Cycling is one of my favorite mechanics in all of magic, due to the fact that it leads to more games of magic where both players are able to play their cards. And in general cycling makes any card a lot stronger, because it gives that card applications in any part of the game. There are a good number of cycling cards that many of us currently run. But there are also many cards that focus on a "cycling archetype", which gives you payoffs for cycling or discarding cards. With the recent advent of Ikoria we have gotten a lot more goodies for the cycling archetype in peasant cube. Thus, I think it's time to evaluate the archetype and see if perhaps it is finally good enough.
In the cycling archetype you have 2 types of cards, those that cycle and those that reward you for cycling (and many of these from the newest set do both!).
First I will cover the payoffs. These can include cards that benefit from you cycling a card, discarding a card, or drawing a card:
White: Astral Slide: One of the OG payoffs for a cycling deck, a must include if you want to make a cycling deck in your cube. Even if you don't have many cards to flicker with Slide, being able to flicker your opponents creatures can often be surprisingly powerful. Drannith Healer: A fine payoff, gains you life and is a 2/2 bear which is not the worst floor to have. Plus it has cycling 1 which is great. Flourishing Fox: Can get out of hand fairly quickly. Again, has cycling 1 as well. Snare Tactician: It's okay if you are all in on the cycling. Probably the worst white payoff card. Spirit Cairn: Make a 1/1 spirit each time you cycle. Pretty strong but slow. Valiant Rescuer: A pretty sweet pay off. Creating dudes is a nice rate, and he comes out really early. Plus, you can cycle on your turn and your opponents turn to get 2 dudes in one turn cycle.
Blue: Cunning Survivor: A small payoff, not great. Escape Protocol: Wish you didn't have to pay an additional mana, but this is good especially if you have both this and Astral Drift you can make a very unique blink deck in cube. Faerie Vandal: This card is probably at it's best in a cycling deck, just growing every turn at instant speed. Hekma Sentinels: Again, small payoff. Ominous Seas: Pays you for drawing cards, potentially creating multiple 8/8s with this is great. Plus it has cycling itself. Ominous Sphinx: A good pay off, can make combat a nightmare for your opponent and is a decent 4/4 flier anyway. Oneirophage: This card can get out of hand very quickly in a cycling deck. Rise from the Tide: This can get really big if you are cycling a lot of cards. Already a good card outside of the cycling deck. Sphinx's Tutelage: This can kill very quickly in a deck with a lot of cycling. Steelgaze Griffin: Too inefficient. Treasure Cruise: This card becomes great when you are throwing away a lot of cyclers to fill up your grave. Warped Researcher: A hard to deal with finisher, but just a really bad rate. Zenith Seeker: Just does not really do very much, maybe decent.
Red: Bloodhaze Wolverine: An aggressive payoff, the possibility of pumping it at instant speed and giving it first strike makes it very hard to block. Drannith Stinger: A great payoff. It's a bear at worst, but will be dealing a bit of incremental damage throughout the game. And having cycling 1 is great. Flameblade Adept: A very aggressive payoff. Not as good here as it has been in modern. Lightning Rift: Probably the best payoff spell for drafting cycling. This can kill a lot of the format and GO FACE. Prickly Marmoset: 2/3 first strike is okay, but the possibility that it will grow bigger makes it super hard to block. Reptilian Reflection: Kind of like a 5/4 trample for 3 if you are all in on the cycling plan. Not great, but playable.
Black:
For black the big cycling pay off is with graveyard cards, particularly reanimation cards such as Diabolic Servitude. Cards that spend your graveyard, such as escape cards and delve cards go up in value in this type of deck because you can fill your grave much faster. Faith of the Devoted: A pretty weak payoff. Grisly Survivor: Pretty bad. Horror of the Broken Lands: Too much mana for this effect most likely, but cycling B makes it playable still. Ruthless Sniper: This card is pretty strong, can kill a lot of things in peasant.
Green:
There isn't really a reason to go green cycling.
Given these payoffs, it seems like you can do some fun stuff with this archetype. I think it's probably not viable in my cube as is, but if the powerlevel of your cube is purposefully a bit lower I think it could carve a very fun archetype out. The biggest problem I see is that for example RW looks to do best if you are going aggressive, but then in the end will the perfect RW aggro cycling deck ever be better than just a generic RW aggro deck in your cube? I feel like in my cube it would not.
I need to take a break from this at the moment, but another time I will look into the cards that cycle.
There might not be a particular green cycling payoff signpost card like Astral Slide or Lightning Rift, but there are green cards with cycling that are probably good enough or borderline good enough on their own. I also think cycling big green monsters and reanimating them or using other GY synergies most commonly found in the Golgari colors is a sort of "payoff" strategy that has been used for years.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Idk, I guess it's kind of a subjective thing, but I prefer Krosan Tusker over Shefet Monitor for that type of effect/option (land and draw or big body), as cycling 4 seems much more than cycling 3.
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On a completely separate note, I just want to emphasize that for the "cycling archetype" to be a thing it would likely have to fit into a 2-color pair and have the vast majority of it's cards be good enough or almost good enough on their own. Take Drannith Stinger for example. It's a good playoff within the "cycling" deck, but if that first ability is blank text (which it would be outside of that archetype), then a Grizzly Bears with cycling 1 isn't something I want in my deck. Maybe if my red aggro deck is really short on 2s... maybe... but that's just a sign that my deck is in a bad place. Drannith Healer is the same situation. Outside of the cycling deck it's borderline unplayable. I don't want it in my white weenie aggro deck. I don't want it in my life-gain deck. I probably just don't want it period. Something like Valiant Rescuer is a little better, as the vanilla 3/1 body with cycling 2 is more appealing than the 2/2 for aggro, but you still don't want that guy in a tokens deck unless you are at least half into the cycling archetype.
And those are the cards that at least do "something" outside of their specific archetype. Others like Astral Slide are great payoffs, but stone-cold-blanks in anything other than cycling.
Archetypes like this are always tricky to include, since they often become parasitic on your cube. You need to find the right number of these payoff type cards to make it worth it but not so many that all you can do in... say... red and/or white is draft cycling on rails. I'd say include a tiny sprinkling of the most powerful cycling payoffs and as many Boon of the Wish-Giver and Neutralize type cards as possible.
Picking out cyclers that are playable already and then separating them into playable without cycling and playable without cycling but suspect. Only doing UWR since GB doesn't have enough payoffs.
12+15+3 as a total for cyclers. If you play all of them you get 30 in UWR, 23 in UW, 21 in UR, 18 in RW. Most of them are pretty middling cards, so a dedicated cycling deck can probably get 15+ cyclers reasonably easily (even with some cuts). The majority of the space is from blue, so if you're not happy with your blue section it seems reasonable, but it does require a lot more slots than other archetypes.
No one's a fan of Invigorating Boon? Lol - yeah, green got the worst of that cycle.
I'm a massive fan of cycling as well. When I played 60 card casual, I loved my Astral Slide/Lightning Rift deck (which I eventually branched into green to flicker Cartographer/Tilling Treefolk to get back cycling lands). In Commander, I have a Zur the Enchanter/Astral Slide deck that is so much fun and just got a great boost thanks to Ikoria (including Rift#6). I'm also working on a 4-color cycling deck for Commander and debating a 5-color, as well.
The thing I worry about in cube is how to get enough cycling as-fan to make it work. In constructed, you can guarantee the cards are in the deck. In draft, though, unless there's a lot of cycling, you could get a few payout cards and never trigger them, or get cycling cards but not do much with them beyond play them at face value. How big a cube would you run, and would it be singleton or allow multiples? I would just hate to get Astral Slide and only trigger it once in the draft.
In the cycling archetype you have 2 types of cards, those that cycle and those that reward you for cycling (and many of these from the newest set do both!).
First I will cover the payoffs. These can include cards that benefit from you cycling a card, discarding a card, or drawing a card:
White:
Astral Slide: One of the OG payoffs for a cycling deck, a must include if you want to make a cycling deck in your cube. Even if you don't have many cards to flicker with Slide, being able to flicker your opponents creatures can often be surprisingly powerful.
Drannith Healer: A fine payoff, gains you life and is a 2/2 bear which is not the worst floor to have. Plus it has cycling 1 which is great.
Flourishing Fox: Can get out of hand fairly quickly. Again, has cycling 1 as well.
Snare Tactician: It's okay if you are all in on the cycling. Probably the worst white payoff card.
Spirit Cairn: Make a 1/1 spirit each time you cycle. Pretty strong but slow.
Valiant Rescuer: A pretty sweet pay off. Creating dudes is a nice rate, and he comes out really early. Plus, you can cycle on your turn and your opponents turn to get 2 dudes in one turn cycle.
Blue:
Cunning Survivor: A small payoff, not great.
Escape Protocol: Wish you didn't have to pay an additional mana, but this is good especially if you have both this and Astral Drift you can make a very unique blink deck in cube.
Faerie Vandal: This card is probably at it's best in a cycling deck, just growing every turn at instant speed.
Hekma Sentinels: Again, small payoff.
Ominous Seas: Pays you for drawing cards, potentially creating multiple 8/8s with this is great. Plus it has cycling itself.
Ominous Sphinx: A good pay off, can make combat a nightmare for your opponent and is a decent 4/4 flier anyway.
Oneirophage: This card can get out of hand very quickly in a cycling deck.
Rise from the Tide: This can get really big if you are cycling a lot of cards. Already a good card outside of the cycling deck.
Sphinx's Tutelage: This can kill very quickly in a deck with a lot of cycling.
Steelgaze Griffin: Too inefficient.
Treasure Cruise: This card becomes great when you are throwing away a lot of cyclers to fill up your grave.
Warped Researcher: A hard to deal with finisher, but just a really bad rate.
Zenith Seeker: Just does not really do very much, maybe decent.
Red:
Bloodhaze Wolverine: An aggressive payoff, the possibility of pumping it at instant speed and giving it first strike makes it very hard to block.
Drannith Stinger: A great payoff. It's a bear at worst, but will be dealing a bit of incremental damage throughout the game. And having cycling 1 is great.
Flameblade Adept: A very aggressive payoff. Not as good here as it has been in modern.
Lightning Rift: Probably the best payoff spell for drafting cycling. This can kill a lot of the format and GO FACE.
Prickly Marmoset: 2/3 first strike is okay, but the possibility that it will grow bigger makes it super hard to block.
Reptilian Reflection: Kind of like a 5/4 trample for 3 if you are all in on the cycling plan. Not great, but playable.
Black:
For black the big cycling pay off is with graveyard cards, particularly reanimation cards such as Diabolic Servitude. Cards that spend your graveyard, such as escape cards and delve cards go up in value in this type of deck because you can fill your grave much faster.
Faith of the Devoted: A pretty weak payoff.
Grisly Survivor: Pretty bad.
Horror of the Broken Lands: Too much mana for this effect most likely, but cycling B makes it playable still.
Ruthless Sniper: This card is pretty strong, can kill a lot of things in peasant.
Green:
There isn't really a reason to go green cycling.
Multicolor:
Improbable Alliance: When you are making a 1/1 every turn this card gets really out of control.
Savai Thundermane: A little mini-lightning helix on a stick, very powerful.
Given these payoffs, it seems like you can do some fun stuff with this archetype. I think it's probably not viable in my cube as is, but if the powerlevel of your cube is purposefully a bit lower I think it could carve a very fun archetype out. The biggest problem I see is that for example RW looks to do best if you are going aggressive, but then in the end will the perfect RW aggro cycling deck ever be better than just a generic RW aggro deck in your cube? I feel like in my cube it would not.
I need to take a break from this at the moment, but another time I will look into the cards that cycle.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/djredpeasant
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/djredpeasant
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Dissenter's Deliverance (maybe)
Edge of Autumn
Greater Sandwurm
Krosan Tusker
Migration Path
Rampaging Hippo (maybe)
Shefet Monitor (maybe)
Titanoth Rex
Wild Dogs (maybe)
and of course the lands which every color has access to
Tranquil Thicket (for green specifically)
Ash Barrens
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On a completely separate note, I just want to emphasize that for the "cycling archetype" to be a thing it would likely have to fit into a 2-color pair and have the vast majority of it's cards be good enough or almost good enough on their own. Take Drannith Stinger for example. It's a good playoff within the "cycling" deck, but if that first ability is blank text (which it would be outside of that archetype), then a Grizzly Bears with cycling 1 isn't something I want in my deck. Maybe if my red aggro deck is really short on 2s... maybe... but that's just a sign that my deck is in a bad place. Drannith Healer is the same situation. Outside of the cycling deck it's borderline unplayable. I don't want it in my white weenie aggro deck. I don't want it in my life-gain deck. I probably just don't want it period. Something like Valiant Rescuer is a little better, as the vanilla 3/1 body with cycling 2 is more appealing than the 2/2 for aggro, but you still don't want that guy in a tokens deck unless you are at least half into the cycling archetype.
And those are the cards that at least do "something" outside of their specific archetype. Others like Astral Slide are great payoffs, but stone-cold-blanks in anything other than cycling.
Archetypes like this are always tricky to include, since they often become parasitic on your cube. You need to find the right number of these payoff type cards to make it worth it but not so many that all you can do in... say... red and/or white is draft cycling on rails. I'd say include a tiny sprinkling of the most powerful cycling payoffs and as many Boon of the Wish-Giver and Neutralize type cards as possible.
Blue (4+8):
Censor, Complicate, Striped Riverwinder, Miscalculation
Boon of the Wish-Giver, Hieroglyphic Illumination, Neutralize, Lay Claim, Ominous Seas, Cloud of Faeries (Do people still play this?), Reconnaissance Mission, Startling Development
White (2+3):
Cast Out, Forsake the Worldly
Oketra's Attendant, Splendor Mare, Valiant Rescuer
Red (1+4):
Slice and Dice
Quakefoot Cyclops, Sancuary Smasher, Go for Blood, Prickly Marmoset
Other (5):
Migratory Route, Ash Barrens, Tranquil Thicket cycle
In a Weird Spot (3):
Flourishing Fox, Drannith Stinger, Drannith Healer
Direct Payoffs (6+5):
Needs minor support: Faerie Vandal, Oneirophage, Improbable Alliance, Ominous Seas, Sphinx's Tutelage, Ominous Sphinx
Needs heavy support: Lightning Rift, Savai Thundermane, Zenith Flare, Astral Slide, Escape Protocol
12+15+3 as a total for cyclers. If you play all of them you get 30 in UWR, 23 in UW, 21 in UR, 18 in RW. Most of them are pretty middling cards, so a dedicated cycling deck can probably get 15+ cyclers reasonably easily (even with some cuts). The majority of the space is from blue, so if you're not happy with your blue section it seems reasonable, but it does require a lot more slots than other archetypes.
I'm a massive fan of cycling as well. When I played 60 card casual, I loved my Astral Slide/Lightning Rift deck (which I eventually branched into green to flicker Cartographer/Tilling Treefolk to get back cycling lands). In Commander, I have a Zur the Enchanter/Astral Slide deck that is so much fun and just got a great boost thanks to Ikoria (including Rift#6). I'm also working on a 4-color cycling deck for Commander and debating a 5-color, as well.
The thing I worry about in cube is how to get enough cycling as-fan to make it work. In constructed, you can guarantee the cards are in the deck. In draft, though, unless there's a lot of cycling, you could get a few payout cards and never trigger them, or get cycling cards but not do much with them beyond play them at face value. How big a cube would you run, and would it be singleton or allow multiples? I would just hate to get Astral Slide and only trigger it once in the draft.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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