Day's Undoing, Time Spiral, etc.,

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

I've been considering trying out cards like Time Spiral and Day's Undoing as a means to recycle my graveyard and fill my hand back up in a few decks that have blue.

I know typically I see these in a "Wheels" deck like Nekusar, the Mindrazer or The Locust God where there is an additional payoff involved. Does anyone ever use these without those kinds of synergies in mind?

The obvious big concern is the symmetrical nature of these cards as I'm generally not a fan of just handing resources to opponents. On the other hand they work as graveyard hate to an extent and get rid of cards people have been holding onto.

Midnight Clock is one sided and seems pretty good in the games I've seen others use it in, but I see people get burned by their own clock since you don't have complete control over the effect going off.

Anyway, how has your experience been with these symmetrical "shuffle hand & library & graveyard, draw 7" kinds of cards?

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Outcryqq
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Post by Outcryqq » 3 years ago

I wouldn't use these effects unless I have significant synergy with them, as, like you said, they provide a massive resource benefit to your opponents as well (refill all their hands). The minimal upside of graveyard hate isn't worth it, in my opinion. There are great graveyard hate in all colors, especially via lands (low risk to your deckbuilding), artifact, black, and green, and this includes over multiple card types - lands, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and of course instants and sorceries.

If you're looking for good one-sided recursion in blue, I'd go with something like Recall. Outside of that, blue has access to tons of great one-sided card draw, which I'd probably prefer to wheels (again, unless you have synergy with the wheels). The only other time I'd run the cards you mentioned without synergy is in a very competitive combo deck where you're expecting to combo off. In those cases, you'll generally be using them on your turn to combo out, and in that case the resources you give to your opponents don't much matter because they'll never have a chance to use them.

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Post by illakunsaa » 3 years ago

I think you have the right idea. You don't really need high synergy to make them work. If you play permanents, removal or various stax pieces you can break the symmetry of wheels pretty easy.

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Lifeless
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Post by Lifeless » 3 years ago

Personally I like how they disrupt the opponent's game plan by either encouraging them to play out their hand or punishing them for holding specific cards. I'll often pair them with mass-bounce like Cyclonic Rift and Evacuation to address decks that are trying to empty their hand in anticipation of the wheels.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Symmetrical wheels generally bite you in the butt enough so that I'd usually play Thrill of Possibility over Wall of Fortune unless I had some kind of synergy going on.

I do kinda like Echo of Eons since it can be cast from the yard to recycle my bin and also functions as yard hate for others to an extent, but even that is a bit iffy.

The lame part is the wheel synergy is mostly toxic as heck. You don't wanna be playing Hullbreacher + Day's Undoing in any but the most hardass metas.

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Post by Sinis » 3 years ago

First up, I agree that 'wheelbait' generals (like Xyris, the Writhing Storm, Brallin, Skyshark Rider/Shabraz, the Skyshark, Nekusar, Locust God, etc.) are boring and played out. I don't see them often, but I don't think they're very interesting, and the moment you sit down against any of these generals, you have a pretty clear impression of what they're running, and it's just not all that exciting. I also think that if you're planning on a draw-7 with Notion Thief, Narset, Parter of Veils, Hullbreacher or Alms Collector, you're also inching towards boring/played out, and it can be a very negative play experience for the table.

For it to be worth it outside of those generals, I think you need to be spending cards very fast in order for these to be worth it, and you'll probably need synergy in addition. I think most of these cards benefit from blitzing out mana with Mox Diamond, Gemstone Caverns and similar, pitch spells like Force of Will/Force of Negation, etc.

The last time I played a full suite of draw-7s was Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar, and that was several years ago, before the printings of Nekusar et al (I guess it would make it over a decade ago). There are many more cards now that replace draw effects or tack ones on, like Underrealm Lich, Teferi's Ageless Insight, or Alhammarret's Archive.

Worth noting: @pokken had a thread some time ago when he was considering buying a Timetwister, and what they'd do with it if they bought it: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=21184

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
The lame part is the wheel synergy is mostly toxic as heck. You don't wanna be playing Hullbreacher + Day's Undoing in any but the most hardass metas.
Hullbreacher is also actually a worry since it can be done as a response to the Day's Undoing effect. A few people in my usual playgroup do run it in some decks. I've seen the Windfall response happen once, that was rough.

My Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur deck runs a few card draw doublers and "when you draw a card" effects like Psychosis Crawler and Ominous Seas, and I've been meaning to lean further into that kind of stuff. I might try throwing Time Spiral and maybe Day's Undoing into the deck as an experiment on my next revision since there is some synergy there.

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Cyberium
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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

You can always empty their graveyards ahead of time.

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Post by NZB2323 » 3 years ago

A lot of blue decks want to have a large graveyard for cards like Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Visions of Beyond, Snapcaster Mage, Mission Briefing, etc.

Niv-Mizzet, Parun loves drawing cards but the only wheels I run with him are Time Spiral and Midnight Clock.
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Post by Dunharrow » 3 years ago

Time Spiral is great with High Tide and other mana doubling.

But ya, I don't think I run any blue wheels other than that one.

In blue you have such good card draw that making opponents draw up to 7 without any way to punish them is kinda weird.

The exception is if you play combo - then a cheap wheel effect can help you combo out. Doesn't matter than everyone else drew 7 if they don't cast their spells.
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Post by Sharpened » 3 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
You can always empty their graveyards ahead of time.
The concern is rarely that you are recycling opponents graveyards back to them. It's that you are drawing them cards. That's usually far more important. And against a lot of decks, recycling their graveyard back into their library can set them back.

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

I'm not running many wheels in my decks other than Windfall - I generally have enough recursion that I don't want to shuffle my graveyard away, and enough card draw that I don't want to refill my opponents' hands. That said, there are a lot of ways to break them.

The most obvious ways are, as others have called out, to have commanders like The Locust God or Nekusar, the Mindrazer that do something when you or your opponents draw cards, or something like Notion Thief to lock your opponents out. These tend to result in pretty miserable decks.

If you're not actively making the wheels asymmetric, then you'll want to do so passively, by making the draw-seven more valuable to you than to your opponents. This, in turn, implies that you want to be able to empty your hand faster than your opponents. Which, in turn, opens up a few different possibilities - you can run a bunch of fast mana / rituals and a low curve, a bunch of ramp to dump your hand faster post-wheel, or stax / bounce effects to slow down the rate at which your opponents deplete their own hand.

....I don't think I would run wheel effects as recursion for most decks, since there are a bunch of recursion options available. That said, I have been intending to test out Midnight Clock in my Thada Adel, Acquisitor deck - as a mono-blue, creature-based deck, I have significantly fewer ways to recur my beaters than a black or green deck would, which means I can run out of action over time. That said, if you're doing a more spell-focused deck, blue has a lot more recursion options (Archaeomancer, Snapcaster Mage, etc).

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Post by PrimevalCommander » 3 years ago

I run Time Spiral, Echo of Eons, and Time Reversal in a Talrand deck as hand refills with mana doublers and high tide. I usually use them to chain draw spells together on a big "storm" turn (no storm cards) to build a nice field of 2/2 drakes and take one or two extra turns to beat down with drakes. I know... extra turns, but it's a no-creature deck and I need some way to make my 2/2 drakes deadly.

Overall, I'm happy with Time Reversal and have cast it several times in that deck. I don't use it anywhere else. I usually let everyone do their thing and throw out a counter on anything game ending. Haven't played that deck in a little while so it may not age well, but I need a critical mass of resources to go off and have time to wait for a shields down turn to make my move. Typically my trouble is the whole 0 creatures and missing a board wipe when needed, not by drawing my opponents extra cards.

I have yet to cast Echo of Eons, but I think it will be one of the best in this effect second to Twister and Spiral.

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