs are we running? Who else but the usual suspects. We have our lord package, featuring Felhide Petrifier, Neheb, the Worthy, Ragemonger, Rageblood Shaman, Kragma Warcaller, and Moraug, Fury of Akoum. In addition, we're also including Anaba Spirit Crafter to show some love to Minotaurs of MTG past.
To increase our combat effectiveness, we then run more aggressive Minotaurs, such as Sardian Cliffstomper, Ahn-Crop Crasher, Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, and Fanatic of Mogis. These Minotaurs will lay down the law and bring our opponents to their knees when they jump into battle and act as the backbone of our Minotaur horde.
Finally, we have the miscellaneous powerful Minotaurs: those that are strong by themselves but don't really synergize with the tribe. For these we have: Neheb, the Eternal, to ramp mana from our attacks; Lord of Shatterskull Pass, as a mana sink and to soften up our opponents' defenses; Felhide Spiritbinder, to temporarily double up on our best creature; and lastly Oracle of Bones, to potentially cheat in an instant or sorcery, like Deathbellow War Cry. In fact, if you're a fan of cheating in instants and soceries and you want to do it with a Minotaur flavor, check out my Magar of the Magic Strings deck tech!
Changelings
As for the Changelings, the most important one to highlight is Taurean Mauler, and not just because the art has it shaped as a bull: it receives a +1/+1 counter every time an opponent casts a spell. That's right, if your opponent plays anything other a land, this Shapeshifter is getting bigger. I have seen this bad boy become a 20/20 over the course of two turns. Tack on the Minotaur Keyword lords, and this will always be a serious threat.
The Rest
With that we can move to the utility creatures. They might not be Minotaurs, but they're very good at making our Minotaurs be better Minotaurs!
Starting off, we have Species Specialist. This Human is one of the most important cards in the deck. With it on the field, any time one of our Minotaurs dies, we draw a card. This is important when we start attacking, as it allows us to refresh our hand with every casualty, helping us maintain pressure and not run out of steam. This is crucial on account of Sethron's having no in-built card draw.
We also have Labyrinth Raptor, partly for the flavour of Minotaurs and labyrinths, but mostly because it synergizes well with Sethron's ability to give our Minotaurs menace. This Dinosaur makes blocking even more difficult, as the raptor forces the opponent to sacrifice one of the two creatures blocking one of our Minotaurs. This card can end games with the right set-up, and on top of that it can increase the power of menace creatures, squeezing in that extra bit of damage. Every now and then it will completely ruin a life gaining deck as well!
We then have Obosh, the Preypiercer to increase our combat effectiveness. Since most of our Minotaurs are odd mana costs, Sethron included, we get pretty deadly, especially when trample and double strike get added into the mix. I will admit Obosh is not so great in isolation, but it's a great card for breaking out of a gummed up board or turning a reasonable host of Minotaurs into a monstrous one.
The deck can take a few turns to build itself up, so to facilitate the early game I like to run Harsh Mentor. This can get some extra early game damage and punish players that run things like fetch lands or even prevent combos that require infinite untapping permanents. Harsh Mentor is definitely not a Minotaur, but at least there are curved horns in the art, and that has to count for something, right?
Finally, we round things out with Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats. While being a Rogue Vampire, he provides board-wide deathtouch redundancy should Felhide Petrifier be removed. In addition, Zagras can be an effective way to remove Planeswalkers given that he has flying and haste, and when he or any other of our creatures deal combat damage to a planeswalker it is immediately destroyed.
Rageblood Sorceries
The most obvious spell in our arsenal is Deathbellow War Cry. This card, if it resolves, will easily finish the game off, especially if Sethron is in play. If possible, the best combination in my opinion is to have Rageblood Shaman, Kragma Warcaller, Neheb, the Worthy, and Fanatic of Mogis; when combined with Sethron, you'll at least deal seven to each opponent, make four 2/3 tokens, and with all the lord effects, you should to be able to overwhelm one or two opponents, with the remainders easy to clean up on following turns.
We then have Predators' Hour to add menace redundancy, and if we're able to hit out opponent, we get to steal their top card for later use. If you've ever faced down Etali, Primal Storm, then you know how powerful this kind of effect can be.
We also run Diabolic Intent (partially because it's cheaper now with the The Brothers' War reprint) that allows us to trade in a Sethron, Hurloon General Minotaur token to tutor any card in our deck, which is an excellent way to get Deathbellow War Cry or to find a silver bullet for the situation.
Then we feature a swath of removal spells, including Feed the Swarm, Rakdos Charm, Terminate, Chaos Warp, Kolaghan's Command, and Reckless Spite.
Burnished Banners
Artifacts are where things get interesting. We're running the usual tribal artifacts, like Door of Destinies, Vanquisher's Banner, and Obelisk of Urd. These will act as lords if our lord Minotaurs are KIA, with Door of Destinies being particularly strong as it scales with each Minotaur we cast.
We also have Didgeridoo, the chase card from Homelands, as it allows us to cheat and flash in our Minotaurs while completely ignoring the stack to avoid counter spells or responses. Why a Didgeridoo has anything to do with Minotaurs, I couldn't tell you. But in case this were to be removed, Urza's Incubator will function as a backup by reducing the cost of our Minotaur cards by two generic mana, almost as good.
Finally, we have Dolmen Gate, arguably one of the best cards in the deck next to Species Specialist, because when we attack, our creatures can't be dealt combat damage, so our Horde can attack with impunity (unless our opponents have removal spells or abilities). I can't tell how many games this card has saved me, as it allows us to attack more aggressively and keep the pressure up.
Nyxthos Eminence
With the enchantments, we're looking for two things: cards that make our Minotaurs deadlier in combat and cards that help us find more cards.
We'll start with Visions of Phyrexia. If you read my The Brothers' War Set Review, you may remember how highly I think of this card, as it is largely a better Outpost Siege: even if we whiff, we at least get a Powerstone, which can help pay for Sethron's activated ability, and it doubles the number of cards we see each of out turns.
Next we have Unquenchable Fury. I include this card as tech against any blue player that loves to draw cards and really lay on some punishment to them: if the creature dies, it comes back to our hand to be replayed again and again, like Rancor, if Rancor scaled with hand size.
Shared Animosity is another useful cards as it rewards us for going wide with Sethron, Hurloon General and making our attacks hurt even more than before.
Finally we have Rage Reflection and Dictate of the Twin Gods that are included mostly for the flavour, but in conjunction these cards will melt our opponents as together they quadruple the damage our creatures could deal.
Curse of Wandering
That's a wrap! I hope you all learned something and are inspired to build your own Sethron deck. Let me know what cards you would play in Sethron! Until then, fingers (and hooves) crossed that we'll see some Minotaurs in Phyrexia: All Will Be One this February.
