This looks like a fairly easy upgrade over Oracle of Mul Daya for me. Natural Order is a top-tier Green card. Is this worse? Certainly, but a worse, more fragile, Natural Order is still a very playable card. Only costing 1 to activate helps this a lot, you can easily play a mana dork to sacrifice on the following turn, activate the ability, and have mana to spare.
Even if you want to add this card, I cannot in good conscience support this cut.
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:
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.
Plus no reminder text on monarch always annoys me. My players don't all know every random keyword in the game's history.
I sympathize with this. That said, in the case of monarch, it's good to have a couple copies of the monarch token handy as reminders, which helps a bit. At least it's SOMETHING as opposed to nothing at all like keywords without reminder text.
If you want to support mill decks, this is a no-brainer. Even if you don't support them per se, this is a solid one-card win-con that certainly doesn't require any other mill cards to be good.
Even a single trigger of the 10-card mill is going to put your opponent in a bad spot. Even if they keep monarch the rest of the game, you still mill 2 each turn, plus now they have monarch so they are drawing 2 per turn. I think this is basically a must-remove enchantment if you can play it by turn 3.
I'm okay with mill decks getting hosed by Reanimate, Timetwister, and even Blightsteel Colossus. Less so with the Eldrazi titans. I wish they didn't have that trigger as it makes cards like this a lot less interesting.
I don't think the magus cycle has ever really been good enough for most cubes. Magus of the Wheel and Magus of the Will might be the closest. The issue with all of them is that extra turn you have to wait while telegraphing your plans to your opponent.
Aven Mindcensor doesn't make a lot of cubes because it just doesn't come up enough to be consistent. This card is even MORE swingy, and will only occasionally be a complete backbreaker, while most of the time just not doing enough. I don't think that's a desirable effect.
I initially misread this thinking that the loss meant it returned to your hand after resolving, but this still might be good enough with cheap burn spells, discard spells, or of course Time Walk effects.
Heh. Beat you with my stealth edit.
I have a hard time imaging a cube running six green 6-drops.
Even if you want to add this card, I cannot in good conscience support this cut.
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.
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 sympathize with this. That said, in the case of monarch, it's good to have a couple copies of the monarch token handy as reminders, which helps a bit. At least it's SOMETHING as opposed to nothing at all like keywords without reminder text.
Even a single trigger of the 10-card mill is going to put your opponent in a bad spot. Even if they keep monarch the rest of the game, you still mill 2 each turn, plus now they have monarch so they are drawing 2 per turn. I think this is basically a must-remove enchantment if you can play it by turn 3.
I'm okay with mill decks getting hosed by Reanimate, Timetwister, and even Blightsteel Colossus. Less so with the Eldrazi titans. I wish they didn't have that trigger as it makes cards like this a lot less interesting.
Also Krark's Other Thumb
If nothing else, the card title did make me chuckle
I initially misread this thinking that the loss meant it returned to your hand after resolving, but this still might be good enough with cheap burn spells, discard spells, or of course Time Walk effects.
Prophetic
Mind Twist?