Gavi Cycling Like It's Tour de Deck (EDH / Commander)

April 2020:

This is v 1.0! As of this version, I've not included Unpredictable Cyclone and Snare Tactician. There are only about 20 non-land permanents with cycling to trigger Unpredictable Cyclone and the Cyclone doesn't do anything else so i feel there is likely not enough permanent cycle support to get good value out of that. Snare Tactician seems like it doesn't do enough when cycling either, usually not a big impact when you'd likely want to tap the opponent's entire board and not just one creature at a time, although in some (read: likely very few) instances it may be impactful to tap down that one key creature constantly, but that's not enough for me to include the card so far. Also, I have not yet had the chance to really evaluate and upgrade/replace mana rocks and some specific lands, but will get there as I put more time into making this list.

Started with the C20 (Ikoria Commander) pre-constructed deck Timeless Wisdom and am now trying to find the balance between drawing multiple cards per turn via cycling and static extra draw from permanents such as Rhystic Study, Mercurial Chemister, and Consecrated Sphinx to trigger Gavi, Nest Warden to make those cute 2/2 Dinosaur Cat tokens.

Focal point is to eventually draw into Astral Slide, Astral Drift, or Escape Protocol and use their triggered abilities from cycling to draw more cards with stuff like Mulldrifter and Cloudblazer to then trigger Gavi, Nest Warden more for the 2/2 tokens; or use cycling to make more tokens with stuff like Valiant Rescuer, Drake Haven, Improbable Alliance, Spirit Cairn and The Locust God, or cycle to trigger Slide/Drift/Protocol ability to make more tokens with Myr Battlesphere, Maverick Thopterist, Whirler Rogue, Blade Splicer, etc. In case that value actually takes off, Anointed Procession and Divine Visitation can take it to the next level.

I feel like this deck is pulling a little in each direction of draw on multiple turns, ETB abilities for Slide/Drift/Protocol, and creating tokens as an engine, which honestly to me feels like it isn't the most synergistic list in any of those regards, but I'd like to get it there! I will likely find out which theme (more draw vs ETB vs tokens) to drop in favor of strengthening another. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know how I might get there though! And thanks!