⟳ Deckcycle | Gavi Primer

Commander / EDH Combo Control Primer RUW (Jeskai, America) Theme/Gimmick

Enral

Land (37)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desert of the Fervent
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Drifting Meadow
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Irrigated Farmland
• 4x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 3x Mountain
• 2x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Smoldering Crater
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Windswept Heath

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Akroma's Vengeance
• 1x Boon of the Wish-Giver
• 1x Dismantling Wave
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Slice and Dice
• 1x Sweltering Suns
• 1x Temporal Manipulation

Instant (21)

• 1x Angelsong
• 1x Brand
• 1x Censor
• 1x Complicate
• 1x Countervailing Winds
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deem Worthy
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Forsake the Worldly
• 1x Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 1x Miscalculation
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Neutralize
• 1x Rebuild
• 1x Rescind
• 1x Shredded Sails
• 1x Starstorm
• 1x Tithe
• 1x Turnabout
• 1x Wipe Clean

Artifact (11)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Fluctuator
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Raugrin Crystal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Commander (1)

Creature (13)

• 1x Cloud of Faeries
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Eternal Dragon
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Nimble Obstructionist
• 1x Rielle, the Everwise
• 1x Scholar of the Ages
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Surly Badgersaur
• 1x Thassa's Oracle
• 1x Vedalken AEthermage
• 1x Vizier of Tumbling Sands
• 1x Warden of the Eye

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Astral Drift
• 1x Astral Slide
• 1x Cast Out
• 1x Decree of Silence
• 1x Drake Haven
• 1x Escape Protocol
• 1x New Perspectives
• 1x Tectonic Reformation
• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight
• 1x Wild Research

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight

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The Deck

Introduction

This is my take on a control/combo Gavi, Nest Warden inspired by the Amonkhet Standard New Perspectives deck to basically abuse the cycling mechanic to draw my entire library to win with Thassa's Oracle. In a way, this deck plays like a storm deck when it starts going off with a cycling engine enabled. This is the deck for you if you are looking for a strictly thematic and fun cycling deck.

Gavi's Ability

It is easy to misjudge Gavi's abilities and in my opinion, her cycling cost reduction ability is heads and shoulders above her token making ability. Building around her token making ability requires significant commitment to token supporting cards which puts significant constrains on deck construction and makes it difficult to balance between cycling and token support. The same problem also applies to decks focusing too much on Astral Slide. Going overboard on ETB creatures can eat up opportunity costs of including other more synergistic cyclers as there is no reliable way of getting astral slide in play like Zur the Enchanter. Therefore I think that building around Gavi's free cycling ability is the best way to approach it.

Deck Construction

The following are criterias I set for deck construction:

• The power level of the deck is to be between casual and focused
• The deck needs to be strictly faithful to the cycling theme with no distractions
• The deck needs to be able to function without Gavi
• The deck needs to have a meaningful density of cycling cards (at least 30)
• Non-cycling cards need to either support the cycling theme or the overall functionality of the deck
• Avoid cards like Decree of Annihilation that break the social contract of my playgroup

Piloting the Deck

Gavi 101

Gavi, Nest Warden is a pretty expensive commander without any inherent protection. What this means is that piloting the deck hinging entirely on having Gavi in play is something that you should avoid entirely. The deck plays like a mid-range control/combo deck that wants to hold up mana and cycle at an opportune time (usually EOT) or react profitably to swing the tempo your way. It's also very tempting to cycle as many cards as you can over the course the game but it is important to also keep some of the cards to answer threats on the table. The following are general guidelines to piloting the deck successfully:

• Only cast Gavi if you have a way to protect her either in the form of permissions or cards like Escape Protocol
• Do not over-commit on cycling every card in your hand and remember to assess the boardstate to determine what's best to keep
• Take advantage of the deck's ability to answer a plethora of stuff for politics to gain board advantage
• It's tempting to cycle lands but play them if you need the land drops instead of fishing for more untapped lands

Notable Synergies

When piloting the deck, there are several notable synergies to look out for:

• Astral Drift/Astral Slide/Escape Protocol + utility creature = Any creature with an ETB effect can be abused continuously.
• Alhammarret's Archive/Rielle, the Everwise + Cycling cards = Draw additional card with cycling.
• Hall of Heliod's Generosity + Decree of Silence = A useful trick is to activate hall to put decree on top of library while decree's draw trigger is on the stack to be able to have another counterspell in hand for the turn.
• Warden of the Eye + Astral Drift/Astral Slide/Escape Protocol = A pretty backbreaking counterspell soft-lock with Decree of Silence.
• Vedalken AEthermage = Ability to tutor for 5 key wizards in the deck.
• Surly Badgersaur + Tectonic Reformation = Great combo that lets you basically chain cycle for as long as you draw into a land (and convert it into a cycler with reformation).

Wild Research

Wild Research is a scary card to most new players simply because randomly discarding a card seems like such a huge downside. What if you discarded that Cyclonic Rift in your hand? I can totally understand why it has been such an underplayed card and is only seeing fringe play in some Zedruu decks. This downside is negated with Mistveil Plains which can put the discarded card back to your library and be tutored again. Mistveil plains can be easily tutored in the deck via fetches (like Marsh Flats), Eternal Dragon, and Tithe. Mistveil plains is almost always active with both Gavi and her dino token in play to satisfy its activation requirement. The best way to do it is to activate wild research at your opponent's EOT so that you can use mistveil plains if needed. This card is extremely powerful in Gavi because of the following:

• Many cycling cards are pretty narrow in application and are usually used to cantrip for a better card. Wild Research can convert those cycling cards into a potentially better card. Mistveil Plains can put any discarded card back to library.

• This deck for the most part plays a "draw-go" reactive strategy where wild research is great as another way to use our mana efficiently.

• Wild research's random discard works well with discard triggers like Rielle, the Everwise and Drake Haven.

• We have a good amount of instants and enchantments that can be repeatedly tutored for.

• This deck is capable of drawing tons of cards which significantly mitigate the random discarding risk from wild research.

• We run a good amount of recursion like Sun Titan, Scholar of the Ages, Warden of the Eye, and Hall of Heliod's Generosity that negates the random discarding downside of wild research.

• Untappers like Vizier of Tumbling Sands and Cloud of Faeries can let me put more than a card back to library with Mistveil Plains if I want to tutor more than once with wild research.

Win Conditions

The Cycling Storm

This deck primarily wins by assembling a cycling engine to start "storming" off with a chain of cycling cards.The core of the engine consists of either New Perspectives or Escape Protocol + a mana positive generator and Tectonic Reformation. With this core engine in place, it only takes an enabler to start the cycling chain going. I've included more than 30 cycling cards in the deck to ensure that I have enough to cycle through my deck. Alhammarret's Archive is the most important card to keep the cycling storm from fizzling out. Having other supporting cards like Surly Badgersaur to be able to cast Thassa's Oracle after cycling a couple of lands is highly beneficial to have in play when I'm storming off.

Cycling Engine A: New Perspectives

The New Perspectives engine is the easiest engine to assemble as it only requires two pieces to get going. Tectonic Reformation basically reduces the chance of you fizzling out significantly as you can convert all of your lands into more cycling action. Your odds are even higher with Alhammarret's Archive in play:

• New Perspectives + Tectonic Reformation + full grip

Cycling Engine B: Escape Protocol

The next engine involves Escape Protocol and a mana positive generator to get going. This engine involves a bit of math to make sure that every loop is mana positive:

• Escape Protocol + Dockside Extortionist + Tectonic Reformation
• Escape Protocol + Scholar of the Ages + Turnabout + Instant/Sorcery cycler
• Escape Protocol + Cloud of Faeries + Tectonic Reformation + Lotus Field

Combos

The following are combos involving Scholar of the Ages with either Turnabout or Temporal Manipulation to win with Thassa's Oracle. If Thassa's Oracle is not available (due to getting removed by an opponent or some other reasons), Turnabout will net positive mana or Temporal Manipulation will have left over mana (after spending it to to perform the turns loop) to be able to use Drake Haven as many times as needed using Elixir of Immortality to reset the loop:

• Scholar of the Ages + Escape Protocol + Turnabout + instant/sorcery cycler (reset loop with Elixir of Immortality)
• Scholar of the Ages + Temporal Manipulation + Astral Slide/Astral Drift/Escape Protocol + instant/sorcery cycler (reset loop with Elixir of Immortality)

Token Beatdown

Using the power of Gavi's token generation and/or Drake Haven to assemble a lethal token army to overwhelm our opponents.

Powering Up (w/ Stax or Divergent)

Stax (High-Powered)

So now you're wondering what's the best way to increase the power level of this deck since your playgroup is on a higher power level. After numerous playtesting and experimentation, I've come across numerous synergies with stax pieces that are pretty much one-sided in this style of control/combo cycling deck helmed by Gavi. Since the combo for the deck requires some set-up, setting our opponents back in resources can buy us enough time to storm off. Due to the social contract of the playgroup, this strategy is omitted from my deck but will be considered if I decided to increase the power level of the deck in the future. The following are cards that I would recommend adding if your playgroup is of a higher power level and is alright with stax/MLD effects:

• Decree of Annihilation = One of the linchpin of this stax build that can be cycled for free and difficult to interact with short of a Stifle effect. Consider Crucible of Worlds for land recursion.
• Arcane Laboratory/Rule of Law = Since we're mostly cycling cards, rule of law effects work in our favor while hindering everyone's gameplan. Decree of Silence can lock out the table from casting spells at sorcery speed with Cloud of Faeries + Hall of Heliod's Generosity + Arcane Laboratory + Astral Slide/Astral Drift/Escape Protocol.
• Overburden = This card is pretty amazing with Astral Slide/Astral Drift to starve our opponents of lands every time we cycle a card and flicker their creature. There is also great synergy with Tectonic Reformation or any of the cycling lands that you've played earlier on.
• Thorn of Amethyst/Sphere of Resistance/Trinisphere/Grand Arbiter Augustin IV = These cards are pretty one-sided once we've got Gavi out since we'll be cycling for free most of the time.
• Winter Orb/Stasis/Static Orb = These effects can be negated with an Astral Slide + Dockside Extortionist/Cloud of Faeries or Surly Badgersaur engine in play. It might be a good idea to include Smothering Tithe if these cards are included.
• Smokestack = This card is pretty awesome with Gavi's token producing ability.
• Cursed Totem = We don't have any creatures with activated abilities making this card pretty much a one-sided effect.
• Phyrexian Revoker = A Pithing Needle effect that can be reseted by Astral Slide accordingly.
• Drannith Magistrate/Aven Mindcensor = Just overall great hatebear effects to supplement the stax strategy.
• Rhystic Study/Mystic Remora = These cards are now great in a stax-focused build and should be added.
• Containment Priest = Amazing synergy with Astral Slide/Astral Drift to exile a creature permanently.

Here's a sample brew I drafted for those that are interested in having a baseline to work off of. I'm currently looking for feedback to improve it as much as I can.

Divergent (cEDH)

At its current form, I don't think a Gavi stax strategy has been proven yet in a cEDH context. With the banning of Flash, the format has evolved to become more interactive and value-oriented which makes stax strategy viable again. I think that Gavi-stax is an avenue that can be explored in a cEDH context in the future. There is however a great cEDH brew centered around Divergent Transformations into Leveler + Thassa's Oracle which is something you should look into. The primer, written by a collaboration between 9Lives, igligl, and Weirdmagic, is here.

FAQ/Notable Exclusions

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why aren't you playing Solemnity which combos with Decree of Silence? Solemnity is in my opinion a terrible card by itself and doesn't do anything outside of that mana intensive combo. The odds of you pulling that combo off is actually pretty low in an interactive table and will set you back significantly with any interaction. Including Solemnity in the deck would also be forcing me into making several deck building concessions to extract more value out of it. Would you rather draw into solemnity or another card that does something?

• Wouldn't Library of Leng go infinite with any cycling cards? No it won't because library only works with effects not costs and cycling is part of the activated ability's cost unfortunately.

• How many lands should you be running? Since I run all of the cycling lands (which comes into play tapped), running more untapped lands is needed so that I can turn those cycling lands into cantrips and not have to be forced into playing them tapped and losing on tempo. If you run some "free" mana rocks like Mana Crypt/Chrome Mox, running 37 feels right after numerous testing. Otherwise, running at least 38 is my recommendation if you included most of the cycling lands.

• Why are you playing other mana rocks instead of Izzet Signet/Azorius Signet/Boros Signet? I usually try to avoid signets because they require an additional mana source to work. You actually lose tempo when you cast it without any way of using it. This fact is ever more so important in this deck when I want as much mana available to me to cycle my cards.

• Why aren't you running more traditional counterspells and removals like Path to Exile and Counterspell? I want to keep the deck as thematic as possible and found a couple of cycling cards that can emulate those effects pretty well. For example, Astral Slide does a great job of fogging problematic creatures coming your way.

• Wait you're not even playing Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe? After playtesting I find that those cards are practically win more cards in this particular build because I can churn through my deck pretty well and Surly Badgersaur does a better job than Smothering Tithe in producing treasure token on demand.

• Why aren't you playing "insert cycling card here"? There are a ton of cycling cards out there and will be impossible to include every one of them in. Ultimately it comes down to personally preference and playgroup which determined what I chose to put in the deck.

• Some cards in the list are out of my budget. Are there any budget replacements for them? Of course! Gilded Drake can be replaced with Agent of Treachery/Perplexing Chimera and Mana Crypt with Lotus Petal/Everflowing Chalice.

Notable Exclusions

• Decree of Annihilation: This card is just too mean for my playgroup and I've decided to exclude this from my list (save for some special occasions).
• Bag of Holding: This card was in my first couple of iterations of the deck but was ultimately cut. This is because this is a card that sounds awesome in theory but often flops in actual games. There are just too many removals and ways to mess with this card to make it worth it especially when the activation cost is . What that means is that if you're tapped out your opponents can mess with you by just removing it. It is also a nonbo with Decree of Silence loops.
• Shark Typhoon: Does too little for a deck that doesn't aim to cast a bunch of instants and sorceries.
• Unpredictable Cyclone: Powerful card but does not synergize well with my strategy.
• Abandoned Sarcophagus: Not a big fan of this card due to the exile clause and it doesn't return cyclers back to my hand.
• Zenith Flare: This card is only good late game and is mostly a dead card early to mid game.

Feel free to join the Gavi discord here.

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Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 24 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.08
Tokens	Dinosaur Cat 2/2 RW, Drake 2/2 U, Treasure
Folders	My EDH Brews, EDH, cycling win, Great Ideas, EDH, Cool Ideas, EDH decks, Thematic, Interesting Ideas, EDH