Wizards of the Coast began releasing preconstructed Commander decks each year starting in 2011, but ended the Commander series in 2019. New decks have instead rolled out alongside some of its major Magic: The Gathering set releases. While these decks have provided plenty of powerful cards, they haven’t changed with the format with new keyworded mechanics like Lieutenant, which was added in Commander 2014, or Eminence, which debuted in Commander 2017. That’s changing in November, when the Star Trek Universes Beyond set will add two new Commander-specific mechanics.
Highly aggressive players will want to embrace Battlefront, a new ability introduced in the Klingon Fury Commander deck that triggers based on the number of opponents you’ve attacked this turn. Worf, Defiant Commander serves as the signature example. When the 3/4 Klingon warrior officer attacks, his Battlefront ability lets you exile the top X cards of your library based on the number of opponents you attacked this turn, and then play any of those cards until the end of your next turn. If a card would grant you an additional combat step, Battlefront would remember who you previously attacked and trigger for that amount.
The other new ability is Seek Out, which triggers whenever you draw your second card each turn. It’s effectively just keywording a mechanic that’s been in the game for years on cards like Thopter Fabricator and Jace, Arcane Strategist. Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary uses Seek Out to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature and two charge counters on a spacecraft. Picard is a history buff, which manifests in him also drawing a card whenever a historic permanent — an artifact, legendary card, or saga — with mana value three or greater enters play.
Part of the mission of the Starship Enterprise is “to seek out new life and new civilizations,” and the Seek Out mechanic is clearly a reference to this, but it’s also a generic enough name that it could easily be used in other sets. The same goes with Battlefront, which isn’t Klingon-specific and just another great way to build a group slug deck. That makes it possible that Magic will bring these abilities back in future sets, while Star Trek mechanics with more direct references like Beam Me Up and Strange New Worlds are much less likely to return.
What other cards will be in the Star Trek Commander decks?
Worf and Picard are joined by two other Commanders. The Borg Queen leads an Esper (white-blue-black) deck focused on Star Trek’s new Assimilate mechanic. She gives all artifact creatures you control +2/+2, and whenever she enters or attacks, she forces an opponent to exile cards from the top of their library until they find a creature. She assimilates that creature, meaning it comes into play under your control as an artifact creature Borg with a +1/+1 counter on it and loses its other creature types. She’s joined by Locutus of Borg, the assimilated version of Picard, a 3/3 with Lifelink who gives all your artifact creatures the ability to create a 1/1 Borg token whenever they deal combat damage to a player. The Borg Queen deck also introduces a nasty new boardwipe, Join the Collective, which destroys all creatures and creates a Borg token for every nonartifact creature removed.
The fourth deck is led by Commander Spock. (Wizards was clearly pretty pleased with making Starfleet Commanders into Magic Commanders). He’s a 3/5 Vulcan human scientist whose version of Strange New Worlds lets you reveal the top card of your library whenever he enters or attacks and cast it without paying its mana cost if its mana value is equal to or less than the number of differently named lands you control. If it is a land, you can put it onto the battlefield tapped. If you can’t play it, you draw it instead.
All four new Commander decks will be released on Nov. 13. Keep checking Polygon for more updates, including exclusive card reveals.