My lifelong favorite franchise and my lifelong favorite game come together...at last? Even in my wildest dreams, this isn't something I expected, or really even wanted, but I can't help but be delighted by some of the final results. Sure, this set is weirdly underpowered, even more multiplayer-centric than usual, and has a higher rate of wonky art than usual with various efforts towards photorealism, but the end result is simultaneously compelling as a Magic set and leaves much to be desired. In my endless leering at new spoilers and test drafts online, I'm convinced this will be an all-timer of a retail limited environment like Reality Fracture before it.
For Cube's sake, whether you're committed to a power-max environment or simply want interesting cards that contribute well to burgeoning archetypes, there's a lot to love if you're willing to look past the UB of it all, with even more delights for those that like simple cards with interesting decision webs (and lots of modality!).
Before I get into my own assessment, I wanted to share some of the bigger Cube curators' favorite cards from the set:
Steve's Favorites:
(Pretty well aligned with Andy's Sweet Synergy)
Usman's Favorites:
wtwlf's Early Inclusions:
These are all fine picks, but I am slightly different in my assessment, which is as follows
Boldly Going (into my Cube)
Multiversal marvels that will stand the test of time.
I don't contend that these are the best picks for every Cube, but for one like mine, a 720-card list that's a solid step in power below traditional unpowered Legacy/Vintage Cubes, these are very welcome additions that bolster my Cube's themes and archetypes. Many of these cards are more straightforward than what we've been getting in recent sets, but still with plenty of interplay to their abilities.
I love Beverly Crusher, Ship's Doctor most of all here, and am beyond devastated we didn't get any clever designs like this from the Klingon deck (side note: I cannot believe I am only including a single Klingon in my Cube from this set, and it's the one that makes my skin boil to look at his art and remember his dumbass storyline; how did we get a whole commander deck without a single playable Klingon for Cubes???). Crusher makes you work for the value, but gives it back in spades. She's what finally put me over the edge into making my Cube more "fair" by removing Luminarch Aspirant.
Resistance is Futile is custom-made for my Cube, serving as a split card between a restricted Unearth that calls out to drafters one of the most important creature types in my Cube (and gets back 44 dudes, including key cards like Stridehangar Automaton or even Scarecrone if you're feeling degenerate) and Go for the Throat. The sorcery speed is a downside here, but its upside more than alleviates it. A B-tier removal, sure, but I have room for a few of those at 720 cards, and this one will be one of the last to get cut.
Tasha Yar, Out of Time feels like the card I've always wanted in Red. It's great that she has a death trigger but comes back one time!
Captain James T. Kirk feels like it's doing justice to every red archetype I support in a single card. Exactly what I'd want from my favorite captain.
Holo-Engineer works both as a midrange fatty and a single-card build-around.
Deep Space 9 is the most fun big-mana bomb for the artifact/ramp decks and the cheaty decks I could ask for. Its power-level in my Cube is hindered by my lack of Tinker and most of my reanimation only hitting creatures, so I think it'll be more "fair" than many other bombs, which is fine by me.
Where A Few Have Gone Before
Solid replacement-level or above officers who will gladly serve Starfleet.
I've talked about all of these in the main thread except maybe Bones, but I was pleased to see I wasn't the only one so impressed with There's Coffee in That Nebula, a notably powerful white card selection/advantage spell that is one of the few powerful white cards that's plenty happy to be discarded or milled.
On the note of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, my comparison to Mikey & Mona, Mutant Sitters was not quite strong enough. As much as I didn't like running 4 different versions of Michelangelo in my Cube (as someone wholly unfamiliar with TMNT), I thought the card was one of the most "slept on" cards of 2026...only for them to come out with a better modal version of the card at the same mana cost! It hurts to lose out on non-permanents compared to Eternal Witness, but I am more than happy with the color pie shifting that slice of the regrowth ability to Izzet, and it's not like I run Time Walk anyways.
Armus, Skin of Evil and Jadzia Dax, Living Legacy continue to make all my discard-matters cards happy, as well as both the big and small reanimator variants.
Will Riker, First in the Field is maybe the coolest new design of the set, and my big decision is whether or not I want to meme it up and do the omelette art or the one that looks like an actual Magic card.
Data, New Life is a delight. Very simple card that goes big, very quickly. Particularly with all the incidental card draw and cantrips I've been running lately, this feels like the card that I wanted out of Scrounging Skyray...plus it's an artifact!
Encounter the Unknown is another Opera Love Song variant that can really mess with the board. Concerned about the double pips but excited for the Unknown of it all.
I'm very grateful I let myself be convinced by @KeithCubes about Kira Nerys, Firebrand, as I've been theory-crafting with her like crazy and I cannot wait to sleeve her up.
Red Shirts on Away Missions
Really neat cards I'll be testing but I can't guarantee will last too long.
In many ways, Ezri Dax, Newly Joined is a White Feign Death variant that costs double that also can be a 2/2 flash creature for 2 if needed, an emergency lever that Containment Priest proved was almost acceptable as a floor. Why not just play Spectacular Spider-Man? Mostly because I don't want to pay $70 for a picture of Spider-Man that is tolerable (I don't like the readability of full-art cards, nor Spider-Man). Sure, it's also less ideal than Brought Back, which played worse than it read (largely thanks to the double white pips) and Continue?, which has atrocious flavor, but her flavor is kind of cool, even if I'd nitpick the art including Kurzon in Starfleet attire.
Anyways if Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy is good at 3mv, how bad can Ezri Dax, Newly Joined be at 2?
Julian Bashir, Frontier Doctor is the most compelling of this bunch for sure, but also asks the most of you. I mentioned a bunch of comps in the previous thread, but I truly think he's the best "reanimate on attack" creature we've gotten since Sun Titan, and it's not that hard for him to turn into the M10 Giant in the right circumstances.
Set Phasers to... is a decent piece of removal for very large Cubes. I love 1mv interaction that has this kind of flexibility. I prefer it to something like Oust for its ability to be reactive and more than Swift Reconfiguration for complexity's sake and the ability to fully remove a small-to-midsize attacker.
Test of Priorities is exciting as a Curate with upside. Dreams of Laguna is still appealing to me despite costing twice as much as Consider on the front side.
Voq, Torchbearer makes me sick to my stomach to Cube with...because I love Star Trek.
The Wrath of Khan is really good, actually. That's a ton of value on a 3-drop that pays you off immediately but doesn't stop hitting. The incongruity of its abilities and its flavor will turn of most (like The Flux turned me off....as a Doctor Who fan!) but if you can stomach it, I love the card.
Sarek, Federation Ambassador and Captain Janeway, Endgame are really only interesting if you're insistent on having every 3-color combo get a card for bookkeeping sake (as there's no other strong rationale besides that to that kind of rigidity in Cube design), but I think both are fine contenders in their combinations.
Museum of Starfleet
Other cards I am following but not yet testing out.
Commander Spock would likely make my Cube if it wasn't full-art and just a big 'ol block of text to read.
Nog, Ambitious Cadet has memory issues, so I've decided to spend my complexity points elsewhere than untracked Figure of Destiny variants, but otherwise would be a fine if unsexy choice (artwork aside).
---
Overall, though, I am fine with this set. I am deeply disappointed we didn't get the Gul Dukat card with this art:
I am sad so many of the cards read/look as more generic than they should be, I am bitter that we only got a single Andorian and that MY BOY SHRAN was wholly excluded from the set. I am sad that my favorite character, Garak, has a more narrow card than I'd prefer, and I'm bummed that the Klingon commander deck's exclusive designs read like draft chaff. I went into this set very excited and came out a critic, but I still am happy to have this combination of things, even if it feels less like the peanut butter and chocolate combination I had dreamed of. I am very happy to have 30 new cards in my Cube and two art upgrades.
What are you all planning to play from Trek?
Last edited:
hybrid options: