Star Trek Commanders: Explore New Worlds with these Decks

The Star Trek Magic: The Gathering set is fully revealed, and with it comes a ton of Star Trek commanders. The set is very legendary-heavy, meaning there are plenty of choices to lead your decks. Fans of various Star Trek series have representation, stretching across the whole franchise. The set is oozing with flavor, with entire new mechanics created to showcase the very ethos of Star Trek. Whether you love Deep Space Nine or Lower Decks, the entire Star Trek franchise makes an appearance in the set. From deep cuts to the most popular characters, everyone and everything is here.

In this article, we’ll look at six different Star Trek Commanders, each with different playstyles, separated into three different categories. There are various playstyles, for Aggro lovers, Burn players, and Group Hug enjoyers, to name a few deck styles we’ll show off here. Let’s get into it and start traveling across the cosmos with these six Commander decks.

Want to see a deck from another Sci-Fi series? Doctor Who and Star Trek go hand in hand! And we have a deck tech for The Second Doctor that you can check out here.

Star Trek Commanders: Token Decks

These two Commander decks are ones that focus on making tokens. They are about flooding the battlefield in ways that create various forms of tokens as opposed to only playing creatures. They’re both Mono-Colored as well! They are more Aggro-aligned, and tend to want to win the game as quickly as they can.

M’Ress, Crew Coordinator

M'Ress, Crew Coordinator is exactly what it says on the tin: a Landfall commander. You’re just putting lands onto the battlefield, creating creature tokens for doing so. Usually, this is the form of various fetchlands like Evolving Wilds and Obscura Storefront. Most of the mana base is made out of cheap fetchlands (but you can run the expensive ones if you really want to).

Your commander isn’t the only way you’re taking advantage of Landfall. Felidar Retreat can spread +1/+1 counters to all your creatures, or make more creature tokens if you’re not planning to attack. You have the potential to get rid of various problem permanents with Admonition Angel, but they can potentially return if it ever gets removed. For some ramping, you have Omnath, Locus of the Void that allows you to dump mana into your pool to use later.

You still need some ways to win the game. After all, 1/1 tokens can only do so much. However, you can pump their power with Moonshaker Cavalry, Coat of Arms, and Champions from Beyond. Alternatively, you can win with the alternate win condition found on Halo Fountain.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Most of the landbase consists of fetchlands to ensure you can always trigger landfall.

Quark, Humble Proprietor

Quark, Humble Proprietor is a very unique Treasure commander in that it makes so many Treasure tokens quickly, but prevents you from actually being able to use them. The idea is to create a ton of Treasures, then sacrifice your commander with cards like High Market and Fling in order to actually use them. With you many you make, you can easily pay whatever the commander tax is.

There are a few different ways you can win the game with these Treasure tokens. Knuckles the Echidna can create more Treasure tokens for attacking, and with your commander, getting 30 artifacts is trivial. Likewise, Hellkite Tyrant is another easy win condition for the deck. These two, on top of all the other ways you can make Treasure, can allow for very quick wins.

Now, you can’t always rely on just those two cards. However, there are a lot of cards that deal burn damage when artifacts enter. These include Reckless Fireweaver, Weftstalker Ardent, Hedron Detonator, and Ingenious Artillerist to name a few. The idea of the deck is to burn your opponents out of the game with passive, stacked burn damage.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It’s fairly creature-heavy, with a lot of ways to take advantage of all the Treasure tokens coming in.

Star Trek Commanders: New Mechanics

These next two commanders are decks that are built around new mechanics introduced in the Star Trek set. They are Federation, which cares about having different creature types, and facing a dilemma, which is when you play cards that require you to pick a mode on a spell or permanent. Both of these mechanics are very strong, and have a lot of support for them both in and outside of the Star Trek set.

Elim Garak, Simple Tailor

The last of our Mono-Colored decks, Elim Garak, Simple Tailor is a deck that is a Burn-Lifegain deck. It is filled with cards that make you face a dilemma so you can keep triggering your commander. Weak one-mana spells like Ebony Charm and Funeral Charm become much stronger when they convert into burn damage.

There are a lot of spells that make you pick a mode, but the best ones are attached to permanents. After all, this gives you a way to consistently face a dilemma. Black Market Connections is the best choice, and your commander helps to gain back the life you lose from it. It requires you to play lands, but Retreat to Hagra is another consistent way. Even if you don’t have a card that can take advantage of it, Energy Chamber will always trigger for free.

There are some ways to squeeze out some extra burn damage. Enduring Tenacity and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose both lead to a ton of burn damage when you gain life. Weaker are Marauding Blight-Priest and Starscape Cleric since they only deal one burn damage no matter how much life you gain. Regardless, they’re still very useful in the deck!

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It is light on creatures, so you’ll have big reliance on your commander to close out your games.

Like the idea of playing a deck that wants to play cards that cause choices. The Celestial Toymaker is another Commander deck that is all about playing cards that make your opponents choose things instead of yourself. We have a full deck overview of The Celestial Toymaker this way.

Sarek, Federation Ambassador

For the Federation mechanic, the aptly named Sarek, Federation Ambassador is the go-to commander for the mechanic. The more creature types you have on the battlefield, the more cards you draw and the more counters you put on your creatures. To help Sarek out, Volo, Guide to Monsters and Volo, Itinerant Scholar gives you more card draws, making it easy to never run out of steam.

Important to note for Federation: it doesn’t matter if the creature types are on different cards or not. So Pet Avengers gives you six different creature types on one card. Cards with more than one character on them make for the best options, since they tend to have a lot of creature types. Examples include Mikey & Mona, Mutant Sitters and Splinter & Leo, Father & Son. The more unique creature types, the better.

The deck is also a +1/+1 Counter deck, and there are a lot of useful cards to support that. Both Damning Verdict and Wave Goodbye can act as one-sided board wipes. You can put more counters on your creatures with Branching Evolution and Hardened Scales. This can even turn into a win condition through Simic Ascendancy.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It is very creature heavy, as a Federation deck would be expected to be.

Star Trek Commanders: New Play Patterns

The last two Star Trek commanders we’ll look at are ones that offer a brand new playstyle to the format. They provide a very unique way to go about deck building, and play much differently from other decks, only now possible thanks to their printing. Part of the fun of every new set is getting new commanders that offer something that didn’t exist before.

Kira Nerys, Firebrand

Kira Nerys, Firebrand is a commander that wants you to put your creatures onto the battlefield during combat. So, the gameplay loop is you attack, then after blockers are declared, you bring in other creatures to get in for guaranteed damage. So, cards that give things flash, like Vedalken Orrery and Scout's Warning, are especially useful for getting your more impactful creatures down onto the battlefield.

There are a few different ways that allow you to put creatures onto the battlefield whenever you want. Sneak Attack can put any creature onto the battlefield for just one mana, and Quicksilver Amulet can for four, the latter of which will let it stick around. You can also use The Fire Crystal to create a copy of any creature, which can also take advantage of any enter the battlefield triggers.

There are multiple cards that can blink creatures. With your commander, when they return, they return attacking. The strength comes from being able to blink them after the declare blockers step, being able to guarantee you connect with a card like Aurelia, the Warleader. These include Ephemerate, Cloudshift, and Slip On the Ring. It’s important that the creature turns right away, rather than at the end step; otherwise, there isn’t any point to blink a creature.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are a lot of ways to get creatures on the battlefield, and a lot of way to cheese some heavy blows in combat.

Cmdr. Troi, Outgoing Empath

Cmdr. Troi, Outgoing Empath is a very unique Group Hug commander. By tapping it, you can let an opponent play a spell for free, and be able to copy that spell. The downside is that you let a player cast a spell for free, but the upside is that you get that spell too! However, you can mitigate the downside with counterspells like Nix and Memory Lapse. It’s actively good not to permanently get rid of the spell, as that allows you the chance to copy the spell again.

The deck runs a lot of ways to untap creatures. Since Cmdr. Troi only requires you to tap it to use its effect, you don’t need any excess mana. Fatestitcher, Kelpie Guide, and Vizier of Tumbling Sands are among the many untappers in the deck. This allows you to constantly untap your commander, and copy a ton of spells. Or, worst case scenario, draw you cards.

You can also copy the effects of your commander to get even more value out of it. Gogo, Master of Mimicry can copy it a lot of times if you have mana to spare to dump into the X. If you pay a little bit of mana, you can copy abilities with Battlemage's Bracers and can copy for free with Illusionist's Bracers. For whatever spell you copied, you can use Errant, Street Artist or Twinning Staff as a way to copy it an extra time.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Since your board state is mostly determined by your commander, most of the deck consists of either counterspells, ways to untap your commander, or ways to copy spells and abilities.

In Conclusion

There are a ton of Star Trek commanders you can use for your Commander decks. If you have a favorite character, odds are, you can build a Commander deck around it. They aren’t all going to be powerhouses, but most are viable enough to play and be able to do more than sit around all game.

The decks we went over here are just the tip of the iceberg of what’s possible. All of them hover in the Bracket 3 range. They aren’t meant to be the most powerful decks available, but fun, yet strong decks that can always make for a fun game.

Still want some Sci-Fi Universes Beyond action? Check out our article on Warhammer 40K’s Imperium and Necron decks.