All 11 Forestcyclers in Magic Ranked

Generous Ent | Illustration by Simon Dominic

Lands are a sticking point in Magic; they’re essential to flavor and gameplay, yet also the cause of the most disappointing games because screw or flood removes a player from the game with little recourse. As such, many mechanics are designed to mitigate it.

Landcycling is one such mechanic that’s often attached to big creatures so they have utility early and late. It has many variants, like basic landcycling and islandcycling. Today, we’re feeling rather green and assessing the forestcyclers in Magic to see if any are worth playing in your next deck!

What Is Forestcycling in MTG?

Topiary Panther | Illustration by Xabi Gaztelua

Forestcycling is a mechanic that lets you pay a cost and discard the card with forestcycling from your hand to search your library for a land with the forest type and put it into your hand. Cards with forestcycling are universally creatures with high mana values and cheap forestcycling costs; the idea is that Wirewood Guardian can be your top-end while being useful on turn 2, which makes it less likely that you flood or screw. Since you can find any land with the forest type, not just basic Forests, the mechanic works as fixing and finds the odd value land.

#11. Wirewood Guardian

Wirewood Guardian has been power crept into irrelevance. It’s the first forestcycler, from Scourge, and its age shows in the mana cost: A 7-mana behemoth with no additional text is weaker than pretty much every modern forestcycler, as the others cost 6 and have a keyword or two thrown in.

#10. Pale Recluse

Pale Recluse is one of two multicolored forestcyclers from Alara Reborn. It’s extremely cute but it matters little in practice; if your Selesnya () deck has typed duals like Temple Garden and Canopy Vista as fixing, a card with just forestcycling is as handy as one with plainscycling. As such, this one gets knocked down a few pegs for the unimpressive body.

#9. Valley Rannet

Valley Rannet isn’t much more impressive than Pale Recluse; it earns this spot only because Gruul cards () that care about a creature’s power, like Garruk's Uprising and Terror of the Peaks, make it more interesting than the Recluse.

#8. Saber-Tooth Moose-Lion

As a 7/7, Saber-Tooth Moose-Lion has some of the biggest stats among forestcyclers, but it falls short on keywords. Reach is pretty meh; I’d much rather see my big monster have trample or something evasive.

#7. Nurturing Bristleback

Nurturing Bristleback comes with two bodies, which offers useful utility, especially with cards that care about dinosaurs. Two bodies improve cards like Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and Curious Altisaur; though you then run into the very important question of whether this is worth dedicating a coveted top-end slot to. The answer is very likely no.

#6. Rocksteady, Crash Courser

Rocksteady, Crash Courser has a cute interaction with Bebop, Warthog Warrior to become unblockable, but we’re talking about the solo card here. No evasion hurts, but the solo-block ability can be very annoying. A 7/7 tends to be larger than anything else and it ends the game quickly, so Rocksteady effectively becomes The Abyss.

#5. Slavering Branchsnapper

Slavering Branchsnapper finally sticks trample onto a big beater and it is glorious. Trample makes it much harder for your opponents to handle the big threat since they can’t just chump block. They need to find removal before the trampler pushes more damage than can be blocked.

#4. Balamb T-Rexaur

Balamb T-Rexaur ditches a point of power from the Branchsnapper in favor of lifegain when it enters. It’s a small edge, but I prefer it; a big creature that gains life is a wonderful way to stabilize, plus it gives you extra leeway to attack with your big creature. The two cards are realistically extremely close, though potential lifegain synergies could make this one a star.

#3. Timberland Ancient

Many forestcyclers have reach or trample, but Timberland Ancient decided to go with both. It’s a little smaller than other options as a 6/5, but trample and reach make it quite flexible, as it has defensive and offense utility.

#2. Elvish Aberration

Elvish Aberration is one of the few landcyclers with a real ability, not just an evergreen keyword. A big creature that taps for a lot of mana is a very green threat, even if only a very casual Timmy one. It’s also an elf, which lends it potential synergies.

#1. Generous Ent

Forestcycling is a very Limited mechanic. The vanilla creatures are costly, with basic abilities, and is a lot of mana to find a land. All that is acceptable in Limited, not Cube or Constructed. But Generous Ent is an exception to the rule.

Most of that comes down to the forestcycling cost being a mere , which is hardly a cost. When you spend , you’re using up a considerable amount of a turn. But is equivalent to playing a tapped land rather than casting a spell. It’s far easier to sequence that into your average turn and comes at a lower cost.

The Ent itself also has a substantial body. A 5/7 with reach isn’t as big as other options, but there’s so much to be said for coming with a Food token. It’s like Balamb T-Rexaur, except you access a variety of synergies that care about tokens, food, and artifacts. Between that and the low cost, it’s easily the best forestcycler and often the only one really worth playing or adding to your Cube.

Forestcycling Payoffs

The most basic payoff for cycling is fixing. You can grab a shock land or surveil land or, if you want to get spicy, a triome for perfect mana. There are also a couple of utility lands with the forest type to grab, with Dryad Arbor and Sapseep Forest. Murmuring Bosk deserves a shoutout as a fetchable yet highly budget tri-land.

There are also plenty of effects that reward you for discarding cards. You might use direct discard payoffs like Monument to Endurance and Cool but Rude or reanimation effects like Living End and Reanimate to summon a discarded card.

Generous Ent gets an additional nod for all the niche synergies the Food token empowers, with commanders like Ygra, Eater of All, The Cabbage Merchant, and Samwise Gamgee all benefiting from it.

Wrap Up

Slavering Branchsnapper | Illustration by John Tedrick

Forestcycling isn’t the strongest mechanic, especially as modal double-faced lands skip the middleman of a card that’s both land and spell, but the mechanic has plenty of juice if you find the right payoffs.

What’s your favorite forestcycling card? Do you play any of them? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord! For more Draftsim, don’t forget to follow our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!