Until very recently, it looked like the MTG Star Trek set was doomed to failure. Throughout spoiler season, this set didn’t inspire much hype, and upon release, it seemed to flop even harder.
While MTG Star Trek is firmly one of the worst sets released in 2026, it’s not all bad. Recently, for instance, we’ve seen a handful of cards break out in Standard, making an impressive showing at the Magic World Championship 32.
This, in turn, has caused a massive price spike for one of the worst-named MTG cards ever printed. As much as The Naked Time might be an awful name for a card, there’s no denying its power.
MTG The Naked Time
At first glance, The Naked Time feels like it’s just okay, really. While it has some interesting combo potential, the final chapter of this saga holds it back, as the ramp you get is only temporary.
Even with the downside in mind, Naked Time’s second ability has tons of potential in the right deck. If you’ve got plenty of small creatures that you can blitz out with the extra mana, then it can pack a serious punch.
Following the launch of the MTG Star Trek set, it didn’t take long for this hypothetical potential to become reality. At the Magic World Championship 32, the Boros Pixie deck, which revolves around The Naked Time, broke out in a major way.
Thanks to The Naked Time, this deck can dish out a whopping 14 Flying Haste damage on turn three. You don’t need to jump through an insane number of hoops to do this, either, as you only need three other cards.
With
Momo, Friendly Flier
Momo, Friendly Flier
Flying
The first non-Lemur creature spell with flying you cast during each of your turns costs {1} less to cast.
Whenever another creature you control with flying enters, Momo gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
dropping on turn one, Naked Time on two, you can then Warp
Starfield Shepherd
Starfield Shepherd
Flying
When this creature enters, search your library for a basic Plains card or a creature card with mana value 1 or less, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
Warp {1}{W} (You may cast this card from your hand for its warp cost. Exile this creature at the beginning of the next end step, then you may cast it from exile on a later turn.)
and play
Sage of the Skies
Sage of the Skies
When you cast this spell, if you've cast another spell this turn, copy this spell. (The copy becomes a token.)
Flying, lifelink
on turn three. Should you manage all of this, not only will your opponent be in a world of hurt, but you’ll gain a bunch of life, too.
As if that weren’t enough, Boros Pixie can also avoid The Naked Time’s damning downside. By paying the Bargain cost on
Torch the Tower
Torch the Tower
Bargain (You may sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token as you cast this spell.)
Torch the Tower deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If this spell was bargained, instead it deals 3 damage to that permanent and you scry 1.
If a permanent dealt damage by Torch the Tower would die this turn, exile it instead.
, or bouncing it with
Nurturing Pixie
Nurturing Pixie
Flying
When this creature enters, return up to one target non-Faerie, nonland permanent you control to its owner's hand. If a permanent was returned this way, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
, you can easily remove The Naked Time before its third chapter.
With this synergy in mind, it’s little wonder that The Naked Time and Boros Pixie are breaking out. This, in turn, has caused a pretty major price spike, although the percentage increase is more alluring than the actual price.
Big Percentage, Small Price Tag
In the past week, the price of The Naked Time has spiked by 829%, which is absolutely massive. As impressive as this looks on the surface, though, this card is only selling for around $3.44 at the time of writing.
While it’s now slightly outside of the $1-$2 budget range, this card still isn’t majorly expensive in the grand scheme of MTG. Instead, the voracity of the spike comes from the fact that The Naked Time used to be incredibly cheap when prerelease events kicked off.
This time last week, for instance, near-mint copies of The Naked Time were selling for just $0.37 on TCGplayer. While this once-budget-friendly price point is now long gone, it spoke volumes about how cold MTG players were about Star Trek.
Notably, unlike most modern Magic: The Gathering cards, The Naked Time has no alternative variants. This is largely because it’s both a Saga and an uncommon, since it’s rare for either to get non-default printings.
Thanks to this single printing, supply for copies of The Naked Time is technically somewhat limited. That being said, while there are only 33 near-mint listings for the card on TCGplayer, these few listings do offer 404 copies in total.
While this might seem like a fairly healthy amount of supply, there have been over 2,600 near-mint sales of The Naked Time since its release. Due to this, it’s unclear just how long the remaining copies might last, and if the spike will continue.
One To Watch
For better or worse, the future of The Naked Time is still in the balance right now. With how fresh the post-Star Trek metagame is right now, there’s no telling how the dust will settle.
Given that Magic World Championship 32 is the peak of competitive play, The Naked Time’s performance at this event will speak to a lot. After this, however, it still has to survive being brewed and tested by tons of players looking to build around it.
While this already makes the future of The Naked Time somewhat uncertain, it’s worth noting that rotation is coming up, too. In February next year, six sets will be leaving Standard, massively shaking up the metagame.
Unfortunately for Boros Pixie, many of this deck’s core cards will be rotating out of the format. The titular
Nurturing Pixie
Nurturing Pixie
Flying
When this creature enters, return up to one target non-Faerie, nonland permanent you control to its owner's hand. If a permanent was returned this way, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
will leave the format, for instance, as will
Torch the Tower
Torch the Tower
Bargain (You may sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token as you cast this spell.)
Torch the Tower deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If this spell was bargained, instead it deals 3 damage to that permanent and you scry 1.
If a permanent dealt damage by Torch the Tower would die this turn, exile it instead.
.
Potentially, losing these cards could be a deal-breaker for The Naked Time, but that remains to be seen. For now, we can only really wait and see what happens, and watch this card’s competitive performance closely.
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