MTG Star Trek's Dathon Turns Sagas into a Serious Commander Strategy

Now that we’ve had time to fully look over and appreciate the set, it’s clear that MTG Star Trek is absolutely packed with great new Commanders. One of the best legends in this lineup is undoubtedly Dathon, His Heart Open, which takes a classic MTG archetype in a bold new direction.

Whether you’re a fan of old-school Enchantress brews or modern Saga shenanigans, your boy Dathon here has something to offer. Factor in a low cost and great color identity, and this banger has some cool Commander potential.

Dathon, His Heart Open MTG

Long-time MTG fans will immediately recognize Dathon’s first ability from powerhouse engines like Argothian Enchantress Argothian Enchantress Shroud (This creature can't be the target of spells or abilities.)
Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, draw a card. and friends. Drawing a card every time you cast an enchantment is a proven good time in Magic, and getting access to this effect in the command zone makes it even better.

This is an easy ability to abuse even if you’re playing fairly, working well with good-on-rate enchantments like Utopia Sprawl Utopia Sprawl Enchant Forest
As this Aura enters, choose a color.
Whenever enchanted Forest is tapped for mana, its controller adds an additional one mana of the chosen color. and Rhystic Study Rhystic Study Whenever an opponent casts a spell, you may draw a card unless that player pays {1}. . It works with enchantment creatures, too, so you can develop your board using threats like Fear of Missing Out Fear of Missing Out When this creature enters, discard a card, then draw a card.
Delirium — Whenever this creature attacks for the first time each turn, if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, untap target creature. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase. while still generating advantage.

With a bit of extra support, you can easily take Dathon’s draw ability from good to great. Your best option here is cheap enchantments like Crown of Flames Crown of Flames Enchant creature
{R}: Enchanted creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
{R}: Return this Aura to its owner's hand. and Whip Silk Whip Silk Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has reach. (It can block creatures with flying.)
{G}: Return this Aura to its owner's hand. , which you can cast and bounce back for repeated draw. Add in other payoffs, like Vivi Ornitier Vivi Ornitier {0}: Add X mana in any combination of {U} and/or {R}, where X is Vivi Ornitier's power. Activate only during your turn and only once each turn.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on Vivi Ornitier and it deals 1 damage to each opponent. and Entity Tracker Entity Tracker Flash
Eerie — Whenever an enchantment you control enters and whenever you fully unlock a Room, draw a card. , and this gets real scary fast.

Rancor Rancor Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0 and has trample.
When this Aura is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand. is another great card in this category, and it unlocks a tasty infinite combo with Dathon. Alongside Third Path Iconoclast Third Path Iconoclast Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create a 1/1 colorless Soldier artifact creature token. and Phyrexian Altar Phyrexian Altar Sacrifice a creature: Add one mana of any color. , you can recast Rancor Rancor Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0 and has trample.
When this Aura is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand. infinitely to draw your whole deck. This lets you easily close things out with something like Thassa’s Oracle Thassa’s Oracle When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.) or Laboratory Maniac Laboratory Maniac If you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, you win the game instead. .

On top of the traditional Enchantress effect, Dathon also offers a nice Shock Shock Shock deals 2 damage to any target. for each opponent if the enchantments you’re casting are Sagas. Though there are far fewer of these than regular enchantments, this ability still has plenty of juice if you know how to squeeze.

First and foremost, this ability goes nuts with any kind of Curiosity Curiosity Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card. effect, of which there are several in Temur colors. You have the OG itself, as well as Keen Sense Keen Sense Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card. , Ophidian Eye Ophidian Eye Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.)
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card. , and Snake Umbra Snake Umbra Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has "Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card."
Umbra armor (If enchanted creature would be destroyed, instead remove all damage from it and destroy this Aura.) . Add in Pia, Aether Ascetic Pia, Aether Ascetic When Pia enters, you may discard a card. If you do, search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. to tutor them up, and you can easily set up Dathon to draw three extra cards per Saga.

Another great way to milk this ability is to grant Dathon keywords, with Lifelink from Shadowspear Shadowspear Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has trample and lifelink.
{1}: Permanents your opponents control lose hexproof and indestructible until end of turn.
Equip {2} being a particularly good example. For the less scrupulous Saga-slingers among you, slapping a Grafted Exoskeleton Grafted Exoskeleton Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has infect. (It deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)
Whenever this Equipment becomes unattached from a permanent, sacrifice that permanent.
Equip {2} on Dathon will let you land speedy Infect wins as well.

In both cases, you’ll want to run the cheapest Sagas possible to access your synergies early and often. Kumano Faces Kakkazan Kumano Faces Kakkazan (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.)
I — This Saga deals 1 damage to each opponent and each planeswalker they control.
II — When you next cast a creature spell this turn, that creature enters with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.
III — Exile this Saga, then return it to the battlefield transformed under your control. and Long List of the Ents Long List of the Ents (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after VI.)
I, II, III, IV, V, VI — Note a creature type that hasn't been noted for this Saga. When you next cast a creature spell of that type this turn, that creature enters with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. are probably the best options here on rate alone. You can also pair them with self-bounce effects, like Cloudstone Curio Cloudstone Curio Whenever a nonartifact permanent you control enters, you may return another permanent you control that shares a permanent type with it to its owner's hand. , to keep your engine running deep into the game.

The Saga Continues

You could probably build a pretty strong deck around Dathon’s first ability alone, but it’s only half the story. You also get a spicy activated ability that lets you add counters to enchantments for two mana apiece, which opens up a ton of interesting avenues.

The obvious, and obviously intended, use case is adding lore counters to Sagas, which Dathon encourages you to play anyway. This works well with Sagas that deliver most of their value at the end, like There and Back Again There and Back Again (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Up to one target creature can't block for as long as you control this Saga. The Ring tempts you.
II — Search your library for a Mountain card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
III — Create Smaug, a legendary 6/6 red Dragon creature token with flying, haste, and "When Smaug dies, create fourteen Treasure tokens." and Kiora Bests the Sea God Kiora Bests the Sea God (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Create an 8/8 blue Kraken creature token with hexproof.
II — Tap all nonland permanents target opponent controls. They don't untap during their controller's next untap step.
III — Gain control of target permanent an opponent controls. Untap it. . It’s also just good with Sagas in general, speeding up the likes of Urza’s Saga Urza’s Saga (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — This Saga gains "{T}: Add {C}."
II — This Saga gains "{2}, {T}: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with 'This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.'"
III — Search your library for an artifact card with mana cost {0} or {1}, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle. when you really need to.

An interesting use case with this ability is running it alongside cards that can remove counters, such as O’aka, Traveling Merchant O’aka, Traveling Merchant {T}, Remove a counter from a nonland permanent you control: Draw a card. . This combination effectively lets you re-use any non-final Saga ability you’d like, which is pretty tasty with heavy hitters like Summon: Bahamut Summon: Bahamut (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after IV.)
I, II — Destroy up to one target nonland permanent.
III — Draw two cards.
IV — Mega Flare — This creature deals damage equal to the total mana value of other permanents you control to each opponent.
Flying .

Setting Sagas aside, Dathon’s ability can add counters to any enchantment that already has them. This makes it fantastic with quest counter enchantments like Archmage Ascension Archmage Ascension At the beginning of each end step, if you drew two or more cards this turn, you may put a quest counter on this enchantment.
As long as this enchantment has six or more quest counters on it, if you would draw a card, you may instead search your library for a card, put that card into your hand, then shuffle. and Anthropological Mission Anthropological Mission Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, put a quest counter on this enchantment. Draw a card. Then discard a card unless this enchantment has three or more quest counters on it. .

If that kind of grindy value plan is too slow for you, Dathon can also help accelerate notable alternate win conditions, such as Simic Ascendancy Simic Ascendancy {1}{G}{U}: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.
Whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on a creature you control, put that many growth counters on this enchantment.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if this enchantment has twenty or more growth counters on it, you win the game. and Helix Pinnacle Helix Pinnacle Shroud (This enchantment can't be the target of spells or abilities.)
{X}: Put X tower counters on this enchantment.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are 100 or more tower counters on this enchantment, you win the game. . Since these need a lot of counters to win, running counter doublers like Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider Trample, haste
If you would put one or more counters on a permanent or player, put twice that many of each of those kinds of counters on that permanent or player instead.
If an opponent would put one or more counters on a permanent or player, they put half that many of each of those kinds of counters on that permanent or player instead, rounded down. and Doubling Season Doubling Season If an effect would create one or more tokens under your control, it creates twice that many of those tokens instead.
If an effect would put one or more counters on a permanent you control, it puts twice that many of those counters on that permanent instead. can make the ability worth it.

However you decide to use Dathon’s ability, a few key inclusions can make it much more efficient overall. Ability cost reducers, specifically Training Grounds Training Grounds Activated abilities of creatures you control cost {2} less to activate. This effect can't reduce the mana in that cost to less than one mana. and Agatha of the Vile Cauldron Agatha of the Vile Cauldron Activated abilities of creatures you control cost {X} less to activate, where X is Agatha's power. This effect can't reduce the mana in that cost to less than one mana.
{4}{R}{G}: Other creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain trample and haste until end of turn. , will let you fire Dathon’s ability off at a 50% discount, for a start. Add Illusionist’s Bracers Illusionist’s Bracers Whenever an ability of equipped creature is activated, if it isn't a mana ability, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Equip {3} for extra activations, and you can quickly get a lot more out of this ability.

With a ton of interesting avenues to pursue, Dathon, His Heart Open is a wonderfully flexible new MTG Star Trek Commander to try out. It could have serious high-bracket potential, too.

Getting a draw engine in the command zone, plus a bunch of funky extras, is powerful in itself, and Temur is a fine color combination to be in.

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