An Analysis of Wheels in cEDH

Wheel effects like Wheel of Fortune and Timetwister are some of Magic: The Gathering's most powerful game pieces. They've been a staple of Commander games played casually and competitively since the format's early days. Yet in cEDH, do the risks of casting a wheel outweigh the benefits?

The cedh.guide team solicited our friends buzz, Greg, and Trentyn to watch and analyze over 440 cEDH games from four popular YouTube channels: Play to Win, Playing With Power, Moderately Anonymous MTG, and Mental Misplay.

They asked these questions of their data: Does casting a wheel increase your chance of winning the game? How often are wheels cast in cEDH? What difference do payoffs like Notion Thief make? And just how powerful was the banned card Hullbreacher?

Ken Baumann joined buzz, Greg, and Trentyn to discuss their analysis of wheels in cEDH:

You can read the full spreadsheet here.

Some key statistics from the analysis:

What do you think of wheels in cEDH? Are the risks worth the reward? Do you cast wheels primarily to disrupt your opponents or progress your game? Are we thinking about this all wrong? Let the cedh.guide team know!