Our first full week of MTG Star Trek spoilers is drawing to a close, and what a ride it’s been. We’ve seen some wild combo enablers, a range of promising new Commanders, and even some spicy Stardate reprints as well.
What better way to cap off such a fantastic week, then, than with one of the most iconic MTG Star Trek characters of all in Scotty, Miracle Worker. This beloved engineer’s reputation extends far beyond Star Trek itself, and his Magic incarnation feels worthy of that legacy.
Scotty, Miracle Worker MTG
Once you get past the slightly confusing wording, and realize that Beam Me Up only works with instants and sorceries, Scotty’s power becomes clear. This is essentially a new take on something like Past in Flames
Past in FlamesEach instant and sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost.
Flashback {4}{R} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) or Lier, Disciple of the Drowned, letting you re-use all of your spells for a ton of extra value. The main caveat here, of course, is that Beam Me Up requires you to bounce a creature back to your hand each time, which changes the equation completely.
For the most part this is a downside, but there are plenty of ways to change that in the right decks. Free creatures like Ornithopter, or any Affinity creatures in an artifact deck, essentially remove the limitation here, as you can just re-cast them after each bounce. Alternatively, you can run Scotty in a deck focused around re-using handy enters abilities, and bounce something like Loran of the Third Path
Loran of the Third PathVigilance
When Loran enters, destroy up to one target artifact or enchantment.
{T}: You and target opponent each draw a card. or Mulldrifter
MulldrifterFlying
When this creature enters, draw two cards.
Evoke {2}{U} (You may cast this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it's sacrificed when it enters.) for extra value. A particularly nice trick here is to Beam your whole board by re-casting cheap spells like Brainstorm, getting your creatures to safety before you cast a board wipe.
Because Scotty lets you cast spells from your graveyard, it’s excellent in decks that already want to do that, like Green Goblin and Kellan, the Kid. It’s also great for strategies that mill or discard a ton of cards each game, such as Muldrotha, the Gravetide and Nekusar, the Mindrazer
Nekusar, the MindrazerAt the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card.
Whenever an opponent draws a card, Nekusar deals 1 damage to that player., since they naturally create a ton of fuel for him to work with. In these decks, Scotty essentially serves as a big refill later on, but without the usual Underworld Breach
Underworld BreachEach nonland card in your graveyard has escape. The escape cost is equal to the card's mana cost plus exile three other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast cards from your graveyard for their escape cost.)
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice this enchantment. downside of only lasting a turn.
While Scotty should find homes in a wide range of Commander decks across all brackets, it looks particularly interesting for cEDH. Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh is one of the most-played Commanders in the format already, and it pairs perfectly with Scotty, letting you re-cast your whole ‘yard without worrying about the Beam Me Up cost. With a Flash granter like Borne Upon a Wind in the mix, you can do this in response to opposing plays, too, which feels quite strong. While this won’t enable the same combos as something like Breach, due to Beam Me Up’s exile clause, getting a second use out of all your interaction is a tasty prospect indeed in cEDH.
Add in some fringe potential in the command zone, and Scotty feels like a great all-rounder for Commander. Its potential goes far beyond that, mind you, as it also seems like a fine addition to Dimir Bounce decks in both Standard and Pioneer. Getting extra uses out of your bounce spells, and ‘free’ extra bounces from Beam Me Up, gives the deck a ton of extra juice, and could potentially bring it back into the spotlight.
Overall, Scotty, Miracle Worker lives up to both that lofty name, and the character’s lofty reputation. It feels like a card with a huge array of homes, in Commander in particular, but also a fair card due to the considerable hoops you have to jump through to get the most out of it. When the preview season dust settles next week, I’ll be very surprised if Scotty isn’t one of the chase mythics for the set.
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