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May 29, 2012 -- 11:33AM, Torpesh wrote:

May 29, 2012 -- 11:15AM, silentbobus wrote:

you can always choose to play it at a point where it gives you either neutral or positive CA compared to your opponent, so the only potential drawback I can see is that if you do not play it for its Miracle cost in the mid-game, your opponent will get a head-start playing their drawn cards.

If you're waiting to play it at some opportune time that you hope will occur then that's another potential drawback that you neglect to mention (or recognize?) - the fact that in many cases it could simply be a dead card.

As with a lot of other potentially dead cards, it will be a dead card in situations that you are going to win anyway. Like Wrath, for example. If you're winning and have a strong board pressence, nothing is forcing you to play it. At the point you have a weaker board position than your opponent it is going to do a lot more good for you than drawing one additional creature or one targetted removal.

May 29, 2012 -- 11:26AM, MadAdmiral wrote:

And that's the fundamental problem with cards like this.  You can't be sure that your cards are any better than your opponent's cards in a limited format.  You're only 50% to have higher quaility cards than your opponent.  Obviously, in constructed, this might be different (though probably not).

The other major problem is there is a very tangible cost arising from when you get your cards.  A very quick example of this is the difference between Think Twice and Divination.  Both draw you two cards, though one does it at instant speed and one does it for less mana.  Think Twice is generally better just because you can spend the mana at any time and have instant access to those cards.  If you Think Twice, and draw a card you want to play on your turn, you can because you were able to tap mana on the opponent's turn.  However, if you draw it via Divination, you might not be able to play it immediately.

Another good example is the symetrical card draw from Otherworld Atlas .  Everyone draws the same amount of cards, however you get to control when the cards are drawn.  If you tap it at the end of the opponent's turn, you get the first chance to play those cards and to get any benefit from them.  If you tap it on your turn, you might not get the same advantage.

Plus, don't forget taht Reforge isn't Wheel of Time.  It's only Wheel of Time when drawn first on a given turn.  Wheel of Time (and similar effects) are fairly difficult to get to work correctly.  Reforge taking away the choice of when you get to play it makes it even harder.

I agree that the non-miracle casting cost is an issue, since it puts it into the 5 slot for deckbuilding and makes it less likely you will be able to cast a drawn spell the same turn you play Reforge. But it appears I also have a much higher evaluation of Wheel of Fortune than most of you have. If revised or unlimited were being drafted today I would expect Wheel of Fortune to go in the first 4 picks on average. If I had to guess based on my drafts so far I am seeing Reforge picked in the 7th-11th pick range. I did not feel it was difficult to get Wheel of Fortune to work well in constructed, since all red decks where it was legal used a copy, and I think it would have worked in limited as well.

I'm also curious to see how many Reforges are used in RDW builds, Wheel of Fortune in RDW would have been beyond brutal.

May 29, 2012 -- 7:31PM, silentbobus wrote:

May 29, 2012 -- 12:49PM, BalogTheFierce wrote:

Double so if I'm playing agro.

That's ironic, because aggro is the type of deck that benefits the most from cards like Reforge the Soul . While it's unlikely you could get enough 1 and 2 drops in this format to play true RDW, let's imagine that you did. Say 10 Vexing Devil / Stonewright s, 8 Kruin Striker / Lightning Mauler s, 4 Riot Ringleader s, a Pillar/Thunderbolt or two. You would be almost guarenteed to play out your entire hand before your opponent hand a decent shot at playing out his. At which point getting a Reforge would load up your hand with more creatures and direct damage and your opponent would still be too slow to take advantage of his additional cards.

In fact, I do expect to see Reforge played in RDW, the only question is how many. 

to quote Gavin Verhey, "While the ideal situation is nice, the reality is that this deck aims to play very few turns. You want to engineer it so you have four or five total draw steps over the entire game. The odds of finding a miracle in that timeframe aren't great. And they certainly aren't worth the cost of having some five- or six-mana card stuck in your hand, eating up a crucial pump-spell slot.

While tempting, I'd stay away from miracles in a deck like this. The times when you flip one will feel incredible—but too often one will end up in your hand and it's going to have been like you took a mulligan"

he's referring to running pump spells in an infect deck but it's the same principle here. the times where you get it for 2 aren't worth the time it sits in your hand because you can't cast it for 5. on the play, you draw 8 cards before you can afford to miracle the reforge. it's not really worth it on turn 3, so let's say 9 cards drawn before you'd want to miracle it. that's means that, if the game goes to turn 12 and you see a reforge, there's a 50/50 shot you saw it when you couldn't use it. that's turn 12. how often is RDW still in it after the game goes to 12? in aggro, you can't think of miracles for their miracle cost. in control you can play for inevitability, you can manipulate your odds with things like think twice... but in aggro, you've got a set amount of draw steps to close the game, and you want that number as low as possible. a good way to not accomplish that is dead draws.