MTG Star Trek preview: mechanics, products, and release date
Wizards posted the mechanics and collecting articles for Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek this morning, and I've been through both twice. The set code is TRK, it hits tables November 13th, and it pulls from just about every corner of Trek: The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, the Kelvin films, Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds. If you have a favorite captain, they're probably on a card. So let's jump into the MTG Star Trek preview and covere everything released so far.
When does MTG Star Trek release?
MTG Star Trek releases on tabletop November 13th, 2026. Prerelease events run November 6th through 12th, and MTG Arena gets the set early on November 10th.
The full calendar:
Prerelease events: November 6th–12th
MTG Arena release: November 10th
Global tabletop release: November 13th
MagicCon: Atlanta and World Championship 32: November 13th–15th
Magic Presents: To Boldly Go: November 13th, 2026 through January 28th, 2027
Commander Party, Round 1: November 20th–26th
Full card image gallery: November 30th
Commander Party, Round 2: December 11th–17th
The main set (TRK) is legal in every format, Standard included. The Commander decks (TRC) and the stardates reprints (SDS) are legal in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage, plus anywhere those specific cards were already legal. So yes, Starfleet officers are coming to your Friday Night Magic Standard pod. I'm still getting used to that sentence.
The main set runs 296 cards (81 commons, 110 uncommons, 80 rares, 25 mythics), plus 10 common dual lands and 10 basics.
Beam me up is flashback with a transporter fee
Beam me up lets you cast certain instants and sorceries from your graveyard. The cost: return a creature you control to its owner's hand, then pay the mana listed in the ability. After that, the spell gets exiled no matter what happens to it. Resolves or gets countered, doesn't matter. Gone.
A few rules details worth knowing before prerelease:
Bouncing the creature is part of the cost. Once you announce the cast, it's too late for your opponent to kill that creature in response and strand you.
The card's mana value never changes. Open Communications is mana value 1 whether you cast it from hand or beam it back.
Card type still rules timing. An instant with beam me up works at instant speed. A sorcery stays locked to your main phase with an empty stack.
This is the mechanic I'm most excited about for Commander. The average Commander deck is stuffed with enters-the-battlefield triggers, so returning your own creature is usually upside. Beam a creature home, recast it, collect the trigger again, and you got a free graveyard spell out of the deal. It also cleans off a removal Aura someone slapped on your best creature. That's two reasons to bounce your own stuff on purpose.
Wizards poked fun at the transporter's ethics problems in their article, and honestly? I'll take the shuttlecraft.
What does face a dilemma actually do?
You face a dilemma any time you choose one or more modes for a modal spell or ability. Any card with a bulleted "choose one" list counts, which means you've been facing dilemmas for years without the existential dread.
Cards like Seven of Nine and Captain Benjamin Sisko care about how many dilemmas you've faced.
The rules are generous:
Choosing the mode is all that counts. Sisko still counts a modal spell that got countered or fizzled earlier in the turn.
Picking multiple modes on one card (or the same mode twice, where that's allowed) is one dilemma.
If a modal trigger has no legal mode to choose, usually because every mode needs a target that doesn't exist, you didn't face a dilemma.
Flavor-wise, this is my favorite thing in the set. Trek has always run on impossible choices, and turning every Command Decision into a moral crisis is very on the nose. Mechanically, Commander players already own boxes full of modal cards, so a dilemma deck has a deep card pool before the set even comes out.
Federation and strange new worlds want a weird-looking deck
Federation counts creature types and strange new worlds counts land names, so both new ability words reward variety.
Federation counts the creature types among non-Borg creatures you control. Control Hoshi Sato and Captain Benjamin Sisko, and you're at three: Human, Scientist, and Officer. A Borg creature adds nothing to the count. Its other types vanish for federation purposes, though those same types still count if a non-Borg creature has them.
Federation pushes you toward the opposite of a typal deck. You want a crew made of different species and different jobs, which is about as Trek as a mechanic can get. First thing I'm checking when release notes drop: how changelings interact with that count. If one Shapeshifter counts every creature type in the game, somebody's federation deck is about to get very silly.
Strange new worlds counts differently named lands you control. Each name counts once. Three Forests, an Island, and a Breeding Pool make The Traveler a 3-power creature. Deep Space Scan uses the number to size its effect when it resolves.
In Limited, strange new worlds is mostly counting basics, so expect numbers in the 3 to 5 range. In Commander it's nearly free. Every nonbasic land in a singleton deck already has a unique name, so a deck running two dozen nonbasics will post huge numbers without trying.
Spacecraft and station are back from Edge of Eternities
Spacecraft and station return from last year's Edge of Eternities, and this time the fleet includes the ships you grew up watching.
Quick refresher if you skipped Edge of Eternities:
Spacecraft is an artifact subtype. Each one starts as a plain artifact with whatever abilities sit in the top section of its text box.
Station is a sorcery-speed activated ability. Tap another untapped creature you control and put charge counters on the Spacecraft equal to that creature's power. The creature can be one you played this turn, summoning sickness and all.
Hit the number in the circle on the left side of the text box, and the Spacecraft becomes an artifact creature with the listed power and toughness plus any abilities in that section.
The Enterprise-D, for example, turns into a 4/5 with flying and vigilance once it has seven or more charge counters, and keeps its triggered ability and station along the way. Some Spacecraft never become creatures at all. If a section has no power and toughness printed, the ship just picks up those abilities.
The summoning-sick crew rule was the best part of station in Edge of Eternities. Your freshly cast creature does something the turn it lands. Putting the mechanic on the actual Enterprise is the most obvious fit Wizards could have made, and I mean that as a compliment.
Assimilate is the Borg doing Borg things
Assimilate is a new keyword action that takes a creature and makes it yours.
Most assimilate cards target a card that isn't on the battlefield. You put it onto the battlefield under your control with a +1/+1 counter. If the creature is already on the battlefield, you gain control of it and then add the counter. Either way, it becomes a Borg artifact creature and loses every other creature type. Supertypes, other card types, and non-creature subtypes stick around, so a legendary creature stays legendary.
Which means yes, you can turn somebody's Picard into a Borg. Locutus fans, your moment has arrived.
The best design detail here is how assimilate and federation fight each other. Federation ignores Borg creatures entirely. Every creature the Borg player assimilates stops counting toward anyone's federation total. The two big factions in this set mechanically cancel each other out, and that's going to make for some great Commander table politics.
Two Commander-only mechanics: battlefront and seek out
Battlefront and seek out only appear in the Commander decks, and both are built for four-player tables.
Battlefront counts how many opponents you attacked this turn. Attacking means declaring creatures as attackers, so tokens that enter already attacking don't add to the count. Battlefront tracks the whole turn across extra combats, and an opponent you hit twice still counts once.
The Worf example from Wizards shows how it plays. Attack one opponent in the first combat, and Worf's trigger exiles one card. Get a second combat and swing at the other two, and the trigger exiles three, because you've now attacked three different opponents this turn. Qapla'.
Seek out triggers whenever you draw your second card each turn. The permanent doesn't need to be on the battlefield for the first draw. Draw Jean-Luc Picard, cast him, draw another card that turn, and his seek out ability triggers. Draw two on an opponent's turn and it triggers again.
Seek out is a gift to every Commander player who already runs a pile of cantrips and draw-on-your-turn effects. Battlefront is a gift to every Commander player who's tired of politely attacking one person at a time.
What are the four MTG Star Trek Commander decks?
MTG Star Trek has four Commander decks: Federation Fleet, Landing Party, Klingon Fury, and We Are the Borg. The box art puts Picard on Federation Fleet, Spock on Landing Party, a Klingon warrior on Klingon Fury, and the Borg Queen on We Are the Borg. There is a possibility that they will be late to arrive; we have that story over here.
Each deck runs $74.99 and comes with:
A 100-card deck with a traditional foil, borderless face commander
32 new-to-Magic cards in the 99
10 double-sided tokens, a reference card, and a deck box
The Collector's Edition versions are $159.99 and make all 99 cards surge foil, plus a surge foil face commander and tokens that are surge foil on one side.
The mechanics tell you where each deck is headed. Battlefront screams Klingon Fury. Assimilate belongs to We Are the Borg. A deck called Landing Party sitting next to a land-counting mechanic is not subtle. My pick for the most fun at a four-player table is Klingon Fury, because battlefront rewards exactly the kind of chaos that makes Commander great.
Booster Fun: the LCARS shock lands lead the pack
The LCARS shock lands are the Booster Fun treatment players will chase hardest. All 10 shock lands appear in the set, framed in the Enterprise computer interface with art of planets from across the franchise. That means LCARS versions of Steam Vents, Watery Grave, Breeding Pool, and the rest.
Your odds of finding one:
Play Booster: 1.4% in the rare slot, with small chances in the wildcard and foil slots
Collector Booster: 7.7% non-foil and 8.9% traditional foil in separate slots, plus a 4.6% shot at surge foil
The rest of the treatments:
Stardates cards: 30 borderless mythic reprints under the SDS code, redrawn as Trek moments. Kenrith, the Returned King becomes General Picard, Earth Warlord. One in 25 Play Boosters swaps a common for a stardates card.
LCARS frame cards: 29 more cards (7 uncommon, 14 rare, 8 mythic) in that computer-screen frame.
Classic Enterprise cards: 24 cards with painterly art styled after the vintage Original Series-era movie posters.
Scene cards: 25 borderless cards across four multi-card panoramas: Showdown at Sector 001 (Data vs. Locutus, 4 cards), Mirror, Mirror (6 cards, goatee Spock included), Unimatrix Zero (6 cards), and Deep Space Find (9 cards of the Deep Space Nine crew).
Klingon frame and Klingon script cards: 10 cards in a Klingon frame, plus Collector Booster-only foil versions printed entirely in the Klingon language.
Full-art basics: holodeck lands and away team lands, both full art.
Klingon script cards are my favorite thing on this list. They're always printed in Klingon, regardless of what language your Collector Booster is. I'll never read one. I want them anyway.
How rare are the signed headliner cards?
There are 7 different signed headliner cards, each with fewer than 250 copies. That puts the total under 1,750 cards worldwide.
Each one was physically signed by the actor who plays the character on the card and randomly packed into Collector Boosters. They can show up in a Collector Booster of any language, but the card itself is always in English.
My take: treat these like a scratch-off you found in the parking lot. Fun if it happens. Do not crack Collector Boosters chasing a signed card. With fewer than 1,750 out there across every Collector Booster printed, your odds are tiny, and the people pulling them are going to be the folks opening cases.
Which MTG Star Trek product should you buy?
At MSRP, the Beam Me Up Bundle is the best value for most people.
Here's the full price list:
Play Booster: $6.99
Collector Booster: $37.99
Bundle: $69.99
Beam Me Up Bundle: $99.99
Scene Box: $41.99
Commander Deck: $74.99
Collector's Edition Commander Deck: $159.99
Draft Night: $119.99
The math on the Beam Me Up Bundle: 8 Play Boosters ($55.92 at MSRP) plus 1 Collector Booster ($37.99) adds up to $93.91. For about six more dollars, you get two of the eight traditional foil Spacecraft promos drawn as Starfleet schematics, 30 basics with full-art away team lands mixed in, a spindown life counter, and a storage box. That's the easiest call in the lineup.
The standard Bundle gives you 9 Play Boosters, 30 basics with full-art holodeck lands mixed in, a traditional foil promo, and a foil Leonard "Bones" McCoy promo. Draft Night costs about two dollars less than its 12 Play Boosters and 1 Collector Booster would at MSRP, and it's built for a quick four-person draft, which makes it the move for a game night with friends.
Commander players should just buy the deck they want. Everyone else should grab a Beam Me Up Bundle and leave the Collector Booster boxes to the people with Locutus-sized budgets.
Hold off on singles until November 30th
The full card image gallery doesn't go live until November 30th, more than two weeks after release. Anyone preordering singles right now is pricing cards against an incomplete list, before the Commander Party events get these decks onto real tables. Shock lands and signed cards are the safest bets. Most of the rest of the set will settle once the whole card pool is public and people have actually played with it. Buy sealed product now if you want it at release, and wait on singles.
MTG Star Trek Preview FAQ
When does MTG Star Trek come out?
MTG Star Trek releases worldwide on tabletop on November 13th, 2026. Prerelease events run November 6th through 12th, and the set arrives on MTG Arena on November 10th.
Is MTG Star Trek legal in Standard?
Yes. The main MTG Star Trek set (TRK) is legal in all formats, including Standard. The Commander deck cards (TRC) and stardates reprints (SDS) are legal in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage, plus any formats where those cards were already legal.
How much does a MTG Star Trek Collector Booster cost?
An MTG Star Trek Collector Booster has an MSRP of $37.99. A Play Booster is $6.99, and a Beam Me Up Bundle includes one Collector Booster plus 8 Play Boosters for $99.99.
What are the new mechanics in MTG Star Trek?
The new mechanics are beam me up, face a dilemma, federation, strange new worlds, and assimilate. Spacecraft and station return from Edge of Eternities, and the Commander decks add battlefront and seek out.
How many signed cards are in MTG Star Trek?
There are 7 different signed headliner cards in MTG Star Trek, with fewer than 250 copies of each. They appear only in Collector Boosters and are always printed in English.
What comes in the MTG Star Trek Beam Me Up Bundle?
The Beam Me Up Bundle includes 8 Play Boosters, 1 Collector Booster, 2 of 8 traditional foil Spacecraft promo cards, 30 basic lands including full-art away team lands, 2 reference cards, a spindown life counter, and a card storage box.
What are the MTG Star Trek Commander decks?
The four MTG Star Trek Commander decks are Federation Fleet, Landing Party, Klingon Fury, and We Are the Borg. Each costs $74.99, and Collector's Edition versions with all surge foil cards cost $159.99.
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