To capture the flavor of its characters, MTG Star Trek has explored new design space, creating some extremely wacky creatures. Today, a fair few creatures with unique abilities have surfaced, creating interesting synergies with cards that haven’t seen much play in quite some time. Whether you’re a Standard or Commander fan, there’s a weird new card for you.
MTG Kira Nerys, Firebrand
Kira Nerys, Firebrand offers a very weird variant of Haste, but it’s extremely powerful when used right. The card, in particular, allows you to put attacking creatures into play after blocks have been declared, ensuring that your key creatures can get through for damage unimpeded. Cards like Sneak Attack
Sneak Attack{R}: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. That creature gains haste. Sacrifice the creature at the beginning of the next end step. and Aether Vial allow you to do this, putting creatures into play at any time. Of course, creatures with Flash also work well with Kira Nerys.
While these are the best cards to use with Kira Nerys, cards that make tokens during combat are also quite powerful. This makes otherwise unimpressive cards like Jacked Rabbit or Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin a lot stronger than usual, since all your created tokens will attack. Kira Nerys’s second ability comes in clutch here, too, buffing your team to deal tons of damage.
Notably, since Kira Nerys puts these creatures into combat attacking, it also bypasses any negative triggers that would occur on attack. This includes detrimental triggers of common pillowfort pieces like Ghostly Prison and Propaganda, but it includes your own attacking restrictions as well. This makes Master of Cruelties a fantastic card to play with Kira Nerys, essentially enabling a combo kill that ignores your opponent’s life total.
While a cool design like this has a lot of potential, the fact that Kira Nerys, Firebrand is a do-nothing card on its own likely means it won’t see play outside specialized Commander decks. Still, this card has combo potential, so it could pick up in ways players don’t expect.
MTG Armus, Skin of Evil
Armus, Skin of Evil feels like a natural addition to constructed Reanimator decks, but may be a little lackluster for Commander. Since its discard ability only affects one opponent, as well as its removal mode, Armus is far better in two-player formats, where it has a strong chance of excelling.
As the Arena Championship metagame breakdown suggests, Superior Spider-Man decks are all over Standard, giving Armus a high chance of seeing play there. Forcing your opponent to discard two cards each turn for four mana is extremely powerful and basically demands immediate removal. The card also doubles as removal, taking down most of Standard’s core threats like Icetill Explorer
Icetill ExplorerYou may play an additional land on each of your turns.
You may play lands from your graveyard.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, mill a card. and Mightform Harmonizer
Mightform HarmonizerLandfall — Whenever a land you control enters, double the power of target creature you control until end of turn.
Warp {2}{G} (You may cast this card from your hand for its warp cost. Exile this creature at the beginning of the next end step, then you may cast it from exile on a later turn.). Of course, this also puts Armus into the bin, setting up a Superior Spider-Man play on curve.
While Standard is the most promising place for Armus, the card may also be considered as a flex slot for Modern Living End decks. Removing core threats like Dauthi Voidwalker and Ranger-Captain of Eos, this expensive removal spell also doubles as a game-warping threat for the Cascade strategy.
Between Standard and Modern, Armus, Skin of Evil certainly has promise, but only time will tell if this creature will see play. There are already tons of incredible targets for Superior Spider-Man to choose from, after all.
MTG Kai Winn, Factionless Leader
Offering a powerful tax effect that stacks up quickly, Kai Winn, Faithless Leader could be an interesting new sideboard piece from MTG Star Trek. Any deck that relies on activating an ability of the same card multiple times, notably Planeswalkers like The Theorist, Jace Beleren or an Empower Jace token, can run into a lot of trouble against this. The same goes for Commanders with activated abilities like Krenko, Mob Boss.
That said, if an aggressive Black deck makes it into Standard, Kai Winn might be strong enough to see play by naming opposing removal spells. Taxing a board wipe for 3 life, or a spot removal piece like Requiting Hex, can be the difference between a win and a loss for an aggressive deck. This also makes Kai Winn a funny way to combat Relentless decks, like Hare Apparent, in Commander.
Notably, however, Kai Winn, Faithless Leader doesn’t impact cards with triggered abilities, so it won’t tax cards like Obsessive Pursuit in Standard. Still, taxing a named spell on cast gives Kai Winn some use, potentially letting it appear in small numbers in some Standard decks.
MTG Ravenous Cosmozoen
Despite being extremely simple, many MTG players are extremely excited about Ravenous Cosmozoen, which fits like a glove in decks like Izzet Spellementals. While the deck is literally designed to support cards like this, Cosmozoen being a non-elemental might actually mean it doesn’t make the cut.
Personally, I am not high on this card since existing options like Eddymurk Crab outpace it in every single way. Ravenous Cosmozoen would have been terrifying as a common for Pauper, but as an uncommon, it just seems eh. Maybe it will see some play once the existing Spellementals package rotates out.
MTG Primary Unimatrix Adjunct
Besides being a mouthful to say, Primary Unimatrix Adjunct basically only has one home: artifact-typal Commander decks. For Commanders like Urza, Chief Artificer or Simulacrum Synthesizer
Simulacrum SynthesizerWhen this artifact enters, scry 2.
Whenever another artifact you control with mana value 3 or greater enters, create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control." decks, giving your Construct tokens Double Strike can be game-ending.
Similarly, if an Affinity deck rises up in Standard, Primary Unimatrix Adjunct could be a good way to close out a game with a go-wide board, especially with equipment like Improvised Arsenal, or creatures like Krang, Master Mind.
With niche powerhouses, weird abilities, and a new reanimator kingpin in the making, MTG Star Trek keeps impressing, and things are far from over. Soon, the four Commander precons for this set will be revealed, with each offering 30 new cards to MTG players. If you thought this week of spoilers was jam-packed, things will soon kick up to a new notch.
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