Gavi's Tour de France

Tour de Gavi

Gavi, the Nest Warden just wants to protect the younglings, but you've got to stay fit so she's going to be doing a bunch of cycling to keep fit! Our goal is to get her out nice and early so we can consistently be Cycling, and getting some incidental value from both our Commander and a few of our other cards. Don't make the mistake of thinking Cycling will be durdling this game, all that exercise means Gavi has the leg strength to kick your opponents right out of this game!

Don't you mess with these younglings!

Carb Load!

Every good biker needs to fuel up before a big race and likewise Gavi wants tons of Mana to fuel her bike ride. We've got our Signets and Sol Ring in here, obviously, but we've thrown in Commander's Sphere and Raugrin Crystal as well. Commander's Sphere is nice color fixing but the ability to sacrifice to draw a card in a pinch comes in handy especially in the late game. Raugrin Crystal can sure fix some colored Mana we need, but often its going to be used for our Cycling synergies. Cloud of Faeries isn't great ramp until we start messing with it with some Cylcing shenanigans. At least it can be Cycled in a pinch. Dockside Extortionist is (EXPENSIVE) a great ramp card making us a ton of treasures when he comes down that we can use at any point in the game. Surly Badgersaur is a new card and gives us a ton of accidental benefits for just doing what we do best, Cycling! Finally, Gavi, New Perspectives, Zirda, the Dawnwaker, and Fluctuator and like having a secret bike dealer, they make Cycling cheaper... Now, if you're like me you wanted to make Zirda your Companion but I just couldn't make it work the way we wanted so it just became and adorable addition to our bike team.

Cards for Your Spokes

Remember that awesome noise your bike would make when you stuck an old playing card in the spokes and then road around? Well if we are going to throw away cards like that then we need to be able draw a whole bunch to replace them. There's a total of 39 cards with Cycling in this deck. With Gavi out that means were going through 4 cards in our deck in a single turn cycle. Want more? With a Teferi's Ageless Insight draws your twice the cards and gives us a cute little Cat Dinosaur token every turn. Ephara, Goddess of the Polis lets us draw cards for putting creatures into the battlefield. That means if we create a Cat token we'll draw a card, then we Cycle for free with Gavi, making another token drawing us more! Nadir Kraken requires a bit of Mana but it makes us tokens and draws us cards, all the things we want on this ride. Rielle, the Everwise lets us draw an additional card for the first time we discard due to Cycling each turn and she gets bigger and bigger the more we Cycle away our cards throughout the game. Curiosity and Ophidian Eye help us draw cards when our creatures are dealing damage (like Brallin, Skyshark Rider and Drannith Stinger). Unfortunately, sometimes we want a specific person on our team so to find them we use Wild Research and Enlightened Tutor. Wild Research is probably one of the coolest tutors you've never heard of, at least I hadn't.

On Your Left!

Get those nasty obstacles out of your way! To keep our opponents out of our way we've got just a few counter spells handy, all with Cycling of course. Nimble Obstructionist is the king of Cycling counters. It's saved this deck more times than I can count. And that's all the way to like 8. Complicate is another great counter that has the additional benefit of being a Cyclist. Fierce Guardianship is in the pre-con so we are absolutely including it, plus its so flavorful and sooo good. Miscalculation and Neutralize are going to round out our counter spell package here. Wipe Clean and Clear are useful for getting rid of pesky artifacts and enchantments where Go for Blood, Surly Badgersaur, Radiant's Judgement, Akroma's Judgement, and Cast Out are here for your opponent's creatures. Oh and we have Decree of Silence. I take it back Decree is the king of Cycling counters, Nimble Obstructionist is a close second.

Teammates!!

Ever gone on a little bike ride by yourself and looked behind you to see a crowd of your adoring fans biking along with you? Yeah, me either. So how about we do it in Magic and build the coolest team ever! To do that we're gonna need to make a lot of tokens. Like, A LOT. So who are the friends were bringing along? Start with some Dino Cat tokens that Gavi can make us every turn. They're adorable and we'll do anything to protect them. Mad Ratter makes us little baby Rat tokens! So cute! Nadir Kraken makes us Tentacle tokens while Ominous Seas makes the whole dang Kraken. The Locust God, Drake Haven, and Improbable Alliance give us some much needed fliers, just in case our opponents want to play some sneaky games with us. Who knew bikes could fly? Shark Typhoon makes us awesome Sharks and Decree of Silence with Valiant Rescuer makes us mass amounts of Human tokens. Sounds like this nest is getting pretty full. Gavi is going to have her hands full.

Never Tired

So you Cycled that one critical card to your graveyard and you don't know what to do. Well don't you worry they're just sitting there ready to get back to the race! Much of our most valuable cards is are enchantments so Hall of Heliod's Generosity is such a good land to include in this deck. It may not be Enchantress themed but the value is unreal. And we are all about value on this team. Abandoned Sarcophagus can be a dangerous play sometimes but boy does it hit hard at times. Personally I love being able to replay a few utility spells from my graveyard every now and again. Bag of Holding is awesome and should be played in more decks, but here it's a powerhouse. Discarding cards is part of our plan anyway and if we can get even a few of them back to our hand at some point it just more fuel for the race. It can be a little risky if your opponents can remove it but honestly I think it's worth the risk. Elixir of Immortality has saved me several times from milling myself. You will draw most of your deck basically every game and sometimes you want a little wiggle room so you can draw even more cards! Archaeomancer, Auromancer, and Warden of the Eye all help us put cards back into our hands to keep us ahead of our opponents. Sun Titan can get us a ton of things back from our yard, including all those lands we may have Cycled away earlier in the game. Late in the game, our graveyard basically becomes an extended hand.

(Bike) Chain those Cards Together

These cards can make some board states that get a little out of hand. Sort of like the start of any big bike race. Here lets go through a few of those little interactions that you may find so you can take maximum advantage of them and show up your friends at the table! Starting easy, Sun Titan can be blinked with Escape Protocol, Astral Slide or Astral drift so every turn you can make a Mana with Commander's Sphere and sacrifice it to draw a card, giving your more cards to cycle. Pretty neat right? Ok, what about a free counter every turn? Cycle Decree of Silence for free with Gavi, use our aforementioned blink outlets to target Warden of the Eye, Archaeomancer, or Auromancer to return it to our hand. Repeat this turn, after turn, after turn. Is for fun. Dockside Extortionist in play? Blink it for maximum Mana production. And for the big one, Brallin, Skyshark RIder with Curiosity or Ophidian Eye. With one of these auras attached to Brallin you can Cycle a card and deal a damage. This damage lets you draw a card because of the aura. Repeat this process for as long as you have the Mana to keep Cycling or your have an active New Perspectives which isn't hard to do with this deck. You should be able to kill your opponents just by drawing cards but as long as you didn't start this loop in your end step you can draw into your Elixir of Immortality, play and activate it, and keep looping till you kill everyone! Yay combos!

Deck-stras

Honestly such a fun deck I don't even know where to start for upgrades. If you want to be one of "those people" you can always play Decree of Annihilation. Just remember many times players aren't a fan of mass land destruction. If you're going to play it, make sure you have ways to use your non-land cards for extreme value, like blinking Dockside Extortionist repeatedly so you still have Mana and win the game. This deck is pretty strong so pay attention to your play group. If they are looking to play a bunch of Jank maybe don't combo our because it sure is easy to take a single 30 minute turn and then still not win...yet. Finally, Cycling isn't about the destination, it's about the friends we lose along the way! Have fun!

Full List

Land (36)

• 1x Ash Barrens

• 1x Command Tower

• 1x Desert of the Mindful

• 1x Desert of the True

• 1x Drifting Meadow

• 1x Exotic Orchard

• 1x Forgotten Cave

• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity

• 1x Hallowed Fountain

• 1x Irrigated Farmland

• 5x Island

• 1x Lonely Sandbar

• 6x 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 Temple of the False God

Artifact (10)

• 1x Abandoned Sarcophagus

• 1x Arcane Signet

• 1x Azorius Signet

• 1x Bag of Holding

• 1x Commander's Sphere

• 1x Elixir of Immortality

• 1x Fluctuator

• 1x Izzet Signet

• 1x Raugrin Crystal

• 1x Sol Ring

Creature (20)

• 1x Archaeomancer

• 1x Auramancer

• 1x Brallin, Skyshark Rider Flip

• 1x Cloud of Faeries

• 1x Curator of Mysteries

• 1x Dockside Extortionist

• 1x Drannith Stinger

• 1x Ephara, God of the Polis

• 1x Flourishing Fox

• 1x Mad Ratter

• 1x Nadir Kraken

• 1x Nimble Obstructionist

• 1x Rielle, the Everwise

• 1x Sun Titan

• 1x Surly Badgersaur

• 1x The Locust God

• 1x Valiant Rescuer

• 1x Warden of the Eye

• 1x Yidaro, Wandering Monster

• 1x Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Instant (13)

• 1x Akroma's Blessing

• 1x Choking Tethers

• 1x Clear

• 1x Complicate

• 1x Enlightened Tutor

• 1x Fierce Guardianship

• 1x Gilded Light

• 1x Hieroglyphic Illumination

• 1x Mage's Guile

• 1x Miscalculation

• 1x Neutralize

• 1x Radiant's Judgment

• 1x Wipe Clean

Enchantment (16)

• 1x Astral Drift

• 1x Astral Slide

• 1x Cast Out

• 1x Crystalline Resonance

• 1x Curiosity

• 1x Decree of Silence

• 1x Drake Haven

• 1x Escape Protocol

• 1x Improbable Alliance

• 1x New Perspectives

• 1x Ominous Seas

• 1x Ophidian Eye

• 1x Shark Typhoon

• 1x Tectonic Reformation

• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight

• 1x Wild Research

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Akroma's Vengeance

• 1x Boon of the Wish-Giver

• 1x Decree of Justice

• 1x Go for Blood