The Draft Archetypes of MTG Star Trek

"Modal" cards are cards that require you to choose between multiple different options. Austere Command and Mystic Confluence are classic examples of modal spells. Star Trek rebrands these cards as "dilemmas", and blue and black decks are your best option if you're looking to take these dilemmas head on and emerge unscathed.

Whenever you face a dilemma, in other words whenever you cast a modal spell, there are a variety of blue and black cards that reward you. Seven of Nine draws you a card, while Melkotian Adjudicator gains +1/+1 counters.

Not only are you rewarded for playing Dilemma cards, but they also inherently provide versatile effects. Resistance is Futile is both a reanimation spell and a removal spell. Consider the Prime Directive can either counter your opponent's cards or disrupt their board presence, depending on what you require at the time. If you see the right cards for it, then building a dilemma deck can be a very good choice.

The Klingons are the mightiest warriors in the galaxy, unafraid to give their lives in the pursuit of honour and glory. This is represented in Magic: the Gathering by Klingon cards forming a sacrifice deck, allowing them to literally offer up their lives in order to secure victory.

L'rell, Fierce Visionary encapsulates the intended strategy on a single card. She is both a payoff and an enabler, creating a 2/1 Klingon warrior every combat phase, while also possessing an ability allowing her to sacrifice other creatures, or the Klingon that she creates, which is destined to die at the end of the turn anyway.

Klingon cards have built in synergies which make them ideal targets for sacrifice effects. Storied Veteran can return from the graveyard to play, while The Duras Sisters immediately replace themselves with a 2/1 token when they die. By playing a Klingon deck, you show your opponents that your creatures don't fear death.

Red and Green decks wander the cosmos and make landfall on as many planets as they can, in order to generate more resources than other players, and then smash opponents down with high value cards.

This is a classic strategy going all the way back to Zendikar in October 2009. Landfall effects trigger whenever a new land enters play under your control. So you can utilize green ramp effects, like Final Frontier, and David and Carol Marcus, Creators to get as many landfall triggers as possible. Red cards like Captain Michael Burnham and Cleveland Booker, Empath have offensive landfall abilities that apply pressure and bring you closer to winning the game.

There's a lot of overlap between green/red landfall and the blue/green strategy, which depends on playing lands with a selection of different names. Be ready to splash additional colours if you're running a deck based on either of these archetypes.

White/Green decks in Star Trek weld two classic archetypes together: +1/+1 counters and life gain. Doctors in this set have abilities that reward one, or even both, of these tactics, encouraging you to experiment with some Sci-fi strategies.

When The Doctor, EMH enters play it puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control and then an additional +1/+1 counter on each creature you control that already has a counter on it. While Dr. Beverly Crusher gains counters whenever you gain life, and causes any effects triggered by you gaining life to activate any additional time.

With a green/white deck. you'll build up both your board and your life total at the same time.

The Borg Collective is an invasive hive mind species intent on assimilating everything in the galaxy. If you're looking to build a Borg deck, then white and black offer the best support.

The Borg are artifact creatures, many of whom possess the "assimilate" ability. When a creature is assimilated, it becomes a Borg artifact creature, is stripped of all other creature types, and gains a +1/+1 counter. The Borg seize control of opponents' cards and punish them by turning their own creatures against them.

From the colossal Borg Cube, to the more quietly sinister Primary Unimatrix Adjunct, Borg decks possess a sweeping suite of tools for punishing anyone who dares to defy the will of the Collective.

Red and Blue decks have been themed around casting as many noncreature spells as possible for decades now. Star Trek has provided a new tool to help ambitious Izzet players recast their spells in the form of the beam me up mechanic.

Instants and sorceries with beam me up can be recast from the graveyard at the additional cost of returning a creature that you control from the battlefield to your hand. This may sound like a downside, but if you're a crafty deckbuilder, then you can turn it to your advantage. You can draw multiple cards using the enter the battlefield ability of Cloistered Telepath, and stun multiple creatures using the effect of Subcommander T'Pol if you beam them back up into your hand and then replay them.

Like all spellslinger decks, you'll want to maintain a careful balance between creature and noncreature spells when building around beam me up, but the fact that these spells can be recast from your graveyard gives you access to instants and sorceries more regularly than you might imagine.

Star Trek is all about characters from different cultures, with widely differing ideals and values, learning to work together for the greater good. This emphasis on teamwork is represented by the set's red and white archetype, which rewards you for amassing a combined power of eight or more among the different creatures that you control.

Whether it's Worf, Honour Bound Warrior doubling his power, Una Chin-Riley, Number One granting a creature you control +2/+0 and first strike, or La'An Noonien-Singh, Security preventing an opponent's creature from blocking, there are all sorts of rewards out there in red and white for players with eight or more power spread out among their creatures.

If you're looking to build a massive army and dominate the board, then red and white could be the colour pair for you.

Black and green are both colours that are great at returning cards from the graveyard to your hand. Graveyard decks are a potential option in Star Trek, with an abundance of self mill cards, cards that can fetch things from the graveyard, and cards that reward you for grabbing something from the graveyard spread across green and black.

Vash, Freelance Archaeologist signposts this strategy. She surveils every upkeep, allowing her controller to dump cards from their deck into the graveyard, and then provides card draw whenever a card leaves the graveyard. The cards don't even have to return to your hand. Sela, Tal Shiar Paradox exiles a creature from the graveyard whenever she attacks, and creates a 2/2 Romulon creature token whenever a card leaves the graveyard, setting up a self-contained engine capable of flooding the field with ready to battle Romulons.

Even in the utopian Sci-Fi future of Star Trek, everyone must die one day. You can take advantage of that fact by building a black/green graveyard deck

Blue and Green decks allow you to boldly go where none have gone before thanks to the Strange New Worlds mechanic.

Cards with Strange New Worlds count up the number of differently named lands that you control and then reward you the higher that number is. The Traveler has power equal to that number, while Deep Space Scan draws you that amount of cards.

There are a wide variety of differently named lands in this set, but to take full advantage of them you're going to want to splash into multiple colours. It's best to use green and blue as the center of a multicoloured mana base, the more colours you can assemble, the more strange new worlds that you'll be able to bring to light.

Knowledge is power, and armed with all of this information about Star Trek's limited environment, you should be well armed to boldly step into the unknown the next time you sit down for a draft, or a prerelease event, at your local game store.

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