Hobbit HoleHobbit Hole | Art by Shahab Alizadeh

Anyone who has read any of my deck techs likely knows one thing: I love Step ThroughStep Through and Vedalken AethermageVedalken Aethermage.

Wizardcycling is easily my favorite mechanic introduced in Future Sight, and it's often a critical part of my blue decks. Recently, Hobbit HoleHobbit Hole, a new land with Halflingcycling from The Hobbit, was revealed. As one would expect, I have a lot of thoughts. In this article, I'm going to dive into Halflingcycling with the hopes of answering one question: "Can Halflingcycling measure up to Wizardcycling?"

How Does Halflingcycling Work?

Hobbit HoleHobbit Hole is a land that acts just like an Evolving WildsEvolving Wilds or Terramorphic ExpanseTerramorphic Expanse when in play. But you can pay and discard it from your hand to search your library for a Halfling and put it into your hand. Importantly, this ability can be activated at instant speed. Decks that play cards with Wizardcycling use Step ThroughStep Through and Vedalken AethermageVedalken Aethermage as instant-speed tutors that can pluck one Wizard from among a very diverse toolbox, hopefully searching a deck that contains a Wizard for every situation. How good is Hobbit Hole? Well, it depends on how many Halflings there are in Magic that are worth paying  to find!

The most appealing aspect of Hobbit Hole is that, in most cases, it's simply a land. This drastically reduces its opportunity cost compared to Step Through or Vedalken Aethermage. Those Wizardcyclers are completely useless in a game where Wizardcycling isn't on your priority list; meanwhile, Hobbit Hole can fix your colors, provide landfall triggers, and the like without Halflingcycling ever coming up. Hobbit Hole can also be recurred with Life from the LoamLife from the Loam, which I'll expand upon later.

One battle that Hobbit Hole will have to fight, from which Step Through is largely exempt, is against other tutors. Blue is good at searching for instants, sorceries, and artifacts. Searching for creatures is a very green thing to do, just as searching for any card falls under black's domain. Most blue decks with a robust Wizardcycling package aren't in the right colors for Worldly TutorWorldly Tutor, Demonic TutorDemonic Tutor, or Eladamri's CallEladamri's Call. Most of Magic's Halflings fall into Abzan () colors. Therefore, many of the decks that might be interested in Halflingcycling may already include many tutors that punch above Hobbit Hole's weight class.

A Toolbox Full of Halflings

There are forty-four Halflings legal in Commander, mostly from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, with a handful of these Halflings coming from the Magic Multiverse. The bad news is that most of these Halflings are not silver-bullet answers or strong utility cards, like many of the Wizards that Step ThroughStep Through can find. That means, in order for Halflingcycling to be really good in a deck, that deck either needs a few Halflings that are central to the deck's game plan, or have such a high density of Halflings that the sheer number of options justifies its inclusion. So, what Halflings am I interested in searching for?

Delighted HalflingDelighted Halfling is one of the strongest mana dorks ever printed. Making any color of mana to cast a legendary spell and protecting that spell from the likes of CounterspellCounterspell is very desirable. Most green decks are happy to include Delighted Halfling regardless of what the other 98 cards in the deck look like, and being able to search for it with an activated ability that also dodges a lot of interaction to then force through a commander or another legendary threat puts this Halfling at the top of my list.

Samwise the StoutheartedSamwise the Stouthearted and Archivist of OghmaArchivist of Oghma are tricks that can be Halflingcycled and deployed at instant speed. These two are the most plausible uses for Halflingcycling, as they're two very reasonable cards to include in any deck and get better when you can search for them at the exact moment they're at their best. Samwise is even part of several infinite combos, making the ability to search for it that much more important.

Lotho, Corrupt ShirriffLotho, Corrupt Shirriff is a great mana engine that, at higher power tables where most players are expected to cast multiple spells per turn, can nearly perform at the level of Smothering TitheSmothering Tithe for just . I'm not convinced that I'd often want to pay an extra four mana to find it, but any deck that runs Hobbit Hole and is in its colors should consider Lotho.

My favorite use case for Halflingcycling is finding one of the Halflings that have partner. Cycling Hobbit Hole to find Pippin, Warden of IsengardPippin, Warden of Isengard or Frodo, Adventurous HobbitFrodo, Adventurous Hobbit, then playing them and using their partner ability to search your library for their other half is an excellent value proposition. It isn't as open-ended as using Step Through to get Transit MageTransit Mage and then have your pick of four- and five-mana artifacts, but using one tutor to find two cards that each presumably have relevant text in the deck they're in is a good deal.

The final Halfling that I'm thinking about getting with Hobbit Hole is Bilbo, Birthday CelebrantBilbo, Birthday Celebrant. In the deck that is best positioned to take advantage of Halflingcycling, the Food and Fellowship precon, Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant is an excellent way to close a game after you've spent way too many turns gaining way too much life. Having a low-opportunity-cost tutor that can add a little consistency to setting up the deck's big finish is awesome, and Bilbo is far from the only Halfling in the deck worth tutoring for.

That Doesn't Look Like a Halfling

Not all of the cards you can Halflingcycle for are Halflings! More accurately, some of them aren't only Halflings. The coolest part about Shapeshifters is that the changeling ability works in all zones. Both Wizardcycling and Halflingcycling can access the sixty-three Shapeshifters Magic has on offer. Many of these Shapeshifters offer functionality that is very much worth having an additional tutor for. Chomping ChangelingChomping Changeling, Masked VandalMasked Vandal, and Nameless InversionNameless Inversion are removal spells that can be found with Halflingcycling. Omni-ChangelingOmni-Changeling is an above-rate clone effect due to convoke, and it certainly looks enough like a Halfling to me!

My Best Halflingcycling Deck

Shortly after reading Hobbit Hole for the first time, I realized I was in possession of a Unicorn, and it isn't Emiel the BlessedEmiel the Blessed. One of the decks I've built for an upcoming installment of 60 to 100 is a perfect fit for Halflingcycling. This deck is helmed by Jarad, Golgari Lich LordJarad, Golgari Lich Lord and its primary goal is to create a huge creature, then kill the table by flinging it with Jarad's activated ability. One way to produce that big creature is casting Formless GenesisFormless Genesis, a Shapeshifter sorcery with retrace that makes an X/X token where X is equal to the number of lands in my graveyard.

There's a really deep lands subtheme in the deck, and with that comes a sprawling Life from the LoamLife from the Loam package. By slotting in Hobbit HoleHobbit Hole, Delighted HalflingDelighted Halfling, and Chomping ChangelingChomping Changeling, this deck will have an additional tutor for one of its primary win conditions that can be recurred with Life from the Loam.

Conclusion

Halflingcycling is definitely much more limited than Wizardcycling. For that reason, Hobbit HoleHobbit Hole may never be able to fill Step ThroughStep Through's shoes. It makes sense, as Magic has been hard at work printing useful Wizards for decades now, and Halflings are a little newer to the party. Is Halflingcycling the next Wizardcycling? No, at least not yet. However, there are definitely real uses for Hobbit Hole, and it will forever be in the back of my mind when building new decks.

This is where I turn it over to you, dear reader. Do you have a deck that will make good use of Halflingcycling? A piece of Halfling tech I didn't go over? Let me know. I'm dying for more justifications to play with this sweet new mechanic.