Ah, Morophon, you truly are boundless. As my fellow Commander writers have already been showing, Morophon offers options for tribes which otherwise... struggle. There's more fun to come in the rest of this week, but for now let's take a look at a tribe which does have a commander, but really wants a better one. They're horned, they're bipedal, they're hanging out in the center of a labyrinth... enter the Minotaurs!

Hurloon Minotaur has been around since Alpha. Since then, the powers-that-be at Wizards have sprinkled them into the game, until we reached Theros, where they landed solidly in and begin to develop. Of course, eventually we wound up on Amonkhet, where we met up with Neheb, the Worthy. This Rakdos-tinged warrior was cheap, gave a standing ability, and the chance to buff up the power of all the Minotaurs you controlled at the cost of having a small hand. Minotaur fans everywhere rejoiced! Of course, keeping no cards in hand is not a ton of fun in Commander most of the time, and a 2/2 for ? Seems a bit lackluster. Which is why we turn to Morophon, the Boundless. This seven-mana five-color beauty comes with that wonderful 6/6 body, a power/toughness boost and a cost reduction. That's more like it.

As you look at the deck, you're going to notice it's, well, focused. Not a lot of room to wiggle with this one. It's a lot of Minotaurs, a few other things, and that's it. However, before you dismiss it, take a look further down. We're going to talk about that. But first! Morophon, the Minotaur!

Morophon Minotaurs | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Morophon, the Boundless

• Creatures (40)
• 1 Ahn-Crop Crasher
• 1 Ahn-Crop Invader
• 1 Anaba Ancestor
• 1 Anaba Spirit Crafter
• 1 Barging Sergeant
• 1 Boros Battleshaper
• 1 Boros Reckoner
• 1 Bull-Rush Bruiser
• 1 Burning-Fist Minotaur
• 1 Cursed Minotaur
• 1 Deadshot Minotaur
• 1 Deathbellow Raider
• 1 Emberhorn Minotaur
• 1 Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
• 1 Fanatic of Mogis
• 1 Felhide Brawler
• 1 Felhide Petrifier
• 1 Felhide Spiritbinder
• 1 Frontline Devastator
• 1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
• 1 Grisly Survivor
• 1 Hurloon Shaman
• 1 Karplusan Minotaur
• 1 Kragma Butcher
• 1 Kragma Warcaller
• 1 Lord of Shatterskull Pass
• 1 Merciless Javelineer
• 1 Minotaur Illusionist
• 1 Minotaur Skullcleaver
• 1 Minotaur Sureshot
• 1 Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
• 1 Neheb, the Eternal
• 1 Neheb, the Worthy
• 1 Oracle of Bones
• 1 Ordruun Veteran
• 1 Rageblood Shaman
• 1 Ragemonger
• 1 Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
• 1 Warchanter of Mogis
• 1 Zealot of the God-Pharaoh

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 1 Angrath, Captain of Chaos
• 1 Angrath, Minotaur Pirate
• 1 Angrath, the Flame-Chained
• 1 Chandra Ablaze
• 1 Chandra, Flamecaller

• Instants (2)
• 1 Commit // Memory
• 1 Emergency Powers

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Angrath's Fury
• 1 Angrath's Rampage
• 1 Day's Undoing
• 1 Flurry of Horns
• 1 Incendiary Command
• 1 Khorvath's Fury
• 1 Reforge the Soul
• 1 Time Reversal
• 1 Wheel of Fate
• 1 Whispering Madness
• 1 Windfall

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Didgeridoo

• Lands (40)
• 10 Mountain
• 1 Akoum Refuge
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Bloodfell Caves
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Cinder Barrens
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Frontier Bivouac
• 1 Gateway Plaza
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Highland Lake
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Maze's End
• 1 Mystic Monastery
• 1 Nomad Outpost
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Plaza of Harmony
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 1 Savage Lands
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Simic Guildgate
• 1 Swiftwater Cliffs
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Unclaimed Territory

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Yeah. That's a bunch of Minotaurs. In honor of Neheb and his worthy attempt to be the leader we wanted him to be, we're going to try to keep card parity with Wheel of Fortune effects after combat. The original Wheel is really expensive and there are plenty of others, so no need to drop $100 on one, but we want its little sibling Wheel of Fate and a bunch of others. The idea is we dump our hand, attack, then Wheel, hopefully hurting our opponents a bit while we're at it, then repeat. Two of the Chandras are here for this very purpose, although one of them is a mini-Wheel.

Angrath is here in all of his Pirate-y glory, because he's a Minotaur planeswalker and therefore earned his place. We also get the card that searches one of him out - Angrath's Fury - and the force-a-sacrifice card that bears his name, just to stay on theme.

Didgeridoo. I mean. We get to play Didgeridoo.

We try to get value from our Minotaurs, so most of the classics had to be retired. Canyon Minotaur? Awesome flavor text. Terrible card in Commander. We also, sadly, lost Labyrinth Minotaur, which is wonderfully named but is a 1/4 that's designed to block, which is not a thing we want to do. But we've got more power buffing, cost reducing, and ability giving hidden in the herd, as well as some fun abilities. Boros Battleshaper will really shape a battle, that's for sure.

We're heavy Red for our mana, with a healthy but small dose of Black, an even smaller amount of Blue, and exactly one instance of both Green and White. The vast majority of our lands, therefore, make Red, but we're running a lot of duals and every tri-land with Red in it. The only ones that don't have Red are the Mazes. Maze's End is the only way we have to search for that combo, but we might actually get lucky and pull it off. It's not just there because it's a five-color build; traditionally, the fabled Minotaur was found in the center of the labyrinth, which could also be called the maze's end. Seems fitting.

Here's the thing. This is a flavor-builder's dream build. Heck, one could go further, drop the Wheel effects, and add more Minotaurs! That'd give you a very 3- and 4-drop heavy deck but you could actually call it "The Herd" or something and it'd be really quirky, though not particularly playable with any hope of winning through the first Day of Judgment. This deck attempts to survive a Wrath or two and at least put up a fight, which is where I like to aim my theme decks that aren't merely thought experiments.

But we're lacking for serious play. We're running zero ramp, which is almost certainly a mistake with a 7-mana commander. We're also Limited to a whopping three removal spells, one of which is Deadshot Minotaur. When Deadshot Minotaur is one of your removal spells, you're probably not doing removal right. We have no sweepers, no way to bring back things from our graveyard, no equipment to attach to a Double-striking, Menacing 7/4 Minotaur. This is probably bad if we want to try to win the game. So rather than offer a single Optionboard, I'm going to offer a few different directions you could take this deck. You could build your own Optionboard and have the flavorful version up there and something a bit more competitive.

• All-in on the Maze's End combo. This build would need to splash into a lot more Green to do the land-search thing, but you might be able to hide it behind "I'm just ramping" for a while, using the Minotaurs to distract and serve as blockers. Some Wraths and ways to play multiple lands per turn would also be good.
• Goodstuff with a Minotaur sub-theme. This would replace the Wheel effects with more traditional card draw, likely from Blue; add some ramp, probably from Green; and grab some removal from White and Black. From here there are even more paths: cut the cheaper Minotaurs for cheap removal to stay alive early and go in on some of the bigger dudes, or keep the cheap ones and run some recursion shenanigans with a goofy win-con like Fanatic of Mogis.
• Voltron with a Minotaur sub-theme. This would use more Artifacts and even some Auras in an attempt to make Morophon the game-winning item. Suit him up and swing. He's big enough and with some evasion stuck to him would be pretty reasonable. This deck would probably want to stay closer to the current mostly-three-color build, though I can see branching out to things like Architect of Imagination and other board-tilting effects to give our dudes (and specifically, dude) a leg up. That means artifact ramp rather than Green-based, but still probably some removal from Black and maybe even a counter suite from Blue to protect our Commander.
• Madness! We're in Madness colors, and a few of the Minotaurs either want you to discard or care when you do, plus Neheb, so Madness would be a fun direction to pursue. Neheb, the Worthy is probably the better commander for this build, frankly, since one of his on-board abilities cares about hand size (and one of his other iterations, Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, even lets us discard every turn), but Morophon offers the opportunity to dip into other colors. There are good Madness cards in Blue which might be worth considering. There's a chance for a Madness deck with a Minotaur subtheme or a Minotaur deck with a Madness subtheme, depending on how you built it.

How would you build Morophon for Minotaurs? Any other ideas to take our tribal deck to the next level? What tribe do you hope you'll see in the next two days? Let us know in the comments!

Enjoy the rest of the week. I know what's coming... and it's epic.

Thanks for reading.