Despite prerelease events for The Hobbit starting yesterday, the set is already being pushed out of the spotlight. Thanks to the unfortunate timing of the Trek to Vegas convention, we’ve just been hit with a fresh wave of Star Trek spoilers. While these admittedly aren’t the most impressive cards, they do show off a brand-new MTG mechanic and mana symbol.
MTG Open Communications
While Open Communications isn’t the most powerful card, the Beam me up mechanic is extremely intriguing. It’s very similar to Flashback, but requires the added step of returning a creature you control to your hand. For Open Communications, doing this isn’t really worth it; however, you can minimize any tempo loss by using the bounce to your advantage.
Between bouncing free creatures and those with powerful enters abilities, you can easily get value from this downside. While this can already be useful on sorceries, Beam Me Up should be especially powerful on instants. Whether or not any of these will appear in the MTG Star Trek, however, remains to be seen.
MTG General Chang, Cold Warrior
As a one-mana sacrifice outlet, General Chang, Cold Warrior has some appeal in Aristocrats strategies. That said, you do also need to build around Klingons for it to have any real effect. While we don’t know much about this creature type so far, you could also make it work with Maskwood Nexus, so it shouldn’t be useless.
Interestingly, it appears that the showcase frame for General Chang has a unique mana symbol. Styled around the Klingon computer interface, this detail is technically flavorful, but it has irked some players. Currently, it remains to be seen if this will happen a lot in the set, but it’s definitely an unusual detail.
MTG Christine Chapel, Combat Medic
In addition to main set reveals, the Trek to Vegas convention also spoiled a new Commander card. Rewarding you for playing a wide variety of different lands, Christine Chapel, Combat Medic works wonders alongside Field of the Dead. You can even lean into the lifegain side of this card with Accomplished Alchemist for extra synergy, too.
Christine Chapel also has the upside of enabling an infinite life gain combo with Spike Feeder and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron. All you have to do is exile Spike Feeder with Cauldron, and you’ll be able to continuously remove counters from Christine Chapel to gain life and retrigger the Commander’s growth.
No More For Now
Thankfully, considering Star Trek won’t be officially released until November, the set is going back into hibernation now. With Trek to Vegas concluded, we shouldn’t hear more about it until much closer to its official release date. While this is a ways away, it shouldn’t be a boring wait, at least, with The Hobbit just releasing and Reality Fracture in the interim.
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