Flourishing with Flair
“How about survival rule 783: ‘There is always a bigger fox!’” - Jonald to Zurdi
Flourishing Fox illustrated by Isle Gort
Mardu Cycling is an aggressive deck with a combo finish. Its cheap creatures apply additional pressure for each card cycled. With a critical mass of cycling cards in the graveyard, the deck typically closes things out with a big Zenith Flare over the top.
Aggressive Creatures
Efficient, snowballing creatures
Don’t let the vanilla stats of these creatures fool you— they can pile on damage quickly or switch gears to stall for time! With 37 cycling cards, 29 of which cycle for one mana, a Flourishing Fox can easily swing for three damage on turn two. It will quickly outpace most other creatures, allowing it to relentlessly attack if ahead or become a wall when needed. Drannith Stinger can hide behind that wall while keeping the pressure up and its counterpart Drannith Healer can bolster the life total to resume swinging with the fox. Valiant Rescuer overwhelms with a wide board or provides an endless supply of chump blockers to delay.
Because of their low mana costs, these creatures often slip under countermagic in the early game. Then, they continue to gain value without needing to cast additional spells. Their triggers can also occur at instant speed, acting as a combat trick, sudden life swing or a surprise blocker.
Combo Kill
The finale to the fireworks
Cycling’s “beatdown into stall” plan synergizes very well with it’s combo finish. Each card cycled not only gains value immediately with creature triggers, but becomes additional points of life-drain with Zenith Flare. This key card does everything from stabilizing while behind to ending the game outright. Four mana might seem difficult to reach in a deck with only 18 lands, but with 29 cyclers at one mana, you are roughly 93% likely to see land two on turn two. At that point, the deck plays some of its payoff creatures and smooths out future turns with cyclers.
With payoff creatures out, each cycle acts as a cantrip. This keeps the hand full enough to support Insidious Dreams, dumping extra cyclers into the graveyard while tutoring multiple Zenith Flares to the top of the library and ending the game in short order.
With so much draw and tutor power, the deck is likely to hit their combo. However, Vile Manifestation acts as a cheap and early embodiment of the deck’s inevitability before the knockout blow. It’s an early blocker that punches hard in the mid-game and is the perfect beater to recur with Lurrus of the Dream-Den in the late-game.
Interaction
Usually you cycle these cards, but they have their uses
Most cards in the deck counterintuitively get their value from being replaced, but that isn’t to say they should never be cast. With an aggressive Flourishing Fox curve, Djeru’s Renunciation is just the tempo play to push through an opponent looking to stabilize. Against a Classic Control deck of counters and sweepers, Memory Leak flushes out interaction for Zenith Flare to hit its mark. Go for Blood might come in clutch against creatures like Rielle, the Everwise before the opponent makes a huge play.
Conclusion
Zenith Flare illustrated by Jonas De Ro
Mardu Cycling is a tricky and resilient deck. After establishing itself on the board early, most of it’s cards can be deployed at instant speed to keep opponents guessing. If its aggressive creatures get stifled, the deck has the inevitability to cycle into a couple huge Zenith Flares that sustains against a counterattack. If opponents focus too much on delaying that inevitability, they’ll be run over by the original aggressive gameplan. Congrats to Alejandro for getting this deck to a top finish.
