Magic: The Gathering Turns 2 of the Best Star Trek Episodes Into Sagas

The upcoming set pays tribute to the series’ nastiest villains and goofiest officers

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s best episodes will become Magic cards

Magic: The Gathering’s Star Trek Universes Beyond set is drawing inspiration from across the sci-fi franchise’s 60 year history, including references to all of its shows and films. Some of the most iconic episodes are brought to life as sagas, like “The City on the Edge of Tomorrow” and “Amok Time” from the original 1960s series and “In the Pale Moonlight” from Deep Space Nine. Polygon can exclusively reveal nine new cards, including two sagas that spotlight Jean-Luc Picard and the best hours of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

"Sagas have emerged as an exceptional design tool for presenting story arcs from other universes because of their episodic nature," senior editor Matt Tabak told Polygon. "Each chapter of a Saga can focus on an individual story beat, so when you put them together, you get a great overview of an entire episode in only a few abilities."

The Inner Light is based on the season 5 episode of the same name, where the USS Enterprise encounters a probe that fires an energy beam at Picard. The captain wakes up on the planet Kataan, where he’s told he’s been ill and that his memories of Starfleet were just a fever dream. While his body lies unconscious on the floor of the Enterprise bridge for 25 minutes, he lives an entire lifetime as the humanoid alien Kamin. He goes on to have children and even grandchildren and eventually learns that the planet is dying and its people lack the technology to evacuate. Their only real option is to launch a probe containing an imprint of their memories so that someone might carry on their legacy. Picard wakes up with the memories of living on a planet that died 1,000 years ago. He learned to play the flute as Kataan, and he discovers the probe contains that same flute.

The beautiful, bittersweet tale manifests as a green-white (Selesnya) saga. The first chapter returns a green or white creature from your graveyard to the battlefield, representing the return of the people of Kataan through their probe. The second gives one of your creatures the ability to allow you to draw cards equal to the combat damage it deals to a player this turn, which is meant to be the knowledge Picard gains as Kamin. The final chapter allows you to gain life equal to the greatest power of a creature you control and gives you a treasure token. That represents the lifetime Picard experienced at the flue he comes to treasure. It seems like a particularly good fit for an enchantress deck led by a Commander like Yuna, Hope of Spira, reanimating your best enchantment creature and using it to draw cards.

All Good Things… is named after the TNG series finale. The machinations of the near omnipotent trickster Q cause Picard’s mind to jump between the show’s present day, the period just before the Enterprise's first mission in the series premiere, and 25 years in the future. In each timeline, the Enterprise encounters a temporal anomaly that could prevent life from evolving on Earth. Picard must synchronize all three versions of his ship to protect the timeline and prove to Q that humanity is worth preserving.

The green-blue (Simic) card offers solid card advantage, allowing the player to draw two cards and then exile a card from their hand for three turns in a row. On the fourth turn, you gain 10 life if all the exiled cards share a type, representing successfully synchronizing the three ships. It’s a perfect way to get rid of some extra lands and give your life total a solid boost.

Star Trek sagas break from Magic tradition, where the vertical art normally spotlight's a singular dramatic image in cards like Azusa's Many Journey and Phyrexian Scriptures.

"It didn't feel like a single moment could capture the twists and growth the franchise is famous for," senior narrative designer Crystal Frasier told Polygon. "With so many of the actors from The Original Series and The Next Generation finding their roots in stage acting, we hit on the idea of mimicking the bold graphic styles you traditionally see on playbills and posters for stage productions. This let us blend memorable elements from each story into a single, iconic visual that would bring all those important moments to life."

Q showed the Federation how little they understood the galaxy by introducing them to the Borg, cyborgs who seek to assimilate all other sentient life into their collective. Q emphasizes how dangerous they are in the flavor text for Tenacious Drone, a common 2/1 black artifact creature that creates a 1/1 colorless Borg artifact creature token when it dies. Costing 1B, the card is likely to be a solid role player in limited decks.

Magic is boldly going on a tour of Star Trek history

Magic is going all the way back to the original 1960s series for a pair of newly revealed cards. Interstellar Effigy references the strange episode “The Corbomite Maneuver,” where the Enterprise encounters a very intimidating alien who threatens to destroy the ship. He turns out to be using a puppet to conceal his childlike true form. The 4/3 blue artifact creature bounces a creature an opponent controls when it comes into play.

The Star Trek episode “Journey to Babel” revealed that Spock had a pet sehlat, a creature described as a fat teddy bear with six-inch-long fangs. The set’s designers took that comparison seriously, and the card Pet Sehlat is a 4/3 bear for 2W that can’t attack alone.

Star Trek: Enterprise, which takes place 100 years before the events of The Original Series, also gets some love. Suurok-Class Science Vessel is an early Vulcan ship, a blue spacecraft that draws you a card when it comes into play and becomes a 3/2 flyer when it’s stationed for 5. The Na’kuhl, time travelers who created a version of history where the Nazis invaded both Moscow and Washington, D.C., are represented in Temporal Conqueror. The 2/3 Na’kuhl Warrior mills three cards when it enters play and lets you return a land from your graveyard to your hand or create a treasure token if you can’t.

One of the most twisted factions in Deep Space Nine is represented by Obsidian Order Operative. When the 2/5 Cardassian Officer Spy is in play, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life whenever you face a Dilemma, the set's new term for making a choice with a modal spell or ability. Whenever the Cardassian secret police are faced with an ethical quandary, you can always expect them to choose the most evil option.

Last but certainly not least is Cetacean Ops, a tribute to the animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks. A loving riff on the silliest aspects of Star Trek, the series introduced Lieutenants Kimolu and Matt, beluga whales dressed in Starfleet uniforms who live in an aquarium on the USS Cerritos and help with the ship’s navigation. The blue 3/3 whale officer has ward 1 and gets a +1/+1 counter whenever you cast a noncreature spell.

Magic: The Gathering Star Trek will be released on Nov. 13. Keep checking Polygon for more updates.