In a surprising move, Wizards chose to hold the First Look stream for Star Trek today, just days before Hobbit preview season kicks off. Strange timing aside, it’s always exciting to see fresh spoilers, and today’s stream featured a ton of them. On top of a bunch of cool new designs, we also saw a few choice reprints in the MTG Star Trek First Look, adding some great value right off the bat.
Benedict Cumberbatch As Sheoldred, The Apocalypse
Wizards introduced the Star Trek ‘Stardates’ bonus sheet with one of the most double-edged reprints we’ve ever seen. On the one hand, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is a proper multi-format staple, seeing serious play in Modern Necrodominance decks and Pioneer Golgari Midrange. It’s also a banger in Commander, offering huge synergy to decks like Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls.
Sheoldred is also incredibly expensive, even for a card with so many competitive homes. You can get copies of the awkward-to-play Phyrexian printing for around $80, but for every other version you’re looking at $92 and up.
All of this goodness comes at a cost, however, as this version of Sheoldred is one of the most bizarre universe-shifted reprints we’ve ever seen. Featuring Benedict Cumberbatch’s version of Khan from 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, the card is simply jarring to look at given how prolific Cumberbatch is. This is to say nothing of how weird it is to portray Sheoldred as a humanoid character.
This treatment is so odd, in fact, that it could cause a repeat of the Ashcoat situation, where this printing is far cheaper than the base Sheoldred. This would actually be ideal, since typically rare bonus sheet printings like this don’t bring prices down much otherwise. We’ll have to wait and see, of course, but this is a wild start to the Stardates sheet.
A Not-So-Shocking Return
The only other reprints we saw during today’s MTG Star Trek First Look stream were the shocklands, all 10 of which are returning in the main set here. While this feels odd, since we just had the cycle completed in Standard with Lorwyn Eclipsed, Wizards noted on-stream that this is to ensure mana bases stay consistent when rotation hits down the line.
Whatever the reasoning, it’s always great to see shocklands in a set. They’re mega-staples in pretty much every format that can play them, and as a result they always hold decent value long-term. Currently most of the shocklands are hovering around $10, but we’ll likely be able to pick them up for less than that post-Star Trek, which is a win for everyone.
Even more exciting, Star Trek will include the first ever textless versions of each shockland. These all look absolutely gorgeous and should be quite valuable in the long term. It’s also interesting to see textless cards that aren’t ultra-rare tournament prizes or serialized cards, as these lands will be available, in foil and non-foil, in both Play and Collector Boosters.
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