Kydele/Ravos (Cycling) (EDH / Commander)

Last Updated 2/26/2024 (MKM)
4C Cycling Deck - Kydele/Ravos
Notes:
-57 Cards that cycle.

Deck History
I was inspired to build a deck focused on cycling after watching coverage of Modern Living End decks and the U/W Drake Haven decks from Hour of Devastation Standard. I was impressed by how quickly they could cycle and dig through their decks and how they could generate a game-winning board state out of nowhere. Though this deck started as an experiment to see if a cycling deck was viable in Commander, it has quickly become one of my favorite decks to pilot because of the unique game plan, the challenge of its decision trees, and how fun it is to see it go off.

Strategy:
This deck is designed to cycle constantly, and generate value and board dominance from doing so.

The deck has a pretty slow early game. Between a mana base full of ETB tapped lands and the fact that the payoff cards require either time to set up or a lot of mana, you will find yourself doing not much in the first few turns. However, since over 50% of the deck cycles, these turns can be used to dig through the deck to find what you need to set up later turns.

You really start to get ahead when you can introduce ways to gain additional value from cards you cycle (Astral Drift, Alhammarret’s Archive, The Gitrog Monster), or make it easier to cycle (New Perspectives, Fluctuator). The best example of both is the primary Commander, Kydele. Because she generates more mana for each additional card you draw in a turn, her mana ability is the easiest way to power out the expensive payoff cards (Decree of Justice, Rise of the Dark Realms, Kozilek, the Great Distortion).

Once you (hopefully!) survive the first few turns, the deck is designed to use the payoff cards to get ahead either by recurring the cards you had cycled in the early turns (Rise of the Dark Realms, Finale of Eternity) or continue to cycle to generate board advantage (Drake Haven, Archfiend of Ifnir, Bone Miser). This strategy to win is further improved when adding anthem effects that fit into the deck (Ravos, Mirari’s Wake) and ways to protect and recur your strategies (Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Creeping Renaissance, Worm Harvest).

Card Choices:
When I look to edit and tune the deck, I lay out the cards based on their functionality and how the fit into the cycling strategy. It is important to have as many cards as possible that cycle because of how important they are to the game plan, so I try to keep that number near 50.
• Cyclers: Creature cards that primarily cycle. It is important to have a mix of power levels, casting costs, and abilities. This is because while you want to have big giant creatures (Greater Sandwurm, Rampaging Hippo) to reanimate and win the game with Rise of the Dark Realms, you can also cast the creatures early to defend against an aggressive opponent (Wasteland Scorpion, Vile Manifestation). Having cycling creatures with flying can also be important, as their evasion can ensure that you win the game after a Rise of the Dark Realms against opponents that maintained a strong board presence.
• Ramp: Ramp is super important in this deck, as having a lot of mana to help drop the expensive payoff cards is critical. Also, the four-color mana base is pretty weak compared to the fetch/dual land combinations since so many of the lands are needed to be cyclers, so ways to find the colors you need are important to include (Shefet Monitor, Krosan Tusker, Sanctum Plowbeast, Chromatic Lantern).
• Card Advantage: It might seem strange to include more cards that generate card advantage in a deck filled with cyclers, but the ones included in this deck either help Kydele be more explosive (Windfall, Ancient Excavation, Sylvan Library) and keep the hand full of cyclers, or help find the cards you need in any situation (Razaketh’s Rite).
• Removal: This can feel like the weak point of the deck, especially against tuned and aggressive decks. However, once you have enough mana, these cards are great to either reset the board in your favor or allow you to protect the winning board state you have been able to create.
• Cycling Synergy: Though these cards are the strongest enablers in the deck, the build is limited by how many you can play and how they dictate the cards you can play to get the best use of them. For example, Fluctuator is one of the strongest cards in the deck, but it requires most of the cycling cards to include colorless cycling costs. You can have games where you cycle through huge swathes of your deck for free using this card, but it also meant that we had to cut strong cycle cards with cheaper single, colored mana costs that could have made cycling in the early game easier.
• Recursion: The intent of the recursion in this deck is to return cycling cards so you can continue to use them to power out the payoff cards. The easiest way for this deck to lose is to run out of cards in hand to cycle, because then cards like Drake Haven and Astral Drift are useless. For this reason, cards like Creeping Renaissance and Bag of Holding are great, as the more cycling cards you can recur for one card/effect, the better.
• Payoff Cards: These cards are the primary win conditions of this deck, and with the right setup can end the game within one or two turns with massive board advantage. The strength of these cards is that most can also be used early to build a defense if needed.