I was planning to sit out most of this week for reviews: my classes begin this coming Monday, so things are pretty busy.  More importantly for you, I haven’t had much exposure to this set.  I have faced Cybernetic Magician at least once and seen what it can do, so I feel that I can safely extrapolate at least a rough approximation of its performance, and I can spare just a little time for a quick review.

 

Level 6 isn’t too happy, but it doesn’t have any other Summoning restrictions tacked on, so it’s not crippling.  It is a Light/Spellcaster.  At the moment, being a Spellcaster isn’t too significant (and I don’t know exactly when or if that will change), but being a Light Monster is a huge plus since it means it can feed Chaos decks.  It has a 2400 ATK.  Obviously, not the best attack for a single Tribute Monster, but good enough that as long as it has at least a half decent effect, it stands a reasonable chance of being played.  The DEF is a less impressive 1000, which means a position shift would allow most Monsters to easily dispatch Cybernetic Magician.  The good news is that chances are if they can do it to you, you can turn around and do the same back to them

 

Player 1: Summon Tsukuyomi, flip Cybernetic Magician.  Attack it.

Player 2: I respond with Book of Moon, flip down Tsukuyomi.

 

The actual effect is pretty handy: not game breaking on its own, but rather nasty on a 2400 ATK Light Monster.  At the price of discarding a card from hand, you can change anything’s ATK to 2000.  Keep in mind it must “change” the ATK in order to use it (no discarding and targeting Vampire Lord just to meet a Chaos requirement).  This may be what ultimately saves this card.  Assuming you aren’t so battered you have no way of Summoning it, you more or less have a way of making sure any big nasty is small enough that Cybernetic Magician can run over it.  Sure, they can get rid of it in the usual ways, but tell me, what would you rather Torrential Tribute or Bottomless Trap Hole: Vampire Lord, Black Luster Soldier, Tribe Infecting Virus… or Cybernetic Magician.  Even if you do, he can use his effect once via priority.  What does that mean?  Well, if you do use something to nuke him that doesn’t remove him from play; your opponent calls priority and discards a Dark Monster to change something’s attack to 2000.  At worst, they can target Cybernetic Magician himself (remember, using priority, he’d still be alive and on the field), for the sole purpose of setting up for Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning.

 

Even on his own, he has uses.  I am sure everyone knows this (if not, the other reviewers mentioned it) that you can burn your hand (if necessary) to turn a bunch of Sheep Tokens into 2000 ATK beatsticks.  Pretty nice if the field is clear (the only time you should attempt this).  Plus, when one knows one will be discarding a lot, and that said discards will serve him/her well, then that duelist can work Night Assailant in, allowing as many Monsters to be “modded” to 2000 ATK as s/he wishes.  Even if Cybernetic Magician is your only Monster, Sinister Serpent is a major power card that belongs in most decks, and means that at least once per turn the effect can be used with minimal resource loss.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 2/5-I can see using it in this format, but probably only into a very specialized Chaos Control variant.  It helps that Painful Choice makes setting up the “infinite discards” with Night Assailant.

 

Advanced        : 3.75/5-Since this is going up late, I notice that I am scoring it the same as EMoD.  Scary.  We aren’t supposed to agree.

 

Limited            : 5/5-Perhaps a bit overboard, as there are many nasty cards in this set.  Once it gets out, though, it’s pretty hard for your opponent to get rid of it.  Plus if you can get it out in the face of adversity, you have an almost guaranteed kill of whatever they were stomping you with.