Wheel of Fortune is one of the best red card draw spells ever printed – and some might say it’s the best. But what about if you don’t want to splash out on a Reserved List card? What are your next best budget alternatives? Here are our Top 10 Budget Alternatives to Wheel of Fortune in Commander.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Wheel of Fortune is a highly efficient red draw spell. For just three mana, you can discard your hand and draw a fresh seven cards. Usually, you play this with more than three mana, so you can be the first one to get to use the new cards in your hand. That’s because it also forces opponents to do the same – discard and draw a fresh hand.
This is what makes Wheel of Fortune so powerful, as it forces opponents to discard the rest of the hand they were planning playing. That mulligan decision or carefully sculpted hand is now history, and who knows what’s coming next.
For the longest time, Reforge the Soul was the best budget alternative we had access to, dropping in 2012’s Avacyn Restored. It was usually five mana, but occasionally you could rip it off the top and cast it for two mana instead. It’s still a perfectly reasonable alternative, but there are better options for most decks.
The latest we got was a nod back to the OG Wheel of Fortune as a prepared spell on Naktamum Lorespinner. While cute, I’m not convinced this is the tree you should be barking up. It’s pretty unreliable, and gives folks a window to interrupt your best laid plans in more ways than one.
TOP 10 BUDGET ALTERNATIVES TO WHEEL OF FORTUNE
10. PATH OF THE PYROMANCER
Path of the Pyromancer is probably one of the lesser-known cards on today’s list, given it released in a Planechase Commander deck for March of the Machine. It’s a self wheel for five, which is a little on the costlier side (and why it isn’t higher on the list), but it does come stapled to a mana refund. If you’re wheeling at least five cards, you’re mana neutral, and if you’re higher than five? You’re actually making mana here.
9. RUNEHORN HELLKITE
If you’re in a deck that discards cards often, then I urge you to look at Runehorn Hellkite. Activating a table-wide wheel from the graveyard at instant speed is pretty insane disruption in red, and also allows you to hold up interaction during a turn cycle, wheel, and then untap with a fresh grip. Don’t miss the fact that this is a pretty solid reanimation target in a pinch, as a 5/5 flyer both blocks a lot of things and can also just get it done.
8. RAPHAEL’S TECHNIQUE
A fairly recent option, Raphael’s Technique being a base six mana is way too steep to consider except in the most dire of circumstances – though being an instant saves it from being truly trash-tier at that cost. No, we’re here for the Sneak cost, which gives us a wheel for that sweet spot of three mana (as long as we return an attacking creature to hand). This one is best used in a Reanimator deck, as it’ll allow you to use a good EtB, bounce it to hand, wheel it away, and then give you an option to maybe draw into a reanimation effect to grab that creature right back again.
7. IMPOSING GRANDEUR
If your Commander costs five or more mana, Imposing Grandeur is one of the better wheel options available. While wheel effects can be great for disruption, other times you don’t want to give opponents cards if you can help it. In these instances, rather than giving opponents a choice, you can essentially punish the low-CMC Commanders at the table by offering them significantly less.
6. CAVALIER OF FLAME
Cavalier of Flame is a nice self-wheel option that gives you some selectiveness – if there’s one card you absolutely want to keep, you can just ditch the rest of your hand and keep that one. The red Cavalier is also just a great card to have in a graveyard-oriented red deck, whether you’re discarding cards to wheels, self-milling, or a combination of both; the dies trigger can be a viable more than viable win-con.
5. SNORT
Snort from FINAL FANTASY is a sweet new wheel with Flashback, which lets you tuck it in the discard for later, and potentially cast it twice in the same game. It’s a may effect, and limited to five cards rather than seven, but for the upfront cost I think that’s more than fair. An extra little bit of burn to each opponent who indulges is a nice way to keep the gaming moving.
4. WILL OF THE JESKAI
Will of the Jeskai is one of my favorite Wills – ranking just above Will Poulter. For four mana, you can wheel away for a fresh five cards, and potentially also give everything in your yard flashback until end of turn if you can’t bear to part with it. This is an excellent way to keep your engine going in spellslinger decks, and can even be a finisher in the right build.
3. HEX MAGIC
Hex Magic is one of the hottest cards in Marvel Super Heroes, and one that I’m excited to jam in a bunch of my decks. You get to exile your hand, draw that many cards, and then still play your exiled cards until the end of your next turn. That’s incredibly flexible, and turns on a bunch of cards that care about casting from exile, too. As a new uncommon, this one is also one of the cheapest cards on this list. The only downside is you’re trading out graveyard synergy for exile synergy.
2. WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE
Wheel of Misfortune is probably the most misread card – but also the most over-complained about card that actually isn’t that complex. You basically all choose a number, and everyone but the lowest number wheels, and the highest number also takes that much damage. Simple, really. This is basically a Wheel of Fortune that asks you to pay 5-10 life, because usually the lowest option will be 0 from folks who don’t want to wheel at all, and you still need to guarantee you wheel yourself, so you do need to a bid something that won’t be the lowest.
1. MAGUS OF THE WHEEL
The number one budget alternative remains, in my opinion, Magus of the Wheel. With haste this becomes a creature-based Reforge the Soul, and otherwise can be paid in installments and activated at instant speed. The fact you can reanimate and reuse it is what gives it so much potential, and it’s always in the top two picks with Wheel of Misfortune when I want wheel effects that aren’t Wheel of Fortune.
END STEP
Wheels are a great way to draw cards and let you see more of your deck, and one of the better burst-draw options in red. While Wheel of Fortune might be out of budget, there are a bunch of great alternatives that cost a lot less.
While Jace’s Archivist and Windfall, are the arguably best-in-slot blue versions of a wheel effect – let alone all of the shuffle-wheels blue has on offer – there are still some great recent printings you can spring for if you’re other colors as well. Jackdaw can draw you an absurd amount of cards if you’re set up correctly, while the likes of Astonishing Spider-Man and Smellerbee, Rebel Fighter can scale based on the strategy of your deck. I’m also pretty high on Borrowed Knowledge if you’re in RW – how have you found that one so far?
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.