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Mindslaver

Legendary Artifact

{4}, {T}, Sacrifice Mindslaver: You control target player during that player's next turn. (You see all cards that player could see and make all decisions for them.)

CMC
6
Mana cost
{6}
Color identity
C
Rarity
rare
Set
The List
Price
—
EDHREC rank
#4622
Buy on TCGplayer
Mindslaver card art
Mindslaver lets you take complete control of an opponent's turn — their hand, their mana, their creatures, their mistakes — and the only question is whether you can recur it. With Academy Ruins putting it back on top of your library every upkeep and Glissa, the Traitor returning it from the graveyard whenever a creature dies, the lock becomes near-permanent for six mana the first time and effectively free every turn after.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Glissa, the Traitor

Glissa, the Traitor

23.8% of decks · synergy 0.24

Glissa, the Traitor is the most natural Mindslaver commander in the game: whenever an opponent's creature dies under your controlled turn, Glissa triggers and returns Mindslaver from your graveyard, setting up an infinite lock without needing Academy Ruins at all.

02
Daretti, Scrap Savant

Daretti, Scrap Savant

22.8% of decks · synergy 0.22

Daretti, Scrap Savant's minus ability reanimates artifacts directly from the graveyard, which means Mindslaver can come back the turn after you sacrifice it — Daretti effectively turns a one-shot activation into a recurring engine with no extra infrastructure.

03
Sen Triplets

Sen Triplets

21.7% of decks · synergy 0.21

Sen Triplets already lets you play from an opponent's hand, and stacking Mindslaver on top means you control not just what they cast but every decision they make — together, the two effects cover nearly every resource an opponent has.

04
Ashnod the Uncaring

Ashnod the Uncaring

21.9% of decks · synergy 0.21

Ashnod the Uncaring copies triggered abilities, so a Mindslaver activation that triggers a return effect — through Glissa or a similar piece — can be doubled, either locking two opponents simultaneously or providing redundancy that makes the engine nearly unbreakable.

05
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

20.7% of decks · synergy 0.20

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider rewards playing artifacts from exile and graveyards, and Mindslaver fits cleanly into that artifact-value loop — you can leverage the controlled turn to set up archaeological counters or favorable board states that Lara then capitalizes on.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Mindslaver is most feared and most played: the combination of long games, graveyard-recursion commanders, and the political devastation of losing your entire turn makes it a genuine finisher rather than a curiosity. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but essentially unplayed — the formats move too fast for a six-mana artifact that requires an additional activation investment, and the lock pieces that make Mindslaver oppressive in Commander don't have the same traction in a 60-card singleton world. Oathbreaker is legal as well, and the compressed game length actually makes the lock faster to assemble if your planeswalker supports artifact recursion. Pioneer, Standard, and Pauper are off the table entirely.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

unknown tier

Mindslaver has been reprinted enough times that copies surface across a wide price range depending on printing, so it's worth checking current listings on Scryfall or TCGPlayer before buying. Given its role as a combo centerpiece in multiple popular commanders, demand stays steady — it rarely drops to bulk but is almost never a budget obstacle for the decks that actually want it.

Explore

Sources

Mentioned

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