Of all the MTG Star Trek cards released so far, Q, Stacking the Deck is by far the most bizarre. Build your deck right, and you can technically ensure that every single card in your hand is a copy of something powerful. This makes Q, Stacking the Deck incredible with topdeck manipulation cards like Sensei’s Divining Top and Scroll Rack, letting you consistently put bombs like Jeska’s Will on top of your deck.
While this is likely the best way to play Q, if you’re going for speed, some jankier options are available. By running as many as 98 lands in your Commander deck, you can ensure that Q hits the same card every time.
With the right cards, this can create a consistent death combo that starts with casting Q from the command zone, regardless of what your opening hand looks like. While these combos aren’t exactly good, there is a certain novelty to winning the game with a combo like this.
Q, Stacking the Deck 98-Land Combos
Despite these combos sharing the same pitfalls as past 97-land combos, Q, Stacking the Deck has multiple combos that win on turn six, or turn five if you open with something like Ancient Tomb. Of course, these combos won’t work if you happen to start with the other nonland card in your opening hand, but a single mulligan should fix that.
The quickest death combo discovered so far appears to be pairing Q with Glaring Fleshraker
Glaring FleshrakerWhenever you cast a colorless spell, create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}."
Whenever another colorless creature you control enters, this creature deals 1 damage to each opponent.. Since each Fleshraker creates a Scion whenever another is cast, you can cast your Fleshraker copies for free once you have three in play. The damage these creatures deal stacks exponentially, since each Raker deals damage for the Scions it and the others create. With this in mind, you need five Glaring Fleshrakers to deal 40 damage to the table, which you can do as early as turn 5 with a fast land like Ancient Tomb.
Most of the time, however, you’ll win on turn six, dealing up to 112 damage to the table! As this Reddit post demonstrates, if you play Q on turn four and follow up with a Glaring Fleshraker on turn 5, you can empty your 7-land hand on turn 6 to annihilate the table.
Of course, this Glaring Fleshraker combo has a few issues; the biggest is creature removal. Theoretically, you can win through a few spot removal pieces on your Fleshrakers, but it will slow the combo down immensely. With enough creature removal, you’ll have to wait a long time to amass a lethal number of Fleshrakers, giving your opponents plenty of time to kill you. You also need to find both red and colorless mana to pull this combo off, but in a 98-land deck, that should be pretty easy.
If you want to run a Q combo that avoids removal issues, some players have also mentioned Price of Progress as an option. While this can burn out the table while ignoring creature removal, the lands your opponents play matter. If they play at least four nonbasic lands by turn 5, you should win on turn 6 by casting a total of 5 Price of Progress. Given how many nonbasic lands an average Commander deck runs, pulling this off is likely easier than it sounds.
Playing the Long Game
While creating a 98-land two-card combo with Q, Stacking the Deck can lead to some hilarious moments, it’s more of a novelty than a strong strategy. Because of this, you typically only want to pull these combos off once before putting the deck away for good. That said, if you really want to pull off these 90+ land Q decks multiple times, there are some slower but more consistent cards you can consider.
If you want a more reliable Q target with some staying power, Delayed Blast Fireball is a decent choice. While it will win the game much later than Price of Progress or Glaring Fleshraker, Delayed Blast Fireball will repeatedly wipe your opponent’s creatures, giving you plenty of time. Notably, because you’re casting your copies from exile, Delayed Blast Fireball always deals 5 damage despite costing 3 mana.
Otherwise, some other early Q, Stacking the Deck brews include a few different nonland cards that can both snowball and do a lot on their own. Terror of the Peaks paired with something like The One Ring is an example, letting you deploy a consistent number of threats without running out of cards. The One Ring is particularly nasty with Q, since you can essentially give yourself recurring Protection From Everything.
With all this in mind, the best strategies with Q, Stacking the Deck will want to play more than one nonland card to give the deck some staying power. Since this Commander looks quite powerful even without the 98-land gimmick, the best way to enjoy the jankier decks this Commander offers is to build a more traditional Q deck alongside it. That way, by switching between decks, you may catch your opponents off guard with a 98-card combo more than once.
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