Magic Star Trek Release Notes: TRK Is Standard-Legal, TRC Is Legal in Commander, Legacy and Vintage
The Star Trek release notes settle the question deck builders ask first: TRK cards are legal in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, and Commander and other formats, while the new Commander cards in TRC are permitted in Commander, Legacy and Vintage. Wizards of the Coast also lays out four new mechanics in the Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek notes.
Star Trek TRK, TRC and SDS Legality by Format
- TRK (main set): Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Commander and other formats.
- TRC (new Star Trek Commander cards): Commander, Legacy and Vintage.
- TRC (previously printed cards): these can be played in whichever format already allows a card bearing the same name.
- SDS (Star Trek Stardates): these can be played in whichever format already allows a card bearing the same name.
When the set launches, the sets making up Standard are as follows: Foundations, Wilds of Eldraine, The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Murders at Karlov Manor, Outlaws of Thunder Junction, The Big Score, Bloomburrow, Duskmourn: House of Horror, Aetherdrift, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, FINAL FANTASY, Edge of Eternities, Marvel's Spider-Man, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Lorwyn Eclipsed, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Secrets of Strixhaven, Marvel Super Heroes, The Hobbit, Reality Fracture, and Star Trek.
Star Trek MTG Mechanics: Beam Me Up and Assimilate
Beam Me Up allows you to cast an instant or sorcery out of your graveyard, provided you pay its beam me up cost and return a creature you control to its owner's hand. The spell is then exiled.
- There's Coffee in that Nebula ({1}{W} sorcery) carries beam me up {2}{W}.
- Energize ({1}{U} sorcery) has beam me up {3}{U}.
Timing rules still apply, so a sorcery is cast only when you could cast a sorcery. Whether the spell resolves, gets countered or otherwise leaves the stack, it ends up exiled, and its mana value is derived solely from its mana cost.
Assimilate either hands you control of a creature or puts a creature card onto the battlefield under your control. That creature receives a +1/+1 counter, turns into a Borg artifact creature, and drops its other creature types.
The examples are Death Is Irrelevant ({6}{B}{B} Enchantment) and The Best of Both Worlds ({4}{W}{U} Enchantment — Saga). Because other supertypes, types and subtypes are kept, an assimilated Dryad Arbor ends up as an Artifact Land Creature – Forest Borg.
Face a Dilemma and Federation Rules
Whenever a player chooses one or more modes for a spell or ability, they face a dilemma. Choosing several modes is one dilemma, and choosing none is not facing one.
Even if the spell or ability that caused it is countered, the trigger that results still resolves ahead of that spell or ability.
- Elim Garak, Simple Tailor ({2}{B}, 3/3 Menace): each time you face a dilemma, every opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
- Jett Reno, Problem Solver ({1}{U}, 1/2): when it becomes tapped it surveils 1 (or draws instead if its power is 4 or greater), and it picks up a +1/+1 counter each time you face a dilemma.
Federation is an ability word covering effects that tally creature types among the non-Borg creatures you control. Starfleet Academy, a Legendary Land that taps for {C}, uses it: for {5} and {T} it adds mana of a chosen color based on that count.
TCGKing's take: the Borg rule is the one to read twice, because assimilated creatures lose their creature types and so shrink the Federation count for your own non-Borg team.
Star Trek Release Notes in Context
The notes were compiled by Eric Levine, last modified September 15, 2026, and come as PDFs in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese.
What is still unknown
- The release date of the set is not given in the announcement.
- Prices and product configurations are not given in the announcement.
- The full card list: the notes cover only some cards.
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