All 25 Mythic Rares in MTG’s Star Trek Ranked

Scotty, Miracle Worker | Illustration by Sam Kennedy

Magic: The Gathering hit stores between the last film starring the original series cast of Star Trek and the first film starring The Next Generation. It was a good time to be a Trek fan, and if you also loved the new card game, like I did, you likely bought into a few of the games it inspired then, including the Star Trek Customizable Card Game, a few cards of which I still have floating around.

It was quickly gone, as were so many of Magic’s early competitors/clones, but for those of us who played then, there was always a sense of possibilities, as Kirk would say. And now we’re living that future, as Trek hits its 60th year and Magic passes well beyond its 30th.

Mythic rares weren’t a part of the game then, and as I write about the best mythics in this set, which I have been looking forward to for more than half my life, I’m reminded of Star Trek’s continual obsession with time, with aging, and with making things that endure across generations. The loss of two of Star Trek’s core actors this week, Walter Koenig and Patrick Stewart, makes this moment especially poignant. They were mythic parts of a mythic franchise, and one of them has a pretty sweet card on this list that’s a fitting tribute.

Ready to explore? Engage!

How Many Mythic Rares Are in Star Trek?

Captain James T. Kirk | Illustration by Jason Pastrana

There are four lights. And there are 25 mythic rares in the main set. Let’s rank ‘em all, looking into which ones are going to hit across formats.

#25. Excalbian Gamemaster

Yes, that classic mythic character from the show! Uh, who actually remembers this episode? This is a classic case of a card elevated to mythic to avoid ruining the Limited environment, because this would be an annoying top-end if multicolor works in the format. Excalbian Gamemaster could make a lot of red shirt weenies in Amulet Titan decks, maybe, or in most multicolor EDH decks, but this isn’t a good enough payoff in those spaces.

#24. U.S.S. Enterprise-A, Free Spirit

In a set of flavor wins, they take the beautifully redesigned ship for the movies, which Star Trek: The Motion Picture spends like 89 minutes lovingly ogling with the camera, and make it into a version of (check notes) Cloudgoat Ranger. I’m too busy trying to coax my inner child out of the corner to properly evaluate U.S.S. Enterprise-A, Free Spirit, maybe, but it just seems kind of bad. Yeah, it’s pretty easy to station into a big lifelinker, but ugh.

The good news is that if I pull this from a pack, I can just put it in a hard sleeve on my desk to look at the beautiful art by Evan Shipard without worrying that I’m not tapping into its awesome power in some Limited deck.

#23. Rok-Tahk, Budding Scientist

I am not a believer. You drop Rok-Tahk, Budding Scientist with at least four creatures to net 2 mana. If you can avoid a board wipe for a turn, you can go wild with the big green mana. I assume your opponents are sleeping while this is happening.

#22. Crystalline Entity

The old 8-mana selective board wipe! Got ‘em.

Crystalline Entity is a clunky card for a clunky concept during the clunky years of The Next Generation. So on point. I can see this working in big colorless mana decks, but I’d still rather have an Eldrazi or an Ugin for this cost.

#21. Death Is Irrelevant

So you drop this with big mana or cheat it into play. Cool. Lots of reanimated baddies because Death Is Irrelevant. But very, very slowly. This is Griselbrand mana, and there are half a dozen better black 8-drops just in Standard right now. Still, you won’t ever hate that this is on the field in front of you.

#20. Quark, Humble Proprietor

Perfect flavor for the first Rule of Acquisition, Quark, Humble Proprietor is doctrinaire. It keeps ramping until you kill It. But then you can use the ramp. A nice little dilemma for your opponent, but in the meantime, you’re making artifact tokens, so go get that latinum!

#19. Starfleet Academy

So you’re a Pet Avengers deck, you say? Maybe toss down another type salad creature like Curious Farm Animals. Now as long as you can untap Starfleet Academy, and as long as you have minimum seven creature types, it’s like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx! I mean, that’s what you want to think. There will be a card that breaks this, but I don’t think it’s in print. Yet.

#18. Captain Kathryn Janeway

Two lands a turn is getting pretty plentiful, but making everyone explore is quite nice. It’s not nice enough at 4 mana in anything other than Commander, I think. Captain Kathryn Janeway is a flavor win, mostly.

#17. Q, Stacking the Deck

So, really Q, Stacking the Deck lets you rummage a shuffled library, except you rummage into exile. As a result, the mythic Khan is so funny with this card. Why would you not want a ton of cards that cascade or discover for 4 mana, instead, as those actually get the card out for free?

What about the Brawl style decks with mostly lands and some wincons, using Q as a tutor in the command zone? Sure. I think you could win with that as long as the rest of the table is definitely sleeping or no one plays blue.

Yes, there’s an insanely stupid combo that can win. Some of you were in full “challenge accepted” mode when you saw this card. And that feels very Q.

#16. Infinite Diversity

Infinite Diversity bugged me at first until I got the joke from the art. Wait for it. An overloaded Mizzix's Mastery literally casts the entire diversity of instants or sorceries in your graveyard. Our Star Trek card, on the other hand, for 1 more mana, copies one spell a bunch of times based on the number of creature types you have, which doesn’t quite feel like diversity to me.

The art shows us the diversity of cadets all getting their Starfleet diploma, which feels like they each cast the same spell as their diversity will be added to the Starfleet collective, a military endeavor that has a kind of homogenizing effect. It’s a swipe at Starfleet that various villainous characters have asserted for the past 60 years of the franchise, and I appreciate that it has voice here, even if the flavor text doesn’t seem in on the joke. Note that due to federation, Borg (and thus changelings) aren’t included, which almost gives extra teeth to the thing.

All that aside, how good is this card? Your combo can be heftier than the Mizzix play, especially once you engage broken stuff like extra turns, cascade, and storm, but the check of creature types gives it a limit. Mass graveyard hate is less scary for Infinite Diversity because you need only one, which you can land in the ‘yard just before, but the vulnerability of your creatures is an issue.

Still, the best big sorceries don’t need five copies. Just think of Expropriate, Time Stretch, Peer into the Abyss, Breach the Multiverse, Emergent Ultimatum, and all sorts of other fun stuff that’s looking for two or three copies, tops.

#15. Jadzia Dax, Living Legacy

I can see this in Standard Ouroboroid decks. Maybe it comes down hard with a deck playing Warden of the Grove, which has been kind of overshadowed by a bunch of better, cheaper green cards. And the pitch option for two counters is no joke in those decks. Jadzia Dax, Living Legacy seems like a fine commander that does a good job combining ramp with counters. It’s good, not great.

#14. Borg Cube

Slick, mostly 2-mana exile removal for affinity decks. Cool. If you’re getting there with artifact creature tokens, you’ll get to the station cost, which will often be a good route to win. Or you warp in the Borg Cube, exile something, and then sac it for cards. Good enough if these colors work for affinity in your chosen format.

#13. Seven of Nine, Unassimilated

Even if this just loots every turn with 4 toughness, that’s a pretty good deal for a human artifact creature in decks that don’t want to lose on turn 3 to aggro. But it’s not all that hard in most formats to build a deck that likely just makes Seven of Nine, Unassimilated draw you a card.

How often are you going to want to pump it up? Not often, but a top-end threat hiding in a 2-drop that’s hard for red to kill and fits right in to toughness-matters decks is going to find a lot of homes.

#12. Georgiou, Terran Emperor

Phyrexian Unlife on something easy to remove is a danger, for sure. But 10 tokens is bonkers. So could Georgiou, Terran Emperor be a useful top-end in Dimir () control decks, even if just in the sideboard? The superfriends and lifegain decks that emerged after Reality Fracture don’t have a ton of cards that can actually kill Michelle Yeoh’s tyrant. And I don’t think most of the green decks in the format run anything that can actually beat this card, almost like this is a sort of planeswalker style top-end that benefits from not being a planeswalker! So, can you control the board long enough to drop a win with counterspell coverage? The threat of this card in control shells will have a big impact, at least in my preferred version of the future.

In other formats, this seems mostly silly.

#11. Khan, Vengeful Heart

Coming out of exile is beautiful flavor for this character, and Khan, Vengeful Heart is great. Like a Village Rites that comes with a 5/3 that you can always find somewhere, this feels like a card you always want at least one of in a lot of decks and formats.

#10. Captain James T. Kirk

Gotta triumph over Khan! Three mana is a lot for an aggressive card, especially one without haste. Now, if you have something like Samut, Hazoret's Champion out, Captain James T. Kirk triggers twice, acting like Trumpet Blast if you like, making two creatures or doing some real land pitching. If you’re hellbent, which is pretty spot on here, you get a pretty big upgrade to the ability.

Without haste, this is more like the sorts of cards that are the best uncommons in Draft formats, but you get to pick the effect. Fine, but nothing amazing.

#9. Kobayashi Maru Scenario

This blue Demonic Pact variant matches the flavor with the way we already play with those cards, trying to cheat the no-win scenario. And we have the classics, like sacrificing Kobayashi Maru Scenario to bargain and other such effects, or Harmless Offering trades, but it’s simple enough in blue to just bounce it a lot. For only 3, this is pretty sweet.

#8. Gul Dukat, Colonial Prefect

Three more mana for Bloodletter of Aclazotz isn’t wonderful, but Gul Dukat, Colonial Prefect is another version of the classic effect you want for drain combo decks. The real kicker here is that this happens on each end step, which means Dukat is nearly a cheaper Archfiend of Despair, which is a nice flavor win. Even in 2-player formats, that’s a significant upgrade to the Bloodletter. But in Commander, well, this slaps in just about every drain combo shell you can imagine.

#7. Deep Space 9

DS9 has to just beat out Gul Dukat. That’s how it has to be, okay. But I do think Deep Space 9, which of course costs 9, is cool because it has an enters effect, not a cast effect. There are tons of ways to cheat this out, and then you have quite the engine, at least before you deck yourself.

#6. Dr. Joseph M’Benga

Lore: Dr. Joseph M'Benga is a former super scary commando type in Strange New Worlds. So it’s kind of perfectly hilarious that the card shows some healing ways by doubling counters. You know, just like other legendary healers, say, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider! Four mana for this effect is nice, and in Standard in the Ouroboroid and landfall counters environment, take two of these and call me in the morning.

#5. Mr. Spock, Science Officer

Teferi's Ageless Insight, more or less, on a body is nice on its own. It’s also good for decks, especially in Commander, that work off draw-two triggers, say, Minn, Wily Illusionist. I’m sure there’s a combo with Shamanic Revelation kinds of effects, dropping Mr. Spock, Science Officer in with the pile, but that can’t be great. And 4 mana for a card that does nothing on entering is a tough place in Standard.

#4. Scotty, Miracle Worker

He’s giving ‘er all she’s got, cap’n!

Miracles will flow if you can get Scotty, Miracle Worker on the field in a deck full of cheap spells. That means cheap things to beam up and cheap spells to recast. Unfortunately this doesn’t work with no mana cost suspend spells like Crashing Footfalls, but a few Lightning Bolts sounds good.

#3. Lieutenant Commander Data

You can remove pesky stuff like finality counters from Lieutenant Commander Data, but simply removing +1/+1 counters or charge counters from a fully stationed spacecraft seems good enough!

But even just in the regular game, especially EDH, Data is going to swell with counters and can chuck them at instant speed for cards, very like the way the character speeds through warp drive repairs in the show. And in a spellslinger deck, you can often buff Data at instant speed to survive damage and drive for cards to protect it.

I love me a tempo deck, and I believe this card can build us a new version that doesn’t rely on Curiosity effects for card draw.

#2. Dr. Beverly Crusher

Panharmonicon for lifegain at 3 mana on a creature. Yeah, okay, this is going to make the most annoying deck on the Standard ladder even more annoying. Dr. Beverly Crusher is a hardcore healer!

#1. Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Shaka, when the walls fell.

Listen to me. I write this in the shadow of Patrick Stewart’s death. Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a new kind of hero for the ages, cerebral, ethical, a role model, a father figure to the lost kids of a few generations on the screen and off, and the kind of leader we could use now, not in 300 years.

Mon capitaine has to be at the top for me, whatever logic would suggest for this list.

Temba, his arms wide.

It’s a really good card, though. Tokens plus a static buff, and then tutoring. For a spacecraft. Which you put on the battlefield with a decent amount of charge counters. That’s great stuff, and likely a thing in Standard. You could do worse than grab a hasty craft like Galvanizing Sawship and punch your opponent in the air for 7 as a finisher after your token beatdown, not to mention all the Trek ships, including Jean-Luc’s own U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class. The sky’s the limit.

Mirab, with sails unfurled.

I can’t overstate the importance of Star Trek in my life. I cried the day before his death when they spoiled The Needs of the Many, the special version with the Jack Hughes art. I missed Leonard Nimoy all over again, and the absolutely perfect flavor win on that card design just knocked the wind out of me two days after Walter Koenig passed.

Patrick, his voice clear.

But the design here is more subtle, and a fitting tribute. Captain Picard makes everyone better. He rallies people to his vision. And he can tap the strengths of his team to boldly go.

Wrap Up

Captain Benjamin Sisko | Illustration by Chris Rallis

Collecting mythics for a Universes Beyond set is a complicated game. There are a few cards here that will hit across formats that folks who’d rather have Magic in the Magic universe might have to buckle down and sleeve up. But a lot of these will be collected by fans of Star Trek, especially now as the recent passings of Stewart and Koenig remind us again of how many of these actors have gone.

I can only speak for fans of both Magic and Trek, and I can say that these are exciting cards, with a few exceptions, with great attention to flavor as well as playable designs. I’m looking forward to cracking some packs as I boldly go to a prerelease this weekend!

Which of TRK’s mythics are your favorites? Which formats will you play them in? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord. For more Star Trek bits and bites, subscribe to our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep.

Live long and prosper!