MTG Star Trek Spell Copy Commander Enables Hilarious Spellslinger Shenanigans

Last updated on October 29, 2026

Unexplored Territory | Illustration by Raymond Bonilla

Star Trek has had a generally lukewarm reception, but that doesn’t mean players aren’t brewing. Q, Stacking the Deck, a bizarre mono-red commander for an equally bizarre character, is currently the most built TRK or TRC commander on EDHREC, and it’s all due to the memes.

In effect, Q enters the battlefield, exiles a random card from the top of your library, and lets you recast it from exile by exiling a card from your hand as an additional cost. At least, that’s the cliffnotes version.

For more Star Trek commanders, check out Draftsim’s TRK Spoiler Page!

One Meme To Rule Them All

With a wonky card, Commander players reach for the jankiest nonsense they can. So players set out to find the 1 card they could run alongside 98 Mountains to kill the table quickly, and two cards look especially promising.

Redditor -theslaw- broke the code by proposing Glaring Fleshraker, which wins the game by turn 6: You cast Q turn 4, then 1 Fleshraker turn 5. Turn 6, you play 2 Fleshrakers, then have enough cards in hand and Fleshrakers to cast them until you burn the table to death.

In a comment to the post, Itfailed suggested the saga Maximum Carnage as an alternative that wins slower but offer some protection as it forces your opponents to attack each other.

In reality, though, these are meme decks that are unlikely to be played given their fragility and arguably dull play patterns.

Twinflame Synergy

A much more potent deck uses Q like a storm commander backed by red copy spells like Twinflame and Molten Duplication. Q is templated such that if you get multiple enters triggers, you get multiple cards in exile you can cast. These cheap copy effects are a great way to get the most from it.

From there, the deck runs high-impact cards like Price of Progress, Delayed Blast Fireball, and Terror of the Peaks. To maximize consistency, build a deck with a very high land count. Since Q ensures you have spells to play, and you want to maximize their quality, you could get away with as few as 12-20 great red spells and then some 87 lands.

Is Q Actually Good?

Counterspell | Illustration by Mark Poole

I want to preface this by saying that “good” is subjective in Commander, as the casual format rewards fun over playing the best strategy. If you think Q is fun, disregard this; but on the “good” axis, I’d say no.

As funny as the meme builds are, they’re dreadfully slow and weak to interaction. One Counterspell, one Drannith Magistrate, or any of a number of different interact spells kills them.

The Twinflame–storm brews have greater potential, but then we run into the other issue with this commander: It eats cards from hand. Which is necessary so Pyretic Ritual doesn’t just go infinite with itself, but means that Q requires an influx of cards. While there’s plenty of good red card draw, much of its advantage engines are impulse draw, which doesn’t get cards in hand to exile to Q. In most circumstances, Q’s going to lose steam. Your best bet will be getting Wheel of Fortune under Q to supply cards for the other exiled spells, but since Q shuffles the deck, you can’t reliably set that up. I don’t think (though have ample room to be wrong) that Q will be much more than a lark.

Beyond the Command Zone

While I’m low on Q, Stacking the Deck as a commander, I find it interesting in the 99 of other decks. Of course, all of these come with the asterisk that Q’s shuffle effect means they’re inconsistent, but I’d consider playing Q in the same deck with these or similar cards.

Draftsim’s editor, Eli, has championed Q + Time Warp since he saw the card, with good reason. Who doesn’t love taking infinite turns in Commander?

Manamorphose also goes infinite with Q, though more subtly: It generates storm because it goes mana-neutral and replaces itself with a new card to exile. This isn’t technically infinite since you’ll draw your deck, but storm = 80+ wins most games.

Uncover the Moon-Letters is a little different than the other cards here because I’m not interested in putting it under Q, I just want to control it. If you’re casting spells with mana value 3 or greater, then you’ll go card-positive to keep chaining spells. That sounds especially appealing with rituals like Seething Song or Turnabout.

The last card I’ll touch on is more of a category: Q’s copies of exiled spells trigger cast from exile synergies. Prosper, Tome-Bound is always one of the first that comes to mind; just imagine always having the option to cast a spell from exile to make a Treasure.