Wheel of Torture
Artifact
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, this artifact deals X damage to that player, where X is 3 minus the number of cards in their hand.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $1.79
- EDHREC rank
- #16590
Wheel of Torture drains each opponent for the difference between their hand size and yours at your upkeep — in discard-heavy shells, that's routinely 3–5 damage per player, per turn, doing nothing but sitting on the battlefield. Tinybones, Trinket Thief turns that passive bleed into a kill clock, and Wheel of Torture is one of the most reliable ways to keep the pressure accumulating without spending resources each cycle.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Tinybones, Trinket Thief
Tinybones, Trinket Thief spends the whole game forcing opponents to empty their hands, which means Wheel of Torture is almost always punishing someone at maximum differential — the two cards form a self-sustaining drain loop that wins games without ever attacking.
Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal strips hands through combat and evasion triggers, and Wheel of Torture converts that empty-hand state directly into life loss — the enchantment is passive punishment that stacks on top of every discard Aclazotz generates.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Wheel of Torture is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is the only format where it's actually played. In Legacy and Vintage the effect is too slow and too conditional — you need opponents at low hand size before it does real work, and those formats end before the enchantment accumulates meaningful damage. Commander is its home: three opponents, longer games, and discard synergies make the upkeep trigger a genuine win condition rather than a nuisance.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$1.79 cheap tier
At $1.79, Wheel of Torture sits at the cheap end of the enchantment market for what it does in dedicated discard builds. It's a single-printing card with modest supply, so the price is unlikely to crater — run it if you're in the archetype.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Tinybones, Trinket Thief
- Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.