Minotaur

Justifying Minotaur/Cow Distinction

I appreciate you holding the line on minotaur/cow. I think Minotaur as a type has immense unique resonance (mythological and game history wise). I also think “cow” has a lot of connotations that don’t align reasonably with the central vibe of the creature type, which is to say aggression. I could see a batch at some point that includes oxes, but I’d just say that, at least as someone running Minotaur decks for a decade and a half, I’d be very disappointed in a change.

I could imagine Ox becoming Cow. I don’t see Minotaur becoming Cow.

Batches Creatures Minotaurs Oxen

Unifying Ox and Minotaur Types

Has there ever been any thought to combining the Ox and Minotaur creature types? Such as simplifying both to simply "Cow?" I'm a huge fan of bovines in all forms and it would be nice if all of the Ox in magic worked alongside their more anthropomorphic cousins the Minotaur. As it is now we're lucky to really get cards of *either* type printed. There's resonance to the name Minotaur, no doubt, but it also has its share of baggage. It has Greek connotations and that's probably a big reason Minotaurs are almost strictly in Theros (although some favorites, such as Neheb, are from other planes). I was happy that Outlaws had more Ox cards, but it also highlights my dissatisfaction: Holy Cow is an *ox* not a cow, despite the name. It feels like a retread of the Hound or Naga debacle all over again. Hound was simplified to Dog and all Snakes, from rattlesnakes to Naga, are simply the type Snake now. This allows snakes and dogs of all walks benefit from a shared unity. Cats had it right, we didn't need Leonin as a separate type.I just feel like there's unnecessary separation being created by dividing Ox and Minotaur and it has the same resonance failings as all dogs being labeled "hounds" had. If it's important for a particular creature to *be* a minotaur then they can just *have* minotaur in their name, like ~30% of minotaurs already do. There's also the simple fact that Minotaur is a longer average creature type, limiting design space for other types to be included. It's hard to justify why a Minotaur is on a random plane, but much less so if it's simply a "Cow Warrior" for example. As for why I think "Cow" should just be the combined type name, I simply think it fits. Cow is a resonant name. Almost everyone, East to west, knows *of* cows if only because their milk is such a widely used commodity. We don't call it "Ox's milk" after all. More than that, it's fun! Cow is *funny* in the same way *squirrel* is funny. It's amusing to see "Squirrels you control" in this game full of fighting. In that vein, "Cows you control" is an amusing line that can help break up the seriousness of a setting. I know this is making a mountain out of a molehill, but magic is a game of different perspectives coming together and creating something new. Cows are my favorite animal and it's simply dissatisfying, to me, that my Holy Cow can't benefit from a Kragma Warcaller. That Angrath, colloquially named "Cow Dad" in the community, would have the creature type "Minotaur." The only downside I can see is that "Cow" *does* specifically refer to females of a bovine species. But that is a distinction few, if any, seriously take into consideration. If one sees a field of cows, they're not saying "I see lots of cows and 3 bulls!" They're going to say "I see cows!"So to bring the thesis back, has there been any discussion internally to simplifying the Minotaur and Ox creature types under a single banner, such as "Cow?" I would also happily settle for "Cattle" as the new type. I just feel the current Ox vs Minotaur divide has to go, for both flavor and mechanical reasons, and the sooner the better.

I have been on Team Cow (as I was on Team Dog) for many years. I even made Cows in Un-sets. I still believe Minotaur should be its own creature type though.

Cats Creatures Design Space Dogs Flavor Humor Minotaurs Nagas Oxen Planes Snakes Squirrels Theros Un-sets Warriors Holy Cow Kragma Warcaller

Future of Minotaur Power Toughness

Would future minotaurs be locked to that power and toughness? I hope not as humans seem.to be all sizes.

That was a specific Theros thing.

Human Minotaur Theros

Assassin's Creed Cards Trivia

At long last, it is time to invoke my birthday trivia! I love your pieces on the color pie and I’m a huge Assassin’s Creed fan, so I’d love if you had any interesting trivia on AC cards that the Council of Colors discussed or tweaked. If nothing comes to mind, I am a massive fan of Boros and Minotaurs; if there’s any trivia about Boros Minotaurs, that would be lovely, or either individually. I get a ton from DtW and Making Magic, keep up the wonderful work!

In Theros block, Minotaurs power and toughness had to add up to a least 5. We made one exception later in the block.Happy Birthday!

Assassin's Creed Birthday Boros (R/W) Color Pie Colors Council of colors Drive to Work Making Magic Minotaur Theros

Consistency in Humanoid-Animal Races

Howdy Mark!I sat with my thoughts and the replies you've given recently about not changing Minotaur or Merfolk to Ox and Fish respectively, and I gotta say, I can't square this circle.You say that WotC won't be changing these specific humanoid-animal races because they have prior mythological notoriety. But to be honest, one could make that excuse for every humanoid-animal race. There are a lot of Mythos that exist throughout the world, and finding a name for every humanoid-animal race wouldn't take too long if someone took the task seriously. I say this to show it doesn't feel like a really consistent or genuine reason to resist a rule that WotC is taking big lengths to adhere to (they are doing errata, which you've said is something that isn't done lightly).However, my biggest issue comes down to consistency with this "rule" you are mentioning. WotC changed Cephalids, Viashino, and probably Homarids soon so that they would fall in line with a rule that WotC wants to follow. Nothing drives me more insane than a rule that isn't applied equally to all, especially when as I mentioned above, the reasoning for the exception doesn't feel like a particularly strong one; at the very least, it doesn't feel strong enough to resist a rule WotC is taking seriously enough to errata 100's of cards so they fall in-line with said rule.I try to be open-minded as often as possible, but even after mulling over the things you've mentioned here on Blogatog, I don't think there is anything you can say that will change my mind on this. I suppose I will just have to sit and wait patiently until ya'll decide to finally finish what you started.Yours Truly,A fellow Ape

The thing you’re missing is the bar is not “does a mythological version exist anywhere in the world?” The question we ask - “is there a popular and well known version of it?”Here’s a different way to think of it. If we picked 100 random people (not specifically Magic players) and gave them a list of creature types, which ones are words they know and which ones aren’t?Some they wouldn’t know because they’re made up things we created that have no well known equivalent. Outside of those, we want to use words people recognize. It makes the game more resonant and lowers the barrier to entry. Our fanciful made-up terminology does have a place - in names and flavor text (aka the text areas focused on flavor). In mechanical rules space, familiarity is more important.

Ape Cephalid Creatures Errata Fish Flavor Flavor Text Homarids Merfolk Minotaur Oxen Rules Viashino Wizards of the Coast

Fate of Vedalkens

Is Vedalken, the creature type, in danger? I realllllly like Vedalkens as their own things and would hate if it got merged into another type ngl

Vedalkens are staying Vedalkens. We are just changing animal humanoid groups to their animal name (with the exceptions of ones that have pre-existing mythology names made by the real world (and not us, such as Minotaurs).

Creatures Minotaur Vedalken

Transition of Humanoid Animal Races

With viashino, naga, and cephalids becoming lizards, snakes, and octopi, I am a bit concerned for other humanoid animal based races. Will minotaur become ox? Will merfolk become fish? I'm very curious where you guys will draw the line on such things

The line is we’re not using names we made up for animal humanoids as creature types. (They’ll still be used in names and flavor text.) Pre-existing names from things like mythology are fine, so Minotaur and Merfolk aren’t going anywhere.

Cephalid Creatures Fish Flavor Text Lizard Merfolk Minotaur Naga Oxen Snake Viashino

Creature Type Changes

With Naga becoming Snake and Viashino becoming Lizard, what do you think the odds are of Minotaur becoming Oxen?

Spectacularly low.

Creatures Lizard Minotaur Naga Oxen Snake Viashino

Creature Type Choices

This isn't a Gotcha I'm actually curious: if Minotaur gets to keep its type instead of being Ox because it's from a real world mythology, why are Kitsune Foxes and Kappa are Turtles?

It’s a threshold of awareness thing. A lot more people know what a Minotaur is than a Kitsune or a Kappa.

Creatures Minotaur Oxen Threshold Turtle

Humanoid vs Monster Commanders

First, I want to say I really like Thunder Junction more than I thought I would. It could end up being my favorite set this year. Great job to you and the team! Second, back in AFR, the commander precons had a humanoid adventurer face commander and a monster alt commander. I thought that was really cool because I'm a big fan of monsters and weird creatures and love building decks with them as the commander. Magic has some really great monsterous creature types that are underrepresented as legendary creatures. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I'd love for one humanoid and one beast/monster commander to be the norm for precon design. The Grand Larceny, Desert Bloon, and Quick Draw precons are great examples of this. Having Yuma, Gonti, and Stella Lee as the humanoid face commanders and Kirri Talented Sprout, Felix Five Boots, and Eris Roar of the Storm as the more monstrous alt commanders.
I bring this up because I was really hoping for something a little more monsterous for the Most Wanted precon alt commander. Like a Skeleton or Nightmare or Horror or Minotaur, or Bird. Something along those lines would be really interesting with one of the outlaw creature types. Instead, we got a Dwarf. Vihaan Goldwaker is a great card, don't get me wrong. I just wish that every precon could have alt commanders that are a little more "out there" in terms of creature type usage instead of another human or dwarf or elf, etc. What are your thoughts on this?

My thoughts are there’s some one out there who loves Dwarves who’s super happy because we made a Dwarf card for them. I hear you that you’d like more non-humanoid legendary creatures, and that is something we’re dedicated to doing, as evidenced by the decks you did enjoy, but there’s a lot of player desires to meet, which means we need to spread the love a bit.

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Beast Bird Commander Creatures Dwarf Elf Horror Human Larceny Legendary Creatures Minotaur Most Wanted Nightmare Nightmare Quick Draw Skeleton Sprout

Minotaur Diversity Noted

MaRo can I point out that not all of Magic's minotaurs are oxen? Some are goat-headed, like Zedruu and the Anonkhet ones

A fine point.

Mark Rosewater Minotaur Oxen

Creature Type Changes

Ya know, I am not the biggest fan of turning all the unique races into their corresponding un-anthropomorphized counterparts, but I will say I prefer this option much more than the previous one (which was to just be wildly inconsistent).However, now that you have started down this path, you know that Minotaur needs to be converted to Ox, right? And Homarids into crabs? Please don't tell me ya'll are going to half-keister this.....if we're making the change, then can we at least commit?

We’re changing words that have no meaning external to the game (stuff we made up), but not words that have meaning outside the game. Homarids could change, Minotaur mostly likely will not.

Crab Creatures Homarids Minotaur Oxen

Minotaurs vs Oxen

With Oxen getting more support as a creature type, was there any discussion on making Minotaurs into Ox similar to how the Orichi from Kamigawa are “snakes” or the Leonin are “cats”? Where do you typically set the line when mechanicaly defining a difference (if any) between “ animal people” and the related animal?

The rule is we use the animal word when there isn’t a well known term for it. Minotaurs are just more evocative than Ox people.

Cat Creatures Minotaur Oxen Rules Snake

Minotaur Trivia

Hi Mark, it’s my birthday! Can you give me some cool trivia on Minotaurs?

In Theros, we had a Minotaur rule which was no Minotaur could have five or less combined power and toughness. That rule was eventually broken, but it took a lot of arguments to do so.Happy Birthday!

Birthday Minotaur Rules Theros

Future Boros Legends

If or when: A non-Human, non-Angel Legend from the Boros Legion gets a card. The Minotaurs, Goblins, Elementals, and Giants dutifully serve.

I assume when.

Boros (R/W) Elemental Giant Goblin If/When Legendary Creatures Minotaur

Naga vs Snake

I invoke the privilege of Birthday Trivia! What led to Naga not being creature type Snake like their Kamigawa cousins?

Naga, like Minotaur, is a creature of mythology. When we make a set based on certain mythology, we tend to use the mythological names when possible.Happy Birthday!

Birthday Creatures Minotaur Naga Snake

UR Keyword Ability Consideration

for the ur keyword ability, i thought that the "as long as you’ve drawn two or more cards" thing from modern horizons 1 was really cool (eyekite, spinehorn minotaur). the fact that it triggers off both rummage and looting ties the colors together nicely. i'm curious if it was ever considered, or if it was received positively.

It’s the kind of thing a set has to build around, so not ideal for an evergreen ability.

Colors Evergreen Eyekite Izzet (U/R) Keyword Abilities Minotaur Modern Horizons Spinehorn Minotaur Triggered Abilities

Minotaur Leader Card

Rhordan the Rageblood, the Minotaur leader in Theros that battled Anax, has been depicted multiple times but never received his own card! The Minotaur fans are small but mighty!

The Minotaur fans are a larger group than you think.

Blood Minotaur Theros

Creature Type Changes

Mark, while I would be fine if Viashino became Lizards (though I'd rather they become Dragons, if anything), I wouldn't want Minotaur to become Oxen. Minotaur aren't bull people in the same way Leonin are cat people. They may have bull-shaped heads, but that's about it.

We’ve never discussed changing Minotaur.

Cat Creatures Dragon Lizard Minotaur Oxen Viashino

Creature Type Consistency

Why do some humanoid races carry a humanoid creature type while others don't? Like, why are the octopus-like Cephalids “Creature — Cephalid” while the cat-like Leonin are “Creature — Cat”?

That is currently a big discussion point in R&D. I am personally in “use the animal name as the creature type” camp, with the sole exception of well known mythological creatures (Minotaurs, Werewolves, etc.)

Cat Cephalid Creatures Minotaur