Star Trek We Are the Borg Upgrade Guide: Best + Budget Cards

We Are the Borg is the Esper (white, blue, black) deck in Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek, and it is the villain deck everyone is talking about. Led by The Borg Queen, the face commander Wizards named on October 20, it uses the set's Borg keyword, assimilate, to drop creatures onto the battlefield and turn them into Borg, snowballing an artifact-creature board while it steals and copies your opponents' stuff. Assimilate is not exclusive to this deck: Borg Cube carries it in the main set, and Borg Queen, Perfection Manifest carries it in the black Welcome Deck.

This is the grindy control-combo pick of the four. The upgrade job is to add theft, copy effects, and artifact synergy that make the Borg collective spiral out of control.

Heads up: Wizards revealed these decks in the July 14 first look and named the face commanders on October 20. The Borg Queen leads this deck. Full decklists are not out yet (as of October 21, 2026). Wizards previews We Are the Borg on October 26, and we will update this guide when the list is revealed. The upgrades below are existing Magic cards that fit the deck's announced colors and theme, ready to slot in when you get the deck. The set releases November 13, but Wizards says North American Commander decks may arrive after that date, so check with your store. Prices last checked October 11, 2026.

Still deciding which deck to buy? Read Which Star Trek precon should you buy? All 4 ranked, or Take the 1-minute quiz.

We Are the Borg is the Esper (white, blue, black) Star Trek Commander precon, with The Borg Queen as its face commander, at $74.99 MSRP. The set releases November 13, 2026, though North American Commander decks may arrive later (Wizards, October 16). It uses assimilate, a keyword that puts a creature card onto the battlefield under your control with a +1/+1 counter and makes it a Borg artifact creature. Assimilate also appears on the main-set mythic Borg Cube and on Borg Queen, Perfection Manifest in the black Welcome Deck. Five budget upgrades cost about $7 combined.

Assimilate rewards you for having lots of creatures to convert and lots of ways to abuse artifact-creature synergies. The best upgrades steal or copy the table's best threats, sacrifice and recur your Borg for value, and give Esper the interaction it needs to survive to the late game where it wins.

Join the Collective leaked on October 9, 2026, and Draftsim reports it as a rare white sorcery with the TRC Commander set code: "Destroy all creatures. Create X 1/1 colorless Borg artifact creature tokens, where X is the number of nonartifact creatures destroyed this way." Draftsim calls a We Are the Borg slot likely and MTGRocks expects the same, but Wizards has not confirmed the card, its mana cost or its deck.

If it is in the deck, it changes when you wipe. Assimilated Borg are artifacts, so they die to it and do not count toward X, which makes it best when the table has more nonartifact creatures than you do. Steel Overseer and Ashnod's Altar, both below, get better with a fresh wave of 1/1 artifact tokens.

Verdict on decklist day. We won't call it until we can see all 100 cards; we'll update this the day Wizards posts the list.

Full decklists aren't out yet (as of October 12, 2026), so we have not seen We Are the Borg's lands. Recent three-color precons we have checked shipped with five to seven lands that always enter tapped: Doom Prevails and Avengers Assemble had five each, Forces of the Imperium six, and Tyranid Swarm seven. Expect a similar number here.

These cheap untapped lands cover Esper (white, blue, black), ready to swap in for whatever enters tapped. We'll update on decklist day with the exact cuts.

That is about $1.72 for all five. Prices checked October 12, 2026, cheapest non-foil printing on Scryfall.

Best cards regardless of price. Prices checked October 11, 2026, using the cheapest non-foil printing on Scryfall. They shift over time, so use these as rough guides.

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Cyclonic Rift (around $30). The premier blue reset. Bounce the whole table while your Borg collective stays intact.

Smothering Tithe (around $56). Ramp for a mana-hungry control deck that wants to hold up answers and still develop.

Blade of Selves (around $3). Copies your attacker for each opponent. On a value creature or the Borg Queen, it is absurd.

Sakashima of a Thousand Faces (around $18). Copies your best creature and stays on the board, doubling your strongest Borg or a stolen threat.

Ashnod's Altar (around $14). Free sacrifice outlet and mana engine that turns your assimilated Borg into fuel for the next play.

All under $5 per copy, checked October 11, 2026.

Agent of Treachery (around $4). Steal any permanent on the board. In a theft deck, it is exactly on theme and brutal.

Reflections of Littjara (around $2). Doubles your token and clone effects, multiplying every Borg you make.

Steel Overseer (under $1). Pumps your whole artifact-creature board every turn, and every Borg counts.

Thopter Spy Network (under $1). A steady stream of artifact fliers and card draw to feed assimilate and the board.

Fellwar Stone (under $1). Cheap fixing and ramp for a demanding three-color control shell.

The Borg Queen is the chase display commander of the set, and this deck is expected to be the most popular of the four. Every one of the four Star Trek Commander decks, We Are the Borg included, also comes in a Collector's Edition. Per Wizards' July 14, 2026 announcement, the standard Commander deck is $74.99 MSRP and the Collector's Edition is $159.99 MSRP. The Collector's Edition has the same cards, all in surge foil, with a borderless face commander. If you want the fully foil version of your captain and crew on the table, that is the box to preorder. Store prices can differ from MSRP.

We Are the Borg is the deck most likely to take over a table, and it only gets scarier with upgrades. Add theft, copy effects, and artifact payoffs, and give it interaction to reach the late game. The five budget picks above cost about $7 combined, and Cyclonic Rift plus Blade of Selves are the power cards that let the collective assimilate everything. Before you spend more, sort out the ten-dollar mana base fix every three-colour precon needs.

Assimilate puts a creature card onto the battlefield under your control with a +1/+1 counter, and it becomes a Borg artifact creature that loses its other creature types. That gives the artifact-creature deck a sliver-like snowball as each new Borg reinforces the rest. It is not exclusive to this deck: The Borg Queen has it here, Borg Queen, Perfection Manifest has it in the black Welcome Deck, and Borg Cube has it in the main Star Trek set. Every card and ruling is in our guide to how assimilate works.

Esper: white, blue and black. The Borg Queen is the face commander (named by Wizards on October 20, 2026), and the deck is the grindy control-combo pick of the four, built around assimilate, stealing and copying the table's best permanents, and snowballing an artifact-creature board until it takes the game over.

The Star Trek set releases November 13, 2026, but Wizards says North American Commander decks, including We Are the Borg, are delayed and may arrive after November 13, so check with your local game store. The deck is $74.99 MSRP. A Collector's Edition ($159.99 MSRP) has the same cards, all in surge foil, and a borderless face commander; the Borg Queen is the chase display commander of the set. This deck is expected to be the most popular of the four.

Add theft, copy effects and artifact payoffs, plus enough interaction to reach the late game where Esper wins. The premium adds are Cyclonic Rift (about $30), Smothering Tithe, Blade of Selves, Sakashima of a Thousand Faces and Ashnod's Altar. About $7 buys Agent of Treachery, Reflections of Littjara, Steel Overseer, Thopter Spy Network and Fellwar Stone (prices checked October 11, 2026).

Building more than one Star Trek deck? Here are our other guides:

More Star Trek coverage: which Star Trek Commander deck to buy first.

Not sure We Are the Borg is your deck? See Which Star Trek precon should you buy? All 4 ranked, or Take the 1-minute quiz.

Sources: EDHREC first-look recap, Draftsim first look, Draftsim: Join the Collective leak, MTGRocks: Star Trek spoilers. MSRP from Wizards' July 14, 2026 Collecting Star Trek article. Card prices are the cheapest non-foil printing on Scryfall, checked October 11, 2026, and shift over time. Join the Collective is a leak and unconfirmed by Wizards.