Felhide Minotaur MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	3
Rarity	Common
Type	Creature — Minotaur
Released	2013-09-27
Set symbol
Set name	Theros
Set code	THS
Power	2
Toughness	3
Number	87
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Kev Walker

Key Takeaways

Felhide Minotaur complements decks that exhaust opponents’ resources, indirectly maintaining card superiority on the board.
It thrives in Minotaur-focused strategies enabling cost-efficient plays due to buffs and cost reductions from tribal synergies.
Despite high mana costs and specific deck requirements, it can be surprisingly effective in the right meta.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Though Felhide Minotaur doesn’t directly allow you to draw cards, its role in the deck can complement strategies aimed at depleting opponents’ hands. By pressuring your opponent to deal with it, you indirectly maintain card superiority.

Resource Acceleration: The Felhide Minotaur itself may not ramp your mana, but it fits well in decks that exploit tribe synergy. It can benefit from various minotaur buffs and cost reductions, effectively acting as a resource accelerant by requiring less investment for a substantial presence on the board.

Instant Speed: While this minotaur operates at sorcery speed, its presence influences how your opponent plays. Knowing you have a sturdy creature can deter opponents from attacking, essentially granting you a form of instant speed interaction by shaping the tempo of the game.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: The Felhide Minotaur requires players to discard another card to leverage certain abilities. This stipulation can cause a setback especially when your hand is already sparse, limiting your strategic options and potentially leaving you at a disadvantage against opponents with fuller hands.

Specific Mana Cost: With its black mana cost, Felhide Minotaur fits specifically into black or multicolored decks. This restrictiveness may exclude it from many deck types, potentially narrowing its playability only to those strategies that can comfortably accommodate its color demands.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: The Felhide Minotaur comes with a relatively hefty mana cost for its stat line and abilities. There are other creatures and cards that might provide more value or impact on the game for the same, if not lower, mana investment, making it a less than optimal choice in competitive play where efficiency is key.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Felhide Minotaur offers deck builders a solid creature body that can perform well in aggressive decks looking to apply pressure to the opponent. Its 2/3 stats for a three mana card means it brings considerable resilience to the battlefield early on.

Combo Potential: This card boasts synergies within Minotaur tribal decks or those that look to exploit creature types. It has the potential to unlock powerful bonuses from cards that recognize its Minotaur lineage, adding an additional layer of strategy for players.

Meta-Relevance: As the game environment shifts, creatures like Felhide Minotaur can become unexpectedly relevant. Their basic utility and creature type interactions can outperform in a meta that underestimates sturdy, efficient creatures, making it a sleeper pick for your arsenal.

How to Beat Felhide Minotaur

The Felhide Minotaur, while a sturdy creature in the realm of Theros, presents a unique challenge to duelists. Often employed for its menacing feature,deterring single creatures from blocking, it’s essential to strategize effectively. Counterplay involves leveraging removal spells that bypass the menace. Cards like Doom Blade or Murder can dispatch this beast unimpeded, without the need to tangle with its tricky blocking restriction.

Another viable tactic is to outnumber the Minotaur with multiple creatures, as its menace ability requires two or more blockers. This encourages a wider board state, with creatures ready to collaborate in deterring an assault. If trading creatures is not favorable, enchantments or artifacts can pacify or imprison it, such as Pacifism or Icy Manipulator, respectively, allowing you to contain the threat without direct confrontation.

Lastly, combat tricks and instant-speed spells can shift the tide mid-combat. A well-timed Giant Growth on a smaller blocker, or a surprise Flash creature, can overpower the Felhide Minotaur when it least expects. By incorporating these strategies into your gameplay, you can confidently tackle this bullish opponent and maintain your advantage on the battlefield.

Cards like Felhide Minotaur

Felhide Minotaur steps into the labyrinthine world of creatures in MTG, carving out its place among other two-colored mana creatures. Its kinship with the likes of Returned Phalanx is immediately apparent. Though returned Phalanx boasts a defense higher than Felhide Minotaur, it lacks the Minotaur’s inherent aggression. Where Felhide Minotaur consistently applies pressure with its 2/3 configuration, Returned Phalanx offers a stalwart defense with the ability to become untapped for late-game versatility.

Mogis’s Marauder presents another point of comparison, sharing the Minotaur’s black mana but diverging with its intimidate ability. It also enables other creatures to attack with fewer obstacles, unlike the Felhide Minotaur, which walks a solitary path of steady damage. Pike Kavu, while not a Minotaur, is a red counterpart that trades consistent power for the potential of explosiveness, thanks to its firebreathing ability. This allows it to surpass the Minotaur’s might with enough mana pumped into it.

While not standing out as a behemoth in its card class, Felhide Minotaur remains a respectable choice for players valuing consistent board presence and steady offensive capabilities, making it a staple in many MTG black decks for its reliability and synergistic potential with other Minotaur tribe cards.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Felhide Minotaur MTG card by a specific set like Theros, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Felhide Minotaur and other MTG cards: