We’re just a few days away from the full release of Magic’s Star Trek set now, and to say its reception has been muted would be an understatement. Players are reporting record-low Prerelease turnouts, and single prices are incredibly low for this time in the release cycle.
The exact cause behind this collective cold shoulder remains unknown, but it does mean a lot of the best cards in this set are flying under the radar right now. Some of the set’s top-tier green cards, in particular, feel very overlooked right now, meaning there are some low-key bangers you can grab if you’re so inclined.
Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy
How players aren’t more excited about Star Trek’s most iconic Doctor is beyond me. In 90% of scenarios, this card is just an Eternal Witness with Flash thanks to its first ability alone. This is an excellent rate for an MTG classic that over 723,000 Commander decks already run, with the added benefit of saving key permanents from graveyard hate and such.
If this were all Dr. McCoy did, it would probably already be worthy of consideration for most green Commander decks. There’s an entire second mode here, however, which essentially serves as a Not Dead After All effect in green. While it’s not totally out of the color pie, thanks to Reincarnation, green doesn’t get access to this effect very often.
You can use this ability to protect your key creatures from removal or board wipes, which is ideal for keeping your Commander safe. Alternatively, you can use it on a value creature like Solemn Simulacrum, then sacrifice it to re-use both of its abilities. In any case, the extra +1/+1 counter here is excellent with creatures that care about those, such as Basking Broodscale
Basking BroodscaleDevoid (This card has no color.)
{1}{G}: Adapt 1. (If this creature has no +1/+1 counters on it, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on this creature, you may create a 0/1 colorless Eldrazi Spawn creature token with "Sacrifice this token: Add {C}." and Jadzia Dax, Living Legacy.
Outside of Commander, McCoy’s second ability even allows for the kind of “Scam” lines we saw before with the Evoke Elementals in Modern, but on a card with more overall utility. This could earn the card a seat in Standard, where the Lorwyn Eclipsed Evoke Elementals play very well with it indeed.
Given its clear power and potential multi-format appeal, it’s wild that hardly anyone is talking about Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy yet. As with many Star Trek cards, though, this means you can grab copies for next to nothing if you want to get ahead of the curve.
Captain Pike, Fullness of Time
While not quite as much of a slam-dunk as Captain Kathryn Janeway, Pike is another Star Trek Captain that lands decks will love. Getting to play lands from the top of your library is a pretty huge ability in these decks, as cards like Oracle of Mul Daya and Augur of Autumn have proven time and again.
Given how land-heavy Landfall decks typically are, this should essentially serve as once-per-turn card draw more often than not. It also pairs especially well with Exploration effects to blast through land pockets. Add cards like Sensei’s Divining Top to manipulate your library, and the results can be incredible.
We’ve seen all this before on other creatures, of course, but what sets Pike apart is its excellent stat scaling. In everything but Mono-Green lists, there’s no reason why Captain Pike shouldn’t be swinging for big damage quickly. With how many good nonbasic lands we have access to nowadays, and land token generators like Overlord of the Hauntwoods, it’s easy to lean extra-hard into this ability if you want to.
While it’s not revolutionary, a lands-from-library effect on a significant body is new for green, and it should see plenty of play in Landfall decks. Whether you’re attacking and blocking, or just offering Pike up to Greater Good, there’s plenty of mileage to be had.
U.S.S. Discovery, at Black Alert
You’d be forgiven for glossing over U.S.S. Discovery during your early surveys of Star Trek, since the Spacecraft in the set all blend together a bit. This one is well worth a second look, however, given its potential in both fair lists and combo decks.
As the clever folks over at MTG Creative Combos have already figured out, U.S.S. Discovery enables a one-card win in current Standard. By running nothing but Quintorius Kand and copy effects, this deck can guarantee a chain of Discovers that ends the game on the spot with Quintorius’s passive. While this may be tricky to pull off in practice, largely due to the color requirements, the fact that it’s an option at all is intriguing.
Outside of this, U.S.S. Discovery feels like a fantastic fair card in Commander as well. Getting an on-entry Discover effect on an artifact is something new for Magic, so plenty of strategies will be able to abuse it that couldn’t quite find spots for the creature version.
You get more Discovers on attack, too, so five mana isn’t too much to ask for the kind of consistent advantage this can provide.
While it won’t redefine any given format, U.S.S. Discovery feels like it has enough solid potential to be worth noting. Hardly anyone is doing so yet, which makes it a bit of a hidden gem for now.
Holo-Engineer
Last but not least, green gets one of the funkiest Token cards we’ve seen in some time with Holo-Engineer. This newcomer converts any token you create, be it a creature, artifact, or something more unusual, into a 3/3 artifact creature.
Right out of the gate, this is fantastic for traditional Token decks, which tend to create 1/1s more often than not. Getting 3/3s instead is a major buff, making the likes of Hop to It
Hop to ItCreate three 1/1 white Rabbit creature tokens. legitimate threats. Since all your tokens are converted into artifacts, you can also tap into synergy pieces like Craterclaw Colossus
Craterclaw ColossusHaste
When this creature enters, creatures you control gain trample and get +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of artifacts you control. that might’ve been tougher to use without it.
The visual of turning your Clues, Treasures, and Food into 3/3 Holograms is a bit weird, but it’s an incredibly powerful play. This means that the new Quark, Humble Proprietor, also weirdly overlooked right now, is bonkers with Holo-Engineer, netting you four 3/3s per turn cycle.
Add in Academy Manufactor
Academy ManufactorIf you would create a Clue, Food, or Treasure token, instead create one of each., and you can stack the replacement effects to make twelve 3/3s per turn cycle.
While you usually have to take a hit on stats for a card like this, Holo-Engineer is a 6/6 for four across two bodies, which is a great rate even today. That, plus its surprisingly versatile ability, screams “Commander staple” to me, though apparently not to most players, as the card is largely going ignored right now.
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