Magic: The Gathering Beams Up Star Trek As Wizards Keeps Leaning On Everyone Else’s Universe
Magic: The Gathering is adding Star Trek to its collaboration lineup, with Wizards of the Coast confirming a full Universes Beyond set built around the franchise’s 60th anniversary. The set launches on MTG Arena November 10 and hits tabletops worldwide November 13, following a prerelease window at local game stores from November 6-12.
The product line covers nearly every price tier Magic offers. Play Boosters run $6.99, Collector Boosters $37.99, standard Commander Decks $74.99, and a Collector’s Edition Commander Deck $159.99. A “Beam Me Up Bundle” runs $99.99 and includes two randomly selected promo cards from an eight-card set. Four Commander decks anchor the release, alongside a Beginner Box aimed at Star Trek fans who’ve never touched a Magic card.
The chase cards are seven hand-signed collector cards pulled from Collector Boosters, limited to 250 printings each, featuring actors who played the characters on screen. Wizards has confirmed Captain Kirk and Captain Janeway so far, with five more to be revealed. Thirty Stardate cards reprint powerful existing Magic cards under Star Trek branding, including Sheoldred, the Apocalypse reissued as “Khan, Engineered Evil,” styled after the Kelvin-timeline Khan. Twenty-nine LCARS frame cards and ten LCARS shock lands recreate Starfleet’s interface styling directly on the cardboard, and twenty-four Classic Enterprise cards borrow the painted look of vintage Star Trek movie posters.
Three new mechanics arrive alongside two returning ones. Assimilate lets a player seize an opposing creature, slap a +1/+1 counter on it, and turn it into a Borg artifact creature that loses its other creature types. Federation rewards players for fielding a wide spread of non-Borg creature types. And Face a Dilemma names something Magic has done for years, spells and abilities that force a player to choose between multiple modes, on cards like Set Phasers to... and Seven of Nine. Whether Wizards intended it or not, longtime Star Trek fans will recognize the name. Decipher’s original Star Trek Customizable Card Game, which ran from 1994 through 2007, built an entire card category called Dilemmas around away teams having to face obstacles before completing a mission. The overlap in name and concept sits close enough that it’s worth noting, even without confirmation from Wizards that it’s a deliberate homage.
This is Magic’s fourth major outside-IP crossover in as many years, following Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, and Marvel, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles already announced for later release. Wizards’ own head designer has been public about leaning on outside franchises to keep the game’s card pool and player base growing, and Star Trek fills a demographic gap the previous crossovers hadn’t fully reached. A company built on twenty planeswalkers and its own multiverse increasingly finds its biggest sales moments come from licensing someone else’s.
Whatever the reason behind the strategy, there’s something to it as a product on its own terms. Signed Kirk and Janeway cards, a Borg mechanic that actually turns your opponent’s creature into a Borg, and a nod to a twenty-year-old license game’s card category are the kind of details built for people who grew up on both franchises at once. Wizards is borrowing other people’s universes because Magic’s own well has run dry of surprises. That doesn’t mean the result isn’t worth a look on November 13.
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