Published Oct 20, 2026, 2:00 PM EDT
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Make the most of a no-win scenario
Image: ParamountThe vast majority of Magic: The Gathering games end when one player is reduced to zero life, though some players love to build decks around the more unusual ways to achieve victory. You can empty your opponent’s deck, infect them with poison counters, or try to fulfill the win conditions of cards like Simic Ascendancy or Doctor Doom, Unrivaled. Next month, the Star Trek Universes Beyond set will introduce a whole new way to lose based on one of James T. Kirk’s most famous stories.
Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan opens with Admiral Kirk overseeing a Starfleet training session where the USS Enterprise is sent to rescue the crew of the Kobayashi Maru. The ship is attacked by the Klingons, and no matter what the command crew chooses to do, the mission ends in disaster. The actual point of the Kobayashi Maru exercise is to test how they handle a “no-win scenario.”
Image: Wizards of the CoastThe mythic rare blue enchantment Kobayashi Maru Scenario captures the concept by giving the player a chance to choose a different tactic at the beginning of their upkeep, playing up the set’s emphasis on modal cards, which are now dubbed “Dilemmas.” A player can draw two cards, return a creature with mana value 3 or less that an opponent controls to its owner’s hand, or create two 1/1 red Officer creature tokens. But after three turns, they’re left with only one option: abandon ship and lose the game.
The card has a similar design to Demonic Pact, another enchantment that provides strong rewards but puts you on a four-turn clock. Some players might bet on their ability to use those resources to quickly end the game or try to remove the enchantment before it kills them, but others are sure to take a page from Kirk and bend the rules a bit. Later in The Wrath of Khan, Kirk reveals that he doesn't actually believe in no-win scenarios, so he reprogrammed the Kobayashi Maru simulation as a cadet so he could pass. That event plays out early in J. J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek film, infuriating Spock. Likewise, players might use Donate to give Kobayashi Maru to an opponent when their time is about to run out.
What other new mechanics does Magic: The Gathering Star Trek add?
Star Trek will mark the return of the Spacecraft and Station mechanics introduced in Edge of Eternities, allowing players to crew a wide variety of iconic starships from the USS Enterprise-A to a Borg Cube. The Borg will use Assimilate to take control of creatures and turn them into Borg artifact creatures with a +1/+1 counter on them, which lose all their previous creature types. Most of the time, you’ll be doing this with creatures in your opponent’s graveyard.
The United Federation of Planets draws strength from the collaboration between many worlds, and that is represented by the Federation mechanic. For example, Captain Jonathan Archer can be tapped to Federation for one green mana to give a creature you control +X/+X, where X is the number of creature types among non-Borg creatures you control. The Borg are excluded because they don’t cooperate with the Federation, though that also means the ability won’t count changelings.
The Federation’s mission to explore is represented by the Strange New Worlds ability, where rewards scale based on the number of differently named lands you control. For example, the sorcery Deep Space Scan lets you draw cards equal to the number of differently named lands, while that value determines the power and toughness of Captain Pike, Fullness of Time. It’s an effect that seems likely to be especially impactful in Commander, combining especially well with Field of the Dead.
Star Trek crews often use transporters to quickly get out of dangerous situations, and the Beam Me Up ability lets you return a creature to your hand in order to cast some instant or sorcery card from your graveyard. Since bouncing the creature is part of the casting cost, an opponent can’t interrupt it by removing your target, though the spell can be countered normally.
Magic: The Gathering Star Trek releases on Nov. 13. Keep checking Polygon for more updates, including exclusive card reveals.
