Peace in Our Time offers every player a seductive bargain at the beginning of combat: draw a card and skip attacking. If anyone accepts, the enchantment also collects a peace counter; reach twelve by your upkeep and you win. In Commander, that means the card can fog the creature player, bribe the combo player, and quietly advertise an alternate victory condition at the same time.

Twelve counters is a long road, and opponents can simply decline once the threat becomes real. The enchantment is better as a political speed bump than as a reliable win condition. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, and Deepglow Skate can shorten the clock, but every proliferate card you add makes the “surprise” considerably less surprising.

Best homes: Pillow-fort, proliferate, group-hug, and alternate-win decks.

The catch: You may feed cards to the opponent best equipped to win without attacking.

Christine Chapel is a four-mana lifegain payoff with a built-in first dose. Her entrance gains life equal to the number of differently named lands you control, then every lifegain event puts two +1/+1 counters on her. A fetch land with Courser of Kruphix, a Soul Warden trigger, or a Food token can turn her from unassuming medic to one-hit threat in a hurry.

She is much better at becoming enormous than at helping the rest of your board. There is no evasion, protection, or card advantage here, so a giant Chapel can still be stopped by a token or a removal spell. Treat her as a secondary threat in Trelasarra, Moon Dancer, Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn, or Heliod, Sun-Crowned, not as the only reason the deck functions.

Best homes: Green-white lifegain and +1/+1-counter decks.

High-synergy cards: Soul Warden, Courser of Kruphix, Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn, Hardened Scales.

Three mana buys an artifact that exiles any opposing nonland permanent until the Holodeck leaves the battlefield. That flexibility is the headline. It catches commanders, planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts, and troublesome creatures, while ward {2} makes the clean answer slightly awkward.

This is still temporary removal. An artifact sweeper returns the exiled card, and blinking your Holodeck gives the first target back before the new trigger resolves. Even so, artifact decks routinely turn ordinary permanents into resources: Goblin Welder, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Oswald Fiddlebender, and Emry, Lurker of the Loch all give this removal spell a second life.

Best homes: Artifact decks that want broad interaction on a reusable permanent.

The catch: Sacrificing or blinking it releases the original target.

Q shuffles your library, exiles down to the first nonland card, and gives that card an ability that turns every card in your hand into another copy. That can make five cards in hand into five Jeska's Will copies—or five copies of a creature you cannot profitably cast. The copied spell is not free, so the best Q decks care as much about mana as they do about hand size.

The chaos is real, but it can be managed. A permanent-light list increases the chance of finding a ritual, wheel, or direct-damage spell, while Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, and Brainstorm can improve the top of the deck before Q enters. He is less universal staple than loaded build-around, and that is precisely why some brewers will love him.

Best homes: Big-mana red, spell-copy, impulse-draw, and chaos decks.

High-synergy cards: Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Jeska's Will, Mana Geyser.

Casting Starfleet Communicator copies it, so one card supplies two Equipment. Once each is attached to a different creature, an attack can draw cards and place extra lands from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. Attack with both equipped creatures and each Communicator sees the other one, producing two draw triggers and potentially two additional land drops.

That is an impressive engine for three mana plus two equip payments, but it is not plug-and-play. You need multiple creatures, cards in hand, and a safe combat step. Akiri, Fearless Voyager, Wyleth, Soul of Steel, Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, and token-heavy Equipment decks can meet those conditions more naturally than a traditional one-creature Voltron list.

Best homes: Equipment decks with several attackers and landfall decks that can support the color identity.

The catch: One artifact-removal spell can break the pair before combat.

Hit It! gives every creature you control haste, then digs five cards deep for a land and puts it onto the battlefield tapped. The misses go to the graveyard, which makes this part Fervor, part ramp spell, and part self-mill setup. Three useful jobs on a three-mana enchantment is excellent Commander economy.

The card is especially sharp when your commander needs to tap or attack immediately. Henzie "Toolbox" Torre, Ognis, the Dragon's Lash, Samut, Voice of Dissent, and Omnath, Locus of Rage all appreciate at least two parts of the package. The miss case matters, though: if the top five contain no land, you receive haste and mill five without ramping at all.

Best homes: Gruul-based creature decks, landfall, graveyard decks, and commanders with attack or tap abilities.

High-synergy cards: World Shaper, Ancient Greenwarden, Henzie "Toolbox" Torre, Omnath, Locus of Rage.

The Enterprise-D is a three-mana Spacecraft that turns the first batch of charge counters it receives each turn into temporary card access. Station it on your turn, exile the top card, and you may play that card before the turn ends. Find ways to add counters on opponents' turns and the ship can produce several cards around the table.

Seven counters turn it into a 4/5 flying, vigilant artifact creature, but animating the ship is optional. In Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Mizzix of the Izmagnus, Magistrate's Scepter, or dedicated Spacecraft decks, the impulse draw may be the better reason to run it. Remember that an exiled card must be played that turn; this is not a second hand you can stockpile.

Best homes: Charge-counter, proliferate, historic, and Spacecraft decks.

High-synergy cards: Coretapper, Power Conduit, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, Thrummingbird.

Replicator enters with a Food, then pays two and taps to make a tapped copy of any token you control. Copy a Treasure when you need future mana, a Clue when you need cards, a token copy of a premium creature when you need trouble, or the Food it brought when survival is the assignment. Colorless repeatable token copying belongs in far more decks than its dessert-focused entrance suggests.

Tapped tokens cannot be used immediately if they need to tap, and Replicator cannot copy nontoken permanents. Academy Manufactor turns its starting Food into a small supply depot, while Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Anointed Procession, and Doubling Season make the activation scale quickly. It is slow value, not a burst combo—unless your deck already supplies the right token to abuse.

Best homes: Treasure, Food, Clue, populate, and token-copy decks.

High-synergy cards: Academy Manufactor, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Anointed Procession, Esix, Fractal Bloom.

Once during each of your turns, The Holodeck lets you play a permanent card you own from your graveyard or from outside the game. Under normal Commander rules, the outside-the-game line does not provide a wishboard; the graveyard is the dependable part. Even with half the sentence effectively offline, playing a land, creature, artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker from the graveyard every turn is a formidable engine.

Seven mana is the tax. A deck casting The Holodeck fairly should protect it or extract value immediately by playing a cheap permanent from the graveyard. Muldrotha, the Gravetide has similar text in the command zone and may not need the redundancy, but Daretti, Scrap Savant, Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, Sefris of the Hidden Ways, and self-mill decks can turn this into a long-game centerpiece.

Best homes: Permanent-heavy graveyard decks with enough ramp to support seven mana.

The catch: Ask before assuming your table permits cards from outside the game.

Janeway gives you an additional land play each turn and makes every creature entering under your control explore—including herself. Lands go to hand; nonlands either stay on top or head to the graveyard while the creature receives a +1/+1 counter. That means one commander quietly supplies ramp capacity, card selection, self-mill, and counter support.

Four mana is reasonable, but Janeway needs a creature-heavy deck and enough lands in hand to exploit the extra play. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, Scute Swarm, Conduit of Worlds, and Ancient Greenwarden turn those overlapping themes into an actual plan. She is excellent in the 99 of landfall or counter decks and strong enough to command her own mono-green exploration mission.

Best homes: Landfall, creatures-entering, +1/+1 counters, and green graveyard decks.

High-synergy cards: Scute Swarm, Ancient Greenwarden, Conduit of Worlds, Evolution Sage.

Deep Space 9 costs nine mana because subtlety was apparently unavailable at the station. When it enters—and again at every upkeep—it exiles four cards and puts every permanent among them directly onto the battlefield. Nine station counters later, your creatures also receive +3/+3.

Casting it fairly is the backup plan. Goblin Welder, Master Transmuter, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Oswald Fiddlebender, and reanimation effects can cheat the legendary artifact into play, while Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack improve the four-card haul. Instants and sorceries are exiled without compensation, so build the deck like a permanent-heavy engine rather than a conventional spells deck.

Best homes: Artifact reanimator, top-deck manipulation, and permanent-heavy battlecruiser decks.

The catch: Nine mana and a genuine chance to exile four cards you cannot use.

Discovery 5 on entry is already respectable: turn over cards until you find a nonland with mana value five or less, then cast it for free or put it into your hand. Once the ship attacks, it does the same thing again. Station needs only six counters to turn the five-mana artifact into a 5/5 flyer, so one medium-sized creature can prepare it for the next combat.

Unlike cascade, discover lets you keep an awkward hit instead of casting it. That makes U.S.S. Discovery reliable value in blink, artifact, and creature-ramp decks. Panharmonicon doubles the entrance trigger, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling resets it, and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy or Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty can turn the free spell into a much bigger sequence.

Best homes: Blink, discover, artifact, and midrange creature decks.

High-synergy cards: Panharmonicon, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty.

M'Benga doubles every kind of counter you would place on your creatures, then gives your other counter-bearing creatures hexproof. Hardened Scales improves +1/+1 counters; M'Benga doubles +1/+1, flying, shield, stun, finality, and any other counter that lands on a creature. The protection arrives automatically once a creature has a counter, forcing opponents to deal with the doctor first.

“Other creatures” is doing important work: M'Benga does not protect himself. He also doubles only counters on creatures, not loyalty, charge, lore, or experience counters. In Shalai and Hallar, Sovereign Okinec Ahau, Hamza, Guardian of Arashin, or Rishkar, Peema Renegade, those restrictions barely slow him down.

Best homes: Any green creature deck built around +1/+1, shield, or ability counters.

High-synergy cards: The Ozolith, Branching Evolution, Shalai and Hallar, Forgotten Ancient.

Dr. Crusher makes each triggered ability caused by you gaining life trigger one additional time. A Soul Warden does not gain twice as much life, but Ajani's Pridemate gets two counters, Dina, Soul Steeper drains twice, and Sanguine Bond fires twice. Crusher also gains a +1/+1 counter whenever you gain life, so her own trigger doubles and gives her two counters per event.

At three mana, she enters early enough to make routine lifegain cards dangerous. The limitation is precision: replacement effects and abilities that do not trigger from lifegain receive no help. She is also a 2/2 engine without protection, and opponents familiar with Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Marauding Blight-Priest will not leave her unattended.

Best homes: Soul Sisters, life-drain, Cleric, and +1/+1-counter decks with white.

High-synergy cards: Soul Warden, Ajani's Pridemate, Sanguine Bond, Dina, Soul Steeper, Heliod, Sun-Crowned.

Mr. Spock replaces every card you would draw with two cards. This is not a once-per-turn trigger and it does not care whether the draw came from your draw step, a spell, an artifact, or an opponent's effect. Brainstorm draws six before putting two back. The One Ring scales at an alarming rate. Every Rhystic Study payment your opponents decline becomes two cards.

Four mana for a 2/4 is vulnerable, and drawing at double speed can empty your library if you get careless. Those are sensible prices for an engine this broad. Thought Vessel or Reliquary Tower manages the hand size, while Laboratory Maniac, Thassa's Oracle, and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries can turn the decking risk into a win. Spock is number one because he asks for the least setup and improves the largest range of existing Commander decks.

Best homes: Blue value, wheels, artifacts, control, and alternate-win decks.

High-synergy cards: The One Ring, Rhystic Study, Brainstorm, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Thassa's Oracle.

The main set also includes the ten Ravnica shock lands, from Hallowed Fountain to Stomping Ground, plus Engineered Explosives. These are known Commander quantities rather than new discoveries. The shock lands are excellent in multicolor mana bases—especially alongside fetch lands—and Engineered Explosives gives decks with several colors a scalable answer to low-cost permanents.

They are worth opening and playing, but this watchlist ranks the new designs that actually need evaluation.

Beam me up lets certain instants and sorceries be cast from the graveyard by returning a creature you control to hand and paying the listed alternative cost. Returning the creature is part of the cost, so opponents cannot remove that creature after you announce the spell to stop the payment. This mechanic naturally reuses enters abilities.

Strange new worlds counts differently named lands. Singleton Commander decks already encourage land variety, although basic lands with the same name count only once. Spacecraft use station to tap another creature and add charge counters equal to that creature's power. Station works only as a sorcery, and the Spacecraft cannot tap itself to pay the cost.

Assimilate, found prominently in the Commander product, brings a creature onto your battlefield with a +1/+1 counter, makes it a Borg artifact creature, and removes its other creature types. Seek out triggers when you draw your second card each turn, while battlefront rewards attacking multiple opponents during the same turn.

Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek releases worldwide on November 13, 2026, with Prerelease events scheduled for November 6–12. Wizards says the complete card gallery will be available October 30.

The new cards are unreleased as of this October 23 update. Wizards lists TRK as legal in all formats after release, while Star Trek Commander cards with the TRC code are intended for Commander, Legacy, and Vintage. Reprints retain the legality of their existing versions.

Mr. Spock, Science Officer is our current number-one pick because doubling every draw is powerful in almost any blue deck. Dr. Beverly Crusher is the more specialized standout for lifegain, and Dr. Joseph M'Benga is the premium counter-doubling card for creature decks.

Not under the normal Commander rules. Cards outside the game are not available unless your playgroup agrees to a house rule. The Holodeck still lets you play one permanent from your graveyard during each of your turns.

Almost certainly. Preview-season rankings are useful snapshots, not carved tablets. We will need to compare the remaining reveals, confirm final Oracle text, and revisit the order after the complete gallery is available.

Star Trek's strongest Commander cards are not merely references with a rules box attached. Spock is a terrifying draw engine, Crusher and M'Benga turbocharge established archetypes, and the two giant artifacts offer exactly the kind of unreasonable payoff Commander players enjoy trying to cheat into play.

The best first move is to test the card that already matches your deck rather than forcing a theme. Add your candidates to the ElderCodex Commander deck builder, check the curve and color identity, and see what the new card replaces—not just what it can do in the perfect screenshot.

Card names, previewed Oracle text, color identity, and current legality status were checked on October 23, 2026 using the Scryfall Star Trek gallery, Scryfall Star Trek Commander gallery, Wizards' Star Trek mechanics guide, preview schedule, and collecting overview. This article should receive a final card-pool review after the complete gallery appears on October 30.

Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek has plenty of cards that look spectacular in a binder. The more useful question is which ones will still look good after somebody casts a board wipe.

Mr. Spock, Science Officer is the best MTG Star Trek card revealed for Commander so far. Doubling every card draw is brutally efficient, needs no tribal shell, and improves nearly any blue value engine. Dr. Beverly Crusher and Dr. Joseph M'Benga follow because each turns a familiar Commander strategy into something substantially more dangerous without asking you to rebuild the whole deck around Star Trek.

Preview status: This watchlist covers cards available in the official galleries and Scryfall records checked on October 23, 2026. Wizards plans to complete the card gallery on October 30, so this is a preview-season ranking rather than a verdict on the unrevealed portion of the set. Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek releases on November 13, 2026.

We favored cards that create repeatable value, fit more than one commander, and remain useful when you are behind. Mana cost and setup matter: a nine-mana artifact can have an absurd ceiling and still rank below a three-mana creature that begins working immediately.

This list focuses on new designs from the main set and Commander decks. Familiar reprints such as the shock lands and Engineered Explosives are excellent cards, but ranking known staples would not tell you much about what Star Trek is adding to Commander.

The unreleased cards listed here are scheduled to become legal with the November 13 release. Main-set TRK cards are intended for all formats, while new TRC cards are intended for Commander, Legacy, and Vintage. Always recheck the final Oracle text before registering a deck.

Peace in Our Time offers every player a seductive bargain at the beginning of combat: draw a card and skip attacking. If anyone accepts, the enchantment also collects a peace counter; reach twelve by your upkeep and you win. In Commander, that means the card can fog the creature player, bribe the combo player, and quietly advertise an alternate victory condition at the same time.

Twelve counters is a long road, and opponents can simply decline once the threat becomes real. The enchantment is better as a political speed bump than as a reliable win condition. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, and Deepglow Skate can shorten the clock, but every proliferate card you add makes the “surprise” considerably less surprising.

Best homes: Pillow-fort, proliferate, group-hug, and alternate-win decks.

The catch: You may feed cards to the opponent best equipped to win without attacking.

Christine Chapel is a four-mana lifegain payoff with a built-in first dose. Her entrance gains life equal to the number of differently named lands you control, then every lifegain event puts two +1/+1 counters on her. A fetch land with Courser of Kruphix, a Soul Warden trigger, or a Food token can turn her from unassuming medic to one-hit threat in a hurry.

She is much better at becoming enormous than at helping the rest of your board. There is no evasion, protection, or card advantage here, so a giant Chapel can still be stopped by a token or a removal spell. Treat her as a secondary threat in Trelasarra, Moon Dancer, Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn, or Heliod, Sun-Crowned, not as the only reason the deck functions.

Best homes: Green-white lifegain and +1/+1-counter decks.

High-synergy cards: Soul Warden, Courser of Kruphix, Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn, Hardened Scales.

Three mana buys an artifact that exiles any opposing nonland permanent until the Holodeck leaves the battlefield. That flexibility is the headline. It catches commanders, planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts, and troublesome creatures, while ward {2} makes the clean answer slightly awkward.

This is still temporary removal. An artifact sweeper returns the exiled card, and blinking your Holodeck gives the first target back before the new trigger resolves. Even so, artifact decks routinely turn ordinary permanents into resources: Goblin Welder, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Oswald Fiddlebender, and Emry, Lurker of the Loch all give this removal spell a second life.

Best homes: Artifact decks that want broad interaction on a reusable permanent.

The catch: Sacrificing or blinking it releases the original target.

Q shuffles your library, exiles down to the first nonland card, and gives that card an ability that turns every card in your hand into another copy. That can make five cards in hand into five Jeska's Will copies—or five copies of a creature you cannot profitably cast. The copied spell is not free, so the best Q decks care as much about mana as they do about hand size.

The chaos is real, but it can be managed. A permanent-light list increases the chance of finding a ritual, wheel, or direct-damage spell, while Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, and Brainstorm can improve the top of the deck before Q enters. He is less universal staple than loaded build-around, and that is precisely why some brewers will love him.

Best homes: Big-mana red, spell-copy, impulse-draw, and chaos decks.

High-synergy cards: Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Jeska's Will, Mana Geyser.

Casting Starfleet Communicator copies it, so one card supplies two Equipment. Once each is attached to a different creature, an attack can draw cards and place extra lands from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. Attack with both equipped creatures and each Communicator sees the other one, producing two draw triggers and potentially two additional land drops.

That is an impressive engine for three mana plus two equip payments, but it is not plug-and-play. You need multiple creatures, cards in hand, and a safe combat step. Akiri, Fearless Voyager, Wyleth, Soul of Steel, Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, and token-heavy Equipment decks can meet those conditions more naturally than a traditional one-creature Voltron list.

Best homes: Equipment decks with several attackers and landfall decks that can support the color identity.

The catch: One artifact-removal spell can break the pair before combat.

Hit It! gives every creature you control haste, then digs five cards deep for a land and puts it onto the battlefield tapped. The misses go to the graveyard, which makes this part Fervor, part ramp spell, and part self-mill setup. Three useful jobs on a three-mana enchantment is excellent Commander economy.

The card is especially sharp when your commander needs to tap or attack immediately. Henzie "Toolbox" Torre, Ognis, the Dragon's Lash, Samut, Voice of Dissent, and Omnath, Locus of Rage all appreciate at least two parts of the package. The miss case matters, though: if the top five contain no land, you receive haste and mill five without ramping at all.

Best homes: Gruul-based creature decks, landfall, graveyard decks, and commanders with attack or tap abilities.

High-synergy cards: World Shaper, Ancient Greenwarden, Henzie "Toolbox" Torre, Omnath, Locus of Rage.

The Enterprise-D is a three-mana Spacecraft that turns the first batch of charge counters it receives each turn into temporary card access. Station it on your turn, exile the top card, and you may play that card before the turn ends. Find ways to add counters on opponents' turns and the ship can produce several cards around the table.

Seven counters turn it into a 4/5 flying, vigilant artifact creature, but animating the ship is optional. In Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Mizzix of the Izmagnus, Magistrate's Scepter, or dedicated Spacecraft decks, the impulse draw may be the better reason to run it. Remember that an exiled card must be played that turn; this is not a second hand you can stockpile.

Best homes: Charge-counter, proliferate, historic, and Spacecraft decks.

High-synergy cards: Coretapper, Power Conduit, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, Thrummingbird.

Replicator enters with a Food, then pays two and taps to make a tapped copy of any token you control. Copy a Treasure when you need future mana, a Clue when you need cards, a token copy of a premium creature when you need trouble, or the Food it brought when survival is the assignment. Colorless repeatable token copying belongs in far more decks than its dessert-focused entrance suggests.

Tapped tokens cannot be used immediately if they need to tap, and Replicator cannot copy nontoken permanents. Academy Manufactor turns its starting Food into a small supply depot, while Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Anointed Procession, and Doubling Season make the activation scale quickly. It is slow value, not a burst combo—unless your deck already supplies the right token to abuse.

Best homes: Treasure, Food, Clue, populate, and token-copy decks.

High-synergy cards: Academy Manufactor, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Anointed Procession, Esix, Fractal Bloom.

Once during each of your turns, The Holodeck lets you play a permanent card you own from your graveyard or from outside the game. Under normal Commander rules, the outside-the-game line does not provide a wishboard; the graveyard is the dependable part. Even with half the sentence effectively offline, playing a land, creature, artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker from the graveyard every turn is a formidable engine.

Seven mana is the tax. A deck casting The Holodeck fairly should protect it or extract value immediately by playing a cheap permanent from the graveyard. Muldrotha, the Gravetide has similar text in the command zone and may not need the redundancy, but Daretti, Scrap Savant, Ghen, Arcanum Weaver, Sefris of the Hidden Ways, and self-mill decks can turn this into a long-game centerpiece.

Best homes: Permanent-heavy graveyard decks with enough ramp to support seven mana.

The catch: Ask before assuming your table permits cards from outside the game.

Janeway gives you an additional land play each turn and makes every creature entering under your control explore—including herself. Lands go to hand; nonlands either stay on top or head to the graveyard while the creature receives a +1/+1 counter. That means one commander quietly supplies ramp capacity, card selection, self-mill, and counter support.

Four mana is reasonable, but Janeway needs a creature-heavy deck and enough lands in hand to exploit the extra play. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, Scute Swarm, Conduit of Worlds, and Ancient Greenwarden turn those overlapping themes into an actual plan. She is excellent in the 99 of landfall or counter decks and strong enough to command her own mono-green exploration mission.

Best homes: Landfall, creatures-entering, +1/+1 counters, and green graveyard decks.

High-synergy cards: Scute Swarm, Ancient Greenwarden, Conduit of Worlds, Evolution Sage.

Deep Space 9 costs nine mana because subtlety was apparently unavailable at the station. When it enters—and again at every upkeep—it exiles four cards and puts every permanent among them directly onto the battlefield. Nine station counters later, your creatures also receive +3/+3.

Casting it fairly is the backup plan. Goblin Welder, Master Transmuter, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Oswald Fiddlebender, and reanimation effects can cheat the legendary artifact into play, while Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack improve the four-card haul. Instants and sorceries are exiled without compensation, so build the deck like a permanent-heavy engine rather than a conventional spells deck.

Best homes: Artifact reanimator, top-deck manipulation, and permanent-heavy battlecruiser decks.

The catch: Nine mana and a genuine chance to exile four cards you cannot use.

Discovery 5 on entry is already respectable: turn over cards until you find a nonland with mana value five or less, then cast it for free or put it into your hand. Once the ship attacks, it does the same thing again. Station needs only six counters to turn the five-mana artifact into a 5/5 flyer, so one medium-sized creature can prepare it for the next combat.

Unlike cascade, discover lets you keep an awkward hit instead of casting it. That makes U.S.S. Discovery reliable value in blink, artifact, and creature-ramp decks. Panharmonicon doubles the entrance trigger, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling resets it, and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy or Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty can turn the free spell into a much bigger sequence.

Best homes: Blink, discover, artifact, and midrange creature decks.

High-synergy cards: Panharmonicon, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty.

M'Benga doubles every kind of counter you would place on your creatures, then gives your other counter-bearing creatures hexproof. Hardened Scales improves +1/+1 counters; M'Benga doubles +1/+1, flying, shield, stun, finality, and any other counter that lands on a creature. The protection arrives automatically once a creature has a counter, forcing opponents to deal with the doctor first.

“Other creatures” is doing important work: M'Benga does not protect himself. He also doubles only counters on creatures, not loyalty, charge, lore, or experience counters. In Shalai and Hallar, Sovereign Okinec Ahau, Hamza, Guardian of Arashin, or Rishkar, Peema Renegade, those restrictions barely slow him down.

Best homes: Any green creature deck built around +1/+1, shield, or ability counters.

High-synergy cards: The Ozolith, Branching Evolution, Shalai and Hallar, Forgotten Ancient.

Dr. Crusher makes each triggered ability caused by you gaining life trigger one additional time. A Soul Warden does not gain twice as much life, but Ajani's Pridemate gets two counters, Dina, Soul Steeper drains twice, and Sanguine Bond fires twice. Crusher also gains a +1/+1 counter whenever you gain life, so her own trigger doubles and gives her two counters per event.

At three mana, she enters early enough to make routine lifegain cards dangerous. The limitation is precision: replacement effects and abilities that do not trigger from lifegain receive no help. She is also a 2/2 engine without protection, and opponents familiar with Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Marauding Blight-Priest will not leave her unattended.

Best homes: Soul Sisters, life-drain, Cleric, and +1/+1-counter decks with white.

High-synergy cards: Soul Warden, Ajani's Pridemate, Sanguine Bond, Dina, Soul Steeper, Heliod, Sun-Crowned.

Mr. Spock replaces every card you would draw with two cards. This is not a once-per-turn trigger and it does not care whether the draw came from your draw step, a spell, an artifact, or an opponent's effect. Brainstorm draws six before putting two back. The One Ring scales at an alarming rate. Every Rhystic Study payment your opponents decline becomes two cards.

Four mana for a 2/4 is vulnerable, and drawing at double speed can empty your library if you get careless. Those are sensible prices for an engine this broad. Thought Vessel or Reliquary Tower manages the hand size, while Laboratory Maniac, Thassa's Oracle, and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries can turn the decking risk into a win. Spock is number one because he asks for the least setup and improves the largest range of existing Commander decks.

Best homes: Blue value, wheels, artifacts, control, and alternate-win decks.

High-synergy cards: The One Ring, Rhystic Study, Brainstorm, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Thassa's Oracle.

The main set also includes the ten Ravnica shock lands, from Hallowed Fountain to Stomping Ground, plus Engineered Explosives. These are known Commander quantities rather than new discoveries. The shock lands are excellent in multicolor mana bases—especially alongside fetch lands—and Engineered Explosives gives decks with several colors a scalable answer to low-cost permanents.

They are worth opening and playing, but this watchlist ranks the new designs that actually need evaluation.

Beam me up lets certain instants and sorceries be cast from the graveyard by returning a creature you control to hand and paying the listed alternative cost. Returning the creature is part of the cost, so opponents cannot remove that creature after you announce the spell to stop the payment. This mechanic naturally reuses enters abilities.

Strange new worlds counts differently named lands. Singleton Commander decks already encourage land variety, although basic lands with the same name count only once. Spacecraft use station to tap another creature and add charge counters equal to that creature's power. Station works only as a sorcery, and the Spacecraft cannot tap itself to pay the cost.

Assimilate, found prominently in the Commander product, brings a creature onto your battlefield with a +1/+1 counter, makes it a Borg artifact creature, and removes its other creature types. Seek out triggers when you draw your second card each turn, while battlefront rewards attacking multiple opponents during the same turn.

Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek releases worldwide on November 13, 2026, with Prerelease events scheduled for November 6–12. Wizards says the complete card gallery will be available October 30.

The new cards are unreleased as of this October 23 update. Wizards lists TRK as legal in all formats after release, while Star Trek Commander cards with the TRC code are intended for Commander, Legacy, and Vintage. Reprints retain the legality of their existing versions.

Mr. Spock, Science Officer is our current number-one pick because doubling every draw is powerful in almost any blue deck. Dr. Beverly Crusher is the more specialized standout for lifegain, and Dr. Joseph M'Benga is the premium counter-doubling card for creature decks.

Not under the normal Commander rules. Cards outside the game are not available unless your playgroup agrees to a house rule. The Holodeck still lets you play one permanent from your graveyard during each of your turns.

Almost certainly. Preview-season rankings are useful snapshots, not carved tablets. We will need to compare the remaining reveals, confirm final Oracle text, and revisit the order after the complete gallery is available.

Star Trek's strongest Commander cards are not merely references with a rules box attached. Spock is a terrifying draw engine, Crusher and M'Benga turbocharge established archetypes, and the two giant artifacts offer exactly the kind of unreasonable payoff Commander players enjoy trying to cheat into play.

The best first move is to test the card that already matches your deck rather than forcing a theme. Add your candidates to the ElderCodex Commander deck builder, check the curve and color identity, and see what the new card replaces—not just what it can do in the perfect screenshot.

Card names, previewed Oracle text, color identity, and current legality status were checked on October 23, 2026 using the Scryfall Star Trek gallery, Scryfall Star Trek Commander gallery, Wizards' Star Trek mechanics guide, preview schedule, and collecting overview. This article should receive a final card-pool review after the complete gallery appears on October 30.

AI-generated article, published by an ElderDecks editor.