Not entirely sure if this is worded in the best way at the moment, but the idea is basically that you pay 2 life in place of a card's normal cycling cost, and I guess it also implies that you can cycle any card in your hand for 2 life even if it doesn't have cycling.

If I wanted to make it give all your spells cycling, it could be changed to: "Spells you control gain Cycling - Pay 2 life". But that's a lot more powerful than a tap based ability and might be OP in its implications with cards that have high cycling costs with powerful abilities.

I think the way its worded is fine, the other option seems a lot more powerful. I much prefer this version. Could be "You may pay 2 life instead of a cards cycling cost" but I still think that's a bit powerful.

With some of the cards in this set, simply giving all your spells Cycling - 2 life is definitely powerful.

The original idea I was going for was more along the lines of "Cycling abilities you activate cost less" (See the wording of Fluctuator for reference), but that's still a confusing wording for what it intends to do - give you the ability to pay 2 life in place of 1 mana on cycling costs on your cards.

I recommend ': Cards in your hand gain 'Cycling- Pay 2 life' until end of turn'.

I think I'll go with your recommendation for the moment, but that can be pretty powerful. It is less powerful than a universal "Cards in your hand gain "Cycling - Pay 2 life" though. The area where it is most powerful in this set would seem to be those cycling cards we have that also have an effect when you cycle them, so you're paying 2 life for an effect + card draw. But the fact that paying life can kill you quickly enough if you do it too much, might be a balanced trade off.

I still worry though. Doesn't this more or less let you repeatedly Wheel of Fortune yourself in exchange for life?

"Doesn't this more or less let you repeatedly Wheel of Fortune yourself in exchange for life?"

The one biggest strengths of wheel is letting you refill your hand up to full- this doesn't do that. You can't really use this effect for cycling more than say seven cards and not without serious cost. That doesn't seem too concerning to me.

True, because of how serious the cost in life would be, you have an incentive not to overuse it. It's just more the principle that you can in theory use it to do so that I can see potentially being abused, especially with lifegain or lich type effects.

Personally I think this card is too easily abused. With cards that do stuff when they're cycled it is basically getting those effects for free with card draw stapled onto them. You just have to look at the 1 cmc phyrexian mana cards to see why that gives us potential design problems. With cards that dont give you any benefit when cycling it, it just seems like it'd be abused in degenerate decks, either those who want cards in the graveyard or those who want to be able to find their combo pieces quicker. And to top it off there are cards that do thigns when you cycle other cards, with Blood Leech for example you can do this double the number of times you normally could and drain your opponent while you're at it.

I think a compromise solution would be to change it to something like: ": Up to one card in your hand gains "Cycling - Pay 2 Life" until end of turn".

This still lets it give non-cycling cards the ability to cycle, and you can use it to get around otherwise high cycling costs and apply it to cards that still give a benefit for cycling, but it avoids the infinite repeatability issue. I don't see it comboing with other cards in the set to inherently be an issue though, as much as part of the appeal.

Blood Leech does provide a potentially problematic interaction, though you'd have to have 2 of them out before it negates the life loss.

If it comes down to it, if it can be properly worded, the original (pre-post) idea of "You may replace 1 mana in the cycling costs of cards in your hand with 2 life/" or "cycling abilities you activate cost 2 life/ less" might be the most balanced option here. Since it doesn't enable the abuse of just being able to play any old cycling card altogether for 2 life, or to cycle any old card for 2 life.

The idea would then be like Fluctuator, but with life. Cost reduction, not cost replacement.