Art by Raymond Swanland

Star Trek in Magic: The Gathering was not on my 2026 bingo card!

In retrospect, I should've seen it coming as a natural follow up to the introduction of Spacecraft in Edge of Eternities. I grew up with Star Trek, and just like with Doctor Who and Spider-Man, I'm really curious about how the folks at Wizards of the Coast are going to bring one of my all time favorite fictional universes to Magic. I have a lot of thoughts on the matter and in this article I'm going to share my hopes for the set!

The Commander Decks

Star Trek is a huge franchise that spans 12 series, 13 movies, and even more content from books and comics. That is a lot of ground to cover, but after seeing the Final Fantasy set handle a similarly huge franchise, I'm actually really optimistic that it is possible for us Trekkies to get cards from every corner of this universe.

In that vein, I'm hoping for four Commander precons. Three for different sections of the Star Trek timeline and another deck for the antagonists, much like the lineup of precons from Doctor Who. For maximum style points, each of those three decks could be lead by a Spacecraft commander that symbolizes the era and the antagonist deck would feature a prominent villain to break the pattern.

Precon #1: Discovery and Enterprise

Within this paradigm, the first precon would cover Enterprise and Discovery, although Discovery's time jump might complicate that a bit, alongside glimpses of the past we see in other Star Trek media, like Star Trek: First Contact. The theme for this precon would likely be time travel related. I'd love to see card designs that reference temporal anomalies or anachronisms. There are three great options for commanders here: the Enterprise NX-01, the USS Discovery NCC-1031 (or NCC-1031-A), and Zefram Cochran's Phoenix. I think the first two are more likely choices than the last one, but it would be really cool. I'm also envisioning secondary commander options in the form of crew members that partner with other crew members. For example, one could swap out the Enterprise NX-01 commander for the partner pair of Captain Archer and T'Pol.

Precon #2: The Original Series and Strange New Worlds

The second precon would encompass Strange New Worlds and The Original Series, along with the six movies that follow. The commander choice for this one is much simpler: the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. I'd definitely make this one the Sagas themed deck of the bunch as there are just so many opportunities for flavorful Sagas with beautiful art, like The Search for Spock or The Cage. Captain Kirk and Captain Pike along with Spock and Una Chin-Riley as partner options.

Precon #3: Everything After The Original Series

The third precon would cover The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, the movies spawned from The Next Generation, Picard, Prodigy, and Lower Decks. That's a lot of temporal space to cover! Given the nature of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, this deck would likely have some kind of political theme. I'm envisioning something similar to the Ms. BumbleflowerMs. Bumbleflower precon. The commander choice is once again clear: my favorite ship in all of Star Trek, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Captain Sisko, Captain Janeway, and a frightening number of other legends with partner would be featured as alternative commanders.

Precon #4: Antagonists

I'd throw every main antagonist and the kitchen sink into the last precon. The Q Continuum, Khan, the Borg, the Romulan and Klingon empires, a shocking number of Starfleet admirals, and much, much more. This would be exactly the place to show off mirror universe versions of the main casts! The deck would come with a set of Scheme cards for Archenemy play, and the deck's primary theme would be taking advantage of the connive mechanic. I'd be happy with any major villain heading up the precon, but the Borg and Khan are my front runners.

Design Challenges

A keen-eyed reader would notice that I haven't recommended color combinations for any of those decks. In truth, I have no idea how they're going to make that selection without compromising on the color identities of many characters. It's at a time like this that I do not envy the job of the designers working on this set!

Card Wish List

There is much more to a set than Commander precons, and I have several slightly more specific visions for cards I'd love to see.

Putting my bias towards The Next Generation on full display, the very first card that popped into my head when I saw the announcement of this set was an Azorius () Captain Picard with Engage! and Make it so... flavor tags on whatever his two abilities are.

I'd really like one of the USS Enterprise Spacecraft cards to be a five-color commander that has an activated ability like Sisay, Weatherlight CaptainSisay, Weatherlight Captain but it can only search for crew members. The flavor on that ability would probably be something along the lines of Beam me up. That would be a very clean way to overcome the design challenge of all five colors being present among the color identities of the main casts.

Perhaps the concept I'm most excited by is the many other ships from the Star Trek universe getting cards. Ships from outside the Federation, like the Klingon Bird of Prey, a Borg cube, or the Romulan D'deridex warbirds getting their own cards would make my year. Additionally, I'd like to see other Federation ships, like the USS Excelsior.

A Tribble card that multiplies in numbers, similar to Scute SwarmScute Swarm, would be very fitting. I'd like the art on the original card to feature just one Tribble, with the token copies of itself that it produces featuring the iconic art of Captain Kirk wading through a pile of them. A variant of that token that features characters from Deep Space Nine as a reference to the crossover episode would be welcomed.

While potentially a little too silly, I'd like to see a green fight spell called Double Fist Punch, depicting Captain Kirk performing the iconic maneuver in combat. I'd also accept a more typically named spell with Double Fist Punch as the italicized flavor text.

The Kelvin Timeline Problem

There's one last thing that's really been nagging at me about this set: the Kelvin timeline. Beginning in 2009, a trilogy of new Star Trek movies that takes place in an alternate timeline. I grew up with those movies and I absolutely love them! However, I'm very much afraid that it would be too much to ask that the Kelvin timeline versions of many iconic characters get their own cards. I'm hoping that the designers of this set have plans for the Kelvin timeline cast, but I won't be holding my breath.

Conclusion

This is the first time I've written something like this, and it was a blast to spend some time theorizing about one of the most exciting Universes Beyond projects I've seen so far. Edge of Eternities was a fantastic proof of concept for a space themed set, and the few pieces of art for this set look phenomenal. I'm only upset that I've got to wait twelve long months to get my hands on these cards.

I'd love to read comments about parts of Star Trek lore I didn't spend a lot of time on, in particular what characters and ships from the newest generation of shows that I've yet to catch up on, other fans are looking forward to seeing immortalized in Magic: The Gathering.