| Cycling | |
|---|---|
| Keyword Ability | |
| Type | Activated |
| Introduced | Urza's Saga |
| Last used | Amonkhet |
| Reminder Text |
Cycling [cost] (Discard this card: Draw a card.) (Type) Cycling [cost] (Discard this card: Search your library for a (Type) card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.) |
| Statistics |
146 cards 20%  18%  14%  14%  11%Multicolor 9%, Land 6% |
| Scryfall Search | |
| keyword:"Cycling" | |
Cycling is a keyword ability that allows a player to pay a cost that includes discarding the card. When the activated ability resolves, that player draws a card.
Description
Cycling was created by Richard Garfield during Tempest design (although not premiering in print until Urza's Saga).[1]
Cycling has been perennially popular and has been featured in more blocks than any other non-evergreen keyword, appearing in the Urza's [2], Onslaught, Time Spiral, and Alara blocks, the last of which introduced cards with hybrid cycling costs. It once again returned in Amonkhet block[3], where it focused in blue and black and rewarded cycling cards that were put into the graveyard.[4][5]
Although cycling has been used repeatedly, it is not considered to be deciduous.[6]
Rules
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Typecycling
A variant of the ability, typecycling, allows the player to search his or her library for a card of a given subtype instead of drawing the top card of their library. The first cards with this ability appeared in Scourge and allowed a player to search for a land card with a specific land type. Future Sight then expanded the ability to search for cards with a specific creature type, but appears on only two cards: Vedalken Æthermage (wizard) and Homing Sliver (sliver). Conflux introduced basic land cycling.
Alara Reborn introduced the first cards with two landcycling abilities.
Basic Landcycling
Basic landcycling was introduced in Conflux.[7]
- Unlike the normal cycling ability, basic landcycling doesn't allow you to draw a card. Instead, it lets you search your library for a basic land card. You don't choose the type of basic land card you'll find until you're performing the search. After you choose a basic land card in your library, you reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
- Basic landcycling is a form of cycling. Any ability that triggers on a card being cycled also triggers on a card being basic landcycled. Any ability that stops a cycling ability from being played also stops a basic landcycling ability from being played.
- Basic landcycling is an activated ability. Effects that interact with activated abilities (such as Stifle or Rings of Brighthearth) will interact with basic landcycling. Effects that interact with spells (such as Remove Soul or Faerie Tauntings) will not.
- You can choose not to find a basic land card, even if there is one in your library.
"Cycling from the battlefield"
"Cycling from the battlefield" or "Cycling from play" is an effect that appeared on eight permanents in Urza's Destiny. Each contained the rules text, "
, Sacrifice this permanent: Draw a card. This mechanic was designed by Mark Rosewater, who considers it a variation of cycling."[8]
Examples
Permanents that reduce Cycling costs
- Fluctuator: reduced by
- New Perspectives: reduced to if seven or more cards in hand
References
- ↑ Error on call to {{WebRef}}: Parameters url and title must be specifiedMark Rosewater (April 22, 2017). "". Tumblr.
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- ↑ Error on call to {{WebRef}}: Parameters url and title must be specifiedMark Rosewater (August 29, 2017). "". Tumblr.
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External links
- New Features of Urza's Saga: Cycling
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- A Planeswalker's Primer for Conflux: Basic Landcycling
- A Planeswalker's Primer for Alara Reborn: Cycling and Landcycling
- Mark Rosewater. "#8 - Cycling". Drive to Work.
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