Break the Cycle (~ $50 Timeless Wisdom Upgrade)

Commander / EDH* RUW (Jeskai, America)

Zooby9

Land (38)

• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Blasted Landscape
• 1x Boros Garrison
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desert of the Fervent
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Drifting Meadow
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Hostile Desert
• 1x Irrigated Farmland
• 4x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Mystic Monastery
• 4x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Skycloud Expanse
• 1x Smoldering Crater
• 1x Steam Vents

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Akroma's Vengeance
• 1x Boon of the Wish-Giver
• 1x Decree of Justice
• 1x Dismantling Wave
• 1x Idyllic Tutor

Creature (22)

• 1x Aven Wind Guide
• 1x Brallin, Skyshark Rider  ^Flip
• 1x Cloud of Faeries
• 1x Curator of Mysteries
• 1x Drannith Stinger
• 1x Ephara, God of the Polis
• 1x Flourishing Fox
• 1x Herald of the Forgotten
• 1x Nimble Obstructionist
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun
• 1x Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Rooting Moloch
• 1x Savai Thundermane
• 1x Shabraz, the Skyshark  ^Flip
• 1x Spellpyre Phoenix
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Surly Badgersaur
• 1x The Locust God
• 1x Valiant Rescuer
• 1x Vizier of Tumbling Sands
• 1x Yidaro, Wandering Monster

Artifact (12)

• 1x Abandoned Sarcophagus
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Fluctuator
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Raugrin Crystal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Soul-Guide Lantern
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Creativity

Commander (1)

Enchantment (13)

• 1x Astral Drift
• 1x Astral Slide
• 1x Cast Out
• 1x Crystalline Resonance
• 1x Drake Haven
• 1x Escape Protocol
• 1x Lay Claim
• 1x Lightning Rift
• 1x New Perspectives
• 1x Ominous Seas
• 1x Reconnaissance Mission
• 1x Tectonic Reformation
• 1x Unpredictable Cyclone

Instant (8)

• 1x Angelsong
• 1x Countervailing Winds
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Forsake the Worldly
• 1x Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 1x Neutralize
• 1x Starstorm
• 1x Zenith Flare

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

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Maybeboard

Creature (8)

• 1x Agitator Ant
• 1x Akim, the Soaring Wind
• 1x Cryptic Trilobite
• 1x Eternal Dragon
• 1x Ethereal Forager
• 1x Isperia, Supreme Judge
• 1x Mercurial Chemister
• 1x Portal Mage

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Hoofprints of the Stag
• 1x Martial Impetus
• 1x Psychic Impetus
• 1x Shiny Impetus
• 1x Spirit Cairn

Land (4)

• 1x Island
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Temple of the False God

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Descend upon the Sinful
• 1x Migratory Route
• 1x Slice and Dice
• 1x Windfall

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Chandra, Flamecaller

Artifact (1)

• 1x Bonder's Ornament

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This deck is my take on updating the Timeless Wisdom C20 precon deck. I have personally been a fan of the cycling mechanic for a while, and was disappointed that the Amonkhet block did not provide a suitable commander for the archetype. With this precon coming out, Gavi, Nest Warden is the perfect commander for the cycling archetype. I was a big fan of Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer in the C19 precons have have a deck built around her since I also enjoy morph a lot, and Gavi is structured very similarly to Kadena, except instead of making tokens and drawing a card, Gavi draws us a card then creates a token.

I have setup the decklist so that all cards in the mainboard are the cards I would keep from the precon as well as the additions I would make and all cards in the maybe board are the cards I would remove from the precon. Below I'll explain my reasoning for the additions I would be making to the deck. I also generally try to make my decks fairly budget, but if there's a card that would be good that I already have in my collections, I usually add it anyway.

Lands:

Blasted Landscape and Raugrin Triome: The two cycling lands in these colors that the precon left out. I think adding them as more cards that can cycle is good and Blasted Landscape is the only cycling land to not come in tapped if you play it.

Steam Vents: Dual lands always help with mana consistency and I have a couple in my collection, so an obvious include.

Artifacts:

Talisman of Creativity and Talisman of Conviction: The cards are cheap costed ways to add a little ramp to the deck to make it more consistent.

Soul-Guide Lantern: Graveyard hate is an essential thing to have in a commander deck since many decks, like this one, access their graveyard as a resource. Soul-Guide Lantern is great since it can deal with a specific card when it enters the battlefield and you can just tap it to get rid of only your opponents graveyards and leave yours alone. In addition, if it becomes a dead card you can pay a mana and sac it to draw a card.

Enchantments:

Astral Slide: The older version of Astral Drift. There are a decent amount of creatures in this deck that give us some advantage when they enter the battlefield, so making that happen multiple times is very advantageous. Additionally, we are able to remove our opponents creatures if they get in the way of our gameplan, which is very helpful.

Lay Claim: Everyone has seen how good Agent of Treachery is in standard, so why not add a similar effect that is harder to remove and can cycle if it has no good targets?

Escape Protocol: This card helps protect our creatures. If the opponent targets any creatures we control, we can just cycle and pay one generic mana to blink it and fizzle their removal. Also can help with any etb effects.

Unpredictable Cyclone: This card seems super fun. Instead of drawing cards when we cycle, we just look for the next card in our deck that shares a card type with it and can cast it for free. Now I'm not sure if this card is necessarily good, but it seems like a ton of fun, so I added it anyway. It can also cycle itself in a pinch.

Instants:

Angelsong: There are some times when your opponent is attacking you for lethal and you just need a way to get to next turn to win. Enter Angelsong which can fog them for a turn. It also cycles if it's not useful at the time.

Countervailing Winds: A counterspell that is really good in a cycling deck as you're likely to have a lot of cards in the graveyard. It can also be cycled away if it's not the card of choice at the time.

Forsake the Worldly: This is what I consider to be one of the best utility cycling cards that can be used in most white decks. It's instant speed removal for any artifact or enchantment and it doesn't just destroy but it exiles it. It can also be cycled away if there are no good targets.

Starstorm: I was debating whether I should add this or keep Slice and Dice in the deck, but I decided on adding this. I like it better because it's much more flexible so if you only wanted to deal 3 damage to keep around some of the better cards in the deck or if you need to deal more damage to get rid of all creatures, it can do that. It's also an instant as opposed to Slice and Dice being a sorcery, the rate for dealing damage is the same, and it can still be cycled itself.

Sorcery:

Idyllic Tutor: A lot of the major payoffs in this deck are enchantments such as Astral Drift or Drake Haven, which make them very important cards for the deck to function. Now obviously cycling allows us to churn through the deck at a pretty good clip to find them, but adding Idyllic Tutor just adds a little bit more consistency to help us win.

Planeswalker:

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries: Cycling draws you a lot of cards, like a LOT of cards, so sometimes we might find ourselves almost out of cards in our deck and not even close to winning. Enter Jace who can help with that issue by making it a win condition instead of a way to lose.

Creatures:

Aven Wind Guide: There are a good amount of token producers in the deck starting with Gavi, Nest Warden herself. Now a lot of them are small and not very evasive, so a good way to help us make them more effective is to make them fly and be able to use them as both attackers and blockers. Aven Wind Guide does both while also being able to make itself a token from the graveyard if it ends up there.

Cloud of Faeries: This card is best as a target for Astral Slide or Astral Drift as it can untap lands when it enters the battlefield, and if we already cast it it's just free mana. It can also be cycled if we're in a pinch.

Drannith Stinger: This creature is a good little way to rack up a good amount of damage. Each time we cycle a card while this is on the battlefield, EACH opponent loses 1 life, which after cycling a few times can start to add up, plus if an opponent tries to remove it, we can keep cycling in response. It can also be cycled if not deemed useful at the time.

Ephara, God of the Polis: Ephara plays an interesting part in this deck. Using Gavi on our turn, by cycling one card for free using her along with our draw for turn, we get a token. Now if we have Ephara out, on our next opponents turn we draw a card since a creature (Gavi's token) entered the battlefield under our control last turn. We can also cycle a card for free using Gavi and again we get a token from her. We can repeat this for each opponent's turn so that we are getting a token on each turn as long as we have something with cycling and build up a nice army of tokens.

Flourishing Fox: This little fella can go from not a threat to a decently size threat pretty quickly with some cycling and can be cycled away himself for a singular mana of any color.

Niv-Mizzet, Parun: Niv does a similar job to Drannith Stinger in that he pings each time we cycle, but he does it each time we draw a card and to any singular target. This means we can ping down troublesome creatures or planeswalkers if necessary or just keep hitting our opponents. In addition, he helps us find answers whenever someone casts an instant or sorcery.

Yidaro, Wandering Monster: Yidaro is a really cool card that I wanted to try out in the deck. The condition of having to cycle him four times before he can be cast for free in a singleton format with 100 card decks might be a bit of an ask, but I think it's a good option to have just in case. Also, if we have Unpredictable Cyclone out, he is a really good target for us to hit, or a repeatable card to cycle to help us get out a bunch of creatures. I'm excited to see how he does.

I'd be happy to hear any feedback anyone may have and please give me an upvote if you like the deck!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 34 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.55
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Aven Wind Guide 2/3 W, Dinosaur Cat 2/2 RW, Drake 2/2 U, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Insect 1/1 UR, Kraken 8/8 U, Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure