Miscalculation

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays (2).

Cycling (2) ((2), Discard this card: Draw a card.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

shadowjules on Budget Cycle Storm

3 months ago

Hey QuantumGeckoGuy! Very cool deck man, I tinkered with something like this for a while as well.

I tinkered with a similar concept for ages. Instead of looking to scale with Drannith Stinger and Marauding Mako, mine had a combo win with Lotleth Giant, and a secondary beatdown plan with Hollow One and Chitin Gravestalker. The deck DESPERATELY needs to cut down as much as humanly possible on any card without cycling. I think running Dark Ritual is a mistake, as you can get similar results with 4 copies of Lotus Petal - when churning through your deck, you can combo off so much earlier with you effectively know you can consistently find free bursts of 1 mana to cast Songs of the Damned. The difference between your bursts of mana costing (1) and costing (0) is huge. Running Lotus Petal is extra good when accompanied by a suite of (1) cost cyclers. Drannith Stinger is a good start, but I would run every creature with a (1) mana cycling ability ever printed - it just adds a crazy amount of consistency. I've found that 38 to 40 creatures with cycling in the deck is ideal for a 1 turn combo kill.

Finding lands is extra easy with cards like Troll of Khazad-dum and Oliphaunt. With the amount of cards that cycling lets you see, you really don't want to mulligan. These landcycling cards are huge because they often allow you a turn 1 tutor of a land in the early game (Troll of Khazad-dum gets you Fetid Pools and Oliphaunt gets you Canyon Slough). You can tutor for a land turn one either with an untapped Ash Barrens or the strict upgrade in Capital City that also filters your mana, or again with a turn 1 Lotus Petal. Later in the game, the land cyclers are never dead draws, because they tutor for a dual land, that also ends up cycling away, letting you see more cards and remove more lands from your deck as you combo off.

Crucially for the combo win, Lotleth Giant only cares about creatures in your graveyard, so do keep that in mind when comboing off. I tend to split my graveyard into two piles - 1 with creatures and 1 with noncreature spells (cycled lands, lotus petals, and so on). The combo turn needs to resolve a Songs of the Damned to cast Lotleth Giant usually, but thats not always super hard. A sideboard tech of Miscalculation really helps protect this here. Also 2 Shadow of the Grave is usually enough to stop your deck from running out of steam, especially since you run out of steam after seeing like around 30-40 cards in your deck. Again, Lotus Petal is so useful here.

Finally, I've found that you CAN run 3 fluctuators and not 4 if you're able to have a split of cycling cards with a low enough curve. This deck really wants to minimize the turns it spends not spending mana, so again, Ash Barrens and Capital City not entering tapped is really important, same for your Lotus Petal. These untapped mana sources, along with 1 mana landcyclers and 1 mana cycling creatures gets this deck to be much more consistent and much faster.

Built like this, the Hollow Ones / Chitin Gravestalker Beatdown plan is more of a trick to trip up your opponent rather than a primary win condition. When your opponent plans to counter your big combo turn, dumping 2 4/4s and a 5/4 onto the battlefield really early can be backbreaking. THese are the matchups where something like Drannith Stinger is just a lot less useful as a pinger, and I would think of Marauding Mako and Drannith Stinger as plank cards with cycling rather than win conditions.

This deck has trouble against certain kinds of graveyard hate. It never targets anything in the graveyard, and never looks to play things directly out of your graveyard, so cards like Grafdigger's Cage and Soulless Jailer don't do anything. But cards that exile our whole graveyard or stop cards from getting to the graveyard (Rest in Piece / Leyline of the Void / Soul-Guide Lantern) make the Lolteth gameplan obsolete. Sideboarding in Ominous Seas still turns out cycling card draw into massive beaters, and this can still let us combo into two or three 8/8s to threaten a short clock.

The deck has some potential and honestly is a ton of fun to tinker with. I've been iterating on it for ages myself. Here's my list if you're at all curious (Ignore the silly name and out-of-date descriptions, its a little messy and I started it 5 years ago in high school). Deck: deck-large:cycling-coombo-deck

Fluggleshmuggits on Cube Eternal

4 months ago

IN IN IN
Guide of Souls
Sheltered by Ghosts
Voice of Victory
Staff of the Storyteller
Elspeth, Storm Slayer
Miscalculation
Hullbreacher
Silent Hallcreeper
Qarsi Revenant
Avenger of the Fallen
Concealing Curtains  ^Flip
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker  ^Flip
Razorkin Needlehead
Fear of Missing Out
Cori-Steel Cutter
Mine Collapse
Gut, True Soul Zealot
Sylvan Safekeeper
Keen-Eyed Curator
Birthing Ritual
Fanatic of Rhonas
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Ursine Monstrosity
Amalia Benavides Aguirre
Koma, World-Eater
Bloodbraid Challenger
Nexus of Becoming

OUT OUT OUT
Wall of Omens
Silverblade Paladin
Ranger of Eos
Glimmerpoint Stag
Baneslayer Angel
Thirst for Discovery
Vendilion Clique
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Murderous Rider
Kitesail Freebooter
Unearth
Bitter Reunion
Eidolon of the Great Revel
Thundermaw Hellkite
Flame Rift
Soul Sear
Greater Gargadon
Rancor
Scavenging Ooze
Wall of Blossoms
Strangleroot Geist
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Whisperwood Elemental
Zealous Persecution
Simic Charm
Radha, Heart of Keld
Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender

Icbrgr on Sneak Orb

10 months ago

I really like this! Seems really powerful but Winter Orb just feels out of place in my opinion; why not just a full playset of Sneak Attack? maybe something like Miscalculation to flex as either interaction or just help dig for combo to win?

bomb_arie on [Satoru Umezawa] Infi-Ninjutsu

2 years ago

Arekku you are right about that. Somewhere I made a Miscalculation when writing out the combo. I will fix it later, thanks for noticing!

Spell_Slam on GU Turbo Fog

3 years ago

The deck looks way better! I am not sure thought collapse is worth the extra {1} to mill three cards over something as efficient as Counterspell. There's also Miscalculation and Memory Lapse that could fit the bill in terms of general counters. I could also see Negate or Dispel seeing some maindeck play.

Kiemattson on UR Modern Landstill

3 years ago

I don't understand the inclusion of chromatic sphere. If you were looking for non spell card draw Waker of Waves would be a better choice. I like the budget restriction you have going, makes your choices more spicy. Btw Miscalculation is the same price as Mana leak and has a better text box for this style of deck.

Polaris on Dredge + Cycling

3 years ago

Dredge is a replacement effect you can apply any time you would draw a card, so an ordinary cycling effect like Miscalculation will count. Instead of drawing the card as part of the cycle, you dredge one from your graveyard.

To answer your second question, no. If you can't take the action of milling N cards, the dredge action can't be completed and you'll just draw a card. This is probably to prevent people from doing exactly what you're proposing here and just never decking themselves. See Rule 702.52 (Dredge):

    702.52a Dredge is a static ability that functions only while the card with dredge is in a player’s graveyard. “Dredge N” means “As long as you have at least N cards in your library, if you would draw a card, you may instead mill N cards and return this card from your graveyard to your hand.”
    702.52b A player with fewer cards in their library than the number required by a dredge ability can’t mill any of them this way.

Eckat on THE Praetor

4 years ago

Okay did it, Removed Personal Tutor and added Triumph of the Hordes

And also replaced Disallow with Miscalculation