MTG Salvation

I built this deck starting at the concept of cycling and worked backwards to figure out what colors / commander I was going to choose. I ended up at 5c in part because I felt like I was going to use at least four color (omitting red potentially) but in the end I wanted more cycling lands in the deck.

• Cycling Focus - I wanted the cards that cycled to be either situational or always something I wanted to cycle. Cards with cycling that I plan to usually cast seem a little questionable since in most cases there are more powerful cards that don't cycle. I considered some like miscalculation but then I just questioned why I would want that over Arcane Denial, Mana Drain, or Negate for example.
• Landbase - I often avoid 5c due to the landbase. With all of the cycling lands that I wanted to include (21) I sort of decided to not go deep on shock, fetch, and abu duals as a personal preference. I might still potentially change the landbase over time but for now I wanted to keep it simple and cheap and see how it works.
• Commander - I am not really sold on any specific commander. I considered others like Sliver Queen and Cromat as well but I don't plan to combo regardless so I avoided Sliver Queen because of how expensive she is to buy and the fact that I won't go infinite with her even if I had her.

I'd love to do five color cycling sometime (already have a Zur Astral Slide deck), but I've had the same issue with picking a general. I had considered Ramos, Dragon Engine with Invigorating Boon to help generate mana but haven't given it a go yet.

What do you plan to be your main win condition?
Living Death is in there and can get back everything you cycle away, but will those creatures really pull a win?
Drake Haven or a hard-cast Decree of Justice?
Lightning Rift can certainly weaponize cycling, but so can Faith of the Devoted, which you didn't include.
There's tons of draw, which Psychosis Crawler could weaponize.

You also have Astral Slide but only one creature that really takes advantage of repeatable ETBs (Baleful Strix). Is that in there for more defensive purposes?

Also, one of my favorite cycling cards is Rebuild. Sometimes it can be absolutely backbreaking for an opponent.

Quote from FunkyDragon »

I'd love to do five color cycling sometime (already have a Zur Astral Slide deck), but I've had the same issue with picking a general. I had considered Ramos, Dragon Engine with Invigorating Boon to help generate mana but haven't given it a go yet.

What do you plan to be your main win condition?
Living Death is in there and can get back everything you cycle away, but will those creatures really pull a win?
Drake Haven or a hard-cast Decree of Justice?
Lightning Rift can certainly weaponize cycling, but so can Faith of the Devoted, which you didn't include.
There's tons of draw, which Psychosis Crawler could weaponize.

You also have Astral Slide but only one creature that really takes advantage of repeatable ETBs (Baleful Strix). Is that in there for more defensive purposes?

Also, one of my favorite cycling cards is Rebuild. Sometimes it can be absolutely backbreaking for an opponent.

Win Condition - honestly, I don't really know or care right now. I am more trying to prove the concept than worry about that right now lol. Its likely if I do kill players it might be with just random commander beat downs. I suspect that as a whole cycling isn't really going to have great wincons. If a deck plays well I don't really care if I win though.

Astral Slide - I think its a little silly to go all in on slide. My assumption is it dies immediately. It can be used defnesively and or blanking tokens so its really not a cocnern of mine considering its also anti synergy to include a bunch of ETB creatures to make it "better". I might make room at some point for E witness but honestly, I think slide is totally over rated and only a single card among many so I don't see a reason to build around it. Its good without building around it especially for a deck with low tutors. I understand the idea of building around it a bit more if playing someone like zur I just think the deck works better without me building around it here.

Rebuild - I am not sure, I will think about it but it seems really hit or miss in my meta. There are plenty of mana rocks I guess I just question if I would be happy casting it to bounce some stones.

Reaper King would be a great commander for a 5c cycling deck. With Xenograft and Conspiracy all dudes you would blink with Astral Slide would vindicate something.

So, Pathfinder, you are just trying to see how the engine works, and will decide about your wincon later?

You seem to be running way too little lands, since 21 of them would potentially go to your grave. And also, since they come into play tapped, why not play Amulet of Vigor? A great way to use already played cyclelands is Trade Routes and to a lesser extent Hallowed Ground.

About Astral Slide I think you underrate it So much value - and very very good with Containment Priest

Yeah, definitely underrating Astral Slide. That's one of the few decks I took apart not because I was dissatisfied but because it's win percentage was too high. If you have access to Green, you may want to consider Life from the Loam and Tilling Treefolk as ways to continually recycle your Cycling Lands. Eternal Witness and other Regrows will be important, especially if someone nukes your important pieces.

I think Reaper King is a great suggestion, though adding Xenograft and all that might be too much. On the other hand, I can almost salivate over the thought of blocking with Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Sliding him out, blow something up on end step when he returns and take a look at the top four of an opponent's deck. But my inner bad player always dreams of the very best results, I've learned to smother them and put in more realistic cards.

Virulent Plague is a non-bo with Drake Haven. It's easier to abuse Archfiend of Ifnir.

Monastery Siege is a free 'cycle' discard outlet. If you're looking for more in that range, I highly recommend Unfulfilled Desires, that frequently won me the game if I got it out with Faith of the Devoted.

Here's the deck if you want to crib some notes. The next bit of improvement with the deck was adding Perplexing Chimera to gain control of various spells and slide him out on end step to get him back. It would be an extra layer to protect my Slide from kill spells. Another addition would be Glen Elendra Archmage for pretty much the same reason and if I were made of money Gilded Drake as well.

Part of me wanted to make a Skybind Slide deck but I think that's just cramming too much into one deck.

Quote from rogerandover »

Reaper King would be a great commander for a 5c cycling deck. With Xenograft and Conspiracy all dudes you would blink with Astral Slide would vindicate something.

So, Pathfinder, you are just trying to see how the engine works, and will decide about your wincon later?

You seem to be running way too little lands, since 21 of them would potentially go to your grave. And also, since they come into play tapped, why not play Amulet of Vigor? A great way to use already played cyclelands is Trade Routes and to a lesser extent Hallowed Ground.

About Astral Slide I think you underrate it So much value - and very very good with Containment Priest

Reaper King - it could be a thing I suppose. I like O-Kagachi in that it gives me an acceptable clock as well as some pillowfort like effect that punishes people from poking me. Reaper King would need me to add a few cards specifically for him but I could maybe see it. He would give me more of a control / removal concept rather than a combat based one. I probably won't pull the trigger on that right now but its an interesting thought. Given the budget landbase I am rocking here I could see merit in his hybrid mana costs.

Wincon - honestly I often make decks and don't really dedicate a wincon. I care a lot more to see them work smoothly than committing myself to how I will win. I like to instead make the deck work smoothly and stop opponents from winning than to see how quickly and efficiently I can win myself. Some of my issue in general is that the cycling mechanic itself doesn't really seem to have a lot of valid ways of winning so most things would be just generic 5c wincon / combos and I don't really care enough to run those. I would maybe be willing to somehow buff something I am already running but I am not interested in running something that can win from nowhere like a combo. I am kind of intentionally making this more of a synergy focus build rather than trying to make a strong combo 5c deck as I would essentially immediately scrap that in that I don't find that interesting.

Land count - Keep in mind with cycling cards it means I have a high prevalence of draw. I also have a few ways to recover lands I might cycle either to play or back to hand. The difference between 36 and 38 lands is also fairly slim and I am not running any fetchlands here for thinning. Also keep in mind that I have 9 cards that cycle to tutor lands as it stands. 36 might even be too many given how this deck is probably going to turn over cards a lot more than a lot of decks. Its possible I might want to throw a few tutors to get my Crucible of Worlds / Life from the Loam / Ramunap Excavator cards but its unlikely that I need more lands.

Amulet of Vigor - I am well aware of amulet titan decks and how they work in modern. Its not great here because at its best I would play it turn 1/2 and it gives me one more mana per turn. Where this card shines is when you are putting a LOT of lands into play each turn and or stacking the amulets to generate mana. In commander I would need to be putting 2+ lands in play each turn to really have an average acceptable outcome with it. Its probably weaker than just having a mana stone due to this. Its also a card that falls off in value kind of hard if you don't curve it into play early on. ETB tapped lands can be a bugger but an easier solution is to run something like Exploration which can put me ahead on lands which is why I went that direction instead.

Trade Routes - that's an interesting thought. I will keep that in mind for the future as it would be really cool to combine with crucible of worlds type effects. I would maybe need to bump up the number of "play an extra land" effects to make it really shine but I like the idea.

Astral Slide - I might be under valuing it but I don't want to make a bunch of adjustments to make specifically it stronger. I might be willing to play with a few more things like Eternal Witness and Tilling Treefolk but I don't really foresee me getting 10+ ETB creatures anytime soon to make it really shine. Its interaction with Containment Priest is cool but again, I don't really currently have anything set up to defend, tutor, or abuse it and I feel like it feels a little all in without having a more dedicated means to get / recur it. For now I just plan to see what it does as is rather than plan to try to tutor / protect it.

Quote from Tev »

Yeah, definitely underrating Astral Slide. That's one of the few decks I took apart not because I was dissatisfied but because it's win percentage was too high. If you have access to Green, you may want to consider Life from the Loam and Tilling Treefolk as ways to continually recycle your Cycling Lands. Eternal Witness and other Regrows will be important, especially if someone nukes your important pieces.

I think Reaper King is a great suggestion, though adding Xenograft and all that might be too much. On the other hand, I can almost salivate over the thought of blocking with Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Sliding him out, blow something up on end step when he returns and take a look at the top four of an opponent's deck. But my inner bad player always dreams of the very best results, I've learned to smother them and put in more realistic cards.

Virulent Plague is a non-bo with Drake Haven. It's easier to abuse Archfiend of Ifnir.

Monastery Siege is a free 'cycle' discard outlet. If you're looking for more in that range, I highly recommend Unfulfilled Desires, that frequently won me the game if I got it out with Faith of the Devoted.

Here's the deck if you want to crib some notes. The next bit of improvement with the deck was adding Perplexing Chimera to gain control of various spells and slide him out on end step to get him back. It would be an extra layer to protect my Slide from kill spells. Another addition would be Glen Elendra Archmage for pretty much the same reason and if I were made of money Gilded Drake as well.

Part of me wanted to make a Skybind Slide deck but I think that's just cramming too much into one deck.

I was kind of planning on just not assuming I would have or keep important pieces than to try to protect anything. Eternal Witness is high on my list of things to add though I just keep needing to make cuts which have gotten harder and I haven't gotten to play this list yet to see where some of my hang ups are yet.

Virulent Plague - its just a card I like. I see far too many token swarm decks in my meta and its an easy nuke that makes them answer the card before they can really progress. Its cheap to drop and honestly I don't think I have seen it be dead yet. Sure it kills those drakes but what it does to my opponents is too good for me to not run. There is a person I play against every week where 80% of what they play is token decks and honestly, Najeela needs to go die in a fire.

Monastery Siege - it seems ok but what if instead it was just a tutor for Fluctuator? It seems hard to justify in that light if you ask me.

Unfulfilled Desires - cool card I don't know if I had seen that one before. I think I would rather have a tutor for some of my better enablers though.

Zur - the basics of your deck just runs completely different when playing zur as the commander. He gives a lot more regular access to specific enablers but also limits the abuse outlets. I really like the green land abuse options that I get in 5c as well as the number of cycling lands I get to run in 5c. The incentive to build around specific enchantments and keeping them in play changes entirely if you ask me. I am focusing a lot more on just making cycling as a whole better rather than focusing on any one specific enabler card.

Skybind - I run it in my Heliod deck. I managed to combo it with Serra's Sanctum and was making Heliod tokens / flickering Sanctum on everyone's turns. I completely ran them down with that it was completely crazy fun. I don't really know if you could make both Skybind and Astral Slide both feel smooth in the same deck though to be totally honest.

Have you been able to test this deck yet? I'm quite interested in cycling decks, since I've made a couple of them myself but never went into the 5-color territory (yet).

If you should be interested, the Hazezon Tamar-link in my signature abuses the cycling mechanic, and, if I should say myself, works quite well. I see you have Lightning Rift in your build. I ended up cutting it, since most of the time it just added to the cost of cycling your cards for an effect that didn't really do much most of the time. I don't even use Astral Slide much, but focus on getting lands into the grave, which can generate some huge powerplays with Splendid Reclamation or the like.

Faith of the Devoted is a strong card in my Zur cycling deck.

If you're looking for an easy win condition, Approach of the Second Sun is great, as you're already digging quickly through your deck.

Estrid's Invocation might be good, since you have some really powerful enchantments that would do well in multiples.

Your graveyard is going to fill up quickly, Dig Through Time might be a nice addition to help your draw power.

Quote from rogerandover »

Have you been able to test this deck yet? I'm quite interested in cycling decks, since I've made a couple of them myself but never went into the 5-color territory (yet).

If you should be interested, the Hazezon Tamar-link in my signature abuses the cycling mechanic, and, if I should say myself, works quite well. I see you have Lightning Rift in your build. I ended up cutting it, since most of the time it just added to the cost of cycling your cards for an effect that didn't really do much most of the time. I don't even use Astral Slide much, but focus on getting lands into the grave, which can generate some huge powerplays with Splendid Reclamation or the like.

I have actually been playing and tweaking the list some. I have been terrible about keeping it up to date on here but all in all, I still need to do some work on it and with the new spoils coming out and some other new decks I have just been kind of bad about devoting time to keeping this up to date. I guess I will throw out a few highlights of how its been though.

1) I need more lands than I have in this list. I thought it would be fine given all of the cycling but the truth is that I need more lands because the cycling lands are probably some of the best cycling cards I can get my hands on. I might end up actually lowering the actual cycling cards for more lands so that I can cycle the cycling lands more often.

2) Mana dumps have been important for me. In a lot of cases I can cycle cards to just move cards arround but in a lot of times unless I have the enablers it doesn't really do a lot. I brought in The Scarab God and Zacama, Primal Calamity and they have both been a nice addition as something that gives me a mana dump that does something.

3) Lightning Rift / Astral Slide have both been essentially complete crap for me. I cut the rift already and while I am still running slide I haven't seen it be impressive. I don't intend to jam a bunch of ETB value guys in the deck and just.... no its not been that good. My actual paper list looks REALLY different than the digital one here as I have been crap about keeping it up to date but hopefully I can bring them in line sometime soon.

The biggest difference between Zur cycling and a 5c cycling if you ask me is the lands. I get access to a lot more land abuse and cycling lands as a whole. I would almost call this deck a lands / mana dump deck with where I am at right now but I still need to go through a lot of changes and updates. I think it was like my turn 7 I put 9 additional lands into play with Splendid Reclamation. I even resorted to adding Azusa, Lost but Seeking to my paper list.

Quote from Outcryqq »

Faith of the Devoted is a strong card in my Zur cycling deck.

If you're looking for an easy win condition, Approach of the Second Sun is great, as you're already digging quickly through your deck.

Estrid's Invocation might be good, since you have some really powerful enchantments that would do well in multiples.

Your graveyard is going to fill up quickly, Dig Through Time might be a nice addition to help your draw power.

Faith of the Devoted - my issue is sort of that it doesn't have any impact on the board and the life loss / life gained for me doesn't seem particularly great. I just question how this really stacks up especially if put up against something like say Painful Quandary. To me it just seems like it doesn't do enough and isn't that versatile.

Approach of the Second Sun - that actually sounds kind of decent as a way to close games out. I really have kind of struggled on how I close games out. Its not normally the way I want to win but.... maybe.

Estrid's Invocation - I doubt I would run it over Clever Impersonator just given more versatility of targeting. I usually don't like clone effects unless I have a very high density of things I want to copy. I will probably pass.

Dig Through Time - its in my paper copy right now which I have been really terrible about keeping up to date. I don't know if I have drawn it yet but Treasure Cruise has been fine. The UU casting cost is a little more concerning but overall the verdict is still out.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

3) Lightning Rift / Astral Slide have both been essentially complete crap for me. I cut the rift already and while I am still running slide I haven't seen it be impressive. I don't intend to jam a bunch of ETB value guys in the deck and just.... no its not been that good.

Slide won't be good without support. You probably should cut it. I've found it to be stellar in a deck where you have a high likelihood of using its ability to your advantage. But as a 1-of standalone with its legs cut off, it probably is a wasted card slot.

One card I don't see mentioned is Shadow of the Grave, could be some nice card adantage.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

I have actually been playing and tweaking the list some. I have been terrible about keeping it up to date on here but all in all, I still need to do some work on it and with the new spoils coming out and some other new decks I have just been kind of bad about devoting time to keeping this up to date. I guess I will throw out a few highlights of how its been though.

1) I need more lands than I have in this list. I thought it would be fine given all of the cycling but the truth is that I need more lands because the cycling lands are probably some of the best cycling cards I can get my hands on. I might end up actually lowering the actual cycling cards for more lands so that I can cycle the cycling lands more often.

2) Mana dumps have been important for me. In a lot of cases I can cycle cards to just move cards arround but in a lot of times unless I have the enablers it doesn't really do a lot. I brought in The Scarab God and Zacama, Primal Calamity and they have both been a nice addition as something that gives me a mana dump that does something.

3) Lightning Rift / Astral Slide have both been essentially complete crap for me. I cut the rift already and while I am still running slide I haven't seen it be impressive. I don't intend to jam a bunch of ETB value guys in the deck and just.... no its not been that good. My actual paper list looks REALLY different than the digital one here as I have been crap about keeping it up to date but hopefully I can bring them in line sometime soon.

The biggest difference between Zur cycling and a 5c cycling if you ask me is the lands. I get access to a lot more land abuse and cycling lands as a whole. I would almost call this deck a lands / mana dump deck with where I am at right now but I still need to go through a lot of changes and updates. I think it was like my turn 7 I put 9 additional lands into play with Splendid Reclamation. I even resorted to adding Azusa, Lost but Seeking to my paper list.

Nice to hear it works out for you. Cycling is a really cool mechanic Looking forward to see what your updated list looks like.

Lightning Rift is really cute, I wanted it to be good, but yeah, just too cute. As Funky suggest, I would also cut Astral Slide since you don't have a way to abuse it. I do have a Zur-Slide deck aswell that solely relies on ETB-triggers and Slide is just sick here.
Splendid Reclamation is just a crazy card with cycling lands. Same reason I also play Summer Bloom and Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator. It can really burst out lands into play. I kinda want to play Azusa, Lost but Seeking aswell, but don't really like the pricetag on her

Quote from HugSeal »

One card I don't see mentioned is Shadow of the Grave, could be some nice card adantage.

Shadow of the Grave is a card I've tried to play myself, but ended up cutting. Cycling is a pretty mana-hungry mechanic, and you don't dump that much into your grave each turn. A couple at the max, then at couple more at the next end step. Thus SotG doesn't really do much. It's certainly much better with wheels. 3RB: Discard your hand, draw 7, then draw what you discarded - that seems pretty good.

Quote from rogerandover »

Nice to hear it works out for you. Cycling is a really cool mechanic Looking forward to see what your updated list looks like.

Lightning Rift is really cute, I wanted it to be good, but yeah, just too cute. As Funky suggest, I would also cut Astral Slide since you don't have a way to abuse it. I do have a Zur-Slide deck aswell that solely relies on ETB-triggers and Slide is just sick here.
Splendid Reclamation is just a crazy card with cycling lands. Same reason I also play Summer Bloom and Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator. It can really burst out lands into play. I kinda want to play Azusa, Lost but Seeking aswell, but don't really like the pricetag on her


Shadow of the Grave is a card I've tried to play myself, but ended up cutting. Cycling is a pretty mana-hungry mechanic, and you don't dump that much into your grave each turn. A couple at the max, then at couple more at the next end step. Thus SotG doesn't really do much. It's certainly much better with wheels. 3RB: Discard your hand, draw 7, then draw what you discarded - that seems pretty good.

Astral Slide - yea I agree I am cutting it for now. Its a cool card but I constantly saw issues with the fact that it seems like its going to work out a lot better for a zur build due to accessibility to it. I am not that likely to be able to get my hands on it and a lot of the ETB based creatures just seem like I would be diluting my list and what I actually want to be doing for something I would have a hard time getting and keeping in play.

Summer Bloom - I think there are still a number of other options that could be explored for playing extra lands. Mina and Denn, Wildborn and Wayward Swordtooth are also valid cards I have put some consideration into. I think both of them could totally be played especially if you are looking for replacement options for Azusa. My only concern for Summer Bloom is having enough lands to play to it to make it worthwhile. These effects could possibly stay in play for several turns netting in a lot of extra resources to play but sometimes I need to push my draw to actually see those cards. For what its worth, Azusa's price tag very recently was like twice what it is now.

Shadow of the Grave - I agree, the concern is how deep I would need to go in a turn for it to really be decent. It just felt winmore with a lot of chances for it to not be very good. You really don't want to cast it to get back less than two cards and really you want to get back like three before it really pays off.

I have been working to get the new list updated. I normally try to show what goes in for what is going out but the deck has been through so many changes I will just show the new and old list here.


My new list is below but I wanted to take a moment to talk a little bit on some of my findings.

• Removal - I found that some of the removal cards I really never wanted to cycle. Like for example Akroma's Vengeance and Rescind I would just keep in my hand and save to cast. The problem I had with this is that they were just less efficient versions of other cards so there was no real reason to have them in my list if I wasn't willing to cycle them over more efficient removal.
• Mana Dumps - I found that I really liked having mana dumps so I could cycle cards, cast cards, or mana dump for my turns.
• Lands - I didn't have enough lands in my list previously. I thought with the cycling I would be fine but I actually want a surplus of lands so I can cycle the cycling lands whenever possible. The lands ended up surprisingly being the best cards to cycle in my deck even over a lot of the cards that do things when they cycle. I ended up adding enemy colored shocks to fill in the options to fix my lands. I want to maybe push up the number of land cycling cards I run to maybe fix and keep my cycling count high but my plan is if and when they do the other half of the cycling lands to sub out my shocks for them when that happens. I "could" run fetchlands but I am kind of having fun not going all out deep on my landbase for now so I am going to keep going this direction and see how it plays out.

I am updating the OP to this new list. I might try to get some removal back in. I had more in but I was trying to push a lot of different concepts at the same time so some of it got put away for now. I want to do some testing with the new setup and probably work some back in after I do some more testing.