Sheldon's throwaway comment about banning wheels

[toctheyounger]

Notion Thief, Hullbreacher and Narset, Parter of Veils + wheel are awful to play against. Terribly unfun. I would be very happy to see those 3 + Alms Collector for consistency gone.

Not to pile on too much here, but even as a huge proponent of consistency I don't think collector is in the same class. It act more as a genuine equalizer, unlike the others does not entirely blank your card draw effects, and (while arguably less of a valid consideration) is in the weakest color in the format.

Agreed, Alms Collector is as fair a wheel opportunist as you'll find. If white has a contribution to this discussion, it's most definitely Smothering Tithe.

[pokken]

Alms Collector is a great example of a balanced effect at 4 mana. The only thing even remotely busted about it is the wheel interaction and even that isn't *that* busted since people still get at least one card adn they can easily progressively draw back in.

The reason Notion Thief and Hullbreacher are so bananas is that they shut off drawing in the future as well. They're horrible designs.

Pretty much case in point why white cards suck, they keep giving them the "Oh we realize now why that is so dumb, here's a mediocre version!"

[Sinis]

Wheels are the unhealthiest thing in Commander

Swing and a miss.

Right? What a hot take.

Pretty much case in point why white cards suck, they keep giving them the "Oh we realize now why that is so dumb, here's a mediocre version!"

Pretty much, except that one time when they had Smothering Tithe and decided that Hullbreacher would be a good idea after that.

[DirkGently]

While I highly doubt anything will come of this, I find it slightly concerning just how poor Sheldon's card evaluation skills are. Why on earth is Sanctifier en-Vec even getting mentioned as interacting badly with wheels? That's barely a synergy, let alone a problem for the format. I shall be shocked if sanctifier cracks 1% play on EDHrec anyway, it looks like a sideboard card for modern or something. I've consistently seen Sheldon being wildly off-the-mark when it comes to evaluating cards, and it does worry me slightly. I'd expect someone with as much experience as him to be a little more competent, frankly, as harsh as that sounds.

Personally I don't like wheels, playing with or against them - I like to grind out CA slow and steady, instead of relying on big refills that leave my draw anemic without them. So if wheels got banned, I wouldn't complain (though I might try to offload my Wheel of Fortune and Time Twister asap). But as everyone else has said, I think it's fairly obvious that the main culprits are on the draw-denial side of the equation when it comes to creating problems. That said, I haven't run up against those combos very often so it hasn't bothered me that much personally.

Final note - I think people way overvalue how good nekusar is. He's really not that good. He's definitely not a "win button". More often he just sets up someone else to win in my experience.

[umtiger]

I don't think I ever came close to winning a game with my Nekusar deck when facing a deck with a counterspell. Drawing cards for opponents is typically not a good idea.

I haven't played mtg since the pandemic and Hullbreacher is something I'm anxious/not looking forward to playing against.

[toctheyounger]

Final note - I think people way overvalue how good nekusar is. He's really not that good. He's definitely not a "win button". More often he just sets up someone else to win in my experience.

I've never seen a Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck win myself.

[RxPhantom]

@Sheldon's take on wheels is so hot, it just flew off to fight Galactus.

I don't know about all of you, but I'm not seeing an overabundance of wheel abuse in my LGS. I know it's hard for four people and a random advisory board to manage the most popular format in Magic, but what the hell was Sheldon thinking here? It's one thing for the average person to share their thoughts on potential bans, but it's completely different when you have, arguably, the most influence and power in such matters. And on top of that, he was way off the mark, and I think it exposed a disconnect between the RC and the format at large. If I were to approach this less cynically, though, one could view this as just a thought exercise on Sheldon's part, but...it feels a little more deliberate than that. Maybe he wanted to gauge the community's response, and if so, mission accomplished.

The cards that break wheels are the problem, obviously. The RC may remove wheels from the format. What an on-the-nose metaphor.

[Hermes_]

While I highly doubt anything will come of this, I find it slightly concerning just how poor Sheldon's card evaluation skills are.

Or maybe you evaluate them differently?

[pokken]

I don't think I ever came close to winning a game with my Nekusar deck when facing a deck with a counterspell. Drawing cards for opponents is typically not a good idea.

I haven't played mtg since the pandemic and Hullbreacher is something I'm anxious/not looking forward to playing against.

It's been so bad I am considering cutting it from ephara hate bears, the deck it may as well have been designed for. I have enjoyed games with winter orb more and it's not close

[Gamazson]

It's been so bad I am considering cutting it from ephara hate bears, the deck it may as well have been designed for. I have enjoyed games with winter orb more and it's not close

Daaang. I haven't met Hullbreacher in the wild yet, but have had plenty of experience against Narset, Parter of Veils and Notion Thief due to meta hate. My signature deck is Pir & Toothy. At least with Notion Thief, the card draw is not a may ability and I can force the controller to mill themselves.

[Yatsufusa]

I'm getting the "Sheldon went to play EDH at the GP and is shocked to see the diversity of power when you meet randoms at the LGS" vibes from this, with regards to it specifically being Sheldon giving this throwaway comment. At the same time though, I trust the committee as a whole to keep things in-check generally so I don't expect Sheldon shocked / personally upset by something to greatly shift rules or the ban list.

On the topic of wheels / draw-hate "synergy" itself though, yes it's obviously obnoxious and honestly I wonder if it gives off the "Mass Land Destruction is the answer to ramp" vibe at times, except it relates to draw instead of ramp. The main difference is that the "draw-hate" tends to be engines that stick around whilst ramp-hate in the form of destruction are usually just one-off effects. And what makes the "draw-hate" engines even more jarring is they're one-sided, so while everyone else is blocked from drawing into potential answers, you're likely drawing like there's no tomorrow, effectively creating a solitaire-state, because guess which color one-sided "draw-hate" they decided it should be in? The color with the most draw (and also second with wheel effects).

So yes, while I still have trust in the committee to keep things relatively balanced (and that Sheldon's opinions are just that), I don't agree with his assessment. Wheels are fundamentally double-edged swords in a vacuum, it's the deluge of "badly-designed one-sided draw-hate" cards we've had recently that's the issue. People drawing obnoxious amounts of cards is a problem, yes, but the answers printed for that need to be more precise, instead of just a one-sided blanket ban, probably along the same lines of how they decided to help curb ramp in MH2, Break the Ice. They should be silver-bullets (that are guaranteed to be always useful because someone's going to draw/ramp at some point of time), not stax-simulators. (Nothing against stax, I don't hate it, but I feel it's an archetype that should by default, never be too easy to setup because it leads to solitaire-states when that happens).

At least with Nekusar, the Mindrazer, it was along the lines of Spiteful Visions, it is soft-hate/punisher effect that didn't actually stop the draws, but in fact encouraged them, meaning it can potentially be its own downfall. Sure, it also has combo potential with wheels, but at least that leads down the typical "combo" route no different from Kiki-Jiki or Triskelion. This new wave of blanket one-sided draw-hate bring to mind Leovold, Emissary of Trest instead and the recent deluge of them essentially means we have "Leovold-decks-in-the-99-hiding-in-plain-sight".

[DirkGently]

Or maybe you evaluate them differently?

I'm not talking about his assessment that wheels are the biggest problem in the format - I disagree, but that's pretty vague and at least semi-reasonable. What I find troubling is that he seems to imply that sanctifier en-vec is problematic because of its "interaction" with wheels...which is basically indefensible? I can't imagine anyone with even passing understanding of the game seeing that "interaction" as being dangerous on any level.

Within certain bounds, players can disagree over the particulars of strategy, but imo saying that "sanctifier en-ven reinforces that wheels are unhealthy" is somewhere in the realm of saying "Grizzly Bears is an overpowered format staple. In vintage."

[Ruiner]

This is pretty wild and the first I've ever heard of someone saying that wheels are a problem. Let alone, the worst problem. Are there really a super significant portion of the games out there just revolving around who gets a wheel effect off?

Personally, I usually try to avoid them in most decks because refilling an opponent's hand, or filling the graveyards of certain decks is not ideal.

There are the obvious combos with stuff like Hullbreacher but there are plenty of 2-card combos that are just as game ending, and this isn't terrible to try to interact with (maybe my usual playgroup just runs more interaction than the average group). And my anecdotal personal experience (which may not reflect the greater whole) is that I usually see wheels in decks that revolve around card draw payoffs with stuff like Psychosis Crawler, The Locust God, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, etc., and they aren't usually just gunning for a one sided wheel combo as the goal of the deck (although it happens, sure).

Pointing out Sanctifier en-Vec is just silly. Why not mention Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, or Planar Void if the idea of "discard made me lose things permanently" is so horrible (it isn't) since they are just straight up more effective?

[BeneTleilax]

There are the obvious combos with stuff like Hullbreacher but there are plenty of 2-card combos that are just as game ending.

The problem with wheel locks is that they don't win the game, they keep everyone else from winning. This allows their user to jack off for ten turns before ending the game, which I've found surprisingly common. This is why I prefer Insurrection to Blatant Thievery and Craterhoof Behemoth to Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur.

I also disagree with the Stax comparison people have made earlier. Stax effects are generally symmetrical, so those tend to create games where everyone is operating with very limited resources. The Stax deck just is more optimized for that scenario. Up until the game is completely locked and I scoop, I am presented with interesting decisions on how to make the most of what I'm left with, as is everyone else at the table.

[ISBPathfinder]

While I highly doubt anything will come of this, I find it slightly concerning just how poor Sheldon's card evaluation skills are. Why on earth is Sanctifier en-Vec even getting mentioned as interacting badly with wheels? That's barely a synergy, let alone a problem for the format. I shall be shocked if sanctifier cracks 1% play on EDHrec anyway, it looks like a sideboard card for modern or something. I've consistently seen Sheldon being wildly off-the-mark when it comes to evaluating cards, and it does worry me slightly. I'd expect someone with as much experience as him to be a little more competent, frankly, as harsh as that sounds.

I am not Sheldon so I can't really speak for him but I think his issues with the card was along the lines of how much it does as well as shutting down people's fun. Historically speaking he tends to not like things that completely shut down strategies but he also acknowledges in this article that you do need to interact with some strategies.

I can't really say why he mentioned wheels with this card but some players get a little overly protective about their cards and when they get exiled. I have never really understood the mentality but if you were to play Sanctifier and then wheel it can feel a bit like your sweet combo piece just got hit by some weird Thoughtseize and a lot of people find those sort of tactics to be intrusive.

[JWK]

I am idly curious, how often are people seeing the Hullbreachers and Narsets of the world played alongside wheels?

I haven't yet. That style of play isn't favored among the few people I've played with F2F during COVID, and on PlayEDH, Wheels + Narset/Hullbreacher strategies are played at at a higher level (Mid) than where most of my decks end up (mostly low). I do play some Mid games, so I am sure I will encounter that eventually, but I haven't so far.

I will probably be resuming play at my LGS in the near future, and expect to run into that sort of thing a fair bit, given how popular things like Nekusar have been in years past.

[DirkGently]

I am not Sheldon so I can't really speak for him but I think his issues with the card was along the lines of how much it does as well as shutting down people's fun. Historically speaking he tends to not like things that completely shut down strategies but he also acknowledges in this article that you do need to interact with some strategies.

I can't really say why he mentioned wheels with this card but some players get a little overly protective about their cards and when they get exiled. I have never really understood the mentality but if you were to play Sanctifier and then wheel it can feel a bit like your sweet combo piece just got hit by some weird Thoughtseize and a lot of people find those sort of tactics to be intrusive.

1) That's the mentality of a very bad and/or inexperienced player and I think it's worrying that it seems to be echoed by arguably the most influential single person in the format who has been playing for decades. I mean, I don't expect him to be a pro player, but I get the impression sometimes that most of the people on this forum are better players than him and that's a little worrying to me. He seems like the sort of guy whose been playing for a long time...but just doesn't "get it". And in my experience, those sorts of players are likely to lash out and blame random stuff being problematic when they don't understand why they're losing (for a particularly egregious example, I think back to a guy who accused me of cheating at GP side events because two of my draft decks shared some C-level commons...smh...but I see lesser examples at commander tables all the time, like the guy a few weeks ago who loudly and repeatedly accused my deck of being "boring" when I wiped the floor of his cookie-cutter GB sac deck with my RW reanimator). Not the sort of mentality that's great for curating a banlist (though ofc he is but one voice of many).

2) Something being "intrusive" does not a problem create. If someone is upset because they got interacted with and didn't get to go off unopposed with their combo, then frankly they can [insert expletive here].

3) There are like....so many kinds of grave hate that are way more powerful. Sanctifier en-vec is not going to see significant play in commander.

[pokken]

I would be surprised to see sanctifier see almost any play, narrow color hate is bad. It could have just exiled all cards and then been rest in peace bear and still been overall worse than Dauthi Voidwalker.

The narrow advantage of it not hitting your stuff if you're Wxx that is not r/b is something I guess, but I wouldn't expect to see that card much outside of dedicated hatebears builds.

The most ubiquitous graveyard abusing deck in the format is Life from the Loam.dec anyway, with black bringing up the distant second

[ISBPathfinder]

I was planning to put Sanctifier en-Vec in my Bruna, the Fading Light but that deck specifically uses its graveyard and has cares about what is and isn't a human / angel.

I also see a number of reanimator / aristocrat decks in my meta. I wouldn't say they are huge in my meta but I would probably give them a 5-10% of the meta kind of a feel and this card could single handedly shut them down. On top of that the dual protections gives me a great chump blocker given that my deck isn't overly fast. I like that it gives me an early game equipment carrier and the protections could easily let me deliver some equipment to face. It is also something that can be tutored for by Recruiter of the Guard which to date has mostly been a designation that only Scavenging Ooze has really held (others can be but most of those aren't really played).

I do sort of wish that it hit more colors and wasn't just red and black but getting the dual protections, the ETB, and continual hate on death triggers are all very relevant things if you ask me. It does suck that a Blood Artist will see a bunch of green, white, or blue creatures dying still but well... I think the card is already somewhat pushed for what likely was intended to be a sideboard card for most other formats.

[Dunharrow]

So thinking on this again. Is the issue with Wheel + Hullbreacher (or other) that they cause resource imbalance AND do not end the game? Kinda like Armageddon doesn't end the game on the spot?

We have a lot of 2 card combos that win the game. I get that you can have multiple wheels and multiple ways to make them unfair, and that individually the cards are also good, but he can't reasonably ban Jace's Archivist right? If it is an issue, ban Breacher. Ban 3 cmc wheels. But don't go nuts banning Dragon Mage.

[pokken]

So thinking on this again. Is the issue with Wheel + Hullbreacher (or other) that they cause resource imbalance AND do not end the game? Kinda like Armageddon doesn't end the game on the spot?

We have a lot of 2 card combos that win the game. I get that you can have multiple wheels and multiple ways to make them unfair, and that individually the cards are also good, but he can't reasonably ban Jace's Archivist right? If it is an issue, ban Breacher. Ban 3 cmc wheels. But don't go nuts banning Dragon Mage.

The problem with the wheel combos is more that both sides of the combos are good cards. It's not like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Pestermite where the cards are not amazing on their own (pretty overcosted or ineffectual).

Hullbreacher is a windmill slam of a card on its own, and Wheel of Fortune and Time Spiral can also be as well (especially if you dump your hand to ramp then wheel when it's a bonus for you but not helping anyone else).

So you get to play a virtually game ending combo that is made up of all great cards *that people are incentivized to play independently anyway*. So once you have Hullbreacher might as well toss a wheel in there as a wincon, why not?

[Hawk]

This seems like a poor idea to me. It seems to me that while normally, WotC's approach is "ban the enabler, not the card it enables", here that doesn't apply.

1) Where's the line? Obviously first up is Wheel of Fortune, Timetwister, and Windfall, and it's easy enough from there to say that Time Spiral and Memory Jar are a bit over the line too. But that still leaves lots of "wheels" - do you ban the next best ones, like Reforge the Soul, Wheel of Misfortune, Time Reversal, and Echo of Eons? What about the stuff that takes a lot more set-up or is easier to interact with, like Jace's Archivist, Teferi's Puzzle Box, Magus of the Wheel, Commit // Memory, and Wheel of Fate? What about wheel-adjacent cards that can't refuel a combo deck like the above but work with the elephants in the room, like Molten Psyche, Burning Inquiry, Winds of Change, Wheel and Deal and Dark Deal? We're not even done yet - ban all those and there are still "bad" wheel-y effects like Khorvath's Fury, Dragon Mage, Collective Defiance, Emergency Powers, and Incendiary Command. For "consistency" do they also need to get the axe?

2) I mentioned the elephant in the room and they've already been talked about here in thread - Hullbreacher and Narset, Parter of Veils take these effects (some of which are already quite powerful and disruptive by base) and make them brutally unfun. I think its worth noting that most of the above wheels have been around since the dawn of EDH, and have coexisted peacefully(ish) alongside Notion Thief and Consecrated Sphinx the entire time. When we got the ability to access similar such effects in the Command Zone with Leovold, Emissary of Trest it was him and not Windfall that got axed, so that's some more historical precedence. My strong suspicion is that if you decided this time to try and leave Narset and Hullbreacher alone, and ban say the first five wheels I mentioned - you'd still see Narset and Hullbreacher be problems with the wheels that are left. Narset is especially problematic because she can effectively replace herself and is difficult to interact with in some metas that lack low-to-the-ground aggressive commanders who can kick her off the table.

3) This is different from 'STAX as far as cards that can create unfun moments imo. Sure, there are similarities - in that when taken too far these are low win-rate strategies (I piloted Nekusaur for about a year and lost every single game; granted this was pre-Narset and even pre-The Locust God but still) that can cause some games to become non-games on the way to trolling and griefing people to your own death. The difference is that there's a broad spectrum of applicability for Wheels in many strategies, and they can be disruptive but are not in a vacuum game-ending most of the time. There is no "legitimate" use for Smokestack other than piling on with other stax-y effects and turning the battlefield into a hostile nightmare of non-play. You're either running Smokestack with a mess of fellow game-ruiners, or you aren't running it at all. But Wheel of Fortune can be used as a combo enabler for storm decks, a refuel for aggro decks, an enabler for reanimator decks, or a disruptive piece in midrangey decks as well as being used for its more brutal game-locking effects. It also rarely breaks the game "by accident" or alone; a quick Smokestack with even the most minimal of support can effectively smoke players out of the game, but Wheel of Fortune only breaks someone's backs if A) their deck is very badly constructed and they get hideously unlucky to begin with or B) you are combining it with effects like our two elephants to turn a symmetrical effect into an asymmetrical mind twist.

4) In terms of fallout, in addition to all the other fall-out that ever comes with a ban in EDH these days, this is also effectively a ban on Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Xyris, the Writhing Storm who would effectively cease to exist in any playable or fun form without wheel effects. It'd also be a significant, although probably not deck-ending, nerf to The Locust God and Niv-Mizzet, Parun. Now for Nekusar I'd say good riddance if only to save players from the pain I experienced in him actually being really bad most of the time if you can't land the two-three elephants, but Xyris just seems like a good fun snek boy who should be left alone and who would still be wacky fun even with the banning of Narset and 'breacher. All of these are top 100 commanders so that's a significant impact on a lot of people's pet decks, but both are low on the list - they aren't oppressive presences and self-contained infinite value engines the same way that Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, Kenrith, the Returned King, Chulane, Teller of Tales, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, and Edgar Markov can be (those are all among the top 12 for the record).

5) Finally, his concern that MH2 in particular is going to put these over the top is laughable (sorry to say so Sheldon). Dauthi Voidwalker is a fine card and one that I'm sure will see some play, but is only arguably better than its namesake inspirations Planar Void and Leyline of the Void and probably doesn't even make the cut in most Bx wheel decks. Sanctifier en-Vec is a modern sideboard staple that I suspect will see near-zero play in EDH when Rest in Peace and Samurai of the Pale Curtain (nevermind more surgical effects like Angel of Finality or old reliables like Relic of Progenitus) exist. And Gaea's Will is a spooky card that time will tell if it's good or not, but I don't think wheels do anything specific with its goodness?

[DirkGently]

I would argue the problem is more one of flexibility - any draw denial tool + any wheel = pain. Kiki pestermite has some alternatives like twin or exarch, but most 2-card combos require specific pieces that aren't replaceable. There are a couple different draw denial tools depending on your colors, but there are quite a few wheels in red and in blue, so it's easy to line up a combo if that's what you're trying to do.

[pokken]

I would argue the problem is more one of flexibility - any draw denial tool + any wheel = pain.

If they were bad cards it wouldn't be enough to just have lost of options, at least in my opinion. There're tons of various infinite combos with persist creatures but they're not problematic because Kitchen Finks is not a very good card in commander, but Wheel of Fortune and Hullbreacher are.

edit: I'd add that it's also a bit problematic with wheels that Hullbreacher (and Notion Thief ) can be one card combos because of how good wheels are independently. People play wheels and then accidentally deliver coop combos to the hullbreacher/notion thief player.

[NZB2323]

I've never seen a Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck win. I run wheels in Ghen, Arcanum Weaver where they're not overpowered at all, and honestly I've found wheels to be underwhelming in Niv-Mizzet, Parun because the deck wants to win with a combo anyway, the deck has lots of card draw already, and most of the time I'd prefer an instant that cost less mana. I run Wheel of Fortune in Edgar Markov, but that's hardly overpowered, especially when compared to Necropotence.

It's also funny that he names Sanctifier en-Vec as a making wheels too powerful when the card could be wheel hate against Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Edgar Markov, etc.