Didgeridoo 5-0s a Magic Online League

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Heck yeah, Minotaur tribal.

“Jank” decks rarely fare well in Legacy, the format of turn-one combos and Force of Will. When a previously unknown deck claims some accolade in Magic’s oldest format, it either means there’s a new top-tier archetype to fear, or that someone got really, really lucky.

Hidden in the list of decks that went 5-0 in a Magic Online Legacy League last week was this little gem:Legacy

Minotaurs

Market Price:$1293.44

Maindeck, 60 cards

Creature (26)

  • 2Akoum Warrior
  • 4Goblin Rabblemaster
  • 4Moraug, Fury of Akoum
  • 4Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
  • 4Neheb, the Eternal
  • 4Sethron, Hurloon General
  • 4Simian Spirit Guide

Artifact (14)

  • 4Chalice of the Void
  • 4Chrome Mox
  • 1Cursed Scroll
  • 4Didgeridoo
  • 1Shadowspear

Land (20)

  • 4Ancient Tomb
  • 4Cavern of Souls
  • 4Great Furnace
  • 4Mountain
  • 4Urza’s Saga

Sideboard (15)

  • 1Abrade
  • 2Chandra, Awakened Inferno
  • 3Dead // Gone// 
  • 1Grafdigger’s Cage
  • 1Karakas
  • 1Pithing Needle
  • 1Pyroblast
  • 2Pyroclasm
  • 1Red Elemental Blast
  • 1Relic of Progenitus
  • 1Tormod’s Crypt

The fulcrum for this deck, the card on which everything else turns, is Didgeridoo.

Didgeridoo

Homelands | Rare

Didgeridoo - Homelands - magic

Market Price: $13.05

What do didgeridoos, wind instruments invented by the indigenous people of northern Australia, have to do with the minotaur of Ancient Greek mythology? It’s a lore thing, don’t worry about it.

Didgeridoo was printed in 1995 in Homelands, and even by the standards of that famously bad Magic set, it was really bad. In 1995, there were six Minotaur permanents in Magic:

  • Hurloon Minotaur.
  • Labyrinth Minotaur.
  • Anaba Bodyguard.
  • Anaba Ancestor.
  • Anaba Spirit Crafter.
  • Anaba Shaman.

They weren’t great.

While Didgeridoo offers some serious upsides over casting your Minotaurs normally—(potentially) less mana, instant-speed, can’t be countered—those benefits didn’t mean much when all the creatures it supported were so bad. The card was the 90’s version of a meme in the Magic community. And that’s been the story of Didgeridoo ever since. By the time WotC started printing Minotaurs that were worth playing, Didgeridoo had been gone from Standard for years. The only way Didgeridoo was ever going to see play in a competitive format was if it could somehow break through in Legacy, the one format where it was still legal.

Well, the time has finally come. Not only are Minotaurs good now, but there’s an easy way to guarantee that you always have a Didgeridoo to call them.

Urza’s Saga

Modern Horizons 2 | Rare

Urza's Saga - Modern Horizons 2 - magic

Market Price: $34.93

Urza’s Saga (the busted Magic card, not the busted Magic set) lets you put an artifact from your library directly into play once it hits three lore counters. Since it was printed in June, it has been grabbing key artifacts in decks across in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage, including:

  • Amulet of Vigor in Amulet Titan.
  • Whatever you need in Hammer Time.
  • Retrofitter Foundry in Jeskai Standstill.
  • Grindstone in Painter’s Servant Combo.
  • Like, almost anything in literally any Vintage deck.

Four copies of Urza’s Saga plus four copies of Didgeridoo mean you can nearly guarantee you’ll have a Didgeridoo in play by the time you have the mana to use it.

The rest of the deck mostly falls into one of the following categories:

Minotaurs You’re Happy to Cheat into Play

Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Neheb, the Eternal
Sethron, Hurloon General

Ways to Accelerate Your Mana

Chrome Mox

Market Price: $66.37

Simian Spirit Guide
Ancient Tomb

Market Price: $64.22

Backup Targets for Urza’s Saga

Cursed Scroll

Market Price: $17.38

Shadowspear

Market Price: $17.12

You’ve also got Chalice of the Void to slow down combos decks, and four copies of Goblin Rabblemaster in case all your Minotaurs come down with mad cow disease.

My boss Jon Corpora pointed out that Didgeridoo also lets you get around the restriction on Standstill. He recommends this list as a starting point if you feeling like noodling with Minotaurs on MTGO.

Legacy

Standstill Minotaurs

Market Price:$3654.19

Maindeck, 60 cards

Creature (25)

  • 4Moraug, Fury of Akoum
  • 4Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
  • 4Neheb, the Eternal
  • 4Sethron, Hurloon General
  • 4Simian Spirit Guide
  • 4Bloodline Pretender
  • 1Akoum Warrior

Artifact (11)

  • 4Chalice of the Void
  • 4Didgeridoo
  • 1Retrofitter Foundry
  • 1Relic of Progenitus
  • 1Thran Turbine

Enchantment (4)

  • 4Standstill

Land (20)

  • 4Ancient Tomb
  • 4City of Traitors
  • 1Karakas
  • 2Volcanic Island
  • 1Island
  • 4Scalding Tarn
  • 4Urza’s Saga

Sideboard (15)

  • 4Blood Moon
  • 3Abrade
  • 2Pyroclasm
  • 1Grafdigger’s Cage
  • 1Pithing Needle
  • 1Shadowspear
  • 1Hex Parasite
  • 1Hope of Ghirapur
  • 1Cursed Scroll

And that’s Minotaurs. On the one hand, this isn’t the first time Didgeridoo has gone 5-0 in a Magic Online League, and the inclusion of Urza’s Saga doesn’t mean that Mono-Red Minotaurs is destined to reshape the metagame. On the other hand, winning five games with Didgeridoo is no easy feat, and twin_mtg deserves major kudos for pulling it off.