All 10 Islandcyclers in Magic Ranked

Daggermaw Megalodon | Illustration by Helge C. Balzer

Little matters more in Magic than access to lands. You need spells to cast, sure, but hitting your land drops lets you play those spells. It’s an ouroboros. Too few lands means you don’t play the game, too many means you don’t play the game. If only there were a way to have a spell that was also a land….

But I’m not talking about modal double-faced cards. While those are one way that Wizards mitigates how variance impacts the game (and my personal favorite), other options have existed for much longer.

If you’re a blue player trying to maximize your mana base without cutting spells, you might be interested in islandcyclers!

What Is Islandcycling in MTG?

Tidal Terror | Illustration by Nicholas Gregory

Islandcycling is an ability that lets you pay mana and discard the islandcycler to search your library for a land with the island type and put it into your hand. This effect does not search for a basic Island, just a land with the island subtype. That lets you tutor for nonbasic lands like Mystic Sanctuary and fixing like Steam Vents.

Islandcycling is often attached to large creatures or noncreature spells to give them a cheap alternate mode. While islandcycling cards are predominately statted for Limited, a few gems warrant competitive play.

#10. Shoreline Ranger

Shoreline Ranger was once respectable. Smoothing your draws early while delivering a flying threat later works in low-powered Limited formats, but modern islandcyclers are much larger for a similar cost.

#9. Daggermaw Megalodon

Daggermaw Megalodon balances aggression and defense with vigilance and a significantly high amount of toughness; this card will block, and block well. It won’t do much more, but that’s probably acceptable. If you run this in a Pauper cube, it becomes a fine card to reanimate with Dread Return and similar effects.

#8. Marauding Brinefang

Marauding Brinefang is a solid ramp payoff in terms of stats. Ward 3 makes this pretty annoying for your opponents to remove—assuming they can remove it at all, as 7 toughness dodges most red or green damage-based removal. The dinosaur type isn’t wholly irrelevant, either.

#7. Tidal Terror

Tidal Terror can become unblockable when it attacks, which is perfect for a large creature towards the end of the game. It only takes a few combats to wrap things up. Tapping down creatures leaves you vulnerable to counterattacks, but a wide enough board nullifies that.

#6. Giant Koi

Giant Koi is a step up from Tidal Terror because it basically has the same ability with far greater flexibility. If you can’t afford to tap multiple creatures—either because you don’t have them or can’t afford the missing blockers—you can pay mana to waterbend. And if your mana has a better use, you can tap your creatures. Such a flexible ability means you always use your resources to their fullest potential.

#5. Jhessian Zombies

Jhessian Zombies is notable for its dual landcycling abilities: It fixes for both blue and black, and potentially more colors when you factor in dual lands with multiple types. A zombie that gets itself in the graveyard for the sake of cards like Rot Hulk and Diregraf Colossus isn’t nothing, either.

#4. Sanctum Plowbeast

Sanctum Plowbeast also tutors two types of lands while having the useful dual artifact creature type. Between that, being multicolored, and being a defender, it touches on a surprising number of synergies from one card. That said, it’s still firmly within the realm of Limited cards.

#3. Ice Flan

While I prefer my flan with caramel, Ice Flan makes a good argument for ice with its stun counter. Though it’s not the largest islandcycler, the stun counter provides a valuable tempo swing and even gives you a payoff for flicker effects or proliferate cards. If you don’t specifically care about the typing or size of other islandcyclers, this is the best generic big creature islandcycler for your Pauper or Peasant cubes.

#2. Monstrosity of the Lake

Monstrosity of the Lake kicks the archetype up a notch with a truly playable Constructed card. The full cost of this is a pretty daunting 10 mana—5 to cast, 5 for the trigger—but you can get around that by islandcycling it early and reanimating it. This kraken works best when you pair it with repeatable flicker effects like Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and Far Traveler to constantly keep opposing boards tapped down.

#1. Lórien Revealed

The gulf between Lórien Revealed and Monstrosity of the Lake rivals the Grand Canyon. This islandcycler consistently sees Constructed play in multiple formats at the highest levels due to a few factors, like cost and versatility.

First and foremost, the difference between this islandcycling ability costing versus , like the others, can’t be overstated. You can slip that into many different turns, especially when you pair it with other hyper-efficient cards like Fatal Push and Orcish Bowmasters.

Lórien Revealed also offers so much as a card. Five mana to draw 3 cards is a great late-game ability, one much better-suited to high-powered formats than a dorky creature (most of which cost more than 5 anyway). It provides fixing or access to Mystic Sanctuary (which works well with LR since you can tutor the Sanctuary, then get LR back to draw three). Perhaps most importantly, it’s functionally a land that’s also a blue card for Force of Will, Force of Negation, and Subtlety. This combination of small yet valuable roles build up to an immensely powerful card that sees widespread play, and it probably belongs in your EDH deck over a basic Island.

Wrap Up

Giant Koi | Illustration by Nathaniel Himawan

Though islandcyclers are often clunky spells regulated to “meh tier” of filler cards in various Limited formats, a few of them have greater potential due to their abilities. Lórien Revealed in particular has become a multi-format staple, proving again that flexibility makes a powerful card.

What’s your favorite islandcyler? Do you want to see Wizards explore the design space more, or should they stick to MDFCs like Razorgrass Ambush to mitigate flood? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!