Excellent video. I was thinking all evening about how to upgrade this deck and after watching this i feel enlightened. Feels really good that i thought of a lot of the cards you showed here.
Personally i run bag of holding and phsyic corrosion/sphinx insight, u draw so many cards that those cards can just mill out a few opponents, also bag of holding can just get ur cards u cycled back to your hand
Gavi's been my favorite commander since her deck came out. I've found that the pinging cards that pay off cycling/discarding are a little underpowered and fragile, so I've leaned into flickering with ping effects that trigger on creature ETB like Impact Tremors and the original Purphoros. Myr Battlesphere in an Astral Slide / creature ETB deck is a hell of a drug. See also: Regal Caracal (makes tokens on ETB and boosts Gavi's), Anointed Procession (doubles all your token generation). And Decree of Silence is ANOTHER free counterspell with Gavi.
I built arcades when he first dropped and it was really strong. I had infinite draw and mana combos with huge aggro potential to boot! It would be nice to see if there’s anything new that would make the cut.
@@jakeapplegate6642 My favorite "infinite loop" is a bit of a set up, but it's a fun alternate wincon. High Alert + Axebane Guardian (and at least four other defenders) + WAR Jace + Genesis Wave. Constantly tap/untap Axebane to make "infinite" mana, cast Genesis Wave having "x" equal to the number of cards in your library, have Jace resolve first, draw a card off of a defender ETB. Boom, convoluted wincon.
@@brianshanahan5274 I was running temur sabertooth and bramble sovereign and teshar. Boots and greaves important to give haste to overgrown battlements or axebane guardian. I’m glad I owned a shield sphere before arcades was printed. I should rebuild it, it was pretty fun.
My Gavi deck is a seismic swans deck. Lightning rift actually quite valuable since it can target swans. I also still like yidaro. Yes, his body isn't important, but what is important is that he shuffles himself back in the deck, increasing the likelihood you draw a cycling card in the future I do really like the warden of the eye recommendation tho.
When I walked into my local Gamestop to pre-order Mario 3D AllStars, they had this pre-con on the shelf. They were also doing their "20% off whatever you can fit into the bag" deal, so I swiped it up, if only for the Fierce Guardianship. Wound up modifying the deck and it's now one of my favorite decks to pilot.
Flucuator is crazy with the right setup. Make sure all your cycle cards cost 2 or less and do not take colored mana and you will cycle at break neck speed. Also pack some artifact searching like tribute mage, whir of invention and fabricate to improve the odds of getting this engine going.
Gavi is a hell on earth. I have one and it is one of my fav deck. I run with Anointed Procession to double my tokens, aven wind guide to give flying and vigilance to my tokens. Cathar's cruzade is one of the best cards to this deck since you create tokens each turn. Decree of Silence - this is THE card. To me it is important to have thought vessel and reliquary tower because sometimes I have like 30 cards in my hand. So broken commander.
After playing with gavi quite a bit, i do have to give credit to the herald of the forgotten. It can really help rebuilding after a whipe in the late game, maybe even your own.
I have a Gavi deck and have found fluctuator to be extremely underwhelming, same for new perspectives. I have a wincon that is not that much fun but can truly shut down players out of the game once you have a lot of tokens: Opposition
I dont understand what you want from the blink effects that astral slide and drift provides, except maybe protecting stuff? There arent many ETBs as far as I can tell.
Gavi is my favorite deck, due to the surprising flexibility of the commander and the interesting restrictions she poses for deckbuilding. My current build focuses on a card you haven't included here but which could potentially be useful in this particular decklist: Escape Protocol. At the surface, this card looks like a downgrade from Astral Slide, hitting only your own stuff and requiring you to pay 1 to get its effect of. But the fact that it works as a flicker, not a blink, makes a huge difference. For instance, this allows you to go infinite with mana generators such as Peregrine Drake, provided that you can also find a way to get cycling cards into your hand efficiently. It also allows you to get ETB effects when you need them, not at the next end step.
To win the game cycling for free Decree of Annihilation, just be sure you can cast that preeeeeeetty sweet blue tornado called Cyclonic Rift. I recommend also more enchantment's tutor in this deck 'cause most of the strongest pieces in this deck are enchantments. And you can put Ephara on the battlefield early on the battlefield, she's maybe the best way to get a cat token every single turn because of indestructible. I also recommend some enchantment's recursion, for example Hall of Heliod's Generosity is the best way to do that. Imagine having a free counter effect every single turn with Gavi and this land in play and Decree of Silence. Last but not least, another amazing wincon in this deck is Purphoros, when you're able to create a cat token, triggering Gavi's second ability, every single turn with Teferi, double draws effect, Consecrated Sphinx, Rielle or Ephara your red iron God keeps burning your opponents and synergises very well with cards like Locust God, Shark Typhoon and Decree of Justice. (Sorry for bad english haha 😅)
nice video thx. besides your tips i added some other cards like, Decree of Silence, Irencrag Pyromancer, Felidar Retreat, dream trawler, Nadir Kraken, Swelterin Suns, Flourishin Fox, Expansion/Explosion, Narset of the Ancient Way or fur fun Final of Glory. and to test i added Glorious Protector for example to shield Gavie or Rielle. And Herald of the Forgotten wins me games espescially since i have Decree of Silence in my deck ^^.
Personally, I wouldn't remove Surly Badgersaur because I feel it comboes really well with Tectonic Reformation. Being able to cycle away extra lands and getting mana out of them anyways, in the form of treasures, seems really good.
I have this deck and bought two copies of the precon for double fierce guardianship so emry would have one too lol. This deck is now an easy 7/10 with adding decree of silence and annihilation, as well as cards like almahretts archive, tefari insight, wall of omens, cloud of faeries, cyclonic rift, counters that cycle, and adding better monsters that cycle or can be abused when getting the slide of drift treatment. I use sun titan to get back commanders sphere multiple times or wayfarers bauble multiple times, but i do see how it can be slow and since titan doesnt cycle he could be a dead draw early game. One of my mvps is dream trawler......its super powerful and cheap and i made it a 15/5 flyer by drawing double when cycling off and it has lifelink so yeah haha.
Whao, I won several games at turn 5 with only gavi + badgeosaur in game. I just started controlling all the board, get tresure and tada, easy win. Warden is a really interesting (and good) choice I didn't consider in my deck, I will swap it in instead of the auramancer I put (or maybe add both?). My cycling cards choice is way different, but that's really more subjective. I also went on token victory instead of pingers.
I would love to see a non budget version you come up with, while I agree some additions I also disagree with some of your cuts for those additions. Also I understand a lot of people have different metas in paper form, mine has traveled and played quite well in different areas, I can't give a precise win percentage but I can say it's above 70 percent
I made Gavj this a token pingers deck / cat tribal, concentrating on drawing cards on everyones turns, making shedloads of token and pinging people with ETBs. I have ginished the game with Dinosaur Stampede before!
i went more towards the token/draw second card each turn strategy instead of the focusing too heavily on the cycling/flickering theme. With token generators like mad ratter, WAR Saheeli, locust god and oketra's monument. the token generation rate is just insane. Purphoros and Impact tremors will ping down opponents when your tokens come in while goblin bombardment will ping off stuff or do more damage to the face. Wild Research is also a very good sleeper card for Jeskai. Its a Gamble that can be used multiple times and with cards like Bag of Holding and Library of Leng, the discard doesnt matter even if you discarded the card you tutored for.
I would definitely add in Escape Protocol. Sure it's a mana to blink, but I think there's a heavy enough blink focus to justify including it. Also Elixir of Imortallity seems innocuous but is huge for keeping this deck in the long game.
This is my most expencive and customized commander deck I have. I removed almost all the precon cards and focused on draw enchantments with the wincon being tokens and anthems.
My first iteration of the deck was a Tokens subtheme, keeping Akim as the secondary commander and I ran cards from the UR "draw a second card" limited theme from Eldraine.
@@hankgoodwin4673 Yeah, I had that one, too. I took the deck apart because it just couldn't keep up with my meta, but watching this video made me want to try again.
I really love the recommendation of the Commandcast: Wall of Omens, Mulldrifter, Cloudbrazer are really good blinking targets. Similarly, I like Sun Titan as well it basically ramps in Jeskai. A card which has a lot of utility in this deck is Irencrag Pyromancer. It is another pinger in the deck. She can deal a lot of damage. My favourite card is Ephara God of the Polis in the deck. It synergises so well with Gavi. I think she is harder to deal with then Tefferi.
Really Joey? It's almost Christmas and your doing a jeskai (red white and blue) commander instead of a grule (red and green) commander? Mmh mmh mmh you disappoint me man 😔 Seriously though great job man and merry Christmas
I personnaly gave up on this deck. Played four games, he did nothing all games. Even with a third of your deck being cycling cards, you do have dead draws a lot and your commander does nothing except if you have a broken Rhystic study, Mystic Remora or smth on the board. That said, I went for the full token route without cards like Purphoros, impact tremors so it was on the weak side for sure.
I actually put her in the 99 of my cycling deck with Kydele and Bruse Tarl at the helm. You draw so many cards with Psychosis Crawler and the Locust God out that you drain everyone and amass easily 15 insects at any given time to run down the opponents.
I feel like an easy way to make the deck better is just swap Gavi for Brallin/Shabraz. They have a lot more synergy with cycling imho and they can get huge fast for commander damage kills.
No, library of leng cannot put back a card you cycled on top of your library. Discarding is a cost and not an effect when cycling, so the card will end up in your graveyard even with library of leng in play.
@@MrTesa5411 no, discarding is the cost of the cycling ability and drawing is the effect. It could have been worded something like : "discard this card: draw a card"
The Wizardcycling card can search up Mirror Entity.
Excellent video. I was thinking all evening about how to upgrade this deck and after watching this i feel enlightened. Feels really good that i thought of a lot of the cards you showed here.
I liked this video. Very clear explanations!
Personally i run bag of holding and phsyic corrosion/sphinx insight, u draw so many cards that those cards can just mill out a few opponents, also bag of holding can just get ur cards u cycled back to your hand
Gavi's been my favorite commander since her deck came out. I've found that the pinging cards that pay off cycling/discarding are a little underpowered and fragile, so I've leaned into flickering with ping effects that trigger on creature ETB like Impact Tremors and the original Purphoros. Myr Battlesphere in an Astral Slide / creature ETB deck is a hell of a drug. See also: Regal Caracal (makes tokens on ETB and boosts Gavi's), Anointed Procession (doubles all your token generation). And Decree of Silence is ANOTHER free counterspell with Gavi.
I would also be very interested in seeing your decklist
This sounds indeed very funny, could you pleas share your decklist?
Eyyy two years later, is there a decklist? I just made a gavi flicker deck and would love to compare!
@@Twime. deck list?
I suggest Auramancer in this deck. There’s a lot of cycling enchantments in this deck. Can also be used alongside the Astral enchantments
Great video as usual! I’d love to see one on Arcades, the Strategist as he was my first ever commander
I second this
I third this. I'm in love with my Arcades deck, but it wouldn't hurt to see what other tricks I may be missing.
I built arcades when he first dropped and it was really strong. I had infinite draw and mana combos with huge aggro potential to boot! It would be nice to see if there’s anything new that would make the cut.
@@jakeapplegate6642 My favorite "infinite loop" is a bit of a set up, but it's a fun alternate wincon. High Alert + Axebane Guardian (and at least four other defenders) + WAR Jace + Genesis Wave. Constantly tap/untap Axebane to make "infinite" mana, cast Genesis Wave having "x" equal to the number of cards in your library, have Jace resolve first, draw a card off of a defender ETB. Boom, convoluted wincon.
@@brianshanahan5274 I was running temur sabertooth and bramble sovereign and teshar. Boots and greaves important to give haste to overgrown battlements or axebane guardian. I’m glad I owned a shield sphere before arcades was printed. I should rebuild it, it was pretty fun.
@EDHRECast YES I LOVE THIS !!! great job guys
Not sure if first, but happy to be here! Love Gavi, keep it up Joey!
My Gavi deck is a seismic swans deck. Lightning rift actually quite valuable since it can target swans. I also still like yidaro. Yes, his body isn't important, but what is important is that he shuffles himself back in the deck, increasing the likelihood you draw a cycling card in the future
I do really like the warden of the eye recommendation tho.
Nice! This is one of my favorite commanders :)
When I walked into my local Gamestop to pre-order Mario 3D AllStars, they had this pre-con on the shelf. They were also doing their "20% off whatever you can fit into the bag" deal, so I swiped it up, if only for the Fierce Guardianship. Wound up modifying the deck and it's now one of my favorite decks to pilot.
What's your decklist? Are you doing the New Perspectives route? :O
Love this series!
Flucuator is crazy with the right setup. Make sure all your cycle cards cost 2 or less and do not take colored mana and you will cycle at break neck speed. Also pack some artifact searching like tribute mage, whir of invention and fabricate to improve the odds of getting this engine going.
Gavi is a hell on earth. I have one and it is one of my fav deck. I run with Anointed Procession to double my tokens, aven wind guide to give flying and vigilance to my tokens. Cathar's cruzade is one of the best cards to this deck since you create tokens each turn. Decree of Silence - this is THE card. To me it is important to have thought vessel and reliquary tower because sometimes I have like 30 cards in my hand. So broken commander.
After playing with gavi quite a bit, i do have to give credit to the herald of the forgotten. It can really help rebuilding after a whipe in the late game, maybe even your own.
You can put a Decree of silence into play and a ton of lands. Does it worth 8 mana?
Cool decktech. Gavi was my first commander, but I got bored after a while. This is a good refresh.
And the emphasis on wincons was super useful, because I've also struggled to win with her.
Big fan of these, please do Xyris!
Approach of the second sun is really good with cycle/ massive draw decks
Agreed. It's pretty easy to cast Approach and have drawn it again by your next turn.
Nicely done 😁👍
I have a Gavi deck and have found fluctuator to be extremely underwhelming, same for new perspectives. I have a wincon that is not that much fun but can truly shut down players out of the game once you have a lot of tokens: Opposition
I dont understand what you want from the blink effects that astral slide and drift provides, except maybe protecting stuff? There arent many ETBs as far as I can tell.
Gavi is my favorite deck, due to the surprising flexibility of the commander and the interesting restrictions she poses for deckbuilding. My current build focuses on a card you haven't included here but which could potentially be useful in this particular decklist: Escape Protocol. At the surface, this card looks like a downgrade from Astral Slide, hitting only your own stuff and requiring you to pay 1 to get its effect of. But the fact that it works as a flicker, not a blink, makes a huge difference. For instance, this allows you to go infinite with mana generators such as Peregrine Drake, provided that you can also find a way to get cycling cards into your hand efficiently. It also allows you to get ETB effects when you need them, not at the next end step.
To win the game cycling for free Decree of Annihilation, just be sure you can cast that preeeeeeetty sweet blue tornado called Cyclonic Rift. I recommend also more enchantment's tutor in this deck 'cause most of the strongest pieces in this deck are enchantments. And you can put Ephara on the battlefield early on the battlefield, she's maybe the best way to get a cat token every single turn because of indestructible. I also recommend some enchantment's recursion, for example Hall of Heliod's Generosity is the best way to do that. Imagine having a free counter effect every single turn with Gavi and this land in play and Decree of Silence. Last but not least, another amazing wincon in this deck is Purphoros, when you're able to create a cat token, triggering Gavi's second ability, every single turn with Teferi, double draws effect, Consecrated Sphinx, Rielle or Ephara your red iron God keeps burning your opponents and synergises very well with cards like Locust God, Shark Typhoon and Decree of Justice.
(Sorry for bad english haha 😅)
nice video thx. besides your tips i added some other cards like, Decree of Silence, Irencrag Pyromancer, Felidar Retreat, dream trawler, Nadir Kraken, Swelterin Suns, Flourishin Fox, Expansion/Explosion, Narset of the Ancient Way or fur fun Final of Glory. and to test i added Glorious Protector for example to shield Gavie or Rielle. And Herald of the Forgotten wins me games espescially since i have Decree of Silence in my deck ^^.
Decree of Silence is already part of the most-played cards of this deck. (The old-border cards are difficult to read, but it's there.)
Personally, I wouldn't remove Surly Badgersaur because I feel it comboes really well with Tectonic Reformation. Being able to cycle away extra lands and getting mana out of them anyways, in the form of treasures, seems really good.
Agreed. That surly badger gets some work done. Between cycling, wheel effects, and cephalid coliseum, it generates tons of mana.
Why have 86 draw triggers for Niv-Mizzet when you can have 87?
I have this deck and bought two copies of the precon for double fierce guardianship so emry would have one too lol. This deck is now an easy 7/10 with adding decree of silence and annihilation, as well as cards like almahretts archive, tefari insight, wall of omens, cloud of faeries, cyclonic rift, counters that cycle, and adding better monsters that cycle or can be abused when getting the slide of drift treatment. I use sun titan to get back commanders sphere multiple times or wayfarers bauble multiple times, but i do see how it can be slow and since titan doesnt cycle he could be a dead draw early game. One of my mvps is dream trawler......its super powerful and cheap and i made it a 15/5 flyer by drawing double when cycling off and it has lifelink so yeah haha.
Any good budget recommendations for this commander?
Whao, I won several games at turn 5 with only gavi + badgeosaur in game. I just started controlling all the board, get tresure and tada, easy win. Warden is a really interesting (and good) choice I didn't consider in my deck, I will swap it in instead of the auramancer I put (or maybe add both?). My cycling cards choice is way different, but that's really more subjective. I also went on token victory instead of pingers.
I would love to see a non budget version you come up with, while I agree some additions I also disagree with some of your cuts for those additions. Also I understand a lot of people have different metas in paper form, mine has traveled and played quite well in different areas, I can't give a precise win percentage but I can say it's above 70 percent
Smart cuts I like it
I made Gavj this a token pingers deck / cat tribal, concentrating on drawing cards on everyones turns, making shedloads of token and pinging people with ETBs. I have ginished the game with Dinosaur Stampede before!
Hi Joey. Is there a chance for you to make a video for Atla Palani ?
What about irencrad pyromancer instead of the buccaneer?
I would love a non budget version of this deck.
I'm that guy who runs Decree of Annihilation. Oops.
I will say the less important the effect is, the more reliant upon you're commander you'll be
i went more towards the token/draw second card each turn strategy instead of the focusing too heavily on the cycling/flickering theme. With token generators like mad ratter, WAR Saheeli, locust god and oketra's monument. the token generation rate is just insane. Purphoros and Impact tremors will ping down opponents when your tokens come in while goblin bombardment will ping off stuff or do more damage to the face.
Wild Research is also a very good sleeper card for Jeskai. Its a Gamble that can be used multiple times and with cards like Bag of Holding and Library of Leng, the discard doesnt matter even if you discarded the card you tutored for.
I'm not sure putting library of leng in your deck just for wild research is a good idea.
@@fredouellet3160 depends on your deck I guess. I do run other multiple wheels and cards with loot effects
It's true, I did stray away from wheel effects in this deck, I find it's too prevalent in commander and I wanted to do something different.
I would definitely add in Escape Protocol. Sure it's a mana to blink, but I think there's a heavy enough blink focus to justify including it.
Also Elixir of Imortallity seems innocuous but is huge for keeping this deck in the long game.
This is my most expencive and customized commander deck I have. I removed almost all the precon cards and focused on draw enchantments with the wincon being tokens and anthems.
If you have the chance could you post that list?
Warden of the eye cool tech
can you do the Temur omnath next please
If you lean into the token theme of this deck, Purphoros God of the Forge is amazing.
My first iteration of the deck was a Tokens subtheme, keeping Akim as the secondary commander and I ran cards from the UR "draw a second card" limited theme from Eldraine.
@@brianshanahan5274 Aven Wind Guide is a good card for that type of strategy. Everyone fears the flying dino cats.
@@hankgoodwin4673 Yeah, I had that one, too. I took the deck apart because it just couldn't keep up with my meta, but watching this video made me want to try again.
Or use Approach followed by Decree while you have enough mana rocks out.
Two Cards:
1. Decree of Annihilation
2. Boros Signet
Boros charm?
Add Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. The deck already wants to draw cards. Why not draw the whole deck and win in the process?
I really love the recommendation of the Commandcast: Wall of Omens, Mulldrifter, Cloudbrazer are really good blinking targets. Similarly, I like Sun Titan as well it basically ramps in Jeskai.
A card which has a lot of utility in this deck is Irencrag Pyromancer. It is another pinger in the deck. She can deal a lot of damage.
My favourite card is Ephara God of the Polis in the deck. It synergises so well with Gavi. I think she is harder to deal with then Tefferi.
Where is the upping the average for your golgari Queen Meren?!
I don't agree with cutting adaro. It is basically a repeating cycle card.
My gavi deck is fun to play but has no win con. And that is stupid. It needs help
I love cycling, I have a 5 color Kenrith cycling deck i have a lot of fun with!
Really Joey? It's almost Christmas and your doing a jeskai (red white and blue) commander instead of a grule (red and green) commander? Mmh mmh mmh you disappoint me man 😔
Seriously though great job man and merry Christmas
How does reconnaissance mission work with this deck? Theres not alot of creatures in here that can do combat damage
I personnaly gave up on this deck. Played four games, he did nothing all games. Even with a third of your deck being cycling cards, you do have dead draws a lot and your commander does nothing except if you have a broken Rhystic study, Mystic Remora or smth on the board.
That said, I went for the full token route without cards like Purphoros, impact tremors so it was on the weak side for sure.
I actually put her in the 99 of my cycling deck with Kydele and Bruse Tarl at the helm. You draw so many cards with Psychosis Crawler and the Locust God out that you drain everyone and amass easily 15 insects at any given time to run down the opponents.
@@AaKkisa Yeah, it can adds up fast. I went for another route cause I already made a couple decks like these with Shabraz or Xyris at the helm.
I feel like an easy way to make the deck better is just swap Gavi for Brallin/Shabraz. They have a lot more synergy with cycling imho and they can get huge fast for commander damage kills.
I've never been this early for anything!
glint-horn with library of lang, works really well if you have fluctuator out. at that point its infinite damage (with one of your 2 cost cyle cards)
No, library of leng cannot put back a card you cycled on top of your library. Discarding is a cost and not an effect when cycling, so the card will end up in your graveyard even with library of leng in play.
@@fredouellet3160 thanks, the versions I have says if a card forces. I had not seen the orical text say effect. So this makes sense
So this means drawing a card id a cost ability as well?
@@MrTesa5411 no, discarding is the cost of the cycling ability and drawing is the effect. It could have been worded something like : "discard this card: draw a card"
@@fredouellet3160 thank you
Enlightened tutor if you have the budget would be wonderes
Wait you said that you weren't recommending Divine Visitation for budget reasons. Is it more than a dollar now? I have like a ton of those things lol
You probably looked it by now, but it's a $12 card.
I would start with replacing Gavi by Brallin&Skyshark or another jeskai commander 😛
Yeah I don't think this is all that great of an "upgrade"