Something Is Very Wrong Here: Set Review, Part 3 (March of the Machine)

Faithless Brewing MTG: Modern and Pioneer for the Spike Rogue

Season 18, Episode 3: Brewer’s Guide to March of the Machine, Vol. 3

The full set of March of the Machine is revealed, and something is clearly amiss. Every card looks good. Incubate looks synergistic and easy to transform. Battles look like tremendous value. Convoke looks fun, and Backup looks extremely versatile. Even the silly infinite combos — and there are many in this set — are looking pretty good.

This can’t be right. Either we are wrong, or Wizards is wrong. Play Design knows their stuff, so it’s probably a case of us wearing brew goggles. But that won’t stop us from trying to break these sweet new cards.

In the third installment of our Set Review, David returns to lend a Pioneer perspective on the best new additions to the brewer’s toolbox.

Rona, Herald of Invasion is the best 2 mana looter we have seen, and supports multiple infinite combos. Change the Equation has main deck potential in the current Pioneer metagame. The 1-mana backup creatures, Scorn-Blade Berserker and Enduring Bondwarden, support a tremendous variety of play patterns. Even the humble Ichor Drinker draws comparisons to Voldaren Epicure and Lingering Souls.

There’s tons of spice up and down the mana curve. Let the Great Work begin!

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Decklists for this episode can be viewed at FaithlessBrewing.com

Timestamps

[3:14] Housekeeping

[4:37] Evaluating Battles: another perspective

[10:44] Backup, Convoke, Incubate

[14:23] Scorn-Blade Berserker

[17:42] Enduring Bondwarden

[21:12] Ichor Drinker

[24:32] Progenitor Exarch

[28:41] Seed of Hope

[31:35] Lithomantic Barrage

[33:08] Rona, Herald of Invasion — Rona, Tolarian Obliterator

[38:39] Invasion of Gobakhnan — Lightshield Array

[43:18] Invasion of Ixalan — Belligerent Regisaur

[47:10] Change the Equation

[50:48] Invasion of New Phyrexia — Teferi Akosa of Zhalfir

[54:24] Marauding Dreadship

[56:53] Zimone and Dina

[59:17] Invasion of Amonkhet — Lazotep Convert

[1:03:47] Glistening Dawn

[1:07:13] Rampaging Raptor

[1:09:21] Urabrask — The Great Work

[1:14:57] Elesh Norn — The Argent Etchings

[1:18:28] Invasion of Innistrad — Deluge of the Dead

[1:20:41] Invasion of Kaldheim — Pyre of the World Tree

[1:24:39] Invasion of Zendikar — Awakened Skyclave

[1:27:46] Archangel Elspeth