Magic: The Gathering® | Star Trek™ Mechanics

The Star Trek universe makes its mark on Magic with card mechanics that capture the flavor of sci-fi exploration and tactical command. The new keyword ability Beam Me Up enables players to re-cast instant and sorcery spells from their graveyard, such as Open Communications. The cost requires returning a creature you control back to its owner's hand, bypassing traditional removal responses and letting you reuse powerful entry triggers on your crew.

Story-driven decision making takes center stage through the rules concept of facing a dilemma. Cards like Seven of Nine and Command Decision incentivize playing modal spells. Whenever you select one or more options on a modal spell or ability, you count as having faced a dilemma. Legendary creatures like Captain Benjamin Sisko actively look back at the turn to check how many times you resolved or attempted modal choices.

The Federation ability word celebrates the strength of diverse alliances by counting the number of distinct creature types among your non-Borg forces. Pairing characters such as Hoshi Sato alongside other Starfleet officers rapidly scales these benefits, though any Borg creatures on your board will have their types excluded from the total.

Exploration of space is represented by the Strange New Worlds mechanic. Cards with this ability word scale their power based on the number of uniquely named lands under your control. Spells like Deep Space Scan and creatures like The Traveler check your mana base to calculate their effectiveness based on your varied territory.

Fleets take to the sky with the return of Spacecraft, an artifact subtype that can be upgraded into fully operational artifact creatures. By tapping other creatures to activate the station ability, players load charge counters onto their ships equal to the tapped creature's power. Hitting the required threshold upgrades vehicles like the Enterprise -D into heavily armed flying threats.

The Borg bring a terrifying presence through the new keyword action Assimilate. This mechanic allows players to take control of an opponent's creature or bring a card onto the battlefield as a Borg artifact creature. The assimilated card loses its original creature types, gains a +1/+1 counter, and falls directly under your command.

Designed specifically for the Commander format, the Battlefront ability word rewards aggressive strategies that spread attacks across multiple opponents during a turn. Characters like Worf gain scaling bonuses in single or multiple combat phases based on how many distinct players you declared attacks against.

Card draw strategies receive dedicated support via the Seek Out ability word. Triggering whenever a player draws their second card in a single turn, legendary commanders like Jean-Luc Picard provide continuous value during both your turn and your opponents' turns.