Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek - Everything You Need to Know About the Final Frontier
With this, one of the largest and longest-running science fiction universes meets one of the longest-running trading card games. 60 years of Star Trek is meeting 30 years of Magic: The Gathering.
A Mission For Every Player - Mechanics As You Have Never Known Before
As we’ve seen with past Universes Beyond sets, Wizards of the Coast is quickly becoming an expert at making these outside sets and their worlds feel right at home in Magic: The Gathering. Rather than relying on flavour text alone, Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek takes familiar concepts from the world and translates them into unique mechanics. Some mechanics reward a diverse crew, others encourage exploration, and a few let you turn an opponent’s own forces against them.
And with two events coming up 8-10th of January in Lille, both Spotlight Series: Star Trek & Commandfest Lille, having knowledge of these new mechanics and knowing which ones can improve your deck will prove to be very useful!
Beam me up
Transporters have been getting Starfleet officers out of trouble since the original series, and now they’re giving Magic players another way to use their spells. Beam me up is a new keyword ability that allows you to cast certain instant and sorcery spells from your graveyard by returning a creature you control to its owner’s hand and paying the alternative cost listed on the card.
What I love about this is that returning a creature isn’t necessarily a downside, either. If it has an enters-the-battlefield ability, you can get that effect again when you cast it later. You might also be able to save a creature from an unwanted effect, or even get it out of harm’s way in the nick of time.
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Face a Dilemma
Star Trek has never shied away from difficult decisions. Its captains regularly have to choose between two imperfect options, and the consequences can be just as important as the choice itself.
Face a dilemma is a new rules term that rewards you for choosing modes on a modal spell or ability. If a card triggers when you face a dilemma, all you need to do is choose one or more modes. The spell doesn’t even have to resolve for the choice to count. Many cards have the ability to have you face a dilemma. Creatures like Federation Probe as well as sorcery spells like Resistance Is Futile, all have you face a dilemma. We even have one of the most famous dilemmas in all of Star Trek, the legendary Kobayashi Maru Scenario.
Federation
The Federation draws strength from bringing different species and cultures together. Federation is a new ability word that denotes abilities that reward you for controlling non-Borg creatures with different creature types. The important part is diversity, rather than the total number of creatures you control. A Human Scientist creature would contribute 2 different creature types. Having a Human Scientist and Human Officer would still only contribute 3 creature types. And if you’re like me and immediately thought about using Changelings, I’m sorry to say that they won’t count, as they are also Borgs, and we only look at types on non-Borg creatures.
Strange New Worlds
If there is one thing Star Trek has taught us, it’s that there is always another planet to explore. The strange new worlds ability word brings that sense of discovery into Magic by counting the number of differently named lands you control.
Let’s look at Captain Pike, Fullness of Time. His power and toughness is equal to the number of differently named lands you control. If you have three forests in play, he would be a 1/1. But if you had a forest, Overgrown Tomb, and an Orion in play, he would be a 3/3. I like the added layer of depth this has with deckbuilding, and calls back to Field of the Dead, and looking at diversifying your mana base.
Want to experience Magic: The Gathering I Star Trek in person? Come to the Spotlight Series: Star Trek or Commandfest in Lille 8-10th January 2027!
Station
What’s a Star Trek set without its starships? Spacecraft returns as an artefact subtype, and the station ability gives your creatures a way to help bring these vessels into action. Most spacecraft begin as artefacts with abilities that become more powerful as you add charge counters to them.
Much like crew and saddle, to station a spacecraft, you tap another untapped creature you control. When the ability resolves, the ship receives charge counters equal to that creature’s power. Once a spacecraft has the appropriate number of counters, it gains the abilities in that section of the card. If that section includes power and toughness, the ship becomes an artefact creature as well.
Let’s look at D-7 Battle Cruiser as an example. It starts with only station as its ability, then once it gets 3 charges, it creates creature tokens. Once it has 8 charges, it itself becomes a 3/3 artefact creature, but it also maintains all previously unlocked abilities.
Assimilate
Resistance is futile! The Borg have arrived in Magic, and they’re bringing their own way of building an army.
Assimilate is a new keyword action that lets you bring creatures into the Collective. Depending on the effect, you may take control of a creature already on the battlefield or put a creature card onto the battlefield under your control. The creature receives a +1/+1 counter, becomes a Borg artefact creature, and loses its other creature types.
Death Is Irrelevant, for example, will take a creature card from a graveyard and put it into play under your control. The Borg Queen will assimilate creatures from exile after your opponent exiles cards from the top of their deck until they hit a creature. There are many ways for the Borg to assimilate into the Collective, and as more cards are revealed, I can’t wait to see just how much of other people’s decks I can play.
Battlefront and Seek Out (Commander)
The set also introduces two ability words specifically for Commander. The Klingon Fury commander deck features the brand new Battlefront ability word. Battlefront denotes abilities that care about how many different opponents you’ve attacked. Looking at Worf, Defiant Commander, when you attack, you exile the top X cards of your library, where X is the number of opponents you attacked this turn. Until the end of your next turn, you may play those cards. Now you can take the moral high ground by spreading the damage and still get rewarded for it.
If you somehow get multiple combats in a single turn, Battlefront will track who you’ve attacked previously, so you can attack one person one combat, and another in a follow-up combat step. Additionally, creatures that enter tapped and attacking don’t count; you have to declare attacking creatures at each opponent.
Seek Out is another new ability word for commander that tells you when an ability would trigger when you draw your second card each turn. That means you can potentially trigger these abilities on your own turn and again during an opponent’s turn if you draw enough cards. Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary from the Federation Fleet commander deck exemplifies the idea of exploring and seeking out quite well, exemplifying Starfleet’s motto to go boldly where no one has gone before. In this case, going deeper into the deck.
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The Final Frontier Awaits
With so many mechanics inspired by the world of Star Trek, this set offers plenty of ways to make your games feel like an adventure of your own. Whether you’re assembling a diverse Federation crew, bringing your favourite spacecraft online, or adding another member to the Borg Collective, there’s a lot to experiment with once these cards hit the table.
And with Spotlight Series Lille happening 8-10th January 2027, there’s even more reason to get excited. Bringing Star Trek to a live Magic event is a fantastic opportunity to see these cards in action, meet fellow fans, and discover what the community does with the new set. It will be a great chance to celebrate this crossover together. Interested in going to the Spotlight Series? Find the info page here! Until then, it’s time to study the cards, choose your crew, and prepare to boldly go where no Magic deck has gone before!
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