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Kynaios and Tiro Cycle Slide

Commander / EDH RGWU

Robot_Drew

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Actual Lands (30)

Armies (7)

Cycling Lands (16)

Value (11)

Tutors (8)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis

Control (11)

Acceleration (10)

The Loam Engine (6)

Maybeboard

Tutors (3)

Acceleration (1)

Value (1)

Actual Lands (2)

Control (1)

Protection (2)

Background

My first EDH deck of original design was Hazezon Tamar Landfall/Slide Control, using Astral Slide and Life from the Loam to generate card advantage while abusing Landfall to make armies. The lands-matter control/tempo strategy used Hazezon Tamar as a late game threat, sliding him for multiple triggers and removing him from the field before resolution to leave a permanent army equal to double or triple your land count.

With C16, K&T give Commander-slot support to the strategy while also giving access to blue. Despite the lack of a threat in the Command Zone, consistency is far higher for opening hands and overall strategy.

Strategy

General

The general plan is to play "Lands matter" while alternating some sort of threat or control. K&T offer the ability to ramp and draw while appealing to the table, using the asymmetrical group hug icon to advance our own agenda.

Astral Slide generates value through cycling and pairs with Life from the Loam to blink and protect whatever you'd like. The deck also uses Lightning Rift and Drake Haven to generate value, with Fluctuator and New Perspectives to grease the wheels.

The deck seeks land-centric utility and so adopted a Desert package from Amonkhet for more cyclers, graveyard hate, creature protection, and desert-tutoring ramp.

The Actual Lands

The lands play a controlling posture while cycling does its thing. Ideally the opening hand can hit K&T mana by turn 4, with ramp helping it along. The deck is 48% land (47/99), so a land light hand should correct with good nonlands and a land heavy hand should get filtered by K&T.

Land tutors include Crop Rotation, Traverse the Ulvenwald, Tolaria West, Shefet Monitor, and Intuition. Recursion is handled by LftL, Crucible, and Magus of the Crucible, with Sun Titan getting an honorable mention.

The color in the mana base skews green, as it's the most important by far. Should you need to replace ABU duals, look toward BFZ fetchables as replacements. With the landfall strategy, fetches are the most important higher-price land although my list isn't running Bloodstained Mire and Polluted Delta to make more room for green duals.

Cycling

With 16 cycling lands, it's ok to play them out or fetch them tapped. The "best" cyclers to have in play are Deserts since they can fuel Scavenger Grounds and have the hardest cycle cost to pay. The Urza-style cyclers (cycling cost ) pair excellently with Fluctuator, but the Onslaught cyclers (simply costing ///) win out otherwise. Obviously, under the right Perspective, all cycling is equal.

Extra cycling lands in play are generally "safe;" I'd rather have them in play than in the graveyard, as it's expected to lose some to grave hate. Trade Routes, Meloku, and Kefnet can pick them back up as needed.

Life from the Loam is the single most tutored card, followed closely by Astral Slide. It's always worth it to keep it in hand or have an instant way to dredge it, as the deck is very reliant on it as an engine, with Crucible effect + Trade Routes (+ Azusa) being the only other way to regularly cycle. I've debated running Riftsweeper just in case it's exiled; it's that integral.

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