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Main » Articles » The Cycling Fun Times of Amonkhet

The Cycling Fun Times of Amonkhet

Abe Sargent
Posted on April 10, 2017
 Reddit

Cycling has always been one of my favorite mechanics in casual Magic. The ability to cycle a card away if you don’t need it is amazing, and allows you to run situational cards that you might not be tempted to run otherwise.

Here, let me give you a quick example. Think about Twincast or Fork. How often have you sat with Twincast in your hand, and never really having a good target to make it worth casting? How often have you held onto a Murder or Terror when your foe has virtually no creatures in play worth targeting, or they are under the protection of Asceticism or Privileged Position? How often have you looked at a burn spell in your hand and sighed because everything in play you want to kill is too big?

Think about Fog. Fog is a great effect occasionally. But it’s often just a junk card that doesn’t do much. Do you want to risk running a Fog effect in your deck but having nothing to do with the card? Just run Angelsong or Lull instead!

That’s where cycling enters the conversation. Every single cycling card in existence is amazing by default, because you can always churn it for more cards. And at multiplayer where options and flexibility is the key, cycling is amazing at finding the right answer, continuing to push, or smashing folks.

If you were to ask me to name my favorite cards, the ones I love to lean on again and again, they are heavy into the cycling family:

Land cycling of various types like Sylvan Reclamation and Eternal Dragon and such.

And most importantly, all of the cycling lands from Drifting Meadow to Barren Moor to the new cycle in Amonkhet!

Cycling is so awesome!

And thus, when I saw that cycling was included in Amonkhet, I literally checked every single spoiler multiple times a day to see what cycling cards we were getting. I am pumped!

So I thought I would create a few quick deck shells around all things cycling for y’all to use a primers to get your own cycling juices flowing.

From Hell?s Heart I Stab at Thee ? Casual | Abe Sargent

This simple deck wants to drop Fluctuator as quickly as possible. Then cycle, for free, all of these cards with a now-zero cycling cost to ramp up your graveyard and to find Songs and Living Death. You should have an epic amount of creatures in your ‘yard so cast Songs of the Damned to make a crap-ton of mana and then follow with Living Death to vomit all of those cycled creatures back out.

We have Archfiend of Ifnir to provide an alternate method of control. Play it, and then cycle stuff for free viaFluctuator and kill all of your opponent’s stuff and win. Whichever works!

Now, the Living Death is a turn too slow for some I’m sure. And it walks into mass removal. If you want, massage the LD numbers down to 1, and then add in something like Consume Spirit to win.

One of the major issues with this style of deck is that you often hit a bunch of non-cycling lands and extra Fluctuators and you can’t finish. One potential method to do that might be to add in a pair of Ancient Excavations with some Blue lands in there. Draw cards equal to the cards in your hand, discard that number, choose ones without cycling to discard, and then keep on going! I also tossed in a pair each of Expunge and Miscalculation if you need them to ensure your victory. Check out Cloud of Faeries in here as well, as a way to make a little mana-post reanimation. (Or you can make one mana if you tap Ancient Tomb and an Island or Fetid Pools for Blue and then untap both).

Another fun Fluctuator win might be to empty your deck, drop Laboratory Maniac from your hand, and then cycle to win. (You can use Unearth to get it back if it’s in the graveyard instead) and again use Songs of the Damned to make a bunch of mana if you don’t want stuff like Manamorphose or Lotus Petal or the Simian Spirit Guide and Elvish Spirit Guide or something.

Of Rifts and Slides ? Casual | Abe Sargent

RiftSlide was a major archetype back in the Onslaught era and was one of the dominant Standard decks during its run. I thought it would be cool to both modernize it and remind people of some older pre-Onslaught era cards as well. There was an entire cycle of cycling triggers, but the other three tended to be nothing more than limited fodder (Fleeting Aven, Withering Hex, Invigorating Boon). Note that both Lightning Rift and Astral Slide trigger when anyone cycles a card, not just you.

22 spells and 7 lands in here have cycling, and that’s a huge chunk of the deck. You could add in cycling lands or stuff like Weathered Wayfarer to fetch up the cycling lands you already run.

The Astral Slide and Lightning Rift combination are a powerful uncommon duo that can dominate a table. The first can exile something when it attacks to flicker it out and back in, or to remove the ability to attack completely unless it has haste, and such. I also layered in a few fun Slide targets of our own. The original deck ran the awesome Exalted Angel. Play it on turn three, attack and unmorph it on turn 4 and you have a 4/5 flyer that just gave you +8 life total swing in one hit. Plus, you could Slide it to unmorph it for free if you wanted. I decided to stay with that theme, but instead to use Red Akroma as the morph of choice. You can Slide her into play and her 6/6 body is just nasty. Note that you can’t Slide her later because she has protection from White, and you can target her once she’s flipped, but I think you’ll be okay with that.

We also have some great and powerful game ending cards such as Decree of Justice, Eternal Dragon, Lightning Rift itself, and the Flameblade Adept from the recent set all ready to rock and roll at the drop of a hat. Swing and hit! You’ll note that I tossed in a full slate of Sacred Foundry for your Eternal Dragon’s plainscycling in case you need a Mountain.

Finally, you will note that this is a true control deck. We can burn creatures down with Rift. Kill them with Radiant's Judgment. Sweep them with Starstorm or Slice and Dice. Sweep almost everything with Akroma's Vengeance. We have Fogs, Shatters, and Threatens, all with cycling variants . . . 

And Cast Out is a great effect as a flash Oblivion Ring that you can cycle if you don’t need it, as well as the Threaten fun times of Limits of Solidarity.

And by loading up with cycling cards from Urza’s Block, Onslaught Block, as well as Commander 2016 and Amonkhet, we have a lot of useful options moving forward. You could easily add cards from Time Spiral Block like Edge of Autumn or Street Wraith which don’t cost mana to cycle or from Alara Block with Fiery Fall.

Rift and Slide, Best Besties since ’02.

Dark Discard ? Casual | Abe Sargent

I wanted to use the various discard or cycling triggers of Blue and Black to make a fun and compelling deck, and this came to my mind. Don’t forget that cycling a card counts as discarding it. So a machine like Telekinetic Bonds will trigger if you cycle Ash Barrens, just tap some mana and tap/untap that permanent. It works when anyone discards too, by the by, and if you want to break it, have a card like Gilded Lotus that untaps for on extra mana each iteration.

And you can see other cards that have synergy with cycling. Did you cycle a creature card? When Wharf Infiltrator will give you a big, beefy 3/2 token creature, just spend two colorless mana for the effect to resolve. And then I layered in cycling triggers like the aforementioned Archfiend of Ifnir and . . . 

I think you’ll agree that both Curator of Mysteries and Drake Haven are powerful additions to this shell. One is a 4/4 flyer for four mana, with a decent Scry 1 if you cycle or discard, and you can cycle it too. Meanwhile, Drake Haven can trigger for 2/2 flying Drakes as well. Both of these cards really push us into a good space. I even tossed in a single copy of New Perspectives in case you can use it to push your cycling theme:

I also decided to push into that “or discard” aspect of these three engines from Amonkhet. I added in some self-discard effects into the deck to find good stuff and trigger this too, all in the form of looting. Looter il-Kor has an established reputation with a lot of players, and needs little introduction. You can also see the value of Geier Reach Sanitarium and Compulsion in this build, I’m sure. And since I was discarding cards anyway, why not run some madness support? My countermagic can be Circular Logic and Broken Concentration, and my removal Big Game Hunter. If you discard, and get triggers off the various discard outlets here, and then madness out a Big Game Hunter, that can be a pretty big swing at the table. In leapt Deep Analysis for card drawing.

But there was something else I wanted to run in this deck too. Something fun and powerful . . . 

Measure of Wickedness. Take a look. Enjoy. Whenever a card enters your graveyard from anywhere, including something you cycle or discarded, send over Measure. Play it, send it over, and force someone to lose 8 life and sacrifice it. It’s just so fun here!

And there you are. Three fun decks built around cycling generally, and with multiple Amonkhet cards in each build. I hope you found some decks and concepts here to spark your imagination.

I’m excited! Here’s to hoping we see a few more cycling goods in the set from future spoilers!

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TAGS articles, casual, multiplayer, abe sargent, decklist, cycling

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