The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth - Minotaur Set Review

Spiteful Banditry by Manuel Castañón

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifacts & Lands | Allied Colors and Shards | Enemy Colors and Wedges | cEDH | Reprints

Hello everyone, welcome to Middle-earth! The Lord of the Rings is a universe that has undoubtedly paved the way for modern fantasy as we know it. With a world full of so many memorable characters and fantastic creatures, I am beyond excited to see what our Minotaur decks can gain from this visit.

Now, normally my set reviews are targeted toward the formats of Pioneer and Commander. However, seeing as this set is Modern legal and will skip by Pioneer, I will only be focusing on the Commander side of things. While I would love to talk about how these cards might impacts Modern Minotaurs, Modern is just too fast for Minotaurs to be a viable deck.

Unfortunately, one does not simply review a set for Minotaur tribal, especially when Minotaurs are not present in this set. Still, there are plenty of cards to talk about that can aid our unlikely fellowship of cows. The sort of cards that will empower us for a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Black

Call of the Ring

"The Ring tempts you" will be a very powerful mechanic for combat focused decks, which almost all Minotaur decks are. Each level of the Ring either rewards us for attacking or makes its easier to attack. The only problem is that most of the cards that tempt only do it once, which requires a lot of cards with tempt to make use of the mechanic to its fullest.

That is, except for Call of the Ring which does it every turn on our upkeep, allowing us to quickly level up our Ring. And as if that wasn't good enough, it also acts like a Phyrexian Arena by giving us an extra card each turn at the cost of some life (as long as we have a fresh creature to make a Ring-bearer). Which shouldn't be too difficult for us, especially in a Sethron deck when we're constantly making tokens. For two mana this card has a lot of baked in value that I'm excited to make use of.

Isildur's Fateful Strike

I'll start off by saying I'm not too crazy about this card due to the costs and the restrictions it has, but it can be a brutal card in the right situation. Being able to kill a creature and then do a massive hand attack at instant speed is a great way to halt a player that's getting ready to pop off and win.

The main problem is that it's a Legendary Instant, meaning we can't cast it unless we control a Legendary creature. That seriously holds back this card as there will be a lot of situations we would want to use, but can't due to not controlling a Legendary creature. This is a card that is designed to be played if you're behind and need to slow down the archenemy. But because its a Legendary Instant, if you're behind you might not have a Legendary creature to cast this.

I'm also not sure Minotaurs have enough Legendary creatures in our lists to bail us out if our commander, such as Neheb, the Worthy or Sethron, is constantly being removed.

Orcish Bowmasters

I like these Orcs, for the simple reason that they're great tech to punish players drawing cards. Be it a wheel effect, a cantrip, or a value engine like Rhystic Study. These archers work well to pick off mana dorks or Planeswalkers, or perhaps even to help burn a player down. I can't tell you how satisfying it will be to have the blue players feel the sting for drawing cards, just the way black normally does.

And because Orcish Bowmasters has flash, we can hold on to them for the right moment for when an opponent plays Windfall, or Blue Sun's Zenith.

Even though they aren't Minotaurs, or create Minotaurs, I think they really assist the average Minotaur deck's game-plan. By being able to ping our enemies and create a massive orc army, combat is only going to get easier with these guys around.

Witch-king of Angmar

I love the Witch-king for two primary reasons:

1. It discourages any opponents that might want to attack us. Any creature that hits us must sacrificed. This is crucial when we're aggressive, as it will help prevent a crack back. The few exceptions being if we're at risk of being knocked out of the game, or our opponents have an easy way to recur creatures. Either way, opponents will think twice before attacking into the Witch-king.
2. Our opponents will have a hard time removing the Witch-king. If he's blocked or the target of a kill spell, we can just discard a card to give it indestructible. And as I'm sure any Minotaur fan will know, Minotaur decks are already happy to discard cards. Either for Neheb, the Worthy, or Glint-Horn Buccaneer, Madness cards, or any other discard synergies we might use.

Red

Rising of the Day

This is strictly a better version of Fervor thanks to improving the combat effectiveness of our Legendary creatures. It's the kind of effect I'm always happy to see more of because it's extremely usefully for aggressive Minotaur decks. Now granted, Mass Hysteria also exists for one mana, but it also gives our opponent's creatures haste which will help out our opponents too much in a game of Commander.

Spiteful Banditry

Spiteful Banditry is a great card for clearing the board and generating a consistent source of treasure tokens to help accelerate and rebuild our board state. Even though clearing the board will only give us one treasure token, it's also a permanent, meaning it can stick around and continue to generate value as the game drags on.

Heck, we don't even have to use this as a board clear. We could have X be zero and play it on turn two for the potential ramp. No matter what decks are at the table, creatures are going to die from various different effects, and Spiteful Banditry has the potential to create four treasures per turn cycle in the ideal scenario. Given that Rakdos as a color pair lacks high quality ramp effects, this can really help a Minotaur deck keep pace with the rest of the pod.

There and Back Again

Speaking of accelerating, this saga has a lot of things going for it. The first chapter helps us attacking, as we prevent a problematic creature from blocking (creatures that might have first strike, death touch, high toughness...etc), the second chapter will help us ramp, as it searches for any mountain card and puts it into play, an effect mono red rarely receives outside of Mountaincycling, and the third chapter...

Well, we get Smaug! Some people will just want to sacrifice Smaug using one of the altar cards to get the dragon's horde of treasure, but even those players still got to see Smaug!

I think it's better to keep him around though, I see the most value in keeping him around for offense or defense. Smaug is particularly useful because Minotaurs don't have wings, and aren't especially good at flying. Best of all, our opponents won't want to kill it, as they'll be rewarding us with a ridiculous amount of treasure.

Multicolored

The Balrog, Durin's Bane

This card excites me for Minotaur decks because treasure tokens will make it so easy to cast. Each treasure token will cover two mana in the cost: one for the sacrifice reduction and one for the mana generated by the token.

The Balrog, Durin's Bane will also be very hard for our opponents to block, unless they want to trade their commander into it. And when he is removed we can blow up the best artifact on the board as revenge.

Bear in mind that this card is best when we have treasure tokens, but that's not too hard to pull off in Rakdos these days, especially with Spiteful Banditry discussed above.

Sauron, the Lidless Eye

Sauron is a straight forward card, but he does a lot for Minotaurs. When it enters the battlefield we temporarily steal a creature, which will always be the best creature our opponents own. This is useful to soften an opponent up by bolstering our forces and simultaneously weakening theirs. But that's just the floor of this ability. Who knows what our opponents could have, and how it might advance our own game?

The second ability is what really matters. For three mana we can pump our creatures for two power and then have our opponents lose two life. Considering all the buffs and keywords our Minotaur lords provide, this makes our cows even more terrifying. Having our opponents lose two life also speeds up our game-plan, as we're still hurting the players we aren't attacking this turn.

I think Sauron will work in any Minotaur tribal deck, but ones headed by Mogis will get the most mileage out of it.

Colorless

Andúril, Flame of the West

What I like about this card is it makes our creatures more combat effective, but it also creates flyer tokens for us. This is important for Minotaur tribal because flying is a keyword Minotaurs normally don't have access to.

I see this slotting into any Minotaur tribal deck, but I also see it being particularly effective with Tahngarth, First Mate. Tahngarth is built to jump in with every combat, meaning we can make up to eight spirits (tapped and attacking) every turn cycle.

Horn of the Mark

This is a perfect Minotaur card. Most cards in our decks are either Minotaurs or lands, so the chances are high that every combat we're drawing into even more Minotaurs. This will help resupply our forces as they get worn down through combat.

Palantír of Orthanc

Palanír of Orthanc can be a great political tool. Either we draw more cards, or we burn an opponent. Both of these options are great for us. Now, while the opponent in questions chooses what happens, we choose the opponent. So if a player is low on life, we can pick them to force the card draw option.

Another example would be choosing a player to make an alliance with so you target them for the cards draw outcome and target your enemy players for them to choose the mill option. As your opponent would likely prefer to take some damage to prevent you drawing a card.

Lands

Mount Doom

This is a very versatile dual land. It covers our red and black mana, but it can also ping our opponents if we have unspent mana. And finally it can act as a safety net to clear the board if our opponents are getting too far ahead. Perfect for any Minotaur deck.

Conclusion

And so ends our unexpected journey. There and back again. While I wasn't initially excited for this set, I think in the end it won me over. There is a lot to love in this set for all kinds of MTG players. A new direction for Elves, expanding upon the neglected Orc tribal, and even Shadowfax showing us the meaning of haste.

And stay tuned from me, where in a few months we will be blessed with Commander Masters.