Each player secretly chooses a number. Then reveal those numbers. ~ deals damage equal to the greatest number chosen to the players that chose it. Then each player who didn’t choose the minimum number discards their hand, and draws 7 cards.
Am I crazy in thinking this is bonkers for red aggro (assuming the translation is correct)?
Certainly the position you want to be in here is ahead on life and behind in cards, which is where aggro often finds itself.
If the opponent chooses zero, they are basically giving the aggro player a one-sided Wheel of Fortune. So I think it's likely they will want to take a bunch of damage off this card, when possible. This might end up a sorcery speed Char in those cases, which is still not terrible.
It's really hard to evaluate the absolute floor for a card like this, but it's worth noting that this doesn't play well if you are behind on life, no matter what number you pick.
I'm definitely interested in trying this, but I'm curious how this stacks up against Risk Factor, which I've admittedly never played.
It'll definitely be a pretty aggro-exclusive Wheel effect, which I'm fine with - just trying to compare it to what's already available. I currently run Light Up the Stage and Wheel of Fortune.
There are times you play Wheel of Fortune where you WANT your opponent to be forced to discard (hand size above 7, just tutored, trying to mill, etc.) and in those cases this won't help at all. Still, the ability to sometimes be one-sided in your favor is intriguing.
Funny you mention Risk Factor. Here's a quote from the discussion of that card:
Very interesting card imo.
I'd love to play it and see how it pans out in practice.
In many matchups, it should play out as effectively a one sided wheel of fortune with an interesting mind game attached to it.
I wish I could recall, what % of games would I be willing to pay 7-10 life for a one sided wheel of fortune with red agro?
I think it's high, but I may be underestimating that cost..
What a crazy card. It's noteworthy that only the player who bid the highest takes the damage AND gets the Wheel of Fortune effect. Nothing happens to the player who bid lowest - unless you both bid the same amount, then if I read it correctly... you both get the damage and no cards?
So play this in aggro, bid as much life as you can afford to lose and proceed to win the game, as you either get a one-sided Wheel or your opponent bid way too much life to survive against an aggro deck.
I think this might be better than Wheel in an aggro deck. Bonkers card!
I think important to the comparison to risk factor is that here there's a lot of times you get to ENSURE you're the only one who can wheel. If your control opponent stabilizes at 6 life, you get to just say 6. And drawing 7 is of course a HELL of a lot more than drawing 3.
Unlike wheel, this card goes in basically no non-aggro decks in the main (it might be a great sideboard card for some, though).
When compared to risk factor, obvious downside is that risk factor doesn't draw your opponent cards if they take the damage instead and instant speed does matter.
I also wonder how often it would be a viable line to just run this out on turn 3 after playing 3 lands and 2-3 spells and just name, like, 5. Maybe you're fine with your opponent taking 6 to be up a couple cards. Maybe they overestimate and pay like 8. I definitely am testing this.
This card does seem to fit quite well into burn/aggro strategies. Will be interesting to see how the secret bidding plays out and how that is received by playgroups. It's Goblin Game or Thieves' Auction meets a one-sided Wheel of Fortune. I have a feeling this card is undercosted for its effect and could prove problematic for other formats. Mono-red burn with this seems pretty busted. I feel like most red decks will have no problem paying half of their life for a one-sided wheel, many other decks can't afford to be a couple burn spells or aggro creatures from being dead.
Seems great in RDW, but what makes Wheel of Fortune so good is it's usefulness in Reanimator, Ramp, AND red aggro. This card only seems usefull in red aggro, and unless your cube is pretty large and requires more unique flagstone cards for the red aggro archetype, this card just seems too narrow imo
Red aggro in cube is the same as burn as far as I'm aware, and we have plenty of red aggro support in our cube, so much so that it is one of our best decks.
With that said, this card seems alright, but kinda narrow. It's basically like Sulfuric Vortex in that it only goes in one deck, but it's quite a lot worse and has some substantial downsides to wheel. Cards that allow your opponent to make a choice tend to be far worse than they look, and I'm not convinced that the power of this card outweighs that inconsistency. You will always receive the worst option. Not to mentions, unlike wheel where you can fall behind and spend a turn digging for burn for next turn, if you win or tie with this you still take the damage and your opponent can outright just name the number that kills you. Obviously making this effect asymmetrical might be a bigger upside than I'm giving it credit for, but just off of first instinct this seems pretty inconstant and I'm not sure it's good enough outside of pretty big cubes.
I'm not in love with this card. I think it'll play out much worse than the "one-sided draw 7 with a drawback that's irrelevant for my deck" a lot less than people think it will. There are a lot of tight races with aggro decks where you can't afford to overbid on life, making the card super inconsistent and somewhat unreliable.
It'll be good in the right windows, in the right matchups, and in the right decks. But I feel like it's going to be too narrow. Wheel is awesome because it's one of the cards that can both close a game out when you're winning and help pull off miracle wins when you're losing. This card will only ever be half of those things.
Anyone has tested the card? Is actual use close to the speculated cases?
I had the same effect that WTWLF123 explains.
For the most part, the race was too close, and my opponent would use it to their advantage to bring my life down.
It has worked with a white red agro with small lifegain, but its too "stars aligned"
Wheel of Fortune has been handy to disrupt control and midrange hands, especially early in the game.
You need a card to refill and disrupt, and not bring your life totals closer to each other.
There's been some discussion about Wheel + Draw 7 effects, and so I think this card deserves another look.
Aggro obviously likes both the cards and the opponent having to pay a lot of life to mitigate them.
Reanimator likes this less than regular wheel because it only cares about discarding and drawing. However, if it can discard reliably into a combo to gain life, i.e. discard Griselbrand and Unburial Rites, paying life might be worth it.
And with cards like Narset or Hullbreacher, this card loses much of its downsides - either you get cards or the opponent takes damage and discards their hands - a REAL punisher card.
What do you guys think?
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Sorcery 2R
Each player secretly chooses a number. Then reveal those numbers. ~ deals damage equal to the greatest number chosen to the players that chose it. Then each player who didn’t choose the minimum number discards their hand, and draws 7 cards.
Am I crazy in thinking this is bonkers for red aggro (assuming the translation is correct)?
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If the opponent chooses zero, they are basically giving the aggro player a one-sided Wheel of Fortune. So I think it's likely they will want to take a bunch of damage off this card, when possible. This might end up a sorcery speed Char in those cases, which is still not terrible.
It's really hard to evaluate the absolute floor for a card like this, but it's worth noting that this doesn't play well if you are behind on life, no matter what number you pick.
It'll definitely be a pretty aggro-exclusive Wheel effect, which I'm fine with - just trying to compare it to what's already available. I currently run Light Up the Stage and Wheel of Fortune.
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Funny you mention Risk Factor. Here's a quote from the discussion of that card:
This is 2R instead, but if you can afford to bid 10 life for this, that's essentially what this card is.
I wasn't particularly excited by Risk Factor but I am by this, and I guess I just brought it up as a gut check.
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I'd love to play it and see how it pans out in practice.
In many matchups, it should play out as effectively a one sided wheel of fortune with an interesting mind game attached to it.
I wish I could recall, what % of games would I be willing to pay 7-10 life for a one sided wheel of fortune with red agro?
I think it's high, but I may be underestimating that cost..
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So play this in aggro, bid as much life as you can afford to lose and proceed to win the game, as you either get a one-sided Wheel or your opponent bid way too much life to survive against an aggro deck.
I think this might be better than Wheel in an aggro deck. Bonkers card!
Unlike wheel, this card goes in basically no non-aggro decks in the main (it might be a great sideboard card for some, though).
When compared to risk factor, obvious downside is that risk factor doesn't draw your opponent cards if they take the damage instead and instant speed does matter.
I also wonder how often it would be a viable line to just run this out on turn 3 after playing 3 lands and 2-3 spells and just name, like, 5. Maybe you're fine with your opponent taking 6 to be up a couple cards. Maybe they overestimate and pay like 8. I definitely am testing this.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
This card should be great in burn as well, so it's not narrow at all in my book. And it's a friggin one-sided draw 7.
With that said, this card seems alright, but kinda narrow. It's basically like Sulfuric Vortex in that it only goes in one deck, but it's quite a lot worse and has some substantial downsides to wheel. Cards that allow your opponent to make a choice tend to be far worse than they look, and I'm not convinced that the power of this card outweighs that inconsistency. You will always receive the worst option. Not to mentions, unlike wheel where you can fall behind and spend a turn digging for burn for next turn, if you win or tie with this you still take the damage and your opponent can outright just name the number that kills you. Obviously making this effect asymmetrical might be a bigger upside than I'm giving it credit for, but just off of first instinct this seems pretty inconstant and I'm not sure it's good enough outside of pretty big cubes.
It'll be good in the right windows, in the right matchups, and in the right decks. But I feel like it's going to be too narrow. Wheel is awesome because it's one of the cards that can both close a game out when you're winning and help pull off miracle wins when you're losing. This card will only ever be half of those things.
I hope I'm wrong, but it looks kinda meh to me.
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I had the same effect that WTWLF123 explains.
For the most part, the race was too close, and my opponent would use it to their advantage to bring my life down.
It has worked with a white red agro with small lifegain, but its too "stars aligned"
Wheel of Fortune has been handy to disrupt control and midrange hands, especially early in the game.
You need a card to refill and disrupt, and not bring your life totals closer to each other.
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Aggro obviously likes both the cards and the opponent having to pay a lot of life to mitigate them.
Reanimator likes this less than regular wheel because it only cares about discarding and drawing. However, if it can discard reliably into a combo to gain life, i.e. discard Griselbrand and Unburial Rites, paying life might be worth it.
And with cards like Narset or Hullbreacher, this card loses much of its downsides - either you get cards or the opponent takes damage and discards their hands - a REAL punisher card.
What do you guys think?