⚡ SparkMTG: All four Star Trek decklists are out
Week of October 26 to November 1, 2026
THIS WEEK IN 5 MINUTES
The short version
All four Star Trek Commander decklists are public, and We Are the Borg's reprints alone come to about $103. Buy the deck you'll play, at MSRP.
Polymorph spiked to $9 or $10 on Jace demand, but market prices today run $1.76 to $4.50. Skip any $10 listing.
The Star Trek Secret Lair opens November 9, and the Beam Me Up cards are worth about $10.49 against $29.99. Skip it unless you want the art.
🎁 Win a Star Trek precon. You pick the deck.
Subscribers are entered automatically. Entries close November 13 at 11:59 PM ET, and the winner is drawn November 14.
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🗞️ Top Stories
All four Star Trek Commander decklists are public, and preview season is over
All four Star Trek Commander decklists went public October 26 to 29, and Star City Games reports preview season closed October 30 with the full main set gallery and tokens. Prerelease is November 6 and the tabletop release is November 13, though Wizards has warned that North American Commander decks may arrive after that date. Every Star Trek mechanic, explained.
Why it matters: You can pick a deck on what's in the box now, not on one previewed card.
My take: Pick the deck whose new cards you want, at the $74.99 MSRP. The Borg deck's reprints already cover that price (see the Precon Desk), so don't pay a markup. Buy.
Khan, Vengeful Heart gives cEDH Food Chain a new piece
EDHREC calls the new black legend the newest Food Chain combo piece and expects it to raise the combo's power and versatility substantially. Food Chain needs a creature you can cast from exile, and decks have leaned on Squee, the Immortal for that. Khan, Vengeful Heart reads "You may cast this card from exile," and when it enters you may sacrifice another creature or artifact to draw two.
Why it matters: It does Squee's job and draws cards on the way.
My take: Khan is $18.24 before release, and Squee still does the loop for $1.11. If cEDH is your table, let release-week prices settle first. Wait.
Kira Nerys, Firebrand turns a blink into an unblocked attacker
Kira Nerys, Firebrand, the new Boros legend Card Kingdom covered this week, is a 4/3 trample for three. While you control an attacking creature, your creatures enter tapped and attacking, and each one gets +1/+1 until end of turn. Blink a creature after blockers are declared and it rejoins the attack unblocked, past attack taxes like Propaganda.
Why it matters: Every blink and reanimation spell in a Boros deck becomes extra damage.
My take: It's $5.94 before anyone has opened a pack. Prerelease puts copies in circulation, so there's no reason to preorder the single. Wait.
🧙 Precon Desk
Precon news: All four lists are public. North American Commander decks may arrive after November 13, so check with your store before you plan around release day.
Deck spotlight: We Are the Borg (white, blue and black, The Borg Queen, MSRP $74.99). It's an Esper artifacts deck with 32 new cards, per MTG Rocks, and the Queen gives artifact creatures +2/+2. Hugh, First of Many is the other legend to watch: artifact spells you cast have replicate {2}{U}.
Lands to fix first: six of its 38 lands always enter tapped. Cut Arcane Sanctum and Path of Ancestry first, and add Adarkar Wastes (about $0.23) and Caves of Koilos (about $0.28).
Cheap swap: cut Darksteel Plate, add Steel Overseer (about $0.29). It puts a +1/+1 counter on every artifact creature you control each turn, and every Borg counts.
Verdict: Buy at MSRP. Its 51 reprints add up to about $103 at Scryfall's cheapest prices today, and Morphic Pool and Unwinding Clock are almost half of that.
All the swaps, cuts and upgrades: We Are the Borg upgrade guide →
🗝️ Secret Lair verdict
Set Phasers to Superdrop goes live November 9, Star City Games reports, at $29.99 non-foil and $39.99 foil per drop. Beam Me Up is a reversible blink package, and New Worlds is ten basic lands.
Verdict: For fans only.
Singles value vs price: Beam Me Up's four cards, Eerie Interlude, Momentary Blink, Essence Flux and Conjurer's Closet, add up to about $10.49 at Scryfall's cheapest prices today. MTG Rocks puts the reprint value of the whole Superdrop at roughly $73.
The $199 bonus: it's a foil Return of the Wildspeaker, and a regular copy is $1.55. Don't add a drop to reach it.
Sellout risk: Wizards hasn't announced how long the drops stay up. Check the drop page on November 9.
🙈 Skip it
Dan Ayoub is Wizards' new president: He ran Dungeons & Dragons and starts Monday. The 2027 sets were announced before he got the job, so nothing you buy this year changes.
"Small sets are dead": Mark Rosewater says there are no plans for more, and 2027 already had none. It's a calendar note with nothing to buy.
Meld is no longer a double-faced card: The Mystery Booster: Commander Edition rules bulletin reverses a 2023 change. It only matters if you play meld pieces with cards that check for double-faced cards.
💰 Cards that moved
Polymorph: about $1.30 to $9 or $10 in the week to October 26 per Wargamer, roughly +600%. Jace decks drove it, per Draftsim. Market prices today run $1.76 (Ninth Edition) to $4.50 (Magic 2010), and we had it as a $1.47 swap last week. Buy at market for a Jace deck, Skip $10 listings.
Sphinx Sovereign: around $1 for months to $2.99, about +200%. The Ur-Sphinx has pulled playable Sphinxes up for a month, per Draftsim. Asking prices run above $10. Skip the listings, Buy at market if you're building Sphinxes.
Nethergoyf: about doubled to $9.86, about +100% per MTG Rocks. Reality Fracture's Dark Matter Manipulator gave it a graveyard engine in Modern and Legacy. Skip unless you play those formats.
Prices: cheapest nonfoil printing on Scryfall (TCGplayer market), checked November 1, 2026. Starting prices from Wargamer, Draftsim and MTG Rocks.
👍 This week's pick
Not sponsored.
Momentary Blink, about $0.14. It's in the Beam Me Up Secret Lair, and a regular copy costs pocket change. Blink a creature for two mana, then flash it back for four. With Kira Nerys attacking, the creature comes back tapped and attacking.
📅 Release dates ahead
Nov 6 to 12: Star Trek prereleases at your local store.
Nov 9: Set Phasers to Superdrop goes live.
Nov 13: Star Trek release day, and the last day to enter the giveaway.
📚 Extra reading
Got more than 5 minutes? Here's the rest of the week, from the business side to the lore.
🏢 Industry
Hasbro named Dan Ayoub president of Wizards of the Coast. Star City Games reports from the press release that Ayoub came out of a three-month search covering internal and external candidates and is the first internal hire promoted into the role. He joined Wizards in 2022 as Senior Vice President of Digital Games and most recently ran Dungeons & Dragons, with 25 years in video games behind that, including more than a decade at Microsoft and Halo studio 343 Industries. Chris Cocks had covered the role since John Hight stepped down in September. Ayoub oversees Magic, Dungeons & Dragons, Duel Masters and Hasbro's digital games, starting Monday, November 2. The issue covering John Hight's exit.
Mark Rosewater says there are no plans for more small sets. MTG Rocks reports the answer from Blogatog. Rosewater had already said 2027 carries no small sets, after 2026 shipped two, and this extends that past one calendar year. Small sets drew steady criticism for thin Limited environments and for arriving without Commander precons.
🧙 Commander Corner
We Are The Borg has four Esper legends to choose from. MTG Rocks calls it an Esper artifacts deck pointed at creature combat, with 32 new cards. Hugh, First of Many is the one MTG Rocks would brew around: replicate turns cheap early artifacts into late-game mana sinks and doubles the big artifact payoffs. It also notes the deck isn't overflowing with reprint value, and calls out Morphic Pool, Unwinding Clock and The Immortal Sun as the reprints worth having.
Wargamer ranked all four Star Trek precons on reprint value. Universes Beyond decks are mostly new cards, with only ten reprinted creatures across all four, so the reprint math that works on a normal precon reads low here by design. Treat it as a floor, and weigh it against the new cards you want.
Meld cards are no longer double-faced cards. Draftsim reports the Mystery Booster: Commander Edition rules bulletin undoes a 2023 decision. Meld arrived in 2016 outside the double-faced category, joined it with March of the Machine in 2023, and now sits on its own again.
🎙️ Lore & Culture
Patrick Stewart died at 86. Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard across The Next Generation, the films and Star Trek: Picard, Star City Games reports, and his family asked for donations to Alzheimer's research and caregiver support in place of flowers. He appears on multiple cards in the set arriving November 13. Walter Koenig, the original Pavel Chekov, died days earlier at 90.
Rosewater spent two Drive to Work episodes on every Book in Magic. Episodes #1393 and #1394 walk through the design of all 49 cards with the Book artifact subtype introduced this year.
Which Star Trek deck are you buying now that the lists are out? Hit reply, I read every one.
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See you next Sunday,
ShinyManaGank
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