Key Takeaways From Star Trek Prerelease

Last updated on November 9, 2026

Energize | Illustration by Carlos C Diaz

Star Trek prerelease has come and gone, and with it many people were able to get their hands on this set for the first time. First impressions are important, and this set has left a lot of them, and I’ll say that I have reasons to be worried about the set, and I have reasons to be excited.

Low Attendance

The Traveler | Illustration by Ioannis Fiore

This is what worries me about this set. I go to a game store in a big city, and it’s generally filled to capacity for prerelease. However, for Star Trek, there were about half as many people there as there normally were on a Friday night. And looking at what people are saying online, this is not a unique experience. For a variety of reasons, the enthusiasm behind this set seems quite low. The most likely culprit is simply that people are feeling Universes Beyond fatigue, and now that’s resulting in people not showing up for Universes Beyond sets. Maybe this is a phenomenon we’ll see going forward, but in the meantime, I don’t expect Star Trek to be very popular at all.

Aggro Is Real

Resistance Is Futile | Illustration by Matt Stewart

Attendance aside, the gameplay of this set seemed to bring a lot to the table. Specifically, it felt like there were real aggressive archetypes, which is something that has been a bit lacking in Limited (ignoring The Hobbit) in recent times. Even more promising is that it felt like there was more than one way to be aggressive.

The most straightforward way is to play black white or black red. Both of these are designed for an aggressive gameplan, and it seems to function the way they wanted it to. Black white especially seems good. Locutus, the One Who Speaks, Collective Drone, Emergency Medical Hologram, Tenacious Drone; all of these cards are cheap creatures that quickly fill up your board and/or synergize with each other to pressure your opponent. I personally got to play a white black deck at prerelease which ended up going undefeated. It was almost entirely made up of artifact creatures, and it simply went wide and attacked, and that felt very good in this format.

As for black red, a lot of the same basic concepts apply. You’re filling your board up with cheap creatures like Starfleet Security, Targ Wrangler, Tenacious Drone, etc. and you start attacking and/or sacrificing creatures for value to various effects. There’s more cards that play into this gameplan, but what you end up with is an archetype that supports a very efficient gameplan.

It’s not just these either. White red seemed viable, as did surprisingly blue red, but maybe that won’t happen as often as the others. At any rate, it’s promising to see aggro succeed in Sealed, as it’s often a far slower format where synergies are less reliable and therefore less good. If it can succeed there, then it will likely be even better in Draft.

Soup Is Back On The Menu

Horta | Illustration by Arthur Haas

On the other end of the spectrum, it seems like soup is alive and well in Star Trek. I think part of this has to do with how Sealed works, in that you open a pool and sometimes things just don’t line up so you have to play multiple colors, and since there’s so much fixing in this set, you can! 

It seemed like the best soupy decks were the ones that were based in green, which makes perfect sense. Green gives you access to good fixing on cards like David and Carol Marcus, Creators, Xenobotanist, and Final Frontier. These are just the basis of a good soup deck, but you’ll likely also have several dual lands as well as land cyclers, and the end result is that in a lot of pools, you can play pretty much anything.

However, unlike other formats where you splash for powerful individual cards, there’s a lot fewer of those in Star Trek. Moreso, it feels like you’re splashing for functionality, as well as to turn on all of your Strange New Worlds cards, such as The Traveler and Cloak and Phaser. Getting the most out of these cards is very important for these decks.

I don’t doubt there will be soupy decks in draft, as it’s very supported, although it might not be as much as you think. A lot of soup decks at prerelease were out of necessity, but in Draft where you can shape your deck, you won’t need to be playing all five colors, and if you are it will be for synergy more than anything else.

Set Phasers To . . .  Fun?

Tasha Yar, Out of Time | Illustration by Patricia Pria

Despite generally low enthusiasm going into this set, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I actually had a lot of fun at Star Trek prerelease, and I’m looking forward to playing the set. I know it’s hard to see Reality Fracture go, and I’ve been feeling Universes Beyond fatigue the same as anyone, but purely looking at the gameplay and mechanics of this set, there is something here that just works. What do you think of the set? Are you excited to draft it, or are you feeling burnt out?