MTG Salvation

I've played against a Cycling EDH deck before, using Fluctuator as its main engine. Too be honest it was very underpowered even with Fluctuator in play.

But with the new cycling cards in Amonkhet I feel like its time to revisit this theme.

Cards that interest me to include are Splendid Reclamation with all the cycle lands.

Drake Haven, Archfiend of Ifnir and Curator of Mysteries also seem good. So already with are wanting at least Sultai colors. I suspect this will end up being a 4 or 5 color deck, given that past Cycling cards have been based around Astral Slide and Lightning Rift.

We will have to wait until all of the set has been spoiled to really get an idea of powerful things to do, but no harm in getting people with experience with cycling and ideas into starting a brew

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/32371_CMDR-VS.html

Here is where i saw the deck. Its really sweet

Quote from RedGauntlet »

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/32371_CMDR-VS.html

Here is where i saw the deck. Its really sweet

I see its using the Living End theme you see in modern with cycling creature to graveyard, then using Cascade to hit it.

Flameblade Adept, Stoic Champion, Invigorating Boon.

Also for consideration: Wheel of Sun and Moon

I like Invigorating Boon, especially if other players play a few cycling cards as well.

I've seen a few builds around enchantments, so I think Replenish is card that could used/abused, depending on what comes out of Amonkhet. At the moment there is only Cast Out as an enchantment that cycles.

The older enchantment cards that cycle are very underwhelming like :

Well the deck got a new card for it in New Perspectives

Guys the new cycling trigger cards also trigger for self discard in general. Don't get so hung up on strictly cycling cards, look into things like Oath of Scholars or Dawnstrider or Unfulfilled Desires or Compulsion


I have spent at least 20 hrs this week brewing a Sultai cycle/discard/token deck and boy this is looking fuuuuuun!!!

I'd love to see some list!

I think its great to suggest enchantments, and therefore W would be needed. UB also, since the colors of the newly spolied cards are supported by those. I also think a big up on reanimation, would go really fine with cycling. Cylcing Archfiend of Ifnir, then getting it back with Reanimate and friends and start the engine. Stuff like Replenish, Hanna, Ship's Navigator and Sun Titan to get back enchantments.

I think green is a crucial element to any Cycling Commander, since Splendid Reclamation and Life from the Loam are so powerful alongside cycling lands. To rank the power level of the "When you cycle/discard cards" in EDH...

1) Drake Haven - 2/2 worth of value for each discard and cycle is pretty good.
2) Astral Slide - requires some set-up but obviously super duper strong.
3) Archdemon of Ifnir - more insane with Wheels than cycling, but a very impressive card at any rate.
4) Curator of Mysteries - efficient body, adding Scry to every cycle is a great boon for overall card quality.
5) Invigorating Boon - A single +1/+1 counter can add up especially with Drake Haven.
6) Lightning Rift - gets a lot less exciting in Commander, but still okay.
7) Stoic Champion - Meh, but okay.
8) Flameblade Adept - Meh but meh.

I am wondering if our hero and champion Atraxa, Praetors' Voice might not serve as a good commander here - she gives you the colors you want most it seems, and can interact well with Invigorating Boon and Archdemon of Ifnir. Another idea would be to do Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Ravos, Soultender - Kydele gets to make lots of mana, Ravos can recur cycling creatures like Twisted Abomination and Archdemon of Ifnir over and over again, and you still get to be in your colors.

Quote from RedGauntlet »

Well the deck got a new card for it in New Perspectives

With this new card, it tempting to play cards that remove lands from library, like Mana Severance and Endless Horizons, so that your threshold ability to cycle through your deck can lead to busted graveyard recursion, cycle and discard triggers.

Quote from Shea_0 »

Guys the new cycling trigger cards also trigger for self discard in general. Don't get so hung up on strictly cycling cards, look into things like Oath of Scholars or Dawnstrider or Unfulfilled Desires or Compulsion


I have spent at least 20 hrs this week brewing a Sultai cycle/discard/token deck and boy this is looking fuuuuuun!!!

Interestingly I looked up cards that have abilities that trigger on discard and these were the only 3 I've found so far:
Confessor, Spirit Cairn, Telekinetic Bonds.

I can see Telekinetic Bonds can be a combo piece if used with for example Gilded Lotus and Fluctuator/New Perspectives to start generating mana. You could net 1 mana each cycle, by untapping the Gilded Lotus itself. Lotus Vale becomes a tempting land to back this up.

Been so keen on cycling as a mechanic, great to see it finally get something worthwhile (ok... at least something then) to trigger in Amonket.

ATM, I'm thinking a self-discard deck. Use the cycling alongside other discard outlets to fill the graveyard and like, pay for dredge and stuff.

I really like the "return all lands" cards mentioned here. Could work well with cards like Borborygmos Enraged, Molten Vortex, Seismic Assault Trade Routes or the various spellshapers and landfall stuff.

To add to our sweet synergy list; Spirit Cairn Telekinetic Bonds Confessor. Yeah still not much but it could all add up in the end.

I've updated the OP to list some good stuff cards mentioned so far.

I think one of the most important themes is the lands themselves. We have potentially 17 cycle land cards. An old trick I use in certain decks is to use Life from the Loam with land cycle cards to gain card advantage. Life from the Loam back 3 lands that cycle and you end up drawing 3 extra cards with enough mana (well 2 as you dredge the Life from the Loam). If you have Fluctuator or New Perspectives then you can get 2 extra cards per 2 mana, as you can dredge Life from the Loam with one of the cycles, and keep recasting it.

As I've mentioned the Splendid Reclamation is also another key card to the lands theme of gaining mana advantage. If you can cycle through the deck pretty quickly then you can get a lot of lands into play fairly early in the game, if you get to cast this.

Of note there are a lot of cards that are actually land cycling cards, i.e you search your library for a land card. Some of them are specifically searching for basic land cards, which is not ideal for a 4-5 color deck, so it'll be something to watch for when it comes to exactly what lands can be played. Drawing into normal type lands is pretty bad for the deck, as you really want to keep cycling through the deck. As I posted above Mana Severance and Endless Horizons could be good cards to remove the non cycling lands.

Now that I think about it, really should list some cards that trigger on draw as well

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Psychosis Crawler, Chasm Skulker

I was thinking with Drake Haven or Spirit Cairn that Earthcraft or Ashnod's Altar (only with Drake Haven) would allow you to create lots of token creatures.

Quote from Hawk7915 »

I am wondering if our hero and champion Atraxa, Praetors' Voice might not serve as a good commander here - she gives you the colors you want most it seems, and can interact well with Invigorating Boon and Archdemon of Ifnir. Another idea would be to do Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Ravos, Soultender - Kydele gets to make lots of mana, Ravos can recur cycling creatures like Twisted Abomination and Archdemon of Ifnir over and over again, and you still get to be in your colors.

My gut feeling is that we want the maximum number of land cycle cards, so needing to include a 5 color commander just so we can put these into the deck, is going paramount to making this a successful build.

Ravos, Soultender does look like the pick of the bunch if going for a 4 color build But as I said I pretty certain it has to be 5 colors.

Quote from darrenhabib »

I like Invigorating Boon, especially if other players play a few cycling cards as well.

I've seen a few builds around enchantments, so I think Replenish is card that could used/abused, depending on what comes out of Amonkhet. At the moment there is only Cast Out as an enchantment that cycles.

The older enchantment cards that cycle are very underwhelming like :

ajmiam's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1x Lingering Mirage 1x Power Taint 1x Rune of Protection: Artifacts 1x Rune of Protection: Black 1x Rune of Protection: Blue 1x Rune of Protection: Green 1x Rune of Protection: Lands 1x Rune of Protection: Red 1x Rune of Protection: White 1x Savage Hunger 1x Sicken

Let's not forget Decree of Silence! Expensive, but potentially very powerful if you can reanimate it.

How about Mana Echoes over Ashnod's Altar as the card that interacts with Drake Haven?

Quote from Shea_0 »

Guys the new cycling trigger cards also trigger for self discard in general. Don't get so hung up on strictly cycling cards, look into things like Oath of Scholars or Dawnstrider or Unfulfilled Desires or Compulsion

This. I don't think getting too hung up on cycling specifically is a good idea. You don't want to use sub-par cards like Twisted Abomination just to fuel your Drake Haven. The strength of the deck should be that it can sift through its cards relatively fast (in order to find answers/cards it wants) while also being able to mitigate the loss of the cards it has to throw away in the process.

Run good cycling cards that are also reasonably powerful on their own like Akroma's Vengeance, Decree of Pain, Hush, Krosan Tusker, Sylvan Reclamation, an assortment of cycling lands and some of the new cycling cards from Amonkhet. Also, a fair bit of looting: Frantic Search, Careful Consideration, Compulsive Research, Thirst for Knowledge, the aforementioned Compulsion and maybeMerfolk Looter or Monastery Siege. If you're playing Ravos, Sun Titan is an auto-include. Faerie Macabre for graveyard hate. Fauna Shaman works really well with Ravos.

However, in the end the question is: After all this fun and cute stuff you do, how do you want to win? That's something I've not figured out so far, although I think a reanimator-like strategy is the most obvious choice here. Anyway, you can't really rely on your Drake Haven just not getting removed.

Quote from soramaro »

However, in the end the question is: After all this fun and cute stuff you do, how do you want to win? That's something I've not figured out so far, although I think a reanimator-like strategy is the most obvious choice here. Anyway, you can't really rely on your Drake Haven just not getting removed.

There are 3 lines of mass graveyard recursion that could be done; creatures, socercies/instants or enchantments. The socercies/instants is going to be hard to pull off because it require lots of mana, really like a storm deck, so you need to have storm like cards; dark rituals, etc. The enchantment route is pretty win condition less and underpowered, so this could just be for value rather than a cycle decks whole theme. Creature recursion has been done before, but the problem is that cycle creatures in general are fairly underwelming as well. Not to say that if you get 30 power on the board with a Living Death, that it matters what is written in their text.

For me personally it looks running things that combo is going to be the method of winning.

Infinite (or large) amounts of mana and draw can be achieved through a number of combination of cards listed in the OP. Lets face it this deck is ALL about New Perspectives and Fluctuator. These will need to be tutored up, hopefully protected, and realistically probably need to be returned from the graveyard if removed.

You are filtering through your entire deck once you are setup, so win conditions are not really an issue. You could do it through Laboratory Maniac. You could do it through Seismic Assault, you get infinite land recursion through Life from the Loam and Mind over Matter or Telekinetic Bonds.

Spirit Cairn can also produces infinite creatures with Earthcraft and New Perspectives/Fluctuator.

Astral Slide can be a great combo peice in this sort of deck. New Perspectives/Fluctuator+Astral Slide+Archaeomancer/Tilling Treefolk+cycling on instant or sorcery/land = draw your deck (if I get it right).

I ended up putting 'cycling matters' (20-ish cards) as a side-theme to my Roon deck, otherwise comprising of maro's and draw (and other abusing of drawing a ton of cards). We'll see how it actually works. But also we'll see what Amonkhet reveals for this theme - so far I've just replaced the 'recur eggs' that ended up in another deck with it. Astral Slide working pretty much like Roon's ability aside, mostly the changes are related to being able to - well - cycle through a fair bit of the deck somewhat quickly in the setting up turns.

The way I see it for the deck: a buttload of draw + fair bit of tradeability for said draw = getting your wincon, however tiny or silly.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Quote from Hawk7915 »

I am wondering if our hero and champion Atraxa, Praetors' Voice might not serve as a good commander here - she gives you the colors you want most it seems, and can interact well with Invigorating Boon and Archdemon of Ifnir. Another idea would be to do Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Ravos, Soultender - Kydele gets to make lots of mana, Ravos can recur cycling creatures like Twisted Abomination and Archdemon of Ifnir over and over again, and you still get to be in your colors.

My gut feeling is that we want the maximum number of land cycle cards, so needing to include a 5 color commander just so we can put these into the deck, is going paramount to making this a successful build.

Ravos, Soultender does look like the pick of the bunch if going for a 4 color build But as I said I pretty certain it has to be 5 colors.

You'd be surprised by how well it already works in 3-colour. You don't need more than 8 cycling lands, you only need to get hold of two + Tilling Treefolk + Astral Slide to get going. Expanding to 4 colours from there has its merits and I really like the Ravos-Kydele combo (They both synergize with the tactic a LOT more than Atraxa could ever hope to) and work with that. At that point, you get the 8 single-colour cycle lands, you get 3 neoduals (6 if they decide to print the enemy ones) and on top of that blasted landscape and ash barrens. 10 cycling lands. Then there's the Pale Recluse cycle and Eternal Dragon, and a few more cycling creatures to add to taste, and you got all the cycling you'll ever need.

On the color issue I think it really depends on what you want to do with cycling. If you just want to abuse Astral Slide then Bant is pretty solid on its own (I've played against a Bant slide deck a few times and it basically ends ups running like a weird version of Roon). Or if you want to play a kind of cycling reanimator that might also be an interesting option, and you could stick to maybe Jund colors like I think the Living End deck is in Modern or maybe Sultai.

But if you want to make cycling qua cycling the main focus of the deck, then you'll want as many cycling-synergy cards as you can. As it stands there's not too many and they're spread through all 5 colors, so that's what makes 5 color attractive to me (plus the landcycling can find dual lands and help smooth the manabase, which is a nice bonus). The issue isn't so much having enough cards that will cycle, since there's a pretty substantial number of those, but just having enough cards that synergize with cycling in a meaningful way.

Quote from LouCypher »

Quote from darrenhabib »

Quote from Hawk7915 »

I am wondering if our hero and champion Atraxa, Praetors' Voice might not serve as a good commander here - she gives you the colors you want most it seems, and can interact well with Invigorating Boon and Archdemon of Ifnir. Another idea would be to do Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Ravos, Soultender - Kydele gets to make lots of mana, Ravos can recur cycling creatures like Twisted Abomination and Archdemon of Ifnir over and over again, and you still get to be in your colors.

My gut feeling is that we want the maximum number of land cycle cards, so needing to include a 5 color commander just so we can put these into the deck, is going paramount to making this a successful build.

Ravos, Soultender does look like the pick of the bunch if going for a 4 color build But as I said I pretty certain it has to be 5 colors.

You'd be surprised by how well it already works in 3-colour. You don't need more than 8 cycling lands, you only need to get hold of two + Tilling Treefolk + Astral Slide to get going. Expanding to 4 colours from there has its merits and I really like the Ravos-Kydele combo (They both synergize with the tactic a LOT more than Atraxa could ever hope to) and work with that. At that point, you get the 8 single-colour cycle lands, you get 3 neoduals (6 if they decide to print the enemy ones) and on top of that blasted landscape and ash barrens. 10 cycling lands. Then there's the Pale Recluse cycle and Eternal Dragon, and a few more cycling creatures to add to taste, and you got all the cycling you'll ever need.

I agree about using 3 colors. I have been brewing a Sultai colored version of self discard/dredge/self mill/etb effects/sac/recursion..... it's fun. I wanted to wait until I had completed and secured needed assets before spoiling my list but here's my take on all of this:


I'm about to head out in 5 minutes to go and play test this deck with my buddies.. stoked!

EDIT: Playtest it yourself here

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mimeoplasm-edh-ft-ifnir-cycling-discard-combo/

I'm quite excited for the new cycling cards. I've been wanting to build a Zedruu the Greathearted deck with a heavy cycling/card draw element for a while. I was going to base it primarily around Astral Slide and Panharmonicon and include lots of ETB creatures. I may have to broaden the mandate of the deck. These new cards are definitely giving me a lot to think about.