March of the Machine Limited Set Review: Multiverse Legends Bonus Sheet

Hey everyone! The full March of the Machine card list has dropped and that means it’s time to see what MOM has been cooking up. I was going to try to twist MOM and Maro together there, but even I thought better of stooping that low. Wait, you actually want a terrible joke? Then who am I to deny such a request. This set is ready to battle more than a teenager whose MOM just grounded them. Even DAD would be embarrassed of that one.

Seriously though, it looks like a really fun set with lots of flashbacks to fan favorite scenarios. It includes Multiverse Legends, is a non-Standard legal bonus sheet of cards included in booster packs similar to the Mystical Archive in Strixhaven: School of Mages and Retro Frame Artifacts in The Brothers’ War, which we will review here. You can smash someone in the face with Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and when has that ever gone wrong.

Here’s the usual grading scale:

• 5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or just pack up your cards. (Tovolar's Huntmaster, The Meathook Massacre, Starnheim Unleashed)
• 4.5: Incredible bomb that still gives your opponent a slim chance. (Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Alrund's Epiphany, Grand Master of Flowers)
• 4.0: Great rare or the absolute best uncommons and removal. (Froghemoth, Morbid Opportunist, Skullport Merchant)
• 3.5: Great role filler or removal that you never cut. (Magic Missile, Cathartic Pyre, Battle Cry Goblin)
• 3.0: Good playable that I’m basically never cutting. (Usher of the Fallen, Search Party Captain, Dragon Turtle)
• 2.5: Decent playable and the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck to reach. (Mourning Patrol, Steadfast Paladin, Goblin Morningstar)
• 2.0: Mediocre filler that normally is your 20-23rd card(s). (Contact Other Plane, Mindleech Ghoul, Timberland Guide)
• 1.5: Replaceable, overall bad filler. Could also be decent sideboard cards. (Secrets of the Key, Spiked Pit Trap, Village Rites)
• 1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Secret Door, Mystic Skull, Funeral Longboat)
• 0.5: Very unhappy to main deck this, but maybe it has fringe sideboard applications. (You See a Guard Approach, Bramble Armor, Compelled Duel)
• 0.0: Unplayable in every possible situation. (Mimic, Change of Fortune, Curse of Shaken Faith)

---

White

Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit

Rating: 4.0/5

This is the bear that keeps on giving. It turns every creature in your deck into a Backup Agentfor the lowest toughness creature you have. That is an insane ability that demands immediate removal. It would be higher, but there are just tons of ways to kill it and double white isn’t a guarantee on turn two.

Daxos, Blessed by the Sun

Rating: 2.5/5

Incidental life gain is an underrated ability in limited and Daxos brings the heat with it. You don’t even have the usual irrelevant body problem with this demigod. He makes himself a bear and with a little help he can turn into a massive blocker to hold down the fort.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Rating: 4.5/5

Seven mana is a lot, but the original mommy massively affects the board when she comes down. Double Glorious Anthem on your side while casting an Infest is going to leave a serious mark. Even if they untap and kill it, you usually killed a few things while smashing in for a pile of damage.  

Kenrith, the Returned King

Rating: 4.0/5

In my best Rafiki voice, ”The king has returned”. It’s a temporary return because here’s a spoiler from MOM Aftermath, the people of Eldraine will be saying “Oh my god, the Phyrexians killed Kenny”.  

While you can just jam this in any white deck, it gets bonkers when you the versatility to activate the other abilities. I’d run some of the tapped duals to enable this, but I wouldn’t add off color basic lands for it.

Kwende, Pride of Femeref

Rating: 2.5/5

Kwende plays really nice with equipment like Kor Halberd making him a menace on both offence and defense. While there aren’t that many first strikers to take advantage of his static ability, it can give surprise double strike with Coming in Hot.

Sram, Senior Edificer

Rating: 3.0/5

Sram plays best in the Boros equipment deck to draw extra cards from them as well as off of Marauding Dreadship. There’s really no downside to him with a pretty high ceiling.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Rating: 2.5/5

Thalia has always been a much better constructed card than a limited one. It’s still a fine body that combos with Kwende, Pride of Femeref to really lay into the opponent. It also makes battles more expensive so it can unexpectedly throw the opponent off curve.

It’s one of those funny cards that you never really find out how much it affected the game. They might have been one mana off from doubling spelling the whole time or one mana off removing a key creature.

Blue

Baral, Chief of Compliance

Rating: 2.5/5

This isn’t historic brawl so your opponent isn’t going to just scoop to Baral. There aren’t a ton of counterspells to really take advantage of the ability. It’s still a solid blocker that lets you cast stuff on the cheap and every once in a while, you’ll score a free loot off of it.

Emry, Lurker of the Loch

Rating: 2.0/5

The only sacrifice artifact is Urn of Godfire so there isn’t a cheap way to recur value without your opponent’s participation. Skittering Surveyor makes a great chump blocker to keep bringing back and there are at least a few other creatures to recur.

Inga Rune-Eyes

Rating: 3.0/5

Inga changes how your opponent plays the game because they typically don’t want to let you draw three cards. A lot of times they can’t really attack in with more than one creature because you will trade this off with one of theirs while letting another one die. You can also just use a Corrupted Conviction to force the issue after two other creatures trade.  

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

Rating: 1.0/5

Ten mana and the only reanimation spell is a very good rare in two different colors. Sorry Jin, you’ll be sitting this one out.

Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive

Rating: 2.5/5

Very annoying especially alongside something like Swordsworn Cavalierthat can let you flip battles with ease. You do have to be careful though because they can bounce this and eat your other creature.

Black

Ayara, First of Locthwain

Rating: 3.0/5

The main drawback is the triple black, but you’ll want to be heavy black to really take advantage of her anyway. Those drains add up quickly while being able to turn no longer useful creatures into new cards is pretty great.

Horobi, Death’s Wail

Rating: 1.5/5

It’s a trap! For those of you that weren’t playing back in original Kamigawa, this applies to your creatures as well. That turns all of your opponent’s pump spells into cheap removal. Of course, if you’re the one playing it you want to be able to take advantage of that with things like Bola Slinger or using backup on your opponent’s creatures.

Don’t forget that you don’t get the secondary effects of a spell since the creature is sacrificed. That means no card off of Zhalfirin Shapecraft or no incubator off of Merciless Repurposing.  

Seizan, Perverter of Truth

Rating: 1.0/5

Someone needs to get this pervert out of here and lock them up. Do you want to pay five mana to give your opponent two more cards before they bounce this to make you go through it all over again? When it was first printed it was a massive body for the cost while now that’s close to the going rate.

The only times that this is good is when they are really low on life or you are really far ahead in the game.

Sheoldred, Whispering One

Rating: 4.0/5

Another instance of a seven mana, but totally worth it card. It’s just a massive threat that forces the game to revolve around it. OG Shelly stacks value both ways while that swampwalk might actually come up.

Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

Rating: 4.0/5

Unless they are a boomer, the odds are pretty low that your opponent actually knows what regenerate does. It’s not looking much better for infect either as I expect them to play around it like toxic. While not really playing on the same field as the rest of your deck, this does end games on its own pretty quickly.

Tymaret, Chosen from Death

Rating: 3.0/5

TIMMY! While not as devastating as it was in Theros, removing your opponent’s graveyard here does have some value on top of the pile of life you can gain. Just be careful if you have anything that requires there to be eight cards in their yard.

Yargle, Glutton of Urborg

Rating: 1.5/5

Original Yargle doesn’t get any love from the drafters (or in any format really) because who wants to play a five drop that trades off with a two drop. If you’re taking this, there better be memes involved.

The first time I saw this art, I thought he was eating noodles…

Red

Captain Lannery Storm

Rating: 3.0/5

Oh captain! My captain! Lannery doesn’t mess around running headlong into the redzone so carefree that she drops some treasure on the ground while doing it. She also gets really angry whenever she sees someone destroy some of her precious pirate booty.

Outside of weirdly explaining the mechanics of a card, it’s hasty ramp that threatens to trade up. Can’t go too wrong with that.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

Rating: 4.0/5

Why am I ranking Ragavan this low after all the hubbub about it? It’s amazing if you play it turn one, but later on its going to have a lot of trouble getting through to generate value. It is merely really good and not the all-out pre banned menace it is in constructed.

Squee, the Immortal

Rating: 2.5/5

Squee’s best skill is annoying your opponent. It does have a multitude of tricky ways to use it, but at the end of the day it’s just a 2/1 that recurs for three mana.

Urabrask the Hidden

Rating: 4.0/5

Urabrask makes sure your whole side comes in hot and ready to rumble including himself.  Our adventures in SIR drafts with Thalia, Heretic Catharhave been a reminder of how aggravating it can be to have all of your creatures come into play tapped. Extremely reasonably costed for an old school praetor so you don’t even have to adjust your deck to accommodate him.

Valduk, Keeper of the Flame

Rating: 3.0/5

It shouldn’t be too difficult to wind up with some equipment to stack on Valduk and a stream of hasty 3/1s are pretty difficult to blank. I’m just waiting for someone to play Realmbreaker's Grasp on this followed by the “Oh no! What have I done?”.

Zada, Hedron Grinder

Rating: 3.0/5

Unlike Mirrorwing Dragon, this only works for you so you don’t have to worry about your opponent getting a giant smirk on their face when you play this. Aerial Boost is a good place to start with this by giving your entire side +2+2 and flying to Overrun them in the air. Arachnoid Adaptation and Coming in Hot are two other ones to look out for.

Green

Fynn, the Fangbearer

Rating: 2.5/5

It’s not impossible to kill them with poison counters, especially if you happen to have Glissa, Herald of Predation. In most cases this is just a 1/3 deathtouch which is merely solid.

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma

Rating: 3.5/5

You want to hear something disgusting? Curving this into turn five Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. There are plenty of other “well this was a game of Magic” scenarios, but its also just a four-mana creature that attacks as a 5/4 trampler.  

Renata, Called to the Hunt

Rating: 3.5/5

Everything coming in with extra counters adds up fast and Renata is no slouch herself as she can usually crack in for a healthy amount.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

Rating: 2.0/5

While not nearly as uncastable as Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, it’s not nearly as powerful as the other three OG praetors while still managing to be more expensive than them. What are you really going to cast with this after you have eight mana in limited? While annoying, your opponent probably has enough lands by this point that it isn’t nearly as restrictive as you would think.

Yedora, Grave Gardener

Rating: 2.5/5

It’s a five drop that lets your other nontoken creatures return as a Forest. That may be helpful for a turn or two, but as we just said, what do you need all that mana for a few turns later. It’s still a 5/5 for five that might be potentially helpful. It is a nonbo with graveyard recursion though.

Multicolor

Aegar, the Freezing Flame

Rating: 3.5/5

Make sure you turn off auto assign damage on Arena with this one. It makes such great decisions as dealing one to that 4/4 instead of drawing a card.

You’re dealing with less giants and wizards in these colors than Kaldheim, but at least there are plenty of damage spells that would love to cantrip.  

Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle

Rating: 2.5/5

At least it’s a double ramp when you drop it instead of a total do nothing. The ability to cast five spells in a timely manner really depends on the composition of your deck, but it is a massive vanilla creature when you get there.

Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice

Rating: 2.5/5

If you can get past the casting cost this is pretty absurd. While the whole good luck racing this thing matters, the proliferate every turn can do some serious work as well. Not only can you stack up +1+1 counters off of backup, but you can put more defense counters on your opponents’ battles.

Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths

Rating: 3.5/5

I love cards with little minigames attached. Yes, even Shahrazad, especially when you’re Forking it. That probably says a lot about me as a person though.

Atris has had some tricky, but hilarious occurrences. One time it was two cards that I knew I couldn’t beat and a land, but I was dead right away to a removal spell. I showed them the two good cards face up and the land face down. They assumed the only thing I would hide over those two was something I was dead to immediately and ended up with a land. I drew out of it and eventually got the dub.  

You’re always guaranteed to get at least one card and a three-power creature with menace is way better than what you usually get attached to that effect.

Aurelia, the Warleader

Rating: 3.5/5

What does Boros love to do? That’s right, it is in its happy place when it is attacking. Aurelia represents that so well by making sure that all the little Boros children get an extra helping of smashing the opponent’s face in.

The casting cost is a little rough, but it does so much once it’s on board.

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Rating: 3.5/5

Do not select your flipped incubator tokens with this. They are 0/0s and will cause all of your tokens without +1+1 counters on them to die. Choosing the 2/1 this gives you does give all of your flipped Phyrexians a nice bonus though.

Dina, Soul Steeper

Rating: 2.5/5

Dina left most of her important tools back at Strixhaven. She just doesn’t pack the same punch without the pests and other easy to trigger sources of incremental life gain. She’s certainly not bad, just not the game wrecker she could have been.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress

Rating: 3.5/5

This certainly has the potential to get bonkers with the right cards. Preening Champion is a great place to start giving you two experience counters on its own and an evasive threat to stack those counters on.

Firesong and Sunspeaker

Rating: 2.0/5

All of the Boros decks I’ve seen have had minimal top end and if it is playing some, it wants it to be something that ends the game on the spot like Aurelia, the Warleader.

This is a cool card and there are a lot of spells like Shatter the Source that can be a huge life swing with it. There are exactly zero white instant and sorceries that gain life in the set so you can’t use that for extra removal.  It just doesn’t really fit in any particular deck in the format.

Firja, Judge of Valor

Rating: 3.5/5

Justice for Firja! Such a good card that was stuck in the worst archetype in Kaldheim.

If your deck isn’t double spelling, are you even trying to win? This rewards you for doing something you should be doing anyway. It’s even a life linking angel that has a stat line to wreck Team Wind Drake that is running around out there.

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born

Rating: 4.0/5

I am happy to report that this card will leave you with a grin on your face. You just want to make sure you have disposable creatures like Nezumi Informant laying around to take one for the team.

You can untap this at instant speed so it is a threat to eat anything they send in. You also can wait until your turn to untap it when you have more information. Getting to trade your worst creature for their best one while you keep growing your threat is big game.

Gyruda, Doom of Depths

Rating: 3.5/5

You can certainly try to companion this, but like most of the companions it’s also fine to just shove it in your deck.  Make sure you have a decent number of hits though or you’ll be relying on your opponent to supply something worth hitting. One of my favorite commons for this is Tidal Terror, but there are plenty of platinum hits.

This will also help to satisfy your gambling urge because you never know what you’re going to get.  

Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty

Rating: 3.5/5

While cascade can be a bit random, it is an undeniably powerful ability. I’m grading this assuming you have one or two things (mostly the land cyclers) that can trigger this again. Even on its own it is still a two for one for a reasonable price as long as you don’t hit something like a counterspell.

Jegantha, the Wellspring

Rating: 3.5/5

Don’t sacrifice something ridiculous (like Etali, Primal Conquerer) to be able to companion this, but starting with an 8^th card is worth drafting a good card over a Stoke the Flames.

You can go crazy and tap this to play Invasion of Alara or Niv-Mizzet Reborn. Most of the time it is going to be a generic 5/5, but an extra chonker can certainly matter.

Judith, the Scourge Diva

Rating: 4.0/5

Giving your whole team a pump in the front and letting you ping when something dies is a pretty messed up limited card. There are plenty of sacrifice effects running around so this will make your opponent go from “This is fine” to “Wait, I’m dead” in about five seconds.

Juri, Master of the Revue

Rating: 3.0/5

Another card-carrying member of the Sacrifice Lovers Club. As long as you have the goods, Juri can quickly grow to an intimidating number until they have to either trade multiple cards for him or just die.

Kaheera, the Orphanguard

Rating: 3.5/5

At first, I was going to make a joke about there is no way you can companion this, but I decided to check it out just in case. There is certainly a case to give it a try.

The first part of the equation is that there are plenty of spells that make incubators so those don’t count against this. The problem with going all in on that is they don’t get the bonuses from this so you’re only getting a 3/2 vigilance.

As far as the types go there are some decent cats in Bola Slinger, Progenitor Exarch, Streetwise Negotiator, and Wary Thespian. Botanical Brawler would fit right in as an elemental. There are even some dinosaurs and beasts to contribute to the cause.  To me, that seems like a fun deck to pull off.

Keruga, the Macrosage

Rating: 3.0/5

I will happily slam this right into my main deck, but I am not interested in trying to companion it. Not being able to play one or two mana spells is such a huge drawback that has gotten even worse since this originally came out.

Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger

Rating: 3.0/5

It doesn’t do much early, but it is a giant beating once you can bring this back. You want to be playing some of the self-mill cards like Unseal the Necropolis to both enable this and potentially drop it in the yard.  

Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn

Rating: 3.0/5

The trick with this is to gain some life earlier in the turn with something like Alabaster Host Sanctifier so that this comes down able to hand out counters right away. The other way is to use fight spells such as Cosmic Hunger with lifelink to trigger it.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den

Rating: 4.0/5

Lurrus is an absurd Magic card. It was temporarily banned in Vintage and that’s all one really needs to know about it being good.

It is harder to companion this than it was in Ikoria since it eliminates the majority of battles as an option. Even if you can’t quite get there, a 3/2 lifelink that can bring something back every turn is well worth a slot in your deck.  

Lutri, the Spellchaser

Rating: 4.0/5

The easiest companion to make work. Just don’t play a second copy of anything, pretty simple if you know not to draft any duplicates. That’s a very low price to pay for an extra card and a Fork.

Niv-Mizzet Reborn

Rating: 2.5/5

This is actually castable if you pick up the right cards and there are plenty of sexy hits you can get off of it as well.  On top of that, it is a massive flying threat that will dominate the skies. All of these five color soup cards are things I am happy taking early so I can draft accordingly, but pretty much ignore during pack 2 or later.

Obosh, the Preypiercer

Rating: 3.5/5

There sure are a lot of build arounds in the bonus sheet. Once again, if you can companion this it’s great, if not it’s still fine to just stick in your deck.  

Be careful about getting blown out by removal on this. If you have a bunch of trades setup that suddenly aren’t, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Radha, Coalition Warlord

Rating: 2.0/5

This card was solid in the domain decks of DMU, but the lack of the basic type dual lands is a real nerf bat. You do have vehicles to activate it as a trick here, but still not great.

Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart

Rating: 3.5/5

Drawing a few extra cards and then providing vigilant team pumps makes life absolutely miserable for your opponent. It’s even a solid blocker early on, just a great overall card.  

Reyav, Master Smith

Rating: 3.0/5

There’s only one deck that wants this, but that deck REALLY wants it. That puts you in a position to gamble on wheeling it even though it’s a key card for your deck. Playing a Beamtown Beatstickinto this is going to create two treasure a turn pulling you so far ahead that it will leave your opponent in shambles.

Rona, Sheoldred’s Faithful

Rating: 2.0/5

It’s fine, it doesn’t line up any better with the format than it did in DMU except for maybe you’re a little more likely to incidentally mill it.  The lack of a drain instead of a ping is a big miss on this.

Shanna, Sisay’s Legacy

Rating: 3.0/5

There is a big difference between hexproof and can’t be the target of abilities. It leaves it wide open to getting obliterated by random removal spells. That said it’s still a two drop that can grow itself to a decent size especially with cards like Knight of the New Coalition.

For a good time, call Monastery Mentor because that guy knows how to throw a memorably large party.

Taigam, Ojutai Master

Rating: 2.5/5

You can attack with this and cast an instant spell during combat to ensure you box them out for the rebound. This still needs to be on the field to trigger so you have to be careful about attacking safely if you want to use it on a sorcery.

Teysa Karlov

Rating: 4.0/5

Teysa slides right into the incubator deck by giving all your new born Phyrexians vigilance and lifelink. Doubling death triggers follows up that plan by giving you even more bouncing baby Phyrexians from Infected Defector or Bloated Processor. You can even turn Etched Familiar into a drain four. Lots of options here.

Umori, the Collector

Rating: 3.0/5

I would recommend against trying to companion this one as restricting yourself to all creatures or no creatures is a tough road to sled. It’s still a 4/5 for four that makes the card type of your choice cheaper and that’s not bad.

Yarok, the Desecrated

Rating: 4.0/5

Three colors are a bit of a drawback, but Yarok can do some downright filthy things. It just piles on value whether it’s sending in twice the backup, getting an extra creature off of Preening Champion, or tapping down an extra thing with Protocol Knight. You can even nab an extra 5/5 off of Converter Beast. I could keep going, but you get the point.

Yorion, Sky Nomad

Rating: 4.0/5

DANGER SKY NOODLE! Are you going to be jamming a sixty-card limited deck? You could if you manage to get enough playables in your colors.  This isn’t cube though so you’re much less likely to actually pull it off.

The noodle is still a beefy flyer that can give you a pile of value whether it’s from repeating ETBs or freeing your creatures from enchantment removal.

Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Rating: 3.0/5

You’re most likely not going to pull off companioning this without severely handicapping yourself. If you manage to pull it off, more power to you.

I feel like a broken record when it comes to companions, but it’s still fine to just jam this in your deck. It’s a reasonably costed body that can make some stuff like equipping or transforming cheaper. It can even shut down their best blocker.

---

Wrap Up

As you can imagine, the Multiverse Legends bonus sheet is an eclectic collection ranging from busted cards to “why did they print that?”. It should be an interesting addition to the drafts, but it helps to pump the power level of the format even higher than it already was.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back tomorrow with my March of the Machine limited mechanics review. Until then, stay classy people!

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

You can also find me at:

• Discord
• Twitch
• Twitter