Historic Star Trek Brews!: Fun & Jank Episode 99

Welcome back to another episode of Fun & Jank! I’m Plum, and with Star Trek finally upon us, it’s time to put together some brand-new Historic brews!

In our recent Historic Brewer’s Review, we took a look at some of the more interesting cards from the set and talked about a handful of interactions that might be worth exploring. As I mentioned then, Star Trek isn’t exactly a release I’ve been particularly excited about, and I don’t expect it to shake up Historic all that much. However, there are still plenty of interesting designs here, and a few of them have already gotten the Big Brewer’s Brain working™.

So, rather than spending another article talking about cards in isolation, I figured we’d take a look at some of the initial lists I’ve been working on. Today, I’ve got four different Historic brews to share, each built around a new card or interaction from Star Trek.

As usual, the goal here isn’t necessarily to present four perfectly tuned, competitive decks. These are preliminary builds meant to explore what the new cards can do. Some of these ideas are probably more promising than others, and I’m sure there are plenty of changes we’ll want to make once we get some games under our belts. But that’s half the fun of brewing with a new set!

Let’s dive in!

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Deck #1: Grixis Offering

Starting things off, we have one of the cards I was most interested in during our Brewer’s Review: Kobayashi Maru Scenario. This three-mana enchantment is essentially a smaller version of Demonic Pact, giving us a choice of four abilities at the beginning of our upkeep. We can bounce a cheap creature, draw two cards, create two 1/1 Officers, or simply lose the game. The catch is that we can’t choose the same option twice.

Obviously, that last ability is a bit of a problem, but that’s where Harmless Offering comes in!

The goal is pretty straightforward. We play Kobayashi Maru Scenario, work our way through its three beneficial abilities, and then use Harmless Offering to donate the enchantment to our opponent. Since the previously chosen modes remain unavailable, our opponent will eventually be forced to choose the lose-the-game option instead. We’re also playing a single copy of Demonic Pact, giving us another potential target for Harmless Offering.

Of course, we need to survive long enough to make all of this happen, so the rest of the deck is built around the somewhat common Estrid’s Invocation shell that pop up from time to time.

Hopeless Nightmare, Momentum Breaker, and Disturbing Mirth provide early disruption while giving us plenty of permanents to sacrifice or otherwise make use of. Thoughtseize and Torch the Tower help keep our opponent from getting too far ahead, while The Meathook Massacre gives us another way to clean up the battlefield. It’s worth noting here too that Mirth and the Bargain ability from Torch the Tower can save us from our own Kobayashi Scenarios if we haven’t found a Harmless Offering yet.

Copying Hopeless Nightmare or Momentum Breaker with Invocation gives us more disruption, while copying Kobayashi Maru Scenario provides another source of its powerful upkeep abilities.

Finally, Beseech the Mirror helps tie everything together. With so many disposable enchantments available to bargain away, we can use it to find whichever combo piece we’re missing and potentially cast it immediately. I’ve also included a couple of Alchemy cards, Triumphant Getaway and Crux of the Theory, as additional ways to generate value and interact with our opponent. Both of which are especially strong with Invocation as well.

I’m not entirely convinced this strategy will be fast enough for the current Historic metagame, especially against decks that can apply pressure while disrupting our hand. However, there’s a surprising amount of flexibility here, and the enchantment package gives us a reasonable way to play a longer game while assembling our combo.

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Deck #2: Honor Prison

Next up, I took a crack at an Orzhov shell featuring something a little more unusual. Honor Prison is a control-heavy deck built around Honor the Past and one of the more interesting new creatures from Star Trek, Georgiou, Terran Emperor.

The centerpiece here is Georgiou, Terran Emperor, a six-mana 4/6 that prevents us from losing the game for having zero or less life. She also provides additional card advantage at the cost of our life total and can create a massive army of Officer tokens once we’re in the negatives. Pretty interesting abilities on their own, but what if we could make Georgiou significantly harder to remove?

That’s where Honor the Past comes in! This three-mana sorcery returns a creature with mana value six or less from our graveyard to the battlefield, except it comes back as an artifact rather than a creature. That means we can reanimate Georgiou as a noncreature artifact while keeping all of her abilities intact.

Essentially, we’re creating our own version of Phyrexian Unlife, except instead of an enchantment, we’ve got an artifact that prevents us from dying to a zero or negative life total while potentially generating additional value. And because Georgiou is no longer a creature, our opponent can’t simply Fatal Push, exile, or otherwise remove her with traditional creature interaction. They’ll need actual artifact removal or another answer to noncreature permanents, which can be considerably more difficult for certain decks to deal with.

Of course, we need to get Georgiou into the graveyard first. Liliana of the Veil, Collective Brutality, and Bitter Triumph all give us ways to discard her while providing useful interaction.

The rest of the deck is built around keeping our opponent from executing their game plan. Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, Fragment Reality, and Sheoldred’s Edict help us manage threats, while Reprieve buys time against troublesome spells. We’re also playing Wrath of the Skies to clean up aggressive boards, although we need to be mindful of our own artifact Georgiou when deciding how much energy to spend.

We also have a couple of alternative reanimation targets in Obzedat, Ghost Council and The Hourglass Coven, giving Honor the Past some additional utility when Georgiou isn’t available. Obzedat still gets to exile itself and come back as a regular ‘ol creature again if we happen to grab it with Honor the Past too!

Ultimately, the plan is to exhaust our opponent’s resources, establish an artifact Georgiou, and then take advantage of the fact that our life total no longer matters in the usual way. We’re not completely invincible, since artifact removal and alternate loss conditions can still get us, but against decks relying primarily on creature combat and traditional removal, this could be an incredibly frustrating lock to break.

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Deck #3: Kirk Madness

Moving on, we’re heading into something a little more aggressive with Kirk Madness, a Boros Madness deck featuring Captain James T. Kirk. While Kirk isn’t necessarily the most impressive card in the set, I think he fits pretty naturally into an archetype that’s already looking to discard cards and empty its hand as quickly as possible.

The big attraction here is that Kirk gives us another discard outlet while also providing some additional utility once we’ve emptied our hand. We’re already playing Faithless Looting, Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, and Fear of Missing Out, so there’s no shortage of ways to get cards moving between our hand and graveyard.

You’ll also notice a 4-of Arena of Glory. Giving Kirk haste means we can immediately get both his enters-the-battlefield and attack triggers, potentially discarding multiple cards, developing our board, or pumping our creatures the turn he comes down. That’s a pretty substantial amount of value from a single three-drop.

Naturally, we’re pairing all of that with the usual Madness payoffs. Blazing Rootwalla gives us a cheap creature we can cast when discarded, while Fiery Temper turns our discard outlets into additional removal or direct damage. Hollow one is just a cheap beater that can come down quickly. We’re also playing Marauding Mako, which benefits from all the cards we’re discarding, and Detective’s Phoenix, which gives us another way to keep applying pressure even after our initial creatures have been dealt with.

I’m not sure Kirk is going to be better than the more established options available to Madness, but I do like that he provides both an enabler and a payoff in the same card. I think a light white splash for some sideboard options will help against the current meta, but only time will tell.

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Deck #4: Collation Affinity

Lastly, we’re wrapping things up with Collation Affinity, a Rakdos artifact deck that combines some of the more explosive artifact synergies we’ve been playing recently with the new Collation Trimatrix from Star Trek. From what I’ve seen so far, this is one of the more prominent cards that people talked about during spoilers season. I’ve already seen quite a few builds on the ladder too.

The foundation of the deck is Pinnacle Emissary, Weapons Manufacturing, and Drix Interlacer. These cards reward us for playing artifacts and help turn our cheap spells into additional resources. With Ornithopter, Urza’s Bauble, and Mox Amber, we have plenty of ways to get things moving without spending much mana.

Collation Trimatrix gives us another artifact creature to experiment with in this shell, although the real question is whether it provides enough additional value to justify a slot over the more established Affinity options. It seems rather nutty with Pinnacle, as we get to draw additional gas for every 3 tokens we create.

One of the interactions I’m particularly interested in is Weapons Manufacturing alongside Engineered Explosives.

Weapons Manufacturing gives us a way to turn our artifacts into a source of direct damage, and Engineered Explosives provides a convenient way to sacrifice a large number of zero-mana-value tokens simultaneously. By casting Explosives for zero and activating it, we can destroy our Manufacturing tokens and potentially deal a huge chunk of damage to our opponent. Very Similar to what Arcbound Ravager can do in the traditional UR builds in Historic at the moment.

Of course, Explosives is also just a useful piece of interaction. We can cast it with one or two counters to answer opposing permanents, making it a flexible inclusion rather than a card that’s only useful when we’re already executing our own game plan. Of course, we’re also playing Arcbound Ravager, which gives us another sacrifice outlet and helps convert our artifacts into a threatening creature. Meanwhile, Imskir Iron-Eater provides additional card advantage and removal, while Rottenmouth Viper offers a powerful top-end threat that can take advantage of our disposable permanents.

The biggest question is whether this version offers enough advantages over the other Affinity and artifact sacrifice decks already available in Historic. There’s certainly no shortage of powerful artifact strategies in the format, and we need to be doing something worthwhile to justify our particular collection of cards.

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Closing Thoughts

And that’s going to do it for this week’s episode of Fun & Jank!

Like I mentioned in our Brewer’s Review, Star Trek isn’t necessarily a set I expect to make a huge splash in Historic. However, I think these four decks do a pretty good job of showing that there are still some interesting things to explore, even when a set doesn’t appear particularly powerful on the surface.

We’ve got a new take on the classic Harmless Offering combo, an unusual Orzhov prison strategy that turns Georgiou into a noncreature artifact, a fresh addition to Madness with Captain Kirk, and some new toys for one of my favorite artifact-based archetypes. Personally, I’m probably most interested in seeing whether Grixis Offering and Honor Prison can actually get their respective game plans working consistently.

Of course, these are all preliminary builds, and I fully expect to make some changes once we get a chance to play them. It’s one thing to put together a deck that looks interesting on paper, and another thing entirely to make it function against the current Historic metagame.

Thanks for reading!

As always, feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below. And make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!

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Happy Brewin’!