MTG’s Star Trek First Look has come and gone before The Hobbit’s spoiler season has even started. Surprisingly little was revealed here, but the few cards that did appear are surprisingly impactful. On top of an incredibly expensive and jarring reprint, a fair few new MTG cards could be making impacts across constructed and Commander alike.
MTG Salt Vampire
Of the new cards revealed today, Salt Vampire is the most interesting from a competitive perspective. Offering a Thought-Knot Seer for two mana, Salt Vampire rips away the best card in your opponent’s hand extremely early in the game. For some reason, Wizards decided to make this an entry effect, allowing it to synergize with powerhouses like Ephemerate and Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, too.
Thanks to this, Salt Vampire could easily see play all the way down to Modern. With lots of potential in Necrodominance, Blink shells, and Mono-Black Learn, Salt Vampire quickly becomes a multipurpose threat. Whether you’re sacrificing it to Flare of Malice or just using it to trigger Ocelot Pride and buy time, Salt Vampire synergizes with a ton of Modern’s best cards.
If all of this weren’t enough, exiling the selected card instead of discarding it is also extremely relevant. This can stop common reanimation effects like Emry, Lurker of the Loch or Goryo’s Vengeance, while hosing common Flashback cards like Past in Flames.
While Salt Vampire is extremely popular in Modern, it has a strong chance of seeing play in Standard and Pioneer, as well. Cards like Deep-Cavern Bat have been routinely popular here, and Salt Vampire feels like a step up from those. The card is unlikely to make a Commander appearance, but that shouldn’t stop Salt Vampire from being one of the more desirable cards in MTG Star Trek.
MTG Crystalline Entity
A powerful new top-end card for all kinds of Artifact Commander decks, Crystalline Entity will be an absolutely terrifying card to face down across the table. Easily setting up one-sided board wipes in Commander decks like Urza, Chief Artificer and Breya, Etherium Shaper, Crystalline Entity is bound to see play in a ton of artifact-focused decks.
While the card makes for an easy curve-topper, the ‘if cast’ clause makes it a lot less valuable when cheated in. That said, in artifact-focused decks, you can still use cards like Mycosynth Golem or Inspiring Statuary to reduce the cost of Crystalline Entity while still casting it. Alternatively, cards that can copy Crystalline Entity from the graveyard, like Superior Spider-Man, can still get the cast trigger off.
Outside of Commander, Crystalline Entity could have a place in Modern Karn, the Great Creator Wishboards. Easily castable with a Tron manabase, Crystalline Entity could outpace other popular Wishboard bombs, like Cityscape Leveler or Extinguisher Battleship.
MTG Brad Boimler
He may ask you to jump through a hoop, but Brad Boimler, Eager Ensign is a strong card in all kinds of Commander decks. Offering a White Hardened Scales at absolute worst, Brad Boimler offers a relatively quick boon for Commanders like Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice, or Shalai and Hallar. The card can even support other counters, making it playable in more niche decks like Tayam, Luminous Enigma.
Interestingly, Brad’s ability is a triggered effect in and of itself, opening up opportunities to copy it via Roaming Throne and Delney, Streetwise Lookout. The ability isn’t limited to once per turn, either, letting you use untap effects like Pemmin’s Aura or Freed From the Real to stack a concerning number of these replacement effects together. Considering this, there’s almost certainly some infinite combo potential with Brad Boimler, which could make it a very popular Commander card.
MTG The City on the Edge of Forever
Offering an extremely unique and flavorful effect, The City on the Edge of Forever turns your EDH table into a minigame. Hiding an entire board behind one token while drawing cards, this Saga is an absolute powerhouse in token decks that want to buy time. This can be quite funny to resolve after a Teferi’s Protection, keeping one player locked down indefinitely.
You will need another creature token to sacrifice to the Saga’s third ability, but lots of Commander options like Thalisse, Reverent Medium, and Elenda, the Dusk Rose can easily satisfy this. Common Aristocrat payoffs like Pawn of Ulamog, or even copy effects like Clone, can also do the trick. While it won’t be a card that every MTG Commander deck wants, The City on the Edge of Forever has the potential to really mix up a game.
Between competitive powerhouses and some silly Commander cards, MTG Star Trek is already slated to make a grander appearance than some of 2026’s other Universes Beyond sets. Unfortunately, because this set’s First Look was so early, MTG Star Trek won’t be on shelves anytime soon.
While you’ll have to wait until November 13th to get your hands on these cards, there’s plenty to see before then. On top of a fresh new preview panel at Magic Con Amsterdam this Friday, The Hobbit’s spoiler season is finally kicking in earnest the day after. With all this just around the corner, July is primed to be an incredible month for MTG.
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