Exploring All Ten Star Trek Limited Archetypes

Last updated on October 22, 2026

Marooned | Illustration by Joel Chaim Holtzman

Star Trek is almost here, and it’s time to break down all ten limited archetypes that you’ll be seeing at your drafts and at prerelease. Some of these are breaking new ground, and some of these are things we’ve seen a million times before, but overall it seems like this set has a lot to offer for Limited.

White Blue Spacecraft

White Blue is all about Spacecraft. Hemmer, Fixing What Is Broken is a premium card for this archetype, as Spacecraft make it incredibly easy to tap this for value. Constable Odo is also a signpost for this archetype, although this is more of a straight value creature rather than a synergy piece for a dedicated Spacecraft deck.

Blue Black Dilemmas

Blue Black cares about something brand new: Dilemmas. You face a dilemma whenever you choose one or more modes for a spell or ability. Seven of Nine is a great payoff for decks that care about Dilemmas, and Lore, Positronic Provocateur is an efficient enabler. Both of these seem like great things to have if you’re all in on Dilemmas.

Black Red Klingon Sacrifice

It wouldn’t be Star Trek without Klingons, and that’s what black red is bringing to the table, specifically Klingon sacrifice aggro. L'Rell, Fierce Visionary provides you with attacking creatures and sacrifice fodder every turn, as well as a convenient sacrifice outlet, and The Duras Sisters is simply an efficient creature that leaves you a 2/1 when it dies. All around, these are both great tools for any aggressive black red deck.

Red Green Landfall

We’ve seen it before and we’re seeing it again, Red Green is landfall. This one is pretty straightforward, just play lands to trigger your stuff. Dal R'El, Augment Orphan is a great way to get some temporary ramp to cast bigger spells, and in the late game you can sacrifice the lands you don’t need anymore to draw cards. Cleveland Booker, Empath is a pretty great engine if it can stick around for a few turns, creating a 2/2 worm that can’t block whenever a land enters, and eventually you can dump all that mana into his ability to pump your whole board.

Green White Counters

Here’s another one we’ve seen many, many times before: It’s green white +1/+1 counters! Phlox, Unorthodox Doctor is a valuable payoff for any deck that cares about counters, as it generates card draw every turn as long as you can keep hitting your opponent. The Doctor, EMH serves the role of a powerful enabler in these decks, putting a +1/+1 counter somewhere and then putting an extra counter on all your stuff with counters, which is fine if you only have one creature with counters, but pretty busted if you already have some counters on multiple creatures.

White Black Artifact Creatures

WHITE BLACK IS THE BORG. In other words, it’s all about artifacts, and specifically artifact creatures. Locutus, the One Who Speaks gives all your artifact creatures +1/+1, which is already powerful in a synergy focused deck, but in a pinch you can also pay two and discard it to remove a small creature and gain some life. The versatility makes this card seem very strong. Speaking of strong cards, white black also had Zero, Incorporeal Sensate which lets you pick apart your opponents hand, and is overall just a very high utility creature that will work with all of your artifact creature synergy cards in black white.

Blue Red Noncreature Spells

And once again, blue red is the archetype that cares all about noncreature spells. We’ve seen it before and we will see it again, but at least these cards seem pretty cool. Spock, Always Your Friend has it all. It’s a 2/2 for two mana which is fine, and usually it will draw you a card. That’s pretty incredible all things considered. You will play this in almost any blue red deck. Gray and Adira, Forever Joined is a fun payoff for a noncreature spell strategy, giving you some utility and creating attacks, and all you have to do to turn on the ability is to cast a noncreature spell, which seems pretty good.

Black Green Leaves the Graveyard

Black Green cares about the graveyard, but in a different way than it usually does. Green black wants you to have cards leave your graveyard. Vash, Freelance Archaeologist helps you stock your graveyard by surveilling every turn, and then whenever a card leaves your graveyard, you draw a card. This is the ideal payoff for this kind of deck. To enable it, there is Daniels, Temporal Agent which gets you a creature back when it enters, triggering your leaves the graveyard stuff, and then once it’s dead, you can activate its ability to put it back on the bottom of your library, once again triggering your leaves the graveyard stuff.

Red White Power 8

Red White gets something we haven’t seen before, at least not in this color combination. Red White cares about having creatures with total power 8 or greater. Once you do this, you gets some pretty nice payoffs. Kirk, Commanding Officer lets you exile and play the top card of your library when it attacks while you have 8 or more power, and Worf, Honor-Bound Warrior doubles its power when you do the same. It also can get some +1/+1 counters to make this doubling all the more effective.

Green Blue Strange New Worlds

Green Blue isn’t really Green Blue, as much as it is a base for a multicolor deck that cares all about having as many differently named lands as possible. The Traveler is a big payoff for this kind of deck, being at least a 2/3 when you play it, but quickly growing larger and more threatening for only two mana. D'Vana Tendi, Optimistic Ensign is just a generically good card in a deck that cares about ramping, as it’s an enabler and a mana sink in the late game.

Wrap Up

L'Rell, Fierce Visionary | Illustration by Patricia Pria

Despite worries about this set being Universes Beyond, and the impact that’s had on Limited in 2026, this set so far seems like it’s breaking the mold. It’s mechanically interesting unlike Marvel Super Heroes, and there are a full ten archetypes unlike most of the sets we’ve seen this year. These are good signs for this set, and hopefully it will be able to deliver. But until it releases in November, Live Long and Prosper.