We’re into week two of Star Trek spoiler season now, and it’s time for the set’s Commander precons to make their long-awaited entrance. Kicking things off, today saw the full reveal of MTG We Are The Borg, a new Esper artifacts decks with a heavy focus on creature combat. With a whopping 32 new cards in the mix, many of which look absolutely fantastic for the format, this is a hell of an introduction to Star Trek’s supplementary product lineup.
Hugh, First of Many MTG
We Are The Borg actually includes four different Esper legends you could run in the command zone, and Hugh, First of Many is perhaps the spiciest option. The ability here, granting all of your artifact spells Replicate, is quite simple, but it has all manner of ramifications in play. Used fairly, this is a great way to turn good-early-but-underwhelming-late cards, like Cryogen Relic and Perilous Snare, into late-game mana sinks. It also lets you double down on massive power plays like Portal to Phyrexia
Portal to PhyrexiaWhen this artifact enters, each opponent sacrifices three creatures of their choice.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. It's a Phyrexian in addition to its other types. once you’ve ramped a lot, which artifact decks are great at doing.
While this is great in itself, Hugh also makes easy token copies of any artifact you cast, opening up a bunch of shenanigans. You can copy these tokens cheaply using cards like Worldwalker Helm and Replicator, for instance, or get extra value with cards like Baron Bertram Graywater. With a ton of utility in both the command zone and the 99, Hugh seems like a fantastic new legend, funny name aside.
Võx, Child of the Collective MTG
Võx is a rare instance of ramp in MTG not tied to a tap ability, but instead to an enters/start-of-combat trigger. It’s doubly strange because it uses the rare Undaunted ability, which scales with your opponents in Commander.
In this case, you’ll almost always be getting a three-mana discount whenever Võx triggers, which is a pretty major deal. This lets you dump staple artifact creatures like Scrap Trawler or Solemn Simulacrum for free or close to it, rapidly developing your board.
Võx is particularly strong with other artifact ramp, like Foundry Inspector and The Eternity Elevator, which can catapult you far ahead. It’s also worth noting that multiple instances of Undaunted stack, so if you blink Võx with something like Ephemerate
EphemerateExile target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.
Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.), or double its main phase trigger with Gogo, Master of Mimicry, you can rack up discounts of six mana or more. At that point, even huge threats like Krang, Utrom Warlord
Krang, Utrom WarlordFlying, trample, indestructible, haste
Other artifact creatures you control have flying, trample, indestructible, and haste. become trivial to cast.
As a final note, Võx’s ability discounts the next artifact creature and Spacecraft spell you cast, so you can get a ton of extra value here with colorless Spacecraft like Deep Space 9
Deep Space 9When Deep Space 9 enters and at the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top four cards of your library. Put all permanent cards exiled this way onto the battlefield.
Station (Tap another creature you control: Put charge counters equal to its power on this Spacecraft. Station only as a sorcery.)
9+ | Creatures you control get +3/+3. and Starship Enterprise. Even in a regular artifact deck, though, Võx seems like an extremely powerful new ramp piece to test.
Ambulatory Reactor MTG
Speaking of great MTG ramp cards, We Are The Borg has another one in Ambulatory Reactor. For four mana, this essentially serves as a Cryptolith Rite
Cryptolith RiteCreatures you control have "{T}: Add one mana of any color." for artifact decks, letting all your artifact creatures tap to fuel more artifact shenanigans. This is honestly solid even with just one or two other artifact creatures in play, but it goes wild when you start generating a ton of tokens with the likes of Genesis Chamber or Myr Battlesphere.
Add in an ‘ability Haste’ granter, like Thousand-Year Elixir, and now blue artifact decks can emulate the huge success Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu decks have been seeing lately. There’s also a ton of combo potential here, particularly with the on-color Intruder Alarm to refresh your artifact mana every time you make a new token. All you need is something like Urza, Prince of Kroog, which makes tokens on demand, and this can easily snowball into an infinite.
Even without wild lines like this in the mix, Ambulatory Reactor feels like a new staple for pretty much every blue artifact deck. Whether you play Urza, Lord High Artificer or Breya, Etherium Shaper, this is a newcomer you’ll definitely want to pick up.
Transwarp Hub MTG
Most Spacecraft we’ve seen so far in MTG have been overcosted in one way or another, whether by mana cost or Station requirements. Transwarp Hub, by contrast, feels almost absurdly undercosted, packing a ton of value for just three mana.
The enters effect here alone, which is like a better Stock Up in artifact decks, would likely be enough by itself. Coming on an artifact, the potential for blinking or recycling Hub makes this quite an exciting draw effect, especially if you’re running graveyard synergy like Emry, Lurker of the Loch.
On top of that, Transwarp Hub also provides one of the best ways we’ve seen to sneak creatures through for damage in a while. Stationing for three is trivial for the majority of decks, at which point this can freely grant unblockable to even your biggest creatures. This is particularly nice in decks that rely on combat damage, like Mendicant Core, Guidelight
Mendicant Core, GuidelightMendicant Core's power is equal to the number of artifacts you control.
Start your engines! (If you have no speed, it starts at 1. It increases once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Max speed is 4.)
Max speed — Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you may pay {1}. If you do, copy it. (The copy becomes a token.), but it’s also just good in any deck with chunky creatures.
To top it off, Hub doesn’t even become a creature once Stationed, which keeps it safe as you pursue your combat plan. Add in potential shenanigans with artifact untappers like Tezzeret, Cruel Captain, and Transwarp Hub feels like a new blue artifact staple.
Queen’s Diamond MTG
If you thought we were done with wild new ramp pieces for We Are The Borg, think again. Queen’s Diamond does start out as a do-nothing artifact, but with just a few charge counters it becomes a repeatable Jeweled Lotus, and only gets more ridiculous from there. For any kind of colorless or Mono-Color Commander, this essentially removes Commander tax as a factor, since you can tap your Commander each time it re-enters to add more counters to cover it.
To take things even further, Queen’s Diamond also allows for some fairly easy infinites with the right setup. Once it becomes a creature, you can use Intruder Alarm to untap it each time you cast your Commander, letting you loop it endlessly with a sacrifice outlet. This lets you win either via your Commander’s enters ability for something like Maralen, Fae Ascendant, or via your sacrifice outlet if it’s something like Altar of Dementia
Altar of DementiaSacrifice a creature: Target player mills cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power.. Either way, Queen’s Diamond feels like a spicy new combo enabler, and a great card in general for decks that rely heavily on pricey Commanders.
An Insane Stack of New Cards
Impressive as all of the above cards are, they’re really just a taste of what We Are The Borg has going on. There are a ton of exciting new cards here, from wild Commander Jurati, Cordial Queen, to powerhouse draw engine Co-Option Adjutant. There’s even a new take on Hall of Echoes in Shore Leave Planet, which trades entering untapped for becoming an artifact copy of the Clone
CloneYou may have this creature enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.d creature, opening up a ton of different avenues.
On top of that, there are plenty of tools for creature-focused artifact decks, with many new cards that mass-buff them in the style of Slivers. Supplementation Node lets them gain counters on damage, Extraction Integrant makes them very difficult to block, and One, Borg Evolved gives them a whole suite of keywords to wreak havoc with. Add in other mass buffs like The Borg Queen, and one-sided sweepers like Battle of Wolf 359, and straightforward artifact Aggro decks are getting a lot of tools here.
Reprints-wise, We Are The Borg isn’t exactly overflowing with value, but it still has some decent hits. Morphic Pool is the big winner here at $27. Add on Unwinding Clock at around $20, and The Immortal sun at around $12, and there’s a nice bit of value here. Beyond that, while they aren’t super expensive, plenty of solid midrange cards like Toxic Deluge, Academy Ruins, and Skullclamp are on offer.
Overall, We Are The Borg is an excellent start for the MTG Star Trek Commander precons. With each deck promising another 32 new cards, we’re in for an exciting week indeed as Wizards slowly rolls them all out.
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