Deeper into Space: Star Trek Previews
Star Trek is less than a week away at this point and we now have a complete list of previews. Soon I'll have the honor of playing the Early Access event and will likely discuss Star Trek Limited, but for now, let's take a look at a few more cards and how they may impact 60-card formats.
We received the very sad news that beloved actor Patrick Stewart passed away. That will make this card a little more special in everyone's minds, as we will all remember the release of the Star Trek set shortly after his passing.
Jean-Luc Picard is one of the stronger cards in the set as well, as a sort of twist on Monastery Mentor. Picard starts pumping out creatures when you cast more creatures and spacecraft, and can ultimately search up a spacecraft if you're able to amass a battlefield of six other officers. This second part is almost certainly win-more, but could be relevant in certain spots if you're able to keep it in play for a couple of turns, especially if you're playing the U.S.S enterprise which will get you more than half way over that hump.
Jean-Luc Picard is the kind of card that is incredibly powerful if left unchecked, but doesn't provide much of any value if it can't live through a turn cycle, which makes it incredibly strong in certain spots and really weak when it's trading down on mana.
I will say that one issue Mentor had was it was being a lightning rod for removal which people almost always had. Mentor really wants you to play a lot of non-creature spells, so they'd generally have enough removal to cover Mentor. This made Mentor a much better sideboard angle out of control decks rather than a build-around.
Jean-Luc on the other hand really wants you to play a high threat density and pile on the creatures. This means combined with other threats, eventually, something is going to be left unchecked and Jean-Luc Picard can contribute to that. Jean-Luc will shine with cards like a Selfless Savior that can be played proactively and protect Picard.
My initial read of Jean-Luc was as just another strong creature that looks good when things are going well, but will just trade down on mana for removal. After thinking more and more about it, it's a card I'm fairly interested in testing for Standard because its ability to snowball is certainly interesting and how it plays with the U.S.S Enterprise is awesome.
Seven of Nine is very interesting. Its floor is a 0/4 that loots every turn. Triggering on your first main phase is a major downside because you won't get an immediate trigger. That makes it a lot less likely to be used as a discard outlet for a deck like Renimator. I think this is actually a major issue for the card because, had that not been the case, I think this would have been an excellent enabler for those types of decks.
Regardless of that design choice, Seven of Nine does become a personal Howling Mine if we play a diverse mana base and can reliably put five differently named lands into play. This of course incentivizes Domain-style decks as it's much easier to do this without a lot of basic lands. Fetch lands would make this incredibly easy, but in formats where this card has potential, those are banned or non-existent.
Lastly, we need to have five lands in play to start drawing extra cards, and by that point games have generally developed into more of a battle of haymakers and big turns, not incremental card advantage. Lastly, for seven mana we get a real win con, but we do still need seven differently named lands.
Personally I don't think we'll see this card in competitive formats barring domain being a real Standard deck again, but I do think this card would be much easier to play if it triggered during combat so you could get that first loot the turn it's cast.
I'd love for this card to be good, but I think it's just got too much working against it.
There was a very similar card to Collation Trimatrix that saw quite a bit of play in older formats, Cryptbreaker.
Collation Trimatrix has one big upside, finding three artifact creature is much easier to accomplish than three zombies. There's plenty of cards that will put multiple 1/1 artifact creature tokens into play, some for two mana such as Mechanized Ninja Cavalry.
This makes it very easy to get those next two creatures in play on curve, and could create a card-drawing engine immediately. If we factor in cards like Memnite and Ornithopter it's incredibly easy to get to those 3 necessary creatures.
One major downside when compared to Cryptbreaker is it can't create creatures itself. Cryptbreaker allowed you to pump out creatures quickly and effectivley, which made it a threatening win condition itself. Collation Trimatrix however is strictly about drawing cards.
The ease of other cards enabling Collation Trimatrix stacked up to Cryptbreaker's singular threat potential is difficult to parse without playing with the cards, but I'd suspect we see a lot of players testing Collation Trimatrix in a variety of decks. A lot of the time, Collation Trimatrix will just eat a removal spell, hopefully drawing a card on the way out, but if left unchecked or if the next copy sticks it would be worth a slot in even Modern Affinity-esque decks since the infrastructure is already supported heavily.
My honest guess is Collation Trimatrix is just a bit too slow to see play. In interactive matchups it actually seems quite good since we'd be trying to overload their interaction with threats and resources and this will either eat some removal immediately or allow us to win a resource battle.
I'd pass on this Collation Trimatrix, but I'm definitely low confidence in that assesment. Regardless, a cool card worth thinking about and testing.
Nog, Ambitious Cadet is an interesting cheap creature that scales into the game. For three mana we get a 3/4 creature that Surveils 2 when tapped, but we get to spread that mana out over two turns. Once the game progresses we can spend 3 more mana to turn it into an Icetill Explorer of sorts.
Two-drops generally don't need to snowball to be passable, and Nog is right in that area where I could see it being pretty solid in some midrange Golgari decks, but is also the kind of card that would have been great in 2015, but in 2026 likely just sits on the sidelines.
I think the full package of Nog makes it worth considering if after its promoted to officer you have some synergies, but otherwise it seems like just a solid two drop. It being legendary means we really don't want a bunch of them, so maybe it is the kind of card you see as a one- or two-of to round out a Golgari creature deck if we can't find more synergistic two drops.
Cool card, fairly solid, but likely just below the power level necessary to see Standard play. While this card is designed in a way like Figure of Destiny, it's nice to see a change in the functionality of the card as it reaches promotions, rather than just dealing more damage and getting larger.
Wesley Crusher is a bit of a pet card for me as I love these tricky flash creatures that play out a bit like Venser did years ago.
Wesley has a variety of potentially game-ending modes in certain situations and in others will feel a bit lackluster.
Wesley's best use case is something like countering a planeswalker while bouncing a giant token, but even a 2/2 body attached to a spell pierce and then getting a Careful Study to boot is nice.
Wesley's playability really does come down to how effective the Spell Pierce mode will be within the context of any format you'd consider it in, and if Spell Pierce isn't lining up well in that format this card won't either. One problem with that, is Spell Pierce does exist in Standard, and that has sort of pushed decks into respecting it already, which means Wesley isn't likely to see much play.
After rotation things may churn a bit and this is certainly a card worth keeping an eye on.
One neat mode you may want to use with Wesley is if an empty-hand opponent surveils to the top, you can cast Wesley targeting them with the draw ability to mill their card, so keep that in mind when you do play with Wesley.
Overall, Star Trek looks fairly weak from a 60-card standpoint relative to sets like Reality Fracture, or Secrets of Strixhaven.
There's a lot of wordy cards that may play better than they read and next week I'll get the opportunity to find out.
This is a set I will need to focus on for Limited because the Arena Limited Championships will feature both Star Trek and Reality Fracture. Most of my attention will be on exploring those Limited sets as deeply as I can, so I plan to dive in headfirst as soon as it's available. Hope to see you on the battlefield!
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