Honestly, we're back in semi-quarantine and work has been pretty full on. I've had time enough to browse forums but not enough to play, so most of the feedback to follow is relatively historical, so to speak.Sinis wrote: ↑3 years agoHey @toctheyounger; I've been playing my version of this semi-frequently, and had a question about one of the subthemes in the deck, or maybe just a set of synergies: Tectonic Reformation, Ox of Agonas, Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, Bedlam Reveler, Chandra, Flamecaller and Cavalier of Flame.
How have these cards worked out for you? They clearly all work together (or rather, they all work with Cavalier, and I suppose an Ox escapee). Do you find Neheb to do much work? I find that I don't often have many cards to discard to Neheb for mana/new cards. Do you find Ox/Reveler impactful enough at discard/draw 3?
Some of these are better than others. Chandra, Flamecaller, Ox of Agonas and Bedlam Reveler are the weakest of the lot. The discard/draw 3 is fine, but ultimately it's a stop gap until something more efficient for draw comes along. Which given how good an actual wheel is, I''m not expecting any time soon. Chandra at least nets you a card which isn't nothing, but ultimately with all 3 you're really only using them when your hand needs more quality to it, or you need specific things in hand that you don't have at present. They're reasonable, not optimal, and generally it's a case of weighing up when the time is right to play them out, because it isn't always a good time.
Tectonic Reformation I've found really good, personally. It's a really cheap way to get more fat in hand, and in most cases when you have more than one land drop per turn or more than 6-7 lands in play, and lands in hand are predominantly surplus anyway, so it's fine to filter them away for cheap. I guess it could seem risky, but you do have absolute control over how many lands you keep and toss so you can take it as far as you'd like.
Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion and Cavalier of Flame are opportunistic beaters more than anything. I like that Neheb gives me further resource to use later into the turn, and I like that that's optional. I'm happy just to swing with him regardless, knowing that his trigger is a 'may'. Do I always find these triggers useful? No, but when they are they're worth having. As far as Cavalier of Flame's death trigger, it's not something I intentionally play into, but then again there's a few wheel effects here anyway, so it can sting a little even if I don't. A cherry on top, really.
Ultimately, the fact that the best of these are optional, and optional to scale, is what keeps them in the deck. Being able to sculpt a hand is nice. If there were more wheel variants to hand (to recall I believe the only ones I'm missing are Runehorn Hellkite and Wheel of Fortune) I'd probably trim these down from the lowest hanging fruit upwards, but I'm relatively happy with them for the moment.
