Magic: The Gathering has now absorbed Spider-Man, Final Fantasy, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marvel’s superheroes and The Hobbit, which makes the arrival of the Borg feel less like an invasion than a professional courtesy. Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek, the last big Magic release of 2026, beams onto MTG Arena today and arrives on tabletop on Friday 13 November. Captain Kirk, of course, has never once in sixty years paid attention to an ominous date.
For Commander players, the headline is four preconstructed decks, each built around a famous face. Federation Fleet is led by Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary, in white, blue and red. Landing Party puts Commander Spock in charge of a white, blue and green away team. Klingon Fury hands Worf, Defiant Commander, the white, black and red, and the inevitable We Are the Borg deck is fronted by the Borg Queen in white, blue and black. In the US they’re $74.99 each, or $159.99 for the Collector’s Edition versions, which is a lot of latinum. The set brings new mechanics called assimilate, face a dilemma and federation, alongside the return of Spacecraft. Wizards has resisted the temptation to add a mechanic in which a red-shirted creature dies before combat, which feels like a missed opportunity.
Running alongside it, and separately, is the Secret Lair x Star Trek: Set Phasers to Superdrop, which went on sale yesterday on the Secret Lair site. The star of the show is a drop with nine As in its name, KHAAAAAAAAN, which puts The Wrath of Khan artwork on cards such as Wrath of the Skies (renamed “Best Served Cold”), Illusionist’s Gambit (“Reliant’s Betrayal”), Commandeer, Fracture, Buried Alive and, inevitably, Genesis Wave. Somebody at Wizards clearly enjoyed this one. There’s also a Lower Decks drop that redraws four legendary creatures as the crew of the Cerritos, a Klingon drop called tlhIngan maH, and a set of New Worlds basic lands painted by Alayna Danner. Spend $200 or more and you get a bonus card, Return of the Wildspeaker reborn as “Transporter Boondoggle”, which is a better name than most actual episodes.
The timing is no accident. The franchise has spent 2026 celebrating its sixtieth birthday, and as we noted when Star Trek turned 60 and promptly sold us a casserole dish, no corner of the merchandise galaxy is being left unexplored. A trading card game is at least a lot closer to the spirit of the thing than a cooking pot. Trek has always been about strategy, diplomacy and occasionally hitting a Gorn with a large rock.
Here at SFcrowsnest we suspect plenty of Trekkies who haven’t shuffled a deck since the 1990s will be wandering into game shops this week, drawn by Spock’s ears and leaving with a mild Commander habit. Live long and prosper. Also, budget carefully, because the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition are apparently printed on the back of the booster packs in invisible ink.
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