I still remember my very first episode of Star Trek. The 1967 classic "Devil in the Dark" was a terrifying horror experience for a five-year-old, but my father was there, watching it with me. At that age, live-action shows sort of blurred together in my mind into a marmalade of entertainment that relied on unfamiliar ingredients—things well outside my domain using a language I couldn't understand. "Devil in the Dark" stood out because it was just approachable enough for my young mind to understand: There was a monster in the dark, and it was terrifying! And it hurt people! But—spoiler warning for this 60-year-old episode—then we learn that the monster isn't a monster. The Horta was a person and a mom and protecting her children! It looked scary, but it was ultimately familiar and relatable.

It blew my young mind.

0152_MTGTRK_Main: Horta

And my dad was right there, watching it with me! He never watched my shows, but this time we were watching his show; he invited me into his world, and for the first time, I could keep up. We watched Star Trek together after that, and a few years later we watched the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation together, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine after that. Once I moved out, Star Trek remained an important social element, watching it with new friends and, eventually, my future spouse. From the beginning, Star Trek was as much about the shared experience of watching it as much as it was the episodes themselves.

That experience is hardly unique. Almost every coworker here at Wizards of the Coast has a similar story. It might be an experience with a mother or a brother or a grandparent or a friend, but more so than a story about Klingons and Borg and warp cores, Star Trek is a community and a shared language.

0129_MTGTRK_Main: Storied Veteran

"Probably talking about Star Trek … "

That's the devil in the dark of making Universes Beyond sets: They're scary—Star Trek is so big and important—but also deeply familiar. Every Universes Beyond set starts with genuine love from someone here on the team, and community makes up the foundation of nostalgia. Bottling that enthusiasm is no easy task. Everyone on the team has their own first episode, their own favorite character, their own vernacular of that shared language. Capturing Star Trek the right way meant "empathizing with the Horta" (to torture that metaphor just a little more) by understanding what makes up that nostalgia.

The passion and love this team has for Star Trek made this set uniquely approachable. Creating a Magic set means producing over 800 unique cards and a couple hundred more alternate versions for those. In this case, cards that portray over 600 hours of content! No matter how many Magic: The Gathering sets you produce, that number always feels impossibly huge at first. But once we sat down like the nerds we are and started discussing what episodes and characters and creatures needed to be here to make it feel like Star Trek, the spreadsheets filled up fast. We dredged up deep cuts and surprises that helped us fall in love with the shows all over again or see films in a new light. That enthusiasm meant filling this set with our childhood loves and authentic interest, and meetings like that are the most fun you can have making Magic. Even if we don't use every idea and suggestion from that early work, that chance to bond and compare notes gives us important signposts to follow on our shared journey.

We obviously can't do a Star Trek set without Kirk screaming "Khaaaaaaaaaaaannn;" those in-jokes and shared moments provide the sense of belonging and community that make Star Trek special, but nostalgia can hurt you if you use it carelessly. A set filled with nothing but deep cuts is unapproachable for casual fans; a set with too many memes feels too shallow, borrowing authenticity from existing fan communities.

Making a good Star Trek set for Magic doesn't just mean copying the good Star Trek content others have already made, it means studying what makes good Star Trek and doing it ourselves. It isn't enough to say, "Remember how scary it was when Picard was assimilated by the Borg!" We have to understand why that was such a gut punch—the sense of loss and dehumanization and body horror—then try to create it all over again in a new medium.

0389_MTGTRK_LCARS: Locutus, the One Who Speaks 0055_MTGTRK_CmdNewO: Assimilate the Wounded 0444_MTGTRK_CommRepr: Thoughtcast

How did we apply this balance in practice? With a lot of listening, a lot of patience, and a lot of every Star Trek fan's favorite activity: arguing about Star Trek. We paid attention to what appealed to all of us as career geeks, but also what popped up again and again in fan spaces. What episodes did people love, what did they still debate, which characters do people always love, and who deserved a second chance? There were plenty of times we leaned hard into our personal loves—my art director teased me mercilessly about how much Riker I included—and hope that love was tangible in every card.

0140_MTGTRK_BegBxNew: Will Riker, Assuming Command 0423_MTGTRK_CommRepr: Grand Crescendo 0076_MTGTRK_Main: Open Communications

Sometimes being a set lead means giving your childhood crush the screentime he deserves.

But finding that balance also meant analyzing Star Trek like a book report and understanding everything that made it compelling even after putting fandom aside—the complex morals, the compelling characters, the unique visuals. We set a lot of narrative rules early on to reflect those; rules like "figure out cool actions for the characters besides just combat" and a maximum number of card titles that we would allow to be quotes. If you look at a card and think, "Why isn't this named after my favorite movie line?" believe me when I say we debated it. A lot.

Gaming is the ultimate manifestation of that shared community and language I mentioned earlier, and it makes Star Trek such a perfect pairing with Magic: The Gathering. In the end, I think we've created something fun and funny and compassionate and filled with love. Something that I ultimately hope helps more people share that common language and community, making new friends or bonding more closely with those they care about.

Magic: The Gathering® | Star Trek™ releases on November 13, 2026, and Prerelease events begin on Friday, November 6! The set is available for preorder now from your local game store, TCGplayer, Amazon, and elsewhere Magic is sold.