Tour de France - 5C Cycling

Commander / EDH* Casual Five Color Jank Theme/Gimmick

MurderForBrunch

Creature (27)

• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Architects of Will
• 1x Chartooth Cougar
• 1x Curator of Mysteries
• 1x Drannith Healer
• 1x Drannith Stinger
• 1x Esper Sojourners
• 1x Flourishing Fox
• 1x Gavi, Nest Warden
• 1x Greater Sandwurm
• 1x Hollow One
• 1x Horror of the Broken Lands
• 1x Jhessian Zombies
• 1x Krosan Tusker
• 1x Nimble Obstructionist
• 1x Pale Recluse
• 1x Primoc Escapee
• 1x Scion of Darkness
• 1x Shadowstorm Vizier
• 1x Street Wraith
• 1x The Locust God
• 1x Titanoth Rex
• 1x Vedalken AEthermage
• 1x Vile Manifestation
• 1x Vizier of Tumbling Sands
• 1x Void Beckoner
• 1x Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Artifact (6)

• 1x Abandoned Sarcophagus
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Fluctuator
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Sol Ring

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace Beleren

Land (35)

• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Blasted Landscape
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desert of the Fervent
• 1x Desert of the Glorified
• 1x Desert of the Indomitable
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Scattered Groves
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Sheltered Thicket
• 3x Snow-Covered Forest
• 4x Snow-Covered Island
• 2x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 3x Snow-Covered Plains
• 4x Snow-Covered Swamp

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Astral Drift
• 1x Astral Slide
• 1x Cast Out
• 1x Drake Haven
• 1x Faith of the Devoted
• 1x New Perspectives
• 1x Ominous Seas
• 1x Reconnaissance Mission
• 1x Tectonic Reformation

Commander (1)

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Akroma's Vengeance
• 1x Decree of Justice
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Edge of Autumn
• 1x Go for Blood
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Marshaling Cry
• 1x Migration Path
• 1x Migratory Route
• 1x Sweltering Suns
• 1x Twilight's Call
• 1x Windfall

Instant (8)

• 1x Countervailing Winds
• 1x Expunge
• 1x Forsake the Worldly
• 1x Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 1x Lull
• 1x Neutralize
• 1x Starstorm
• 1x Zenith Flare

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Glint-Horn Buccaneer

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Hi all! This deck is basically what the title says, it's a five colour Cycling deck. No combos, no bronken interactions, just a bunch of Cycling cards and a few payoffs. Firs of all, the deck name is not my idea. I wish it was, because it's brilliant, but it's a reference to the Canadian Highlander Cycling deck by Jeremy White.

This might be one of the most dedicated decks I've made to a certain mechanic or a theme, in that, there's about 66 cards with Cycling in the list!

Commander Choice

The Commander choice for this deck was a bit challenging. I knew for sure I wanted a five colour commander, black has stuff like Archfiend of Ifnir and Vile Manifestation which were the main threats in my first Standard deck. Then, green gets you stuff like Krosan Tusker which was one of the first cards I first owned years before I started playing Magic, and also other stuff like Edge of Autumn and Lull.

Thus, I went with Cromat! It used to be Kenrith, the Returned King which I think is just great, it does a lot, but more specifically, the last ability on Kenrith can reanimate all the janky creatures I cycle through the game! That being said, Kenrith is a really good Commander, and sometimes it feels like it can win on its own. Then Futuremonk commented that Cromat it's basically casual Kenrith, and I couldn't agree more! Despite being casual, it's also pretty good! And so, Cromat it is! :D

Main Strategy and Payoffs

The main strategy of this deck is pretty clear at this point, it's cycling a bunch, go through your deck and draw all the cards in the world! This is why this deck has 66 cards with Cycling in it! I just have to keep cycling and cycling, and manage not to die, and maybe find a payoff or two in the way.

Enablers

An important part of the deck are the enablers, by which I mean, cards that let you cycle for cheaper or maybe even for free. Those cards are New Perspectives (which also draws cards), Fluctuator and the new Gavi, Nest Warden and Zirda, the Dawnwaker. All these cards make Cycling either cheaper of free, and except for Fluctuator, all have other upsides, giving you tokens, or drawing cards or making a creature unblockable (admitedly, the lesser of the upsides).

Another interesting enabler is Tectonic Reformation. This card in an enabler in the same way, sort of giving all lands Cycling. Also, lands with that cycle usually do so for more than one mana, so in a way, this card also makes cycling cheaper. In the worst case scenario, this card cycles.

Payoffs

At some point, I have to try to win. One of the clearer ways to do so is with Drake Haven, which gives us 2/2 flyers for 1 mana! Similarly I'm running Faith of the Devoted and Ominous Seas, which is an interesting new card. Another interesting one is Astral Drift to blink attacking creatures or some of our own, if that's worth somehow. The new Gavi, Nest Warden is both an enabler and a payoff in it's own. Decree of Justice is also pretty cool, giving you a bunch of tokens at instant speed, uncounterably. And one card that might just outright kill someone is Zenith Flare!

Finally, The Locust God is also a pretty cool payoff that doesn't specifically care about cycling, but it does about drawing cards, which is pretty much the same. Another pretty cool payoff that doesn't care about cycling or drawing cards is Living Death, because what you want to do when you cycled a bunch of janky creatures is to reanimate all those janky creatures!

Notable Mentions

As a final note, I'd like to mention some notable cards with Cycling. I already mentioned Decree of Justice, which is pretty cool. Another similar card in a way is Shark Typhoon, which you might think is a payoff, it creates tokens, right? But that's where you would be wrong, I am barely casting anything except for my Commander, a payoff and some removal spell maybe! What you do with this card is cycle it and create a big creature. One of the non-creature I'll probably be casting is Marshaling Cry because not only it has Cycling (obviously) but also Flashback, so I can pump all the tokens that Drake Haven makes!

An important part of the deck being five colours is ramp, and more specifically fixing. For that reason there are six cards with some type of Landcycling, which means that instead of drawing cards, you go look for a land of a certain type and put it in your hand. The coolest part about this is that the land doesn't have to be a basic, to wit Chartooth Cougar can get one of the new fancy Trilands like Ketria Triome. Another card like Krosan Tusker does both, it looks for a basic land and then draws you a card!

A hilarious card in the deck is Vedalken AEthermage who has Wizardcycling, and can get some cool creatures in your deck. It can get a Drannith Stinger to start dealing some damage, or a Nimble Obstructionist and counter something important!

Finally, another notable mention is Abandoned Sarcophagus. This card is an insane card advantage! When you have cycled half your deck, there's no better feeling than casting a flying monkey like Primoc Escapee from your graveyard!

Budget of the deck

A good thing about this deck is that it can be super budget to build. There are some expensive cards that up the budget quite a bit, specially in the mana base. If you were to cut the budget you could cut the Triomes like Raugrin Triome and cut about 30$ of the budget. A quite expensive card also is Shark Typhoon which in this deck is just another cycler, and can be cut for something else. And the same goes for Enlightened Tutor which can be swapped by the way cheaper Enlightened Tutor! Just cutting those cards you are cutting like 90$ all together! :D

And that's basically the deck! As you could probably guess by now, this is a pretty casual deck, and I pretty much like this about it! I don't want to optimize this list by any means, I want it to be a tuned down deck to play with decks alike.

Anyway, I hope you like the list! Any thoughts, suggestions, critics, love comments, hate comments... basically any feedback is more than welcome!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 26 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 30 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.91
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Bird 1/1 W, Dinosaur Cat 2/2 RW, Drake 2/2 U, Insect 1/1 UR, Kraken 8/8 U, Soldier 1/1 W