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Escape Protocol

Enchantment

Whenever you cycle a card, you may pay {1}. When you do, exile target artifact or creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{1}{U}
Color identity
U
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths
Price
$0.11
EDHREC rank
#15482
Buy on TCGplayer
Escape Protocol card art
Escape Protocol turns every cycled card into a free flicker trigger — at one blue mana per activation, you're blinking permanents at instant speed whenever a cycling cost gets paid. In a Gavi, Nest Warden deck, where Gavi makes the first cycle each turn free, pairing it with Vizier of Tumbling Sands creates a repeatable engine that costs you nothing on the mana side.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Gavi, Nest Warden

Gavi, Nest Warden

21.0% of decks · synergy 0.21

Gavi, Nest Warden's free first cycle each turn means Escape Protocol triggers at zero total mana cost, letting you flicker a permanent every turn without ever paying the {U}. Stack that with enough cyclers and you have an engine that resets enters-the-battlefield effects on demand.

02
Sharuum the Hegemon

Sharuum the Hegemon

16.4% of decks · synergy 0.16

Sharuum the Hegemon's enters-the-battlefield ability reanimates an artifact from the graveyard, and Escape Protocol lets you cash that trigger in repeatedly by flickering Sharuum whenever you cycle. The result is a loop-friendly value engine that the artifact-combo shell already wants to assemble.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Escape Protocol is legal in Commander, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, though it sees essentially no play outside Commander. In constructed formats, the payoff requires a critical mass of cyclers and a flicker target worth blinking, a setup cost that's too slow and narrow for Legacy or Modern's tempo demands. Commander is the natural home: the longer game, higher card counts, and prevalence of powerful ETB creatures make the engine coherent rather than cute. In Oathbreaker it's theoretically possible in a cycling-focused build, but the card's ceiling is firmly in 100-card singleton where you can load up on both cyclers and blink targets.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.11 bulk tier

At $0.11, Escape Protocol is deep bulk — you're picking it out of a commons box, not tracking it on a buylist. Bulk enchantments with narrow combo applications rarely climb unless a new commander pushes the archetype hard, so don't expect movement; just grab a copy whenever you're building a cycling deck.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.