Commander blueprint · Star Trek Commander · Preview

How to build Chief Kyle, Transporter Tech

Chief Kyle exiles one of your creatures each time a land of yours enters and hands it back at the next end step. Give him creatures that bring a land with them and each end step feeds him the next land, so the same creature goes round once a turn, on every player's turn.

Art by Ariel Orea

Seven cards in this list come from the Star Trek sets that release on 13 November 2026: Kyle himself, Reconnaissance Partition, Unexplored Territory, M'Ress, Crew Coordinator, Ghost of Illyria, Pelia, Immortal Innovator and Temporal Tribulation. All seven become legal in Commander that day, so a legality check run any earlier flags them for their release date and nothing else. Kyle is the only one of them with a price so far, $9.97 on preorder, and new singles usually get cheaper once the boxes are open. The other six have no price at all, so each total on this page counts 94 of the 100 cards and is a minimum. Every older card is counted at the least anyone is asking for a paper copy of it today.

The core list has two Game Changers, and they hold its floor at bracket 3. One is Smothering Tithe and the other is Teferi's Protection. No Star Trek card is on the Game Changers list. Wizards revises that list at bracket reviews, not set by set, so a card from these sets could still be added and lift this floor. Nothing about a release can lower it.

Lands that arrive in the end step

Kyle hands his creature back at the beginning of the next end step, and the word doing the work is next. A land played in your main phase brings the creature back at your own end step. A land played before combat means whatever he sent is missing when you attack, so when the creature is one you want swinging, play the land after combat.

The other case is a land that enters during an end step. That step has already begun, so a creature Kyle exiles then sits it out and returns at the end of the following turn. Solemn Simulacrum turns that rule into an engine. It comes back at an end step and puts a basic land onto the battlefield, and that land triggers Kyle in the same end step. Send Solemn Simulacrum out again and it returns at the end of the next player's turn and does it all again. At a table of four that is a land at the close of every turn, four a round, for no mana. Its draw never happens, because exile is not dying, but the land is the point. The loop runs until you pick a different target or the basics run out, and there are 18 of them, 11 Plains and 7 Islands.

Kor Cartographer runs the same loop with any Plains card, which here means Hallowed Fountain, Prairie Stream and Meticulous Archive as well as the basics. H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit draws on every trip and then puts a land from your hand onto the battlefield, so it keeps going for as long as you hold a land. Reconnaissance Partition cannot loop by itself, because its ability needs it to tap, but every trip refills its two charge counters, which is two more uses, each a basic land or a card.

A creature in one of these loops also spends every main phase of every turn in exile. A sweeper or a removal spell cast at sorcery speed never sees it.

Ten lands that trigger him twice

White and blue have very few cards that put extra lands onto the battlefield, so the second trigger has to come from lands that go and find other lands. Flooded Strand, Marsh Flats, Arid Mesa, Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Flood Plain and Unexplored Territory each trigger Kyle when they enter and again for the land they bring. Myriad Landscape brings two basics, so it triggers him three times. That is ten of the 38 lands.

Three cards use those lands a second time. Crucible of Worlds lets you play a cracked one from your graveyard as your land for the turn, so one fetch land becomes two triggers every turn. Sun Titan returns one whenever it enters or attacks, and since Kyle can send Sun Titan out as well, it brings another back at the end step. Brought Back returns two lands you cracked this turn to the battlefield tapped, which is two triggers now and two more after you untap and crack them again. Azorius Chancery hands a land back to you as it enters, so a turn with nothing to play is rare.

An uncracked fetch land is a shield

Kyle's trigger is not tied to your turn. When an opponent aims removal at one of your creatures, crack a fetch land in response. The land triggers Kyle, he exiles the creature, the removal has nothing left to hit, and the creature returns at the end of that turn. Walking Atlas does the same from your hand, because its ability can be used at instant speed. Deep Gnome Terramancer fetches you a Plains when a land enters under an opponent's control without being played, once each turn, and your own Path to Exile is one way to cause it: if they take their basic, you get your Plains and Kyle gets a trigger at instant speed.

The same timing improves both evoke creatures. Cast Solitude or Mulldrifter for its evoke cost and, while the sacrifice trigger waits, crack a fetch land. Kyle exiles the creature before it can be sacrificed, its first trigger still resolves, and at the end step it comes back as an ordinary creature and triggers again. Solitude exiles two creatures for one white card from your hand that way, and Mulldrifter draws four cards for three mana and stays as a flier.

What to send, and what to keep home

Each trip is an arrival, so the creatures worth sending are the ones whose arrival does something. Watcher for Tomorrow gives the most: as it leaves, the card it hid goes to your hand, and as it returns it hides a new one. Mulldrifter, Cloudblazer and Aether Channeler turn trips into cards, and so do the cheap ones, Wall of Omens, Spirited Companion and Sea Gate Oracle. Reflector Mage, Man-o'-War, Pelia, Immortal Innovator and Venser, Shaper Savant bounce something every time. Solitude and Skyclave Apparition exile, and the card Skyclave Apparition took stays exiled when it leaves, though its owner gets a token in its place. Agent of Treachery takes a permanent from someone on every return.

Some of the blinkers can move a land, which Kyle cannot. Felidar Guardian exiles another permanent you control and returns it straight away, so aimed at a land it is an extra trigger on the spot. Flickerwisp holds its target until the next end step, so a land it takes triggers Kyle when it comes back. Ghostly Flicker can take two lands at once and return both immediately. Restoration Angel blinks a creature at instant speed, and Ghost of Illyria and Charming Prince send theirs out until the next end step, the way Kyle does.

Three things stay home. Tokens, because an exiled token is gone for good, and that covers every token this list makes, from the Officers of M'Ress to the Angels of Divine Visitation. Anything you borrowed, because Kyle returns a card to its owner, so a creature taken by Agent of Treachery or Roil Elemental would go straight back across the table. And Roil Elemental itself, because it keeps what it stole only while you control it.

Kyle cannot choose himself, since his trigger names another creature. That is why Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Teferi's Protection and Flawless Maneuver are in the list. Restoration Angel can save him at instant speed, because he is not an Angel, and Temporal Tribulation can exile him with a land so that both come back at the end step.

One land, two triggers

Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines makes any permanent entering trigger your abilities twice. Each land then gives Kyle two exiles, and every creature that comes back triggers twice on arrival. It also switches off your opponents' enters triggers.

Roaming Throne does it for one creature type, and the type to name is Human. Kyle is Human, so his trigger doubles, and so are nine of the creatures he sends: Watcher for Tomorrow, Aether Channeler, Sea Gate Oracle, Reflector Mage, Venser, Shaper Savant, Agent of Treachery, Cloudblazer, Charming Prince and Knight of the White Orchid. Naming Kor would double Kor Cartographer, Kor Skyfisher and Skyclave Apparition instead and leave Kyle doing one thing per land.

Panharmonicon only doubles artifacts and creatures entering, so it never touches Kyle's landfall. It does double Solemn Simulacrum and Kor Cartographer, though, and two lands at an end step are two triggers: one to send the fetcher round again and one to take Agent of Treachery round with it. Spark Double copying Kyle is a second Kyle that is not legendary, and its trigger can choose the original.

Two Angels at the close of every turn

M'Ress makes two 1/1 Officers for every land. With Divine Visitation out each of them arrives as a 4/4 flying Angel with vigilance instead, so the Solemn Simulacrum loop alone adds two Angels at the end of every turn. Felidar Retreat chooses each time between a 2/2 Cat Beast and a +1/+1 counter on every creature you control, and Emeria Angel adds a flying Bird. Under Divine Visitation the Cat Beast and the Bird are Angels too.

Emeria Shepherd returns a nonland permanent card from your graveyard with every land, and puts it straight onto the battlefield when that land is a Plains, which Kor Cartographer and most of the fetch lands can see to. Roil Elemental takes a creature with every land and holds them all for as long as it stays put. Agent of Treachery on a loop is a permanent from someone every turn.

The one sweeper is Austere Command, because one of its modes destroys only creatures with mana value 3 or less. Kyle costs four, and so do Solemn Simulacrum, Kor Cartographer and H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit, so the engine survives it, and anything halfway round a loop is in exile when it resolves.

The core list

Kyle and 99 cards, with 38 lands and an average mana value of 3.28. Point at any card name on this page and the card appears.

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Both rungs keep the loop

The budget rung is 15 swaps and comes to at least $102.50. Nothing that loops leaves: Solemn Simulacrum, Kor Cartographer, H.E.R.B.I.E. Scout Unit and Reconnaissance Partition all stay. Warped Landscape, Grasslands, Bad River and Escape Tunnel replace the four expensive fetch lands, so ten lands still trigger Kyle twice. Two of the new ones enter tapped and Warped Landscape costs two mana to crack, which is what the saving really costs. The doubling gets weaker. Strionic Resonator copies one Kyle trigger for two mana where Roaming Throne doubled all of them, and Soulherder, which grows whenever a creature is exiled and blinks one at your end step, stands in for Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. Keeper of the Accord replaces Deep Gnome Terramancer but only fetches at an opponent's end step while that player has more lands than you, and this deck does not stay behind on lands for long. Ephemerate takes the place of Teferi's Protection and does the one thing Kyle never can, which is blink Kyle. With no Game Changers left, this rung has no bracket floor at all.

Eight swaps take the list up to bracket 4, at a cost of at least $750.23, and its six Game Changers put the floor at 4. Scalding Tarn, Polluted Delta and Windswept Heath come in for Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Flood Plain. The number of double triggers is the same, but the two old fetch lands put their land in tapped and Flood Plain enters tapped itself, and the new three do neither. Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora replace the small draw creatures, Fierce Guardianship counters a noncreature spell for free while Kyle is out, Cyclonic Rift clears the way, and Enlightened Tutor finds whichever of Roaming Throne, Panharmonicon, Crucible of Worlds or Divine Visitation the game needs. That belongs at a table that expects tutors and free counterspells, where an engine that ramps on every player's turn is still a lot.

FAQ

When can Chief Kyle be played in Commander?

From 13 November 2026, when Star Trek Commander is released. He comes in Landing Party, the green, white and blue deck that Commander Spock leads, and his own colour identity is white and blue, which is all this deck uses.

Does a fetch land trigger Chief Kyle twice?

Yes. Landfall counts every land that enters under your control, whether you played it or an effect put it there, tapped or not. The fetch land triggers him when it enters and the land it finds triggers him again.

Can Chief Kyle exile himself to dodge removal?

No, his trigger only picks another creature. Restoration Angel, Temporal Tribulation and the two Equipment cover him instead, and a Spark Double copying him has a trigger of its own that can choose him.

What happens if a land enters during the end step?

The creature Kyle exiles misses that end step, because it has already started, and comes back at the end of the next turn. This deck relies on that, since a creature that puts a land onto the battlefield when it returns can go round once a turn.

Do the creatures still come back if Chief Kyle dies?

Yes. Each return is set up when the trigger resolves, so it still happens at the next end step even if Kyle has left the battlefield by then.

How much does the Chief Kyle deck cost?

Bought at the lowest paper prices around today, the core list is $488 or more, the budget rung $102 or more and the bracket 4 rung $750 or more. Six of the new cards have no price before release and Kyle's $9.97 is a preorder, so expect all three figures to change.

What bracket is this Chief Kyle build?

The core list starts at bracket 3, because it plays two Game Changers, Smothering Tithe for mana and Teferi's Protection to save the board. Take both out, as the budget rung does, and no floor is left. The bracket 4 rung carries six. None of the Star Trek cards is a Game Changer today, and that list changes at bracket updates instead of with new sets, so any of these floors may go up later but none can go down.