The Best New Commanders in Star Trek, Ranked by What They Do From the Command Zone

Star Trek releases on November 13, with prerelease events running November 6 through 12 and four Commander decks arriving the same day. Between the main set and the Commander decks there are more legendary creatures than a pod could build in a year, so choosing the best new commanders in Star Trek needed one hard test: what does this card do from the command zone that the other ninety-nine cannot do for it? A commander you can always cast is only worth a deck when its text is the engine rather than a bonus.

Each entry then got a four-player pass: does the plan survive being the table's target, and what does it need from the other players. Mono-colored legends from the main set sit next to three-color legends from the Commander decks, and every entry says which product it comes from. If dilemmas, station, strange new worlds or Federation are new words to you, the Star Trek mechanics guide covers how each one works; this post only explains them where a commander depends on them.

Mr. Spock, Science Officer costs and carries one line: "If you would draw a card, draw two cards instead." Thought Reflection is the same sentence on a seven-mana enchantment. Spock puts it on a four-mana creature you can cast again after it dies, which is why he leads this list.

Every draw in the deck doubles. Brainstorm draws six and puts back two. Rhystic Study pays you two cards each time an opponent declines to pay . Mulldrifter draws four. Your own draw step hands you two cards, and that detail matters for the set's seek out cards (abilities that trigger when you draw your second card in a turn): with Spock in play, Chief Miles O'Brien doubles the counters on an artifact or creature you control and Data, Professor of Humanities makes two Faeries during your draw step, before you have cast a spell. Data, New Life grows by one counter per card drawn, so a single cantrip (a cheap spell that draws a card) makes him two sizes bigger.

At a four-player table Spock is the creature everyone removes first, and he should be. Plan for it: hold a counterspell for the removal spell rather than for an opponent's threat, and treat the recast as a cost of doing business. The quieter danger is your library. A long game with Spock and a wheel like Windfall (everyone discards their hand and draws a new one) eats forty cards in a few turns, so count your library before you fire the second wheel. The payoff for that discipline is a mono-blue deck whose card advantage lives in the command zone, with Alhammarret's Archive turning a single draw into four.

Captain Benjamin Sisko costs , but his second ability costs to activate, and a commander's color identity includes every mana symbol in its text. That makes Sisko a five-color commander who comes down on turn two. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain gets her colors the same way, and almost nothing else does.

His first ability is the deck: "At the beginning of your end step, create a 1/1 red Officer creature token for each dilemma you've faced this turn." You face a dilemma whenever you choose modes for a spell or ability, which means every "choose one" or "choose two" card in all five colors now makes a body. The main set prints a cheap modal spell in each color, Test of Conviction, Test of Priorities, Test of Loyalty, Test of Identity and Test of Courage, and the old guard qualifies too: Kolaghan's Command, Cryptic Command, Austere Command and Boros Charm all count. Kobayashi Maru Scenario faces a dilemma at every one of your upkeeps, which is an Officer a turn until its three safe modes are used up. Remove it yourself before the fourth upkeep, because the only mode left by then is losing the game.

The activated ability is the late-game payoff: tap Sisko and seven mana of all five colors to exile the top five cards of your library and cast any number of them free, as long as each one's mana value is no higher than the number of Officers you control. Sisko is an Officer himself, and so are the main set's other captains, Captain James T. Kirk among them, so the count climbs fast. Two sequencing notes. The tokens arrive at your end step and the ability has no timing restriction, so hold the seven mana and activate it in your own end step after the Officer trigger resolves, or at the end of the turn before yours: the Officers you just made already count, and spells cast while the ability resolves ignore their normal timing. The ability also needs him untapped and free of summoning sickness, so he can't fire until your next turn begins, which also rules out the opponents' end steps right after you cast him. The real cost is the mana base. Five colors on a two-drop still need Chromatic Lantern and a real set of dual lands, and a deck that skimps on fixing becomes a white deck with a tempting ability it never activates.

Hugh, First of Many comes from the Commander decks, costs , and reads in full: "Artifact spells you cast have replicate ." Replicate means that when you cast the spell you may pay the replicate cost any number of times, and the spell is copied once per payment. Copies of a permanent spell become tokens when they resolve.

So Solemn Simulacrum with one replicate payment is seven mana for two Golems and two basic lands. Myr Battlesphere copied once is eight Myr and two bodies. Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Overseer and every mana rock (an artifact that taps for mana) in the deck scale the same way, and a replicated Sol Ring is a token Sol Ring for . Two things the card does not say that matter at the table: the copies resolve before the original, so the tokens enter first, and the legend rule still applies, so point Hugh at nonlegendary artifacts rather than at the set's legendary starships.

In a four-player game Hugh turns an Esper artifact deck from a pile of good cards into a value engine that scales with how long the game runs, and long games are what multiplayer produces. He is an artifact creature himself, so he dies to every artifact wrath an opponent fires at your board; keep a way to rebuild. The Borg legends printed beside him, Locutus of Borg and The Borg Queen, want the same ninety-nine and are the natural second and third commanders for the shell.

Dr. Joseph M'Benga costs : "Other creatures you control with counters on them have hexproof. If you would put one or more counters on a creature you control, put twice that many of each of those kinds of counters on that creature instead." Compare the second sentence with the counter half of Doubling Season. M'Benga's version is narrower (creatures only) and comes with a body and a shield.

The doubling applies to creatures that enter with counters, so Walking Ballista cast for X arrives with twice X and its ability adds two at a time. Jadzia Dax, Living Legacy gets two counters a turn instead of one and adds green mana equal to the count at the start of each of your first main phases. Renata, Called to the Hunt turns her bonus counter into two. With Hardened Scales out as well, you choose the order the two effects apply in, and the right order is Scales first: one counter becomes two, then four.

The hexproof is for other creatures, and that is the pod-level catch. The doctor himself is the one creature the hexproof never covers, and the moment he leaves, every creature with a counter is targetable again. Spot removal is therefore a tax on recasting him rather than a threat to the board, and what beats the deck is a wrath. Hold Heroic Intervention for that, and expect a mono-green counters deck that is far harder to pick apart than the usual version.

Commander Spock leads the Landing Party deck in the Commander release and costs . The ability word on him is strange new worlds, and every strange new worlds card revealed so far counts the differently named lands you control. His trigger: "Whenever Commander Spock enters or attacks, reveal the top card of your library. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost if that spell's mana value is equal to or less than the number of differently named lands you control. If it's a land card, you may put it onto the battlefield tapped. If that card is still on top of your library, draw a card."

Read it twice and notice there is no blank outcome. A cheap enough spell is free, a land goes into play, and anything else goes to your hand. The number that controls it is land names, not land count, and five Forests count once. The main set prints ten Planet lands and ten shocklands (two-color lands that enter untapped if you pay 2 life), and in Bant that means Vulcan, Risa and Earth, Sector 001, plus Hallowed Fountain, Temple Garden and Breeding Pool, with Q Continuum and its white and blue siblings behind them. A Bant mana base built from singletons reaches six or seven names by the midgame, which is enough to cast most of the deck free. A base of basics caps the free casts at mana value three.

The play pattern is to attack with him into the open opponent every turn, even into a chump block (a small creature thrown in front of him), because the trigger is on attack and not on damage. He has no vigilance and five mana is a real recast, so the first upgrade to the preconstructed deck should be cheap protection. Captain Kirk, Boldly Going, printed alongside him, fetches a basic or Starship Enterprise to hand on enter or attack and is the natural second commander for the same ninety-nine if your pod prefers the ship plan.

Elim Garak, Simple Tailor costs , has menace, and triggers on the same event as Sisko: "Whenever you face a dilemma, each opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life." At a four-player table that is six life off the board and two back for every modal spell or ability, which makes each mono-black removal spell with a choice on it a drain as well.

The pool is deeper than it looks. Test of Loyalty costs . Resistance Is Futile, Sheoldred's Edict and Collective Brutality cost two. Impossible Choice kills a creature or draws two, Profane Command has a mode that makes a player lose X life, and Commander Raffi Musiker has a modal enters trigger, so you face a dilemma when she enters. Gabriel Lorca, Mirror Menace returns himself from the graveyard to your hand for whenever you face one, which gives the deck a recurring menace body for plus his recast.

One rules point that is easy to miss: the dilemma trigger goes on the stack above the spell that caused it and resolves first, so a countered Impossible Choice still drains the table. The honest limit is the clock. Three opponents at forty life is 120 life, and twenty triggers of two each is a slow way there, so Garak is a drain engine stapled to a normal black midrange deck (creatures and removal, no single engine) rather than the whole plan. His core is the set's one- and two-mana modal spells, which makes him one of the easiest builds here to assemble.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard costs . Other creatures you control get +1/+1, every creature or Spacecraft spell you cast makes a 1/1 red Officer token, and the third ability is the reason to build him: "Tap seven untapped Officers you control: Search your library for a Spacecraft card, put it onto the battlefield with seven charge counters on it, then shuffle."

Two details make that ability much better than it reads. The cost taps Officers but does not use the tap symbol, so tokens made this turn can pay it despite summoning sickness. And there is no sorcery restriction, so you can activate it at the end of an opponent's turn or in the middle of combat. The targets: U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class is a flying, vigilant creature the moment it lands with seven counters. U.S.S. Enterprise-A, Free Spirit brings three more Officers with it. Deep Space 9 costs to cast normally, and Picard puts it into play for free with its enter trigger intact: exile the top four cards and put every permanent among them onto the battlefield, then again every upkeep. The Commander decks add U.S.S. Enterprise-E, Sovereign, which destroys all tapped creatures when it enters. Fetch it after an opponent declares attackers and the attack dies, though your seven tapped Officers die with it, so save that line for the attack that would have killed you.

The deck is mono-white go-wide (many small creatures) where every creature spell is two bodies at +1/+1. Excalbian Gamemaster arrives with one Officer per land name you control, and U.S.S. Enterprise-A, Free Spirit is four Officers when you cast it (Picard's trigger plus its own three) and three when he fetches it. Seven tokens is the number to protect, so a wrath before you reach it hurts more than usual; keep Teferi's Protection in the list and don't overextend past the seventh Officer.

Captain Kathryn Janeway costs . You may play an extra land each turn, and whenever she or another creature enters under your control, that creature explores: reveal the top card of your library, put it into your hand if it is a land, and otherwise put a +1/+1 counter on the creature and choose whether the card stays on top or goes to the graveyard.

Tokens count. Avenger of Zendikar makes a Plant per land and each Plant explores, so seven Plants dig seven cards. Scute Swarm copies explore as they arrive. The explore lands feed the extra land drop the same turn, and Lotus Cobra and Tireless Provisioner turn those drops into mana and Treasure. The nonland reveals are a sorting engine too: every creature that enters lets you bin a dead card or keep a good one on top.

Sequence the token maker before the land drop. Play creatures first, use the lands they find, then let the landfall triggers see both drops. The pod-level read is that Janeway is a value commander nobody targets until the Avenger lands, which makes her the easiest card on this list to sit behind for six turns, and the deck wins by having more of everything rather than by any one card.

The Borg Queen (, We Are the Borg) gives your artifact creatures +2/+2 and, whenever she enters or attacks, makes a target opponent exile from the top of their library until they hit a creature card, which you assimilate: it enters under your control with a +1/+1 counter as a Borg artifact creature. At a full table you pick the opponent with the best library each time, and a stolen creature is also a card gone from their deck. She is the strongest precon face on raw text and the slowest to start at seven mana, which is why Hugh, First of Many outranks her for the same ninety-nine.

Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary (, Federation Fleet) draws a card whenever another historic permanent with mana value three or more enters under your control (artifacts, legendaries and Sagas are historic), and his seek out trigger puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature and two charge counters on a Spacecraft when you draw your second card in a turn. On your turn the second ability needs one draw beyond the draw step, and on an opponent's turn it needs two, so a pilot who adds eight cheap draw spells to the preconstructed deck gets the Jeskai (blue-red-white) station deck the card is describing. Solid, not spectacular.

Worf, Defiant Commander (, Klingon Fury) makes a 2/1 haste Klingon Warrior on enter, and his battlefront trigger exiles the top X cards whenever you attack, where X is the number of opponents you attacked, playable until the end of your next turn. Three cards a combat is the number, and it only happens if you send at least one creature at each opponent. That is the sequencing lesson of the deck: spread the attack, and let Kor, Cause of Vengeance sacrifice Worf's 2/1 token as you attack to draw a card and give your Klingons +2/+2. The most aggressive of the four, and the one most dependent on the table not wrathing.

Captain James T. Kirk is the face of the set and a fine card: , and whenever he enters or attacks you choose one of three modes, or more than one if your hand is empty. As a commander he is a mono-red value three-drop whose best mode is a 1/1. He is better in Sisko's ninety-nine, where his dilemma and his Officer type both pay off.

Georgiou, Terran Emperor () lets you stay in the game at zero or less life, costs you three life and draws you a card at each of your end steps, and hands you ten Officers at each of those end steps while you are at zero or below. The trap is the first clause. Once your life is zero or below, any removal spell on Georgiou ends the game for you on the spot, and a four-player table has removal. Build her in a pod that has agreed not to, or not at all.

For the full card list see the Star Trek set page, and for the week's reveals in one place the spoiler roundup. The same test was applied to The Hobbit and Reality Fracture if you want to see how this crop compares.