Hey everyone! I guess it wasn’t just Jace messing with reality that dragged me back into writing these reviews, because here I am again, jamming a ridiculous pile of words onto the internet.
This time, we’re boldly going where no Limited review has gone before. Or, you know, where plenty of them have gone before, but with more Star Trek references, bad puns, and questionable jokes.
I’ll be reviewing every card in Star Trek from a Draft perspective, breaking down what’s worth picking, what’s worth avoiding, and what’s probably going to make you regret your life choices somewhere around turn six.
5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or start packing up your cards.
4.5: An incredible bomb that can completely take over a game, but still gives your opponent a slim chance to fight back.
4.0: Great rares, the absolute best uncommons, or extremely premium removal. Cards I’m very happy to first pick.
3.5: Excellent role-players or removal spells that basically never get cut.
3.0: Good playables that I’m almost never cutting from my deck.
2.5: Solid playables and roughly the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck can reach.
2.0: Mediocre filler. These are normally fighting for those last few spots in the 20th-23rd card range.
1.5: Replaceable and generally below-average filler. This can also include decent sideboard cards or cards that need a very specific deck.
1.0: Bad filler that gets cut most of the time. There may be a deck that wants it, but I’m not happy when mine does.
0.5: I’m very unhappy to main deck this, but there might be some fringe sideboard application. These are cards that could be useful in the perfect situation but are bad almost everywhere else.
0.0: Completely unplayable in basically every possible situation. Thankfully, they rarely print cards this bad anymore.
A Note on Ratings
These grades aren’t meant to exist in a vacuum. Limited cards can move considerably depending on the deck around them. A 2.0 role-player might become a 3.0 in the archetype that actually wants it, while a supposedly powerful card can drop quickly if your deck can’t support it.
I’ll try to grade cards based on their average performance while pointing out the ones that have especially high or low ceilings depending on synergy.
We’ve come a long way from the days when Call of the Herd dominated Constructed. It would still be fantastic in Limited today, which makes it a useful benchmark here.
Adversary by Algorithm falls a little short because of the Beam Me Up requirement. Returning a creature with a worthwhile enters-the-battlefield ability can be a bonus. When you’re trying to build an army, picking up something you’ve already paid for can instead mean taking two steps forward and one step back.
The value depends on what you’re returning, but there’s enough here for a solid playable. Just remember that the transporter is supposed to help you build an army, not keep sending half of it home.
Considering this article should be going up on Halloween (if its late, I blame gremlins and not the Gizmo kind), it’s only appropriate that I sneak in a Hocus Pocus reference.
“Amok! Amok, amok, amok, amok, amok!”
I’d say back to Magic, but technically those witches qualify as Magic too.
I’d obviously prefer a bite spell over a fight spell, but green usually has enough beef to win the exchange. Then you gain some life and bring a creature back from your graveyard. That’s an appealing package for three mana.
You do need a creature capable of surviving the fight to get the full value, which can be awkward when you’re behind. Still, removal, life gain, and recursion on one card is enough to earn a spot in most green decks. I’m not quite ready to run amok over it, but I’m interested.
It would be astute not to play too many of these in your average Limited deck.
A 2/2 that can turn into a 4/4 sounds reasonable until you remember you’re spending four mana on the upgrade. For that kind of investment, I expect Bane pumping himself full of Venom, not a Grizzly Bears buying a gym membership.
Even in a Strange New Worlds deck, this is still firmly in the “just fine” category. That’s exactly the sort of filler you should be able to pick up on the wheel.
I know I’m beating a dead horse, but these grades assume an average Limited deck. In a normal two-color build, you should absolutely not be playing this. Without enough differently named lands, the payoff simply isn’t worth the investment.
If you’ve assembled a five-color Strange New Worlds monstrosity, however, you’re living in an alternate timeline where normal card evaluation no longer applies. In that deck, I’d windmill slam it.
The 1.0 is for the rest of us playing normal Magic. In the right timeline, this is approaching bomb territory.
A 3/3 that brings a 1/1 along would already be an excellent Limited card. Archer goes further: together, he and his companion contribute three toward Federation, effectively handing out a Giant Growth every turn without needing another creature.
But let’s discuss the important part. That 1/1 token is Porthos. An actual beagle doggo.
Not some random Officer token or disposable redshirt. The bestest boi in Starfleet has apparently decided that fetching slippers is beneath him when he could be fetching your opponent’s hopes and dreams.
Archer earns his 4.0 on power alone. If my opponent uses a removal spell on Porthos, though, I’m immediately promoting them to Worst Person in the Federation.
Playing an additional land each turn is nice, but you’ll run out of lands quickly enough in an average Limited game. Janeway fixes that by letting you explore whenever a creature enters under your control, including herself. I see what you did there, Wizards.
Now you’re either clearing unwanted cards off the top of your library or finding more lands to put straight onto the battlefield. Better yet, all this comes from doing something you already planned to do: cast creatures.
Add a few token makers or ways to reuse enters-the-battlefield abilities, and the card selection and acceleration start piling up fast. Janeway spent seven seasons trying to get home; with this much exploring, I can see why.
Playing lands straight off the top of your library is an excellent way to generate card advantage. Every land you play that way is one fewer draw step spent finding mana instead of action.
Pike will usually be a 2/2 or 3/3 in a normal two-color deck, and I’m happy with that when the ability is doing this much work. In Strange New Worlds, enough differently named lands can also turn him into an enormous threat.
He’s an easy 4.0 without the five-color nonsense, and he gets even better when your mana base starts giving responsible deckbuilders heart palpitations.
This is in the same boat—or spaceship—as the other basic landcyclers. Need a color early? Cycle it away. Flooded late? You’ve still got a creature worth casting.
The body isn’t going to win any awards, but smoothing out your mana without sacrificing a late-game play is exactly why these cards earn their spots. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do in Limited is make sure your deck actually functions. Revolutionary concept, I know.
This lands right around where I’d grade most two-mana bite spells. Sorcery speed hurts, but being able to use one or two creatures makes up the difference.
Combining their power lets you take down something too large for either creature alone. It can also spare you a complete blowout if your opponent responds with removal: having a second creature involved gives the spell another chance to matter.
I’d still prefer an instant, but the flexibility makes this a solid green removal spell.
In a vacuum, this is a 4/5 for four mana. We’ve come a long way from Erhnam Djinn crushing dreams in Constructed.
Putting the counter on another creature gives you some useful options, especially when you’ve got something evasive that would appreciate the extra muscle. The two-mana mode probably comes up about 10% of the time, but it also means you’re facing a dilemma even when the choice is obvious.
A serviceable creature with enough flexibility to justify the slot, not something I’m taking early.
This is primarily a sideboard card, and even there, I’m not particularly enthusiastic. If I got to choose which artifact or enchantment to destroy, I’d happily run a copy in my main deck. There are an awful lot of juicy targets running around this format, and having an answer to them would be pretty valuable.
Unfortunately, letting your opponent choose what gets destroyed changes the equation considerably. You’re spending three mana to deal with whatever they’re least interested in keeping, which is a pretty miserable proposition when they’ve got multiple artifacts or enchantments on the battlefield.
Sure, there’s another mode, but three mana for a Giant Growth is an awful lot to ask, even with trample thrown in. The flexibility is nice in theory, but neither option is particularly appealing at that price.
Wizards keeps finding ways to make Manalith playable. This time it’s attached to a 1/3 body, which at least gives you something to block with while fixing your mana.
Better yet, it contributes to your Strange New Worlds count. That’s particularly valuable in the multicolor decks where you actually want this kind of fixing.
The body won’t scare anyone, but getting your colors sorted out and advancing your land-name synergies in one slot is a solid deal. Given the last Genesis project the Marcus family worked on, I’m happy if this one sticks to fixing mana.
A 4/4 with vigilance for four is a perfectly reasonable rectangle. It attacks, it blocks, and it doesn’t need an elaborate backstory to justify its existence.
The dilemma gives you a choice between surveiling and exiling a card from a graveyard. That second mode might sound marginal, but with Beam Me Up cards and other graveyard shenanigans running around, there’s plenty worth removing.
A solid body with useful options is enough for a 2.0. Sometimes the Dominion can skip the infiltration scheme and just send in a big dude.
This feels closer to a 1.75, but I’m feeling optimistic. Don’t get used to it.
A 4/2 trampler for three mana would usually be a 1.5. Being able to put the counter on another creature is nice, but the saving grace is everything with a counter gaining trample.
I’m not thrilled with the baseline, but there are enough useful decisions here to round up. Consider this a 1.75 that successfully negotiated a promotion.
The biggest problem is “other creatures.” M’Benga can protect the rest of your team, but he can’t protect himself, and your opponent is going to notice. He’s a doctor, not a bodyguard. Unfortunately, he’s going to need one because he has a giant target painted on him.
The upside depends heavily on your deck. I'm a Doctor, Not a . . . becomes a much scarier trick when it grants hexproof and two +1/+1 counters at instant speed. Selesnya’s counter strategy should provide plenty of similar opportunities.
I’d start him at a 3.0 in an average green deck, with substantial room to improve when the counters and protection all come together.
Eternal Witness has been incredible in Limited for decades, and restricting Bones to returning permanents doesn’t change that much. Getting a great card back while adding a creature for three mana is already fantastic.
Then they gave him flash. Because that apparently wasn’t enough.
Flash Bones in before blockers, target a creature that’s about to trade, and you can eat an opposing 1/1, trade off your creature, then bring it back bigger. That’s a brutal combat swing on top of the recursion Bones already provides.
And he faces a dilemma, triggering any relevant payoffs along the way. Recursion, flash, combat tricks, counters, and synergy for three freaking mana.
Dammit, Jim, he’s a doctor, not a balanced Magic card!
I’m awfully tempted to give this a 2.0 because I can absolutely see it doing some impressive things in the right deck. The problem is that there are going to be plenty of decks that want absolutely nothing to do with it.
It might be the final frontier, but for most decks, it’s going to be the final cut.
This is another reminder that Star Trek rewards drafting archetypes, not simply grabbing the best-looking cards in your colors. First Contact fits decks with graveyard interactions or valuable creatures to pick up with the Beam Me Up cards this can drop into the yard. Elsewhere, it can be thoroughly forgettable.
I’d rather have another play before this, so I don’t expect the two-life mode to come up too often. Still, it’s a useful fallback if you’re already behind and need a little breathing room.
Oh, look. Another card clearly designed for Constructed. I’m looking at you, Commander players.
It does replace itself, and as we discussed with Final Frontier, a three-mana ramp spell isn’t exactly the drizzling poops. Some green decks actively want that acceleration.
The interesting part is the late game. You can effectively take a turn off to strip the remaining lands out of your deck and start drawing straight gas. That’s powerful if you can afford the downtime; considerably less so if your opponent is busy killing you.
Early ramp and late-game draw quality are enough to make this playable.
There are decks where this is a no-questions-asked 5.0. My only hesitation is that you need other token makers to unlock everything it can do.
Without that support, you’re stuck with a mere 6/6 worth of stats across two bodies for four mana.
Oh, the horror.
That’s an absurd floor for a card that gets even better whenever you start making more tokens. You don’t have to assemble a complicated engine to make Holo-Engineer good; it’s already excellent, and the right deck pushes it into OMFG territory.
Five power and toughness across two bodies while Regrowthing a permanent is a substantial return. And with more graveyard shenanigans, you can potentially produce another 3/3 every turn.
The catch is six mana. That’s a big investment, and you need worthwhile permanents in your graveyard for the value to materialize. Without them, the package is considerably less exciting.
I actually like this combat trick quite a bit, but I’ve become increasingly hesitant to give tricks higher grades unless they’re doing something truly spectacular.
For a single mana, though, you’re getting a surprisingly nice package. The combination of a total of +2/+2 for the turn (with half of it being a +1+1 counter), and a surprise untap can turn an otherwise ordinary combat exchange into a complete disaster for your opponent.
The real selling point is the price. At one mana, it’s easy to leave this available without significantly slowing down your development. Throw in the potential synergies with Selesnya’s +1/+1 counter strategy, and you’ve got a trick that can do a little more than simply win combat.
I’m still sticking with a 1.5 because combat tricks need to earn their spots, but this is one I’d be perfectly willing to play in the right deck.
I’d obviously prefer if Jadzia started with a slightly more impressive body, but getting mana acceleration and a creature that grows over time on turn two is an excellent way to start snowballing a game in your favor.
That’s an especially dangerous combination in Limited. You’re accelerating into your bigger threats while simultaneously developing a creature that can become a legitimate problem if your opponent doesn’t deal with it early. Normally, ramp creatures eventually become irrelevant once you’ve got enough mana. Jadzia has the potential to keep getting better instead.
The discard ability is a nice little bonus, letting you throw some additional counters onto something and potentially mess with combat math.
If I could guarantee Jadzia on turn two, she would be a 4.5. Since we don’t get to choose our opening hands, I’m keeping her at a 4.0.
Jake really needs some ways to put additional lands onto the battlefield before he starts pulling his weight. If you’re just playing one land per turn and gaining a few life along the way, you’re not exactly getting an impressive return on your investment.
The whole conversation changes once you manage to trigger that first investigate. Suddenly, you’re generating actual card advantage instead of just padding your life total, and that’s when Jake starts earning his paycheck.
A Savannah Lions isn’t impressing anyone in 2026, especially with so many 1/1 tokens running around. A one-mana 2/1 needs something extra before I’m excited.
MACO Strike Team delivers. Every time your opponent targets one of your creatures with a spell or ability, you get a 1/1. Suddenly, removing your creatures comes with an annoying extra cost, and those tokens can support Federation or other go-wide payoffs.
A smart opponent will try to kill the Strike Team first, but that’s still a removal spell spent on your one-drop while you get a token dude. That’s a fantastic exchange for one mana, and enough upside to earn a 3.5.
This is probably closer to a 2.25, but I’m giving it the bump because Moopsy is an absolutely fantastic name. Sometimes the scientific evaluation process needs to make room for a little Moopsy appreciation.
The reach is particularly useful because it means even opposing flyers aren’t necessarily safe. That’s exactly the kind of defensive utility you want when you’re spending your early turns assembling a mana base that would make most Limited players question your sanity.
Moopsy also works beautifully with Common Goal. Two mana to kill essentially anything when you’ve got a deathtoucher contributing to the damage? Yes, please. Suddenly, your adorable little speed bump is helping take down creatures that cost considerably more mana.
In the immortal words of Smokey from Friday, “Daaaaammmmmnnnnn!”
That’s an awful lot of stats and abilities for the price. We’ve become so obsessed with creatures drawing cards or generating tokens that it’s easy to forget the value of simply putting an enormous pile of meat onto the battlefield.
A creature that dominates combat demands an answer, whether that means multiple blockers, premium removal, or a whole lot of damage to your opponent’s face.
Not everything needs to generate three kinds of value. Sometimes being an absolute unit is enough.
A card needs more than moral support to make my Limited deck, and Neelix isn’t giving me much reason to change my mind.
Yes, two mana gets you two pieces of cardboard, but a Food token and a 1/1 are both pretty low on the list. Cash in the Food and you’ve invested four mana in what amounts to a Grizzly Bears with some incidental life gain.
If you’ve got a pile of life-gain triggers, fine. Otherwise, even Tuvok might crack a smile watching me cut this.
There are only so many five-drops you can fit into a Limited deck, and reach alone doesn’t move this one to the front of the line.
The interesting part is being able to turn it into a 1/1 even after milling or discarding it. That’s useful in a graveyard-focused deck, but hardly enough to get excited about on its own.
A serviceable filler option when you need the body or the graveyard interaction. Otherwise, I’ll look for something that does a little more for five mana.
This is super omega ramp, which sounds fantastic until you remember you’ve already spent six mana casting Rok-Tahk. In Limited, how many gigantic spells are you actually going to have left to cast? This isn’t Commander, where every third card is a seven-drop and a questionable financial decision.
Fortunately, the ramp isn’t the whole package. You can also get a little indestructible creature to hold down the ground, buying time against decks that want to end the game before your mana matters.
That flexibility is what earns the 3.5. Whether you need another burst of green mana or a blocker that refuses to die, Rok-Tahk gives you a useful choice. Just make sure you’ve drafted something worth doing with all that mana.
Some games Saru will feel like the best card in your deck. Your opponent aims premium removal at a creature, you respond with Saru, and their carefully planned turn falls apart. Those blowouts are why Limited is fun. Well, for one player.
Other games, nobody casts the right spell at the right time, and you’re left with an underwhelming creature. That’s a huge swing in performance, but the upside is real enough for a 2.0.
For a Kelpien who spent most of his life sensing danger, Saru seems awfully dependent on his opponent providing some.
Attacking as a 6/5 for four mana is already a lot of lizard coming at your opponent. Activating this to put down an extra land and turn it into an 8/7 is even better.
That extra land also triggers your other landfall effects, giving the ability value beyond making an already huge attacker bigger. Sometimes you don’t need an elaborate engine. Sometimes you just need a ridiculously large lizard.
Gaining three life is already enough to make this a reasonable Limited playable, especially when you’re getting a respectable body along with it. That’s a nice way to help stabilize the battlefield against an aggressive opponent.
Of course, three life is just the starting point. With the right support, Species 8472 can gain you considerably more, turning an ordinary creature into an absolute nightmare for anyone trying to race you.
And once it starts getting enormous, your opponent has a whole new problem to deal with. A massive creature is threatening enough, but one that the Borg can’t interact with effectively? Now we’re talking.
Curve out with a two-drop into Stable Wormhole on turn three and you might put your opponent so far behind that they spend the next several turns trying to catch up.
Draw it late, however, and it might as well be blank cardboard. That’s a brutal gap between its best and worst draws, and the reason I’m not pushing the grade higher.
I’ll take the upside at 2.0, but you should know the risk. Apparently, the wormhole is stable. The card’s performance? Not so much.
This is a bit like Glorious Anthem, except the bonus only applies to creatures you play after it hits the battlefield. That’s a pretty enormous “except.”
Glorious Anthem can immediately turn an existing army into a threat. Support Mission does absolutely nothing for creatures already on the board, which makes it a miserable late-game topdeck when your hand is empty.
Cards that make multiple bodies are where it earns its keep. If you’re still producing tokens after casting it, those bonuses can add up in a hurry. In a deck that can keep the reinforcements coming, the ceiling justifies a 3.0.
This is obviously a significant step down from Siege Veteran, but let’s be fair. Siege Veteran was a pretty busted Limited card, so that’s not exactly a devastating criticism.
The biggest difference is that Tilly makes you pay a mana every time you want to use her ability, and you also need a card sitting in your graveyard that you’re willing to exile {which might also trigger other abilities). Neither requirement is particularly unreasonable on its own, but together they make the whole process considerably less efficient.
Still, getting to distribute +1/+1 counters repeatedly is a valuable ability, especially in a format where Selesnya has an entire archetype built around them. Even a single counter can completely change combat math, and those incremental advantages have a habit of adding up over several turns.
She’s not Siege Veteran, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But there’s a pretty big difference between being worse than a busted card and actually being bad. Tilly falls comfortably on the playable side of that equation.
This can snowball in a hurry on normal land drops alone. Add anything that puts extra lands onto the battlefield, and your Liquidators start getting terrifying.
Imagine combining it with Genesis Effect: kill your opponent’s best creature, put two +1/+1 counters on another creature at instant speed, and turn what looked like a safe block into a disaster. That’s exactly the kind of interaction that makes landfall appealing.
It needs a little time to build up, but in a deck with additional land drops, I could see this outperforming its grade.
Remember Eccentric Farmer from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt? That humble common overperformed by a mile, and Temporal Conqueror looks like an upgrade.
You get the same graveyard value, except that missing a land now gives you a Treasure. That’s a useful consolation prize rather than a complete whiff.
This format also has plenty of reasons to put cards in your graveyard, including Beam Me Up effects you can reuse. A body, a resource, and some graveyard setup make for an appealing package. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up conquering Limited just like its farming predecessor.
You just shouldn’t play this card. Seriously, put it down.
Not even a pile of Face a Dilemma payoffs can rescue two extremely situational modes with no way to replace the card when both are dead. Some narrow modal spells at least offer a cantrip. This one leaves you staring at a blank.
It would take some serious courage to put this in your final 40. Unfortunately, courage and terrible decision-making have an awful lot in common.
Discover is an absolutely filthy mechanic: card advantage and mana advantage wrapped together. Sure, there’s randomness, but if the spell isn’t right for the moment, you can simply put it into your hand.
Discovery does that when it enters the battlefield, then threatens to repeat it every time it attacks. That’s disgusting.
Station six is a reasonable investment when you’ve already gotten value before the ship even becomes a creature. Once it’s online, every attack threatens another free spell or card, and your opponent has to find an answer before you bury them.
The spore drive was already cheating the laws of physics. Apparently, it also found a way to cheat on mana costs.
We’ve come a long way from the days when Explosive Vegetation was somehow a Constructed staple. These days, spending that much mana to ramp isn’t nearly as impressive, especially when you don’t even get to choose which lands you’re getting.
Still, putting two additional lands onto the battlefield can lead to some pretty ridiculous shenanigans. There are plenty of Strange New Worlds and land fall payoffs in this format that appreciate the extra lands, so I’m not completely dismissing the effect.
Then there’s the Spacecraft itself. Station eight is an awful lot of work for what eventually becomes a 3/3 flyer. That’s not exactly an impressive return on your investment, but if you’ve got some extra creatures sitting around with nothing better to do, turning them into a flying threat isn’t the worst deal.
You pretty much need to be playing blue before I’d consider this. That’s a significant strike against a green card in your average Limited deck.
In five-color Strange New Worlds soup, though, the differently named lands make it far more appealing. Those decks can do some impressive things with the effect; most others should leave it in the sideboard.
It’s a 1.5 for the rest of us, not the people whose mana bases have abandoned all pretense of responsibility.
I usually love a creature that makes all five colors of mana. It’s an excellent enabler for irresponsible splashes, and at least it has a body to block with.
The awkward part is that the multicolor decks in this format care about differently named lands. Xenobotanist fixes your colors without advancing that count, so you may actually prefer a way to find a real land.
Still playable, just a little less exciting than a five-color mana creature would be in most sets.
Starting out as a 3/2 instead of the usual single point of toughness these type of landfall creatures normally get is a pretty significant upgrade. That extra toughness makes a world of difference when you’re trying to attack through the various 1/1 tokens running around this format.
Naturally, anything that lets you put additional lands onto the battlefield makes this considerably more threatening. Green has plenty of ways to accomplish that, so getting a few extra counters shouldn’t be too difficult in a deck that’s already interested in landfall synergies.
And that brings us to the end of green, which might be the color most interested in making you think about your deck before you start grabbing cards. There’s plenty of raw power here, but the real rewards come from knowing exactly which version of green you’re drafting.
Strange New Worlds gives you a reason to assemble some truly irresponsible mana bases, while landfall rewards the less glamorous work of simply putting extra lands onto the battlefield. Captain Pike and Captain Kathryn Janeway can turn those plans into serious card advantage, and Syndicate Liquidators is happy to punish anyone who thought an extra land drop was harmless.
There’s also a respectable graveyard package, with Temporal Conqueror, Hologram Stalker, and Beam Me Up interactions giving you plenty of ways to get value out of cards that aren’t currently in your hand. Meanwhile, Selesnya’s +1/+1 counter strategy has some excellent support, including a doctor who really wishes he could protect himself.
Of course, you don’t have to assemble an elaborate engine to win with green. Holo-Engineer is absurd even before the token shenanigans start, Bones is a walking collection of unfair interactions, and sometimes Mugato can settle an argument by being an enormous pile of stats.
My biggest piece of advice is to figure out which of those plans you’re actually supporting. This set has plenty of cards that look incredible in the right archetype and thoroughly embarrassing in an average pile. If you’re playing Strange New Worlds, draft the lands and fixing that make it work. If you’re going for counters or graveyard value, prioritize the cards that let those synergies happen naturally. Don’t fill your deck with bad enablers just because they have the right words on them.
That wraps up green and all five monocolor reviews. The only thing I’m certain about is that someone is going to beat me with a five-color mana base that should be illegal, and I’ll deserve it for encouraging everyone to draft those monstrosities.
Until then, stay classy people.
If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.
Josh is a member of the elite limited team The Draft Lab as well as the host of The Draft Lab Podcast. He was qualifying for Pro Tours, Nationals, and Worlds literally before some of you were born. After a Magic hiatus to play poker and go to medical school, he has been dominating Arena with over an 80% win percentage in Bo3 as well as making #1 rank in Mythic.
