Now that preview season is over, we’re just a few days away from finally getting our hands on MTG Star Trek at Prerelease. Concerns over IP compatibility aside, this is looking like a pretty stellar set overall, with a ton of goodies for all kinds of MTG formats.
Commander players, in particular, are eating very well here indeed, as Star Trek introduces a bunch of interesting new Commanders. It also adds a huge array of new MTG cards for the Commander 99, the very best of which I’ve gathered here today for your consideration.
10 | Stable Wormhole
The “Stable” in the card name here feels pretty misleading, as this Wormhole is actually a very volatile Magic card. While the ceiling is incredibly high, the floor is a three-mana do-nothing enchantment, which is beyond unplayable in the current game.
In decks where you can attack early and consistently, like Tifa Lockhart, this is essentially a better Cultivate that repeats every turn. Getting a tapped land every turn is strong enough, but the perfect fixing on offer is a huge boon.
There are also plenty of synergies you can tap into to make the lands here even better. Cards like Amulet of Vigor, or The Wandering Minstrel in the command zone, will let you use your New Planets immediately. Since they’re tokens, doublers like Parallel Lives
Parallel LivesIf an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead. will massively increase your ramp potential as well.
Strong as these Magical Christmas Land scenarios are, Stable Wormhole falls apart pretty fast if your opponents are playing a responsible amount of removal. For that reason, it only just scrapes its way onto my list, despite the huge potential on offer.
9 | Merciful Mandate
If you’re a meddler at heart, then Merciful Mandate is a must-have from the MTG Star Trek Commander precons. This new instant gives you the rare ability to end an entire phase, specifically the combat phase, which opens up a bunch of interesting avenues.
At a base level, this is a funky Fog that also untaps your board for extra taps or blocks that turn cycle. Since ending the combat phase exiles all abilities on the stack, however, it’s also a weird kind of white Counterspell.
While this sounds niche, it actually has a fair few uses, whether it’s interrupting big Fire Lord Azula turns, or countering Aggravated Assault combos.
Speaking of combos, Merciful Mandate has some of its own with the ever-busted Isochron Scepter. Imprint Mandate onto Scepter, then animate it with something like Puppet Crafting, and you can untap it each turn to skip all opposing combat phases. This should buy you plenty of time to find a win, but I can pretty much guarantee it won’t buy you any friends.
8 | Lwaxana Troi, Charming Guest
On top of its spicy flavor implications, Lwaxana Troi is a pretty spicy card mechanically as well. By tapping it down for two mana, you can double the triggered abilities of any of your other creatures, which is a proven good time at this point.
Both Roaming Throne
Roaming ThroneWard {2}
As this creature enters, choose a creature type.
This creature is the chosen type in addition to its other types.
If a triggered ability of another creature you control of the chosen type triggers, it triggers an additional time. and Wizard’s Staff see a ton of play for their trigger-doubling capabilities, and Lwaxana Troi adds yet more redundancy to that pile. For trigger-reliant Commanders like Vivi Ornitier
Vivi Ornitier{0}: Add X mana in any combination of {U} and/or {R}, where X is Vivi Ornitier's power. Activate only during your turn and only once each turn.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Vivi Ornitier and it deals 1 damage to each opponent. and Fire Lord Azula, this can seriously swing games in your favor.
While it’s more susceptible to removal than its peers, Lwaxana Troi does have its fair share of advantages. Being a two-mana creature lets it come down early ahead of a potential target, and it’s also easy to tutor up, through cards like Imperial Recruiter and Birthing Pod.
Though it’s not a card for every deck, enough Commanders rely on their triggered abilities these days that I’m confident labeling Lwaxana Troi as a future staple.
7 | Dr. Beverley Crusher
The Panharmonicon design space of doubling various popular effects is definitely starting to wear thin at this point. That said, it’s also hard to deny how effective these cards often are, and Dr. Beverly Crusher is no exception.
In any kind of Lifegain deck, be it Oloro, Ageless Ascetic or Karlov of the Ghost Council, Beverly’s first ability does an enormous amount of work. As we just saw with Lwaxana, triggered abilities are king these days, so double-dipping on a relatively cheap body is a big deal.
On top of this, Beverly Crusher lives up to her name by being a very serious threat on board, too. Every instance of lifegain nets her two +1/+1 counters, which can easily snowball into lethal damage alongside buffs like Super State or Grafted Exoskeleton. You can even go infinite with Walking Ballista and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron, dealing infinite damage to everything in play.
While it’s not the most exciting design, Dr. Beverly Crusher is undeniably one of the best new MTG Star Trek cards for the Commander 99. Every Lifegain deck, and a lot of white decks beyond that, are going to be making room for this legend on their crew soon.
6 | Mr. Spock, Science Officer
Sometimes the simplest designs are the most effective, and they don’t get much simpler than Mr. Spock here. This is essentially a Teferi’s Ageless Insight on a body, but with the added upside of doubling your regular draw each turn as well.
At a base level this makes Spock a blue Phyrexian Arena provided it survives a turn, but the ceiling is far higher than that. Cantrips like Ponder
PonderLook at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle.
Draw a card. suddenly become serious draw spells with Spock in play, and incidental draw from looting or Cycling starts putting you ahead rather than card neutral.
Spock is particularly ridiculous with cards that draw multiple cards at once, like Brainstorm and Sylvan Library. While you’ll still need to put cards back with them, drawing six at such a cheap rate is more than worth it. The same applies to staples like Faithless Looting
Faithless LootingDraw two cards, then discard two cards.
Flashback {2}{R} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) and Frantic Search, which become downright incredible with Spock in play.
Factor in a fairly resilient body for four mana, and Mr. Spock looks like an easy addition to most blue decks in Commander. Card draw is, and always will be, a crucial part of the game, and it’s even better with this new banger in the mix.
5 | Khan, Vengeful Heart
From an incredibly generic design to a much more specific one, Khan, Vengeful Heart marks the midway point on my list. While it’s not the most splashable card in the world, it makes the cut here for its absurd interaction with Food Chain alone.
As with Misthollow Griffin, Eternal Scourge, and Squee, the Immortal, Khan makes infinite creature mana with this iconic enchantment. Unlike those cards, Khan also lets you draw through your entire deck alongside your Commander, making it much more reliable as a combo finisher on its own.
It also helps that Khan is a serviceable beater and Aristocrats piece, where previous Food Chain creatures have been vanilla bodies. This makes the combo much easier to slot into any given Golgari deck, as you only need to run one dead card in Chain itself.
Because of this, players are already eyeing Khan up for slots in cEDH, where it could single-handedly bring Food Chain combos back into the metagame. With Pia, Aether Ascetic
Pia, Aether AsceticWhen Pia enters, you may discard a card. If you do, search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. also giving the deck a boost this year, it may not be long before Wizards considers putting Food Chain back on the Game Changers list.
4 | Captain Kathryn Janeway
“You may play an additional land each turn” is a line of text that Wizards is getting a ton of mileage out of these days. Between 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 Exploration Broodship, it’s easier than ever to stack lands and Landfall triggers, and Kathryn Janeway is another piece of that puzzle.
Being a four-drop creature with this text is honestly not bad, with cards like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove seeing plenty of play largely because of it. This lets you reliably play out all the lands you grab from Cultivate and similar effects, while also popping off with Fetchlands and Crucible of Worlds-style cards.
On top of that, Kathryn Janeway also offers a pretty ridiculous repeatable Explore ability that affects all your creatures, tokens included. A normal green creature deck will get a ton of value from this over time, but cards like Scute Swarm
Scute SwarmLandfall — Whenever a land you control enters, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token. If you control six or more lands, create a token that's a copy of this creature instead. and Springheart Nantuko
Springheart NantukoBestow {1}{G}
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, you may pay {1}{G} if this permanent is attached to a creature you control. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that creature. If you didn't create a token this way, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token. can go absolutely wild if you hit a land pocket.
Taken as a whole, Captain Kathryn Janeway feels like the definition of a Commander 99 staple. Landfall decks and Token decks will definitely run it, and most other green decks will have to find a good reason not to do so, too.
3 | Quark, Humble Proprietor
While Khan is the Star Trek card I’m most excited for gameplay-wise, Quark is probably my favorite design from the set. Wizards gives you the best Treasure producer of all time here, with the clever twist that it stops you from using those Treasures while it’s out. Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
Thankfully, it’s not too difficult to find ways around Quark’s restriction, in a wide variety of decks. Any kind of sacrifice outlet, from Phyrexian Altar to Goblin Bombardment, will get it out of the way for you. One-shot effects like Diabolic Intent
Diabolic IntentAs an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature.
Search your library for a card, put that card into your hand, then shuffle. and Culling the Weak are great options here too.
Sacrificing Quark aside, you can also bounce it back to your hand, or even just cast a board wipe and let it die that way. Once it’s out of the way, assuming it stuck around for a turn cycle or two, you’ll be sitting on enough Treasure to catapult yourself into a winning position.
The best part about Quark is that you don’t even need ways to get rid of it. If your opponents let it live, the sheer volume of artifacts it generates will quickly become a problem, whether it’s in a deck like Vihaan, Goldwaker, or just one heavy on Affinity cards. It’s a real lose/lose scenario for your pod, and a brilliantly unique, flexible new design.
2 | Genesis Device
Scapeshift is a generational MTG card in both Commander and constructed, birthing an entire archetype with its absurd tutoring capacity. Genesis Device is essentially the second coming of this seminal sorcery, trading a higher overall cost for more flexibility and a ramp spell.
You get the best part of a Cultivate just for playing this, which isn’t a bad deal at all, really. The added flexibility of grabbing a Planet is surprisingly nice, too, given how good Evendo, Waking Haven
Evendo, Waking HavenThis land enters tapped.
{T}: Add {G}.
Station (Tap another creature you control: Put charge counters equal to its power on this Planet. Station only as a sorcery.)
12+ | {G}, {T}: Add {G} for each creature you control. and Susur Secundi, Void Altar can be in the right brews. Since Device is an artifact, you can even blink or bounce it for extra value if you’d like.
The headliner, however, is the activated ability, which is literally just Scapeshift for one more mana. This is a proven good time in Commander, and can possibly even end the game outright with cards like Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Traveling Chocobo in the mix.
Even in decks that aren’t gunning for obnoxious Landfall combos, being able to perfectly fix your mana, or grab utility lands like Bojuka Bog, is a great deal. Paired with its reasonable ramp, I expect Genesis Device to become a much more widely played Commander card than its venerable ancestor.
1 | Hit It!
Genesis Device is a pretty tasty three-mana ramp piece, but it’s only the second-best Star Trek card in that category. First place on this list goes to Hit It!, one of the more absurd Commander cards we’ve seen in quite some time.
For starters, this is an unconditional Haste granter that only affects your creatures, which is an in-demand effect in itself. Players up in cEDH have been running both Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu and Samut, Hazoret’s Champion lately for their synergy with cards like Cryptolith Rite
Cryptolith RiteCreatures you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color.", and Hit It! fills the same role.
On top of that, you’re also getting a fairly unique Rampant Growth variant here, which dumps four cards into your ‘yard at the same time. For graveyard-centric decks like Slimefoot and Squee and Coram, the Undertaker, getting this much ‘mill’ on a ramp spell is a pretty big deal.
While you can whiff on the land here, this shouldn’t happen often if you’re running a responsible land count. In any case, the additional long-term benefits of Haste and a big clump of cards in your ‘yard make Hit It! pretty strong regardless. If you’re playing a Gruul deck in Commander, you’ll need to pick up this banger sooner rather than later.
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