All 12 Plainscyclers in Magic Ranked

Shepherding Spirits | Illustration by Billy Christian

Cycling is a very flexible and now nearly evergreen mechanic. Ever since the cycling mechanic was introduced in Onslaught in the ‘90s, WotC has been adding more ways to cycle cards, and today we’re taking a look at plainscycling.

Plaincycling is at its best in Limited formats, and good recent Draft formats like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Duskmourn: House of Horror, and Final Fantasy all included new plainscycling designs. Some of these are even worth adding to Constructed formats!

What Is Plainscycling in MTG?

Eagles of the North | Illustration by Axel Sauerwald

Plainscycling is a variation on the cycling mechanic. Instead of just drawing a card when you cycle, you get to search your library for a Plains card, including nonbasics that have the plains type, and put it into your hand. The main goal is to help you to fix your mana and ensure you make your land drops in time. It’s like a mix of a serviceable creature and a Lay of the Land.

Sometimes you get additional synergies with “discard-matter” cards, with specific mechanics like delirium, or when you want a specific number of creature cards in your graveyard.

#12. Noble Templar

The original plainscycler, Noble Templar was played for a long time in rarity-restricted formats or low-powered formats simply because there wasn’t a better choice. It’s hard to justify playing a 3/6 vigilance creature for that much mana these days.

#11. Shepherding Spirits

Would you like to play a common 4/5 flying spirit for 6 mana in this day and age? No thanks. Shepherding Spirits is almost strictly better than Noble Templar, but even then, I’d only include this in a decklist if I actually cared about spirit creatures.

#10. Soaring Sandwing

Soaring Sandwing is also a Limited design, and here you trade 1 point of power to get 3 life. It’s usually a nice trade, and it fits more decks, like those that want to gain life in small bursts.

#9. Pale Recluse

Pale Recluse offers a choice between forestcycling or plainscycling. Unfortunately for this card, even spider decks aren’t that interested in a GW spider, and its stats aren’t that good either. You should play this card if you value the flexibility in landcycling and you have some synergies with gold cards.

#8. Sanctum Plowbeast

Like Pale Recluse, Sanctum Plowbeast offers the flexibility between islandcycling and plainscycling, and it’s nothing to write home about. This card is a little better because it’s also an artifact in the right colors for synergies or in the right colors for defender decks.

#7. Alabaster Host Intercessor

Alabaster Host Intercessor is a big Fiend Hunter-type creature, and it has the Phyrexian type, but it isn’t a card we’re excited paying 6 mana for. Sometimes you get to exile a token, or a card with lots of counters, though the removal's only temporary.

#6. Rabaroo Troop

Rabaroo Troop gets a little more praise because it fits more decks. You can have a mix of landfall triggers and lifegain triggers, and it’s not hard to have a 3/5 flier for just 5 mana. Especially if you want to trigger lifegain constantly.

#5. Cloudbound Moogle

By itself, Cloudbound Moogle is a 3/4 flier, but the flexibility in putting a +1/+1 counter on any creature makes this a marginally more powerful card. You can slot it easily into decks that care about +1/+1 counters, proliferate, and the like.

#4. Eagles of the North

Eagles of the North is ranked so high up because it’s the only plainscycling card, and the difference between 1 and 2 mana is very significant. The creature side is nothing that you’d love to cast for 6 mana, so I’d recommend saving it for some go-wide decks or bird decks. Pauper and Peasant formats will usually happily run this card, though.

#3. Eternal Dragon

Eternal Dragon costs 7 mana, and you’re not that happy to hard-cast it. The best exploit you can pull off with this card is to plainscycle it for 2 and return it to your hand later to do it again. It gives you something to do with your mana at all stages of the game.

#2. Timeless Dragon

White doesn’t get that many playable dragons, but here’s Timeless Dragon. It’s a 5/5 flier for 5 mana, already on the power level you’d expect for a good card. But this dragon is very flexible. You can plainscycle it and eternalize it for 6 mana, and now you get a 4/4 zombie dragon for a reduced price. It’s also a big flier that can come back later as a smaller one, which strains your opponent’s removal.

#1. Angel of the Ruins

Angel of the Ruins is my #1 simply because it’s the most useful creature overall, especially for EDH. You get to exile two relevant permanents that are hard to answer, and you can reanimate or blink this card for maximum value. Plus, it’s a 5/7 flier on its own with a relevant creature type for white decks.

Can Plainscyclers Search for Non-Basic Lands?

They can. The rules text specifically says: “Search your library for a Plains card,” so you can get any nonbasic land that has a plains subtype, like Temple Garden. There’s also the basic landcycling mechanic that’s restricted to only basic lands (like Ash Barrens).

Wrap Up

Rabaroo Troop | Illustration by Mizutametori

And there we have it folks, all plainscycling cards in MTG ranked. Most plainscycling cards are designed as Limited commons to fill places in the mana curve and allow decks to smooth draws. Outside of one or two dragons with good abilities, we usually aren’t excited about including a random common 3/4 flier in our decklists. But these cards also tend to see play in rarity-restricted decks or Cubes.

What are your favorite plainscycling cards, guys? Do you actually run any of these in your white decks? Let me know in the comments section below, or leave us a message at our Draftsim Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading, and keep fetching those Plains.