Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about The Cyber-Controller!

The Cyber-Controller is an X and three mana 3/3 that when they enter each opponent mills X cards, then we put all creatures cards milled this way onto the battlefield face down under our control as 2/2 Cyberman artifact creature while also giving other artifact creatures we control +1/+1.

An interesting take on a mill Commander and a theft Commander in that we need to mill our opponents in order to steal their creatures. It also serves as a way to hose some graveyard decks, which is nice, but the issue does come with how we can get this effect more than once.

The Cyber-Controller has the restriction in that we can’t blink it because if we did the X will be zero, so our next best thing will be to get consistent big mana while also being able to bounce The Cyber-Controller to our hand in order to cast it again and again.

The first thing we need are ways to generate a ton of mana in order for us to get the X to be as big as possible.

Energy Tap is a decent enough card since we can tap a utility creature like an Etherium Sculptor or Foundry Inspector, both of whom make artifact spells we cast cost one mana less, to get a bit of extra colorless mana.

As we saw with The Prima Vista, blue has access to a lot of ways to generate mana for artifact spells like Vedalken Engineer which can generate two mana of any one color that can only be used to cast artifact spells or to activate the abilities of artifacts.

We can also use Grand Architect when we start accumulating Cybermen because while they don’t inherently have a color, Grand Architect can use a blue mana to turn an artifact creature blue and we can tap an untapped blue creature we control to add two colorless mana to be used to cast artifact spells or activate abilities of artifacts.

If we do get more and more Cybermen in play, then Chief Engineer also becomes a practical choice for the deck since it gives artifact spells we cast convoke, which for a Commander with an X cost is a massive boon to have access to.

Since we also have access to black, there are a ton of rituals we also happen to have access to, Dark Ritual being the classic since it can add three black mana. Bubbling Muck and High Tide are also solid cards to include since they let Swamps and Islands tap for one more additional black or blue which can be immensely helpful for us.

If we can get access to Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge then we are golden because it gives creature and Planeswalker spells we control affinity for artifacts while being able to damage our opponents equal to the number of artifacts we control, return an artifact from our graveyard to our hand, or potentially cheat out some artifacts from our library onto the battlefield.

The next thing we need are ways for us to get The Cyber-Controller to our hand, which isn’t too difficult to achieve, and other ways to get more out of us milling our opponents.

Consign//Oblivion is a neat way for us to get a two for one in that we can use Consign to bounce The Cyber-Controller to our hand and then we can later use Oblivion because of Aftermath in order to get an opponent to discard two cards.

Snap works really well since we can bounce a creature to our hand and then untap up to two lands so we can get another use out of The Cyber-Controller, Unsummon is a classic one mana way to bounce a creature to our hand, and Fading Hope can also bounce a creature to its owner’s hand but since The Cyber-Controller’s mana value is technically 3 when it’s in play, we get an additional scry 1.

Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam is also a great card to have in our arsenal since we can return target artifact we control to our hand for only two mana, but also we can pay three mana and tap to copy target artifact spell we control, which means we can get a double trigger for The Cyber-Controller, since both enters effects will still trigger even if state based actions will have us sacrifice one of them.

Since we are working towards a mill strategy, the more we can get out of our mill the better, so something like The Water Crystal becomes more useful since it makes blue spells cheaper and if an opponent would mill one or more cards, they mill that many plus four instead, which when combined with The Cyber-Controller can definitely be used to get a couple more Cybermen in play.

There are a couple of other ways we can get Cybermen into play if we happen to mill our opponents with something like Maddening Cacophony which normally mills our opponents eight cards unless we kick it which then mills them by half of their library, and then combine that with something like Death in Heaven, which also mills target player’s graveyard by two cards and then exiles their graveyard twice and then we put all creature cards exiled with Death in Heaven onto the battlefield fae down as 2/2 Cybermen.

The last thing to consider for this deck are some cheeky ways to turn our face down Cybermen into actual creatures in order to get even more damage in or we can go all in on the milling and find ways to get even more benefits from that angle.

Ugin’s Mastery is a solid card for this because even though we aren’t going to be using the first ability in manifesting the top card of our deck whenever we cast a colorless spell, we could trigger the second ability in that whenever we attack with creatures with total power 6 or greater, three Cybermen will suffice, we may turn a face down creature face up.

We also happen to have access to Ixidor, Reality Sculptor who gives face down creatures +1/+1 and for three mana can turn a face-down creature face up, which for all intents and purposes is a really cheap way to get a potentially expensive creature out.

There is also Etrata, Deadly Fugitive who for four mana can turn a creature face up, and since the Cyberman are always creatures we don’t have to worry further, but she also has whenever an Assassin we control deals combat damage to an opponent we cloak the top card of their library, which also lets us use Etrata’s ability since she can let us cast our opponents spells that we may have cloaked (no extra lands though).

If we want to focus on the mill route as a potential way to win, then we can also use Duskmantle Guildmage who for three mana can have an opponent lose 1 life whenever a card is put into an opponent’s library from anywhere.

Dreadhound and Syr Konrad, the Grim can become absolutely lethal cards since Dreadhound has each opponent lose 1 life whenever a creature dies or a creature card is put into the graveyard from anywhere and Syr Konrad also does that but can also trigger whenever a creature leaves the graveyard, meaning we get double the damage from when the creatures get into our opponent’s graveyard and when they leave to become Cybermen.

The Cyber-Controller is an interesting value Commander in that we combine two strategies, mill and theft, as a way to accrue value. While this is a solid plan, the most difficult part will be getting a consistently high value for X in order to get the highest chance of getting things from our opponents.

We absolutely get hosed from decks that play little to no creatures, which is always a possibility, and any Cybermen we make also go to our opponent’s graveyard when they die, which doesn’t trigger any death effects, but if we are playing against a graveyard centric deck it can lead to us helping them in the future, especially if our opponents happen to wipe the board.

This is an interesting way to combine these two strategies, and there can be a ton of interesting games to come from playing The Cyber-Controller.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual