MTG Star Trek’s Nog Turns a $21 Landfall Staple Into a Legendary Creature

Thanks to the ever-encroaching march of power creep, newer MTG cards are becoming iconic, well-known staples faster than ever before. A great example of this from last year is Icetill Explorer Icetill Explorer You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
You may play lands from your graveyard.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, mill a card. , an Edge of Eternities rare that now appears in 234,000 Commander decks, and packs a $21 price tag to boot.

While Icetill is undeniably fantastic, it is just a regular creature, which means you can’t run it in the command zone for easy access. This is where MTG Star Trek’s Nog, Ambitious Cadet comes in, offering the bulk of Icetill’s wild abilities in legendary creature form, making for one hell of a build-around.

Nog, Ambitious Cadet MTG

Like MTG classics Figure of Destiny Figure of Destiny {R/W}: This creature becomes a Kithkin Spirit with base power and toughness 2/2.
{R/W}{R/W}{R/W}: If this creature is a Spirit, it becomes a Kithkin Spirit Warrior with base power and toughness 4/4.
{R/W}{R/W}{R/W}{R/W}{R/W}{R/W}: If this creature is a Warrior, it becomes a Kithkin Spirit Warrior Avatar with base power and toughness 8/8, flying, and first strike. and Warden of the First Tree Warden of the First Tree {1}{W/B}: This creature becomes a Human Warrior with base power and toughness 3/3.
{2}{W/B}{W/B}: If this creature is a Warrior, it becomes a Human Spirit Warrior with trample and lifelink.
{3}{W/B}{W/B}{W/B}: If this creature is a Spirit, put five +1/+1 counters on it. , Nog is a cheap creature that gets better as you invest mana into it. Beginning as a vanilla 2/2 for two, it quickly becomes a 3/4 Menace that Surveils on tapping once you activate that first ability.

Right out of the gate this is pretty solid, giving you a decent early attacker and some card selection. Later on, once safe attacks are but a distant memory, you can tap Nog with cards like Paradise Mantle Paradise Mantle Equipped creature has "{T}: Add one mana of any color."
Equip {1} and Susur Secundi, Void Altar Susur Secundi, Void Altar This land enters tapped.
{T}: Add {B}.
Station (Tap another creature you control: Put charge counters equal to its power on this Planet. Station only as a sorcery.)
12+ | {1}{B}, {T}, Pay 2 life, Sacrifice a creature: Draw cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power. Activate only as a sorcery. instead to keep Surveiling.

With this ability alone, Nog is capable of heading up a fairly competent graveyard strategy. Constant Surveiling will let you dump big creatures like Archon of Cruelty Archon of Cruelty Flying
Whenever this creature enters or attacks, target opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker of their choice, discards a card, and loses 3 life. You draw a card and gain 3 life. to reanimate later, as well as setting up use-from-graveyard cards like Dread Return Dread Return Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Flashback—Sacrifice three creatures. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) and Darklight Phoenix Darklight Phoenix Flying, haste
At the beginning of combat on your turn, if two or more creatures died this turn, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. . If you pursue this kind of plan, Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong {1}, {T}: Scry 2.
Whenever you scry or surveil, look at the top card of your library. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Do this only once each turn. (Look at the card after you scry or surveil.) is a must to cheat out big beaters every turn.

The topdeck control that Nog gives you is also valuable in itself, particularly alongside play-from-library cards like Traveling Chocobo Traveling Chocobo You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may play lands and cast Bird spells from the top of your library.
If a land or Bird you control entering the battlefield causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time. and Vizier of the Menagerie Vizier of the Menagerie You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may cast creature spells from the top of your library.
You can spend mana of any type to cast creature spells. . It’s also nice alongside Sylvan Library Sylvan Library At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two additional cards. If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library. , as a way to get rid of unwanted cards that would otherwise gum up your draws.

This ability is good in isolation, but it also helps stock your bin for the real show here, Nog’s second ability. For an extra three mana Nog essentially becomes Icetill Explorer Icetill Explorer You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
You may play lands from your graveyard.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, mill a card. , letting you play two lands a turn as well as lands from your graveyard.

Even in a relatively fair deck, there are a ton of powerful things you can do with this setup. Fetchlands let you tutor up multiple lands a turn, ramping you while also thinning your deck. You can also abuse lands with sacrifice abilities like Wasteland Wasteland {T}: Add {C}.
{T}, Sacrifice this land: Destroy target nonbasic land. and Nurturing Peatland Nurturing Peatland {T}, Pay 1 life: Add {B} or {G}.
{1}, {T}, Sacrifice this land: Draw a card. for a ton of value.

Taking things even further, you can pair Nog with other extra land drop cards like Exploration Exploration You may play an additional land on each of your turns. and start really milking the likes of Field of the Dead Field of the Dead This land enters tapped.
{T}: Add {C}.
Whenever this land or another land you control enters, if you control seven or more lands with different names, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. and Roiling Canopy Roiling Canopy This land enters tapped.
Whenever a Forest you control enters, if you control at least five other Forests, target creature you control gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
{T}: Add {G}. for triggers. Landfall payoffs like Springheart Nantuko Springheart Nantuko Bestow {1}{G}
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, you may pay {1}{G} if this permanent is attached to a creature you control. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that creature. If you didn't create a token this way, create a 1/1 green Insect creature token. are particularly effective with this plan, since you’ll reliably be playing a bunch of lands each turn.

If you’re feeling particularly funky, you can even bring in some land-based sacrifice outlets, like Zuran Orb Zuran Orb Sacrifice a land: You gain 2 life. and Elvish Reclaimer Elvish Reclaimer This creature gets +2/+2 as long as there are three or more land cards in your graveyard.
{2}, {T}, Sacrifice a land: Search your library for a land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle. . Nog lets you easily replay the lands you give up, which removes the downside, and you can also get extra use out of utility lands like Bojuka Bog Bojuka Bog This land enters tapped.
When this land enters, exile target player's graveyard.
{T}: Add {B}. in the process.

Ambition Unbound

Not only is Nog a powerful, and flexible, engine right out of the command zone, but it also unlocks a nice suite of infinite combos, too. You don’t need to fully ‘level him up’ for these, either, as some can be pulled off after his initial bump up to Scout.

In this stage, Nog lets you dump your whole deck in the graveyard with the help of Seeker of Skybreak Seeker of Skybreak {T}: Untap target creature. and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron Agatha’s Soul Cauldron You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to activate abilities of creatures you control.
Creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them have all activated abilities of all creature cards exiled with Agatha's Soul Cauldron.
{T}: Exile target card from a graveyard. When a creature card is exiled this way, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. . Simply exile Seeker with Cauldron, granting Nog its ability, then you can tap and untap Nog repeatedly to Surveil your deck into the ‘yard.

From here, you can win the game on the spot with the help of Doctor Doom, Unrivaled Doctor Doom, Unrivaled Lifelink
{T}: You draw a card and lose 1 life. Then if your library has no cards in it, you win the game. (You win even if you have 0 life or didn't draw a card.) . With three creatures and a Haste granter like Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu You may activate abilities of creatures you control as though those creatures had haste.
{T}: Add two mana of any one color. Spend this mana only to activate abilities of creature sources. in play you can even do this immediately by Dread Return Dread Return Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Flashback—Sacrifice three creatures. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) ing Doom into the fray.

Once Nog reaches the rank of Officer, you can start tapping into some spicy land lockdown lines as well. Glacial Chasm Glacial Chasm Cumulative upkeep—Pay 2 life. (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)
When this land enters, sacrifice a land.
Creatures you control can't attack.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you. is the key card here, with Nog letting you replay both it and a land to sacrifice as it enters every turn with its final abilities.

Doing this every turn will prevent your opponents from dealing you damage through any means, which will make you straight-up invincible against a lot of decks. This doesn’t actually win you the game, mind you, so it’s worth running another combo, like the one above, to close things out in the big stretch of time this one buys you.

Overall, with a wide range of both fair and unfair applications in its toolkit, Nog, Ambitious Cadet is an absolute banger of an MTG Commander. There are plenty of ways to build it, and plenty of rewards for doing so, which is remarkable given the low initial cost here. Given how prevalent Icetill Explorer Icetill Explorer You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
You may play lands from your graveyard.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, mill a card. has been as a 99 card, it seems likely that Nog will be one of the most popular new Star Trek Commanders once the dust settles after release.

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