March of the machine: The Aftermath - 7 Point Highlander Set Review

Release date: May 12th 2023

Latest points change at the time of writing this - The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

March of the Machine Commander - 7 Point Highlander Set Review

 

Release date: April 21st 2023

Latest points change at the time of writing this - The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

March of the Machine 7PH Set Review

 

Release date: April 21st 2023

Latest points change at the time of writing this - The Lost Caverns of Ixalan

Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.

~ ultimates pretty quickly.

Probably needs some token/lifelink/+1/+1 counter synergies to make the cut over other 4drops.

Could use her to turn a hexproof creature into an angel and then target it with The Book of Exalted Deeds.

Even if you get one trigger you're happy. Multiple triggers combined with a decent curve is enough to pull ahead in midrange mirrors. There are several cards like Basri Ket that repetitively trigger ~ but if the opponent has removal for ~ then you fall too far behind on tempo, therefore I only really like threats that also trigger ~, e.g.

Siege Veteran

Raffine, Scheming Seer

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun

Luminarch Aspirant

Special mention to Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. Not a threat by himself but ~ is a vampire and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord is excellent when you sacrifice Bloodghast to the second ability or drop bomb vampires with the third ability.

Big Vampire to drop with Sorin, Imperious Bloolord.

Hasn't got the versatility of Flickerwisp, but 3toughness is a big upgrade to the 1toughness of Flickerwisp in a Wrenn and Six + Orcish Bowmasters world.

You need a really high count of ETB artifacts/creatures to make ~ playable. Also, the payoff is obviously not worth building around, so ~ needs to be an incidental include.

I'm imagining an Aluren deck where you can still keep comboing in end step thanks to Aluren's instant-speed clause. Or perhaps an artifact-based stompy deck with Arcum's Astrolabe, Stoneforge Mystic, Ingenious Smith and maybe Mana Vault and Grim Monolith.

Nice with Yorion, Sky Nomad as you can get repetitive value.

Very slow but I can see ~ in a big mana enchantment combo deck where he acts as a win condition when your engine is running but also as a way to get back a key enchantment if it ends up in the graveyard. The Pioneer deck, Enigmatic Fires runs a 1-of ~ in this fashion, allowing you to sacrifice a 3drop enchantment to Enigmatic Incarnarnation to get ~ then next turn sacrifice ~ to upgrade to a 5drop.

Easy to overlook because classically auras are bad against cards like Ephemerate, Teferi, Time Raveler, etc, which are popular right now. They are also bad against cards with powerful static abilities.

~, Reprobation and Planar Disruption are underrated in my opinion. At the least they should be playable in a Kor Spiritdancer strategy.

~ answers The One Ring fairly well.

Reactive creature protection is risky because you will lose tempo if the opponent just deploys a threat rather than trying to answer yours, or worse, they don't even run creature removal because they're trying to combo-kill you instead. Having said that, there are some combos which rely on targetting the opponent. I think you can maindeck ~. Its versatile enough that the risk of holding up 1 mana for a couple turns and losing too much tempo is low.

Fury is rightfully popular; ~ is a nice answer to that.

The personal hexproof protects you against storm kills, against Gifts Ungiven and against Intuition. There were three copies of Intuition in the latest big Melbourne Highlander.

Unfortunately you can't force your opponent to 'Trap!' themselves with the Undercity, they can simply choose to move into 'The Arena' instead.

I only like ~ in Argothian Enchantress/Serra's Sanctum decks. Outside of those decks ~ is just a bad Council's Judgment, which is only fringe playable.

Super powerful with spells alternate cost spells and expensive spells with reduced costs:

Force of Negation

Snuff Out

Force of Will*

Murderous Cut

Misdirection

Sickening Shoal

Magmatic Sinkhole

Spinning Darkness

Leyline Binding

Pyrokinesis

Become Immense

Death Rattle

Set Adrift

Tasigur's Cruelty

Treasure Cruise**

Dig Through Time**

SIDEBOARD ONLY

Massacre

Submerge

Commandeer

You can't run all the spells above; there's only so much graveyard to delve, Leyline Binding may not be worth the triomes in your mana base and you probably won't be able to run enough black spells for Sickening Shoal, enough red spells for Pyrokinesis and enough blue spells for Force of Will.

If ~ gets Swords to Plowshares'd without a trigger you can still recover from the tempo loss. You don't absolutely need a pitch spell ready but of course it's best if you do.

Some other payoffs for this strategy include:

Up the Beanstalk

Vial Smasher, the Fierce

Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat

Zaffai, Thunder Conductor

Shark Typhoon

Jin-Gitaxias, Zaffai, Thunder Conductor and Shark Typhoon are too slow against combo decks. It's hard to reach that amount of mana whilst holding cards in hand to get respective triggers. In a non-combo meta you can run the expensive payoffs, but we have to wait for a few more cheaper payoffs to be printed to run this strat in a meta with combo decks. Up the Beanstalk was a huge addition, but it was so good in modern that it got banned; RnD will probably be reluctant to print similar effects in the future.

How have I not heard or seen ~ until 10 months after it was released?

ETB Brainstorm, so even if ~ gets exiled you're not out of the game.

The dream setup is Searing Wind or Explosive Singularity, but the realistic options are alternate-cost instant and sorceries like Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, Murderous Cut, Magamtic Sinkhole, Deathrattle, Pyrokinesis, etc

~ was a lot better until Orcish Bowmasters got printed. 

~ is a metagame card. It's good when most players are casting Brainstorm/Preordain/Ponder. However, you also need to run a lot of counterspells in case the opponent finds their Wrenn and Six or Orcish Bowmasters. 

There's a chance the committee put another point on Wrenn and Six, which would make ~ a lot more playable. Wrenn and Six combined with Orcish Bowmasters are really squeezing 1toughness creatures out of the format.

Having said that ~ is only a 1drop, so it's an acceptable risk.

~ joins Training Grounds, Thran Turbine and Enigma Jewel as excellent enablers for activated abilities.

Going mono blue would allow you to run a bunch of colourless lands with activated abilities, e.g. Urza's Saga. 

You could also go UG to gain access to the land tutors for Urza's Saga + Channel, Urban Burgeoning, Wilderness Reclamation and Biomancer's Familiar.

I honestly don't really know what this deck looks like in the end, but there's a seed there. Unclear whether it would end up playable. Only so much time for brewing etc.

Has featured in Pioneer as a combo with Retraction Helix and Mox Amber.

The combo works with any zero-mana artifact or Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh.

Retraction Helix and Banishing Knack are functionally equivalent. They are also bad cards outside the combo. If all the pieces were acceptable cards in their own right you could run them incidentally and every 10 or so games you could get a cheap win.

Outside combo shenanigans ~ could be good in an eggs deck or Underworld Breach deck that is regularly untapping her and filling its graveyard whilst digging for the combo.

Removal for mono-blue fliers.

Vulnerable to Lightning Bolt but worth the risk. You can evoke the MH2 elementals and throw them before they die. You can throw delve creatures.

Strong if you can gaurantee that you'll have a creature you actively want to sacrifice. Having ≈14 cheap creatures that you want to sacrifice is the hard part:

Bloodghast

Entomb

Orcish Bowmasters

Gravecrawler

Claim the First Born

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider

Custody Battle

Wrangle

Furnace Reins

Getting close. 

You'd need the right metagame for the Threaten effects, that is plenty of creatures to gain control of.

Effectively a 2mana Threaten. If you can reliably sacrifice the creature you steal, this is removal that also does a nice chunk of damage.

Strong burn-only threat. Flying is nice for taking the initiative.

Top-end of a Time Walk recursion deck. You'll need some acceleration to cast ~ by turn 4 since that's the turn The Initiative will likely kill you. I'm imagining turn3 tutor for Time Walk, turn4 ritual into ~ and cast Time Walk, GG.

Excellent reanimate target.

Worthy option for Savage Order.

7mana is relatively castable in a postboard game where the opponent has slowed themselves down to hold up mana for graveyard removal.

Prowess players have been running ~. A 2drop which becomes a huge threat late game. Trample makes it is especially good with pump like Become Immense.

Excellent against Planeswalkers. You may come across some mindgames in the RGx mirror where Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes is involved; If they cast M&B and you're about to hit 4 mana next turn, then they may not won't attack with the 4/4 Boo for fear of you also casting M&B or Questing Beast. However, if you're not green then ~ is probably not on their radar.

Nathan Basser's mono red storm deck comes to mind when I see ~. I don't believe he ran ~, which is telling, but it must have been close. I can imagine a build that runs some cheap red cantrips like Manamorphose, Gitaxian Probe, Light Up the Stage, Crash Through, Magmatic Insight, Renegade Tactics, Warlord's Fury, Overmaster, Inspired Tinkering. Maybe even some risky ones: Ancestral Anger, Crimson Wisps, Expedite. Then you run all the payoffs like Runaway Steam-Kin, Dreadhorde Arcasnist, Dragon's Rage Channeler, perhaps Birgi, God of Storytelling and Young Pyromancer. In reality you're really a Blood Moon deck and you're spending most of your points on Mooning the opponent as fast as possible. At the moment red is the most popular colour, so it's not a good time to be Mooning. Give it another couple years and the meta may shift though.

Fire Prophecy, which also hits Planeswalkers, which is a huge upgrade in a metagame with so many Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes.

~ is good in decks that rely on key pieces being in the library rather than your hand, e.g. Protean Hulk, Natural Order, Tinker, Savage Order, Madcap Experiment.

Not sure where ~ fits but that's an unusual ability. Could be Vampire or Warrior tribal, maybe a Blazing Shoal deck with Greater Gargadon. 

Curves beautifully with Wall of Blood FTW.

Effectively draws two cards if your whole deck is proactive, which is a good rate for 7PH. You want to keep your curve super low so that you can maximise the chance of casting any 2 spells that you may hit off ~.

Reckless Impulse and Light Up the Stage are extra copies.

Cost-reducers like Runaway Steam-Kin and maybe even Ruby Medallion work well with ~.

Fuck...maybe? ~ is HUGE. I think you need cast it turn4 at the latest, which means having at least 3 dudes to convoke with. Most decks run several removal spells, so you're going to need a lot of incidental creature tokens:

Khalni Garden

Orcish Bowmasters

Verdant Command

Ob Nixilis, the Adversary

Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast

Grist, the Hunger Tide

Slimefoot and Squee

Could lean into the token strategy with Idol of Oblivion. 

White could have some worthwhile token payoffs like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist.

If they print another 4 good 1drop Merfolk then Merfolk tribal could suddenly become good.

~ doesn't fit the aggro nature of the tribe but these days there's always a mana sink.

One day Hardened Scales, one day. Unfortunately there's only one Arcbound Ravager in 7PH. Need a few more of those before ~ is truely playable.

~ requires a bunch of mana dorks and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx/Gaea's Cradle + a topend that disrupt combo. I wouldn't build the deck unless Wrenn and Six gets another point.

Easy to dismiss but ~ is a reasonable option for permanent-heavy decks that run lots of delve/escape. If you whiff you nearly lose the game, but surely a 1 in 40 chance is acceptable? That's roughly the chance you get if you have 10 other non-permament spells in your deck.
(I use Aether Hub's calculator for my probabilities)

Combos with a sacrifice outlet + a persist creature as long as the perist creature's base power isn't ≥4.

Very powerful if you can cast it turn 2 and dump a bunch of creatures.

There's a lot more payoff for having all flash rather than flying in 7PH because counterspells are important against combo and overpowered pointed cards.

~ is nice with on-top tutors. A cool line would be EOT Congregation at Dawn stacking ~ into Subtlety and Solitude to recover the tempo loss from casting Congregation.

Of course creatures aren't the only cards with flash:

The Wandering Emperor

Swift Reconfiguration

Dress Down

Force of Virtue

Leyline Binding

Knights will probably never catchup to the other tribes, but this is a step.

Metagame dependant. 3/4 vigilance flying is a good size against aggro; Lets you take The Initiative whilst still defending.

Shuts down Flash Hulk combo (Viscera Seer). 

Invalidates Griselbrand from Reanimator decks.

Good retro-answer to Mother of Runes.

 +

Craggsy!!!

Also nice with The Mimeoplasm and some creature with haste and evasion.

That trigger is game winning. The dream is Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn, in which case you'll get the Time Walk trigger because ~ says "cast". However, you don't need to go that big, even a Caves of Chaos Adventurer would be enough to win.

There are two approaches: you can run enough 3 and 4 cost legendary creatures to consistently hit one  (≈17 legends), or you can run cards like Worldly Tutor and Brainstorm, which can put gigantic legends on top of your library, 

~ would supplement a reanimator strategy well, especially postboard when the opponent has slowed down to hold up mana for graveyard hate.

Big Human for Winota, Joiner of Forces.

Another big Human for Winota, Joiner of Forces.

Must-kill creature. Vulnerable to Karakas, Fatal Push and Fury but White and Black give you the option of Mother of Runes, Giver of Runes and hand disruption to protect ~.

Best if you can get ~ out fast to maximise the number of lands that enter tapped for the opponent.

Very strong but awkward because it's an aggressive card that costs 5mana.

Late game you can keep bouncing it every turn to maintain hexproof by design.

BATTLES

Always worth doing a rules dive when something weird gets released. I'm getting all my info from the official release notes.

The reminder text explains most of the rules for battles.

Sorcery speed.

Enter with 'defense' counters equal to number in bottom right.

Battles can be attacked like planeswalkers but can also be dealt damage by targeted damage effects.

Battles are defeated when the final counter is removed. This can be by damage or effects like Vampire Hexmage. 

Battles aren't defeated if they're destroyed by Naturalize or whatever.

When defeated, battles trigger (which can be countered by Stifle) and then the backside gets cast for free, which means they can be counterspelled or screwed by Teferi, Time Raveler in combat or by Lavinia, Azorius Renegade. 

INHERENT STRATEGY

The dilemma with battles is that the damage you defeat them with, doesn't go to your opponent's face, which means you can lose damage races. However, by design most battles quickly regain this lost damage.

Battles are worse against decks that introduce The Initiative.

Most battles have some kind of ETB trigger, so you can get extra value by returning them to your hand or flickering them with Yorion, etc.

Battles are an extra card type for Tarmogoyf, Emrakul, the Promised End and delirium.

Can help trigger your Ledger Shredder, Monk of the Open Hand or Erayo, Soratami Savant.

I only like ~ if you can flip it easily, e.g. if you have a critical mass of 3power 1drops and 2drops to flip ~ with one hit. 3drops and 4drops are acceptable if they have haste. 

Even better if your creatures have evasion because you may not have the mana to remove any blockers that are protecting ~ after you spent 2mana casting it. The best creature for ~ that comes to mind is Mantis Rider.

If you don't flip ~ then it's likely a tempo loss and loss of a card, i.e. disaster.

I like ~ in decks with the Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista combo.

I think you need a minimum of 3 aura/god/demigod cards in your deck to find. Otherwise there's a chance you'll have none in library.

Fill your deck with acceleration and ≥4 power haste creatures and some 4damage burn spells.

Curve example: Turn1 land dork, turn2 land dork + spell, turn3 cast ~. If you were on the play that's 3 cards you exile. Play your land from the exiled cards for the turn. Turn4 play another land from the exiled cards, cast a ≥4power haste creature or burn spell from exile to defeat the battle. Then burn all their shit.

Note you can still play exiled cards if ~ gets removed.

Only for Dragon tribal.

You can blink ~ or return it to your hand over the course of the game to kill more things. Hard to imagine a playable Dragon tribal deck though, let alone a Yorion Dragon tribal deck.

You can search for Vampire Hexmage and get yourself an 8/8 trampler for 4 mana, which is game winning if they don't have the removal.

~ is of course also a good tutor for creature combos that involve cheap creatures like:

Cauldron Familiar + Samwise Gamgee + Viscera Seer

Amalia Benavides Aguirre + Wildgrowth Walker

Nomads en-Kor + Cephalid Illusionist

Sorry Brooksey, ~ is "non-Human", so you can't get Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdicar.

I can imagine this in a deck where all the pointed cards are permanents, and they're permanents that are about as good on turn 3 as they are on turn 1, e.g. Urza's Saga, Minsc and Boo, Timeless Heroes, Time Vault, True-Name Nemesis, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Comet, Stellar Pup, The One Ring.

You want permanents that will recover the tempo loss of casting ~.

Fury and Solitude are good to find if you have a way to flicker them with the sacrifice trigger on the stack.

Not exactly Forth Eorlingas! but the rate is similar. I like ~ in Lurrus decks, which use Force of Will, Force of Negation and other counterspells to protect her. Lurrus decks have an abundance of cheap spells, so having some bigger manasinks is good.

The back side being a Knight-tribal Teferi is totally bizzare. Battles are complicated enough, give us a break.

Saccing an artifact or creature is a big additional cost when you consider that you could just run Leyline Binding, Abrupt Decay or Molten Collapse instead. Therefore, the sacrifice needs to be desirable or at least negligible. Earlier I listed the following cards that would allow you to run Corrupted Conviction. They of course work well with ~ too:

Bloodghast

Entomb

Orcish Bowmasters

Gravecrawler

Claim the First Born

Kari Zev, Skyship Raider

Custody Battle

Wrangle

Furnace Reins

Holy Frazzle-Cannon Batman! The backside equipment is quite powerful if you have 3 or so matching creatures. The Zombie tribe provide sacrifice fodder to enable the frontside. Running a Mutavault could be worth it depending on your colour requirements.

If True-Name Nemsis goes to 1point then edict effects will be quite strong whilst players are trying TNN again.

If you only have a minimal number of 2drops then Sheoldred's Edict, Liliana's Triumph and Diabolic Edict are better than ~ because being instant-speed is important for your curve. However, if your deck is overflowing with 2drops - like it would be in a Lurrus deck - then ~ actually jumps the aforementioned instant-speed edicts because you'll have something else to do if your opponent doesn't have a creature for you to kill, then when you do eventually cast ~, you'll have the battle to attack.

Ashen Reaper isn't amazing but you having it is better than the opponent having 4 life. Note that Ashen Reaper grows from fetchlands.

SIDEBOARD

I've run Baneslayer Angel sideboard against mono red before. ~ can put the counter on herself, so you don't have to worry about Fury, or Chandra, Torch of Defiance, or Flame Slash. There is a chance they respond to the trigger with Fire Blast or Pyrokinesis though. I suppose if you're running several big 2, 3 and 4 drops then ~ is better than Baneslayer Angel because you get a big chunk of lifegain that turn, which gives them one less turn to burn you out.

Good storm-hate for stompy decks utilising Ancient Tomb, Mana Crypt and/or mana dorks. You really want to speed ~ out because storm can kill you turn 3 with a decent hand.

We already had Archon of Emeria, Rule of Law and Eidolon of Rhetoric. The advantage ~ has over those is the 3 power, which gives the opponent much less time to find the removal.

You don't want to run ~ if you have haste creatures because it will tap them.

Good against grindy midrange decks. Exile is really nice and the Incubator token can help take down any planeswalkers they might have.

If your meta has sideboard Baneslayers.

CONCLUSION

Here is my pick of the best cards from March of the Machine. They're all roughly the same power level but I tried to put them in descending power level:

Invasion of Ikoria

Wrenn's Resolve

Etali, Primal Conqueror (Reanimate)

Hidetsugu and Kairi

Chrome Host Seedshark

Nothing worth points.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully see you at CanCon in a couple weeks,

Mulch