Each and every one of us know the stats. We've heard the truth time and again, and we've played long enough to corroborate it. Cypher is the least played agent in the game. And while every game will always have a "least used/played" (thing), it shouldn't be Cypher. If something is underplayed it should be because of pure chance and out of the unavoidable fact that something will always have to come in last place, not because it's bad. If an agent is underplayed because they're bad, then it's because you're letting them be bad. But Cypher doesn't have to be bad! There have been Cyphers who will come out of the great blue sky who have been the blessing of my game. There have been people like Dasnerth who have shown that cypher can work, although they are few and far between. Cypher definitely has potential and i think i know how to unlock it, how to open that potential up to more people.

Abilities:

Spycam - Literally perfect. This is how a signature ability should be done. I'm not here to dog on Riot, I'm here to critique Cypher. That means pointing out his good traits as well, and this is one of them. The cool down on the dart is just enough to make it a nuisance to deal with, without allowing it to become incredibly problematic. The presence of an enemy Spycam is a disadvantage, and every disadvantage you have is liable lose you the game. The fact that this is an ability your enemies can't afford to ignore makes it good.

If there was any changes to be made to it let Cyphers be able to pick it up without needing direct line of sight, but i digress.

Trapwire - This ability is another good one, however, it is very situational. I should not have to go to YouTube or Reddit to find which pixel i should place my Trapwire on to get maximum benefit out of it. I understand that like every other ability in the game the Trapwire should have limitations, but that limitation should not be "ineligible locations" for a tripwire. It's a tripwire for petes sake, let me set it up however i want. Is it possible, Riot, to implement a click and drag feature to the Trapwire where i can choose both the starting location and the ending location? I think that keeping the same distance limitation is fair but please don't make me run around during pregame, using my valuable pregame time trying to find a Trapwire that will work. Please don't tell me it's impossible. It's a videogame, anything is possible.

As a sidenote, if a Trapwire is not tripped or broken please let me keep it into the next round. This isn't a big deal, as i would be more than elated to see the aforementioned changes to the Trapwire- moreso than this one. I'm just nitpicking here, so again, i digress.

Cyber Cage - This is actually also a good ability... on paper. A smoke that will tell me when someone has pushed through it? Beautiful ability! It's slightly larger than most smokes as well and save for the fact that it doesn't have a top covering, it provides great cover. However... this only stops pushes on few occasions. With every other sentinel in the game, i would normally stop or slow down my push. Sage orb? Wait it out. Killjoy bot? Back out alllll the way, I'm not trying to get hit while fragile'd. Chamber trip? I always feel like I'm about to get picked off. But Cyber Cage? It's a toy! I play with that! In, out, in, out, in, out. It makes a funny noise and it's nice to troll the Cypher with. I don't want to ask for the cages to slow players, as they once did, that was removed for a reason. Instead, could players inside the Cyber Cage periodically get highlighted in a yellow outline, as they would with Cypher's ultimate? This would not only cause those pushing to give more than a second thought, but it would provide valuable information. How many people are in the cage? Where are the cage people? Are they playing with my cage? In a case such as this, you might also reduce Cyber Cage to a single use ability or you might bump up the price of the ability by some amount.

And as a quality of life change, it would be nice to pick up the cage after I've thrown it down, especially if I'm only going to have one. However i would be more than elated to forgo this quality of life if it meant that the above changes had better odds of taking place. Once more, pardon my digressions...

Ultimate Ability

We all know this is the main attraction. If you've been so kind so as to read the rest of my post, i thank you, as i know that this is what you've been waiting for. Here it is.

Neural Theft - Before i begin, let's take a quick overview at how the Spycam works. You stop moving, and at the expense of awareness of your surroundings you get to look at the perspective of your camera. This is great for information gathering. Most agents that I can currently think of have an ultimate ability which is a more powerful form of their signature ability. Yoru can enter another dimension rather than just teleport through it. Brimstone can call down an airstrike rather than just call down sky smokes. Breach can cause the earth to tremble rather than just create a fault line. You get the idea. So playing into this pattern, let's make Cyphers ultimate similar to an amped up version of his signature ability.

Cypher kills an enemy, and at the cost of 8 ult points can throw his hat at the corpse and cause it to hack into the enemy communications network. Cypher could then press his ultimate button again and in exchange for his movement and awareness of his immediate surroundings he can spectate individual members of the enemy team, switching between their views as if spectating teammates post mortem. This would circumvent the issue of the enemy team just faking out Cypher's current ult by facing or walking to an arbitrary location, as well as completely slow down pushes. However it is important to take the following into consideration so that this ultimate won't be considered overpowered.

1. Enemies should get an auditory or visual cue, both when Cypher is watching them and when he stops watching.
2. Information will get stale after a few moments as you cannot spend all the time in the world spectating every single enemy without becoming a detriment to your team. You would only be able to periodically check in on the enemy if you're looking for maximum efficiency.
3. This does not become the equivalent of a wall hacking ability since you cannot move while in the ult. You would have to give comms to your team (assuming you had teammates left and they are in the general vicinity) or go and try to wallbang a wall yourself, though you cannot guarantee that your information hasn't already become stale and you're wasting your time.
4. Self awareness is very important. Staying in your ult for an extended period of time poses a risk to yourself if you aren't careful.

This plays very well into the information gathering/broker "run but can't hide" trope that i believe Cypher was meant to play.

I hope that these ideas are ideas can stick and ideas that Riot thinks are worthwhile implementing. I personally don't think that these are bad ideas, but I'm imperfect and some critiques or criticism would be much appreciated.

I'd really like to see some traction on this post because I think it would be good for promoting Cypher changes and buffs and creating more awareness than we already have, but beyond that i thank you for reading and hope you have a good day!