Card/Deck Wx Cycling

[ravnic]

I want to discuss with you a potential lower powered pivot archetype, made possible with Ikoria.

In my cube I have a strong theme for every color combination and something less dominant centered in each individual color. Only white was lacking something cohesive. Since I was already trying to add more cycling cards to support Drake Haven and Improbable Alliance, I wondered if cycling couldn't maybe work as non-poisoning theme for white. My pair archetypes with white are blink, lifegain, go wide aggro and tokens (more grindy), and I think cycling could bleed nicely into all of them. Here's what I came up with.

Payoffs in



The white Drake Haven is surely weaker, but in an environment with lots of cycling, looting and hand disruption, it could have some upsides




A 3/1 for 2 with cycling sounds already pretty solid. If you can, additionally, get at least one token out of this, it sounds great. Solid floor, high ceiling.




This is a totally fine blink spell on it's own. I just can't tell if it can work as an impactful enchantment too, but I very much hope so.




Not sure if je has potential as a scalable threat in aggro, midrange, both or neither - but cycling 1 makes it a low opportunity cost to test him out.




Kinda similar to the Rescuer, the body is slightly weaker but he cycles for only 1 - and lifegain has it's uses in my cube. Once you get a high enough density of cyclers to have them appear in decks naturally, that becomes a sweet overlap I hope.




I have high hopes for this one. Compared to Ominous Seas, this one has an activation cost and doesn't cycle itself, but it's tokens come twice as fast and they have evasion.




Sweet with anything discard related, works also here.

As support you have to add cyclers - obviously. In white I'll have 14, generally good ones (Cast Out) and those, that totally live from their cheap cycling abilities like Imposing Vantasaur or Secluded Steppe. Add to that 2 in colorless and ~5 in the other colors. Not sure if these numbers will do it, but I'm gonna try.

There is one other card I wanna talk about ...



I know, it's probably stupid, but I can't stop thinking of the possibilities. How far would you have to go to make this on playable?

 

[inscho]

I'm a big fan of the cycling deck in a lower powered format.

I've been considering Hoofprints as the second buildaround to Astral Drift, and think it might be less narrow than Astral Slide.

Not a fan of Fox, Healer, or Cairn, personally...Drake Haven feels like the correct power level for a 3cmc enchantment than requires mana to activate. I do really like Rescuer which is especially fun if you run the mates:



Sarcophagus is too narrow for my tastes as well, but I am a little curious about:


As it cycles itself, is a little bit of a buildaround, and synergizes with the Astral blinks. It's a decent sized body for Twilight's Call type effect



Allow for an incredibly intuitive reanimator deck with Karmic Guide to blink via Drift or Miraculous Recovery/Elspeth Conquers Death or a Body Double (can't leave out Versperlark shenanigans!)

Having a heavy cycling theme weaponizes:


And Renewed Faith supports to staying alive theme.

I really like this as a payoff for the archetype when it overlaps with lifegain:


It's such a good pairing with Drake Haven and Curator of Mysteries as well as the discard matters cards:



I feel strongly about running a suite of cycle lands as well as the bicyles and triomes...Eternal Dragon fetches the bicycles or triomes to create a mini-chain....In general it really makes the archetype much more fluid draft, and has great overlap with all the lands in zones cards like Life from the Loam, Turntimber Sower, The Gitrog Monster, etc

The pairing is great in a green ramp deck...which is very fun with all of the cards that normally make a ramp deck clunky being modal via cycling:



I'm really enjoying exploring this matrix of themes that are tied together via cycling. It reduces negative variance, and it's just fun to draw a bunch of cards!

 

[Nanonox]

I really enjoyed drafting Alfonzo Bonzo's 2.1 version of the Alchemist's Crucible. There is a heavy cycling theme there from which you can get inspiration

https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/108492

From your list ravnic, I agree with inscho that Fox, Healer, and Cairn seem a bit off. I'd add Imposing Vantasaur to that list as it does nothing in other decks.
The cycling lands are great though (mono colored, bicycles, triomes and Ash Barrens).

If I were to build a lower powered cube, I would totally have cycling/discard as a broad archetype spanning all colors. It's fun, it is well supported everywhere (but in different ways) and the game play is rewarding (when to cycle, when to play the card) and the mechanism smooths draws.

 

[inscho]

If I were to build a lower powered cube, I would totally have cycling/discard as a broad archetype spanning all colors. It's fun, it is well supported everywhere (but in different ways) and the game play is rewarding (when to cycle, when to play the card) and the mechanism smooths draws.

this is what I’m finding. I always had strong discard theme in my graveyard cube, but it wasn’t until I started dropping the power level down that I realized how rich the theme could be.

 

[Brad]

My current WIP contains a blink deck around

instead of the typical enablers. They're also there to pseudo morph things.

I've got all the green ramp stuff inscho listed. Worth noting that those green dudes are reanimation targets, as well.

I'm looking through my list and the cycling interacts with so much that it's difficult to go into. Everything that cares about drawing (Faerie Vandal) OR discarding (Flameblade Adept) OR cards in graveyard (Zombify) wants to see cycling. Notice there's a flexible blue card, an aggro red card, and a classic midrange/reanimator card listed because most decks CAN interact with cycling.

From there, you can increase the number of things that enable those effects outside of cycle, such as Thought Courier, Dismissive Pyromancer, and Benthic Biomancer.

As noted, the downside here is that you have to drop the power level quite a bit. You necessitate 10 ETB tapped lands and Ash Barrens in the mana section. And don't you dare forget your bounce lands for a late game bounce into cycle! From there, the other cards require some work and are therefore a bit lower powered in nature. For example, Flameblade Adept isn't that great when compared to a 2/X for 1, but a menacing 1/2 with the possibility to hit for more is pretty nice once your powered down.

If you're willing to drop the power level, draw and discard can have meaningful interactions with every color on top of being a draw smoothing effect. It's a great effect.

 

[Rusje]

As noted, the downside here is that you have to drop the power level quite a bit. You necessitate 10 ETB tapped lands and Ash Barrens in the mana section. And don't you dare forget your bounce lands for a late game bounce into cycle! From there, the other cards require some work and are therefore a bit lower powered in nature. For example, Flameblade Adept isn't that great when compared to a 2/X for 1, but a menacing 1/2 with the possibility to hit for more is pretty nice once your powered down.

If you're willing to drop the power level, draw and discard can have meaningful interactions with every color on top of being a draw smoothing effect. It's a great effect.

Or, you could add the common cycling lands to the basic lands box with e.g. an additional rule how many each player can get.

 

[sigh]

I have cycling lands in my BLB without even having a cycling theme, and it works out great. No rules to it except common sense stuff like "sharing is caring"

 

[ravnic]

I think you guys are right with Drannith Healer and Spirit Cairn being to weak. But I wanna try Flourishing Fox. You can just play him turn one and than have him sit there, becoming a more and more threatening creature as the game goes on. And if you don't have him that early, you can just cycle him when you topdeck him later for the mere cost of .

Another card I wanted to share is this one:



It seems to be the less narrow version of sarcophagus, as it's a good looter on it's own and works with all kinds of discard effects.

 

[inscho]

Bag is very cool. Good call! It’d have good tension in my cube because the exile is a real risk if it gets blown up....works great with:



Since it allows the discarded card to hit the graveyard before exiling