Enterprise-Q Scene Box: All Six Cards

The Facts

Magic's Star Trek set has two scene boxes. This one is The Next Generation. The other, Divergent Timeline, is the crew from the Kelvin timeline films. Each box holds six new cards you can play, and the six fit together into one picture on the included easel.

All Six Cards

All six are rare legendary creatures. Four of them make 1/1 blue Faerie tokens with flying, Jean-Luc makes those Faeries bigger, and Q uses them. Here they are in scene order, the top row first.

Worf, Still Not Merry ↗

TRC 186 · {3}{R}{W} · 5/5

Q, Your Illustrious Host ↗

TRC 187 · {W}{U}{B}{R}{G} · 5/5

La Forge, Thoughtful as Ever ↗

TRC 188 · {3}{U} · 2/4

Data, Professor of Humanities ↗

TRC 189 · {3}{U} · 3/4

Jean-Luc, Mon Capitaine ↗

TRC 190 · {2}{U}{R}{W} · 5/3

Troi, Winging It ↗

TRC 191 · {3}{W} · 3/2

Worf, Still Not Merry makes a tapped and attacking Faerie for each attacking creature that isn't a Faerie, himself included, so he alone makes one. La Forge, Thoughtful as Ever taps to make a Faerie for each of your permanents you put a counter on this turn. Data, Professor of Humanities has seek out: when you draw your second card each turn, you make two Faeries.

Jean-Luc, Mon Capitaine is a 5/3 flier with federation. Your Faeries enter with an extra +1/+1 counter for each creature type among your non-Borg creatures. Jean-Luc alone counts two (Human and Officer), so your next Faerie enters as a 3/3, and each new type you add makes the following ones bigger. Troi, Winging It makes a Faerie whenever an opponent draws a card during your turn.

Q Is the Reason to Buy It

Q is the card to build around. For five mana, one of each color, he's a 5/5 with one ability: tap three untapped Faeries you control, exile cards from the top of your library until you hit a nonland card, and cast it for free. The cost has no tap symbol, so Q can use it the turn he arrives, Faeries that just entered can pay for it, and you can use it more than once a turn if you have the Faeries. It's an activated ability, so you can use it on an opponent's turn too, and because you cast the card while the ability resolves, a sorcery or creature can be cast then. A free spell with X in its cost has X of 0. Cards you don't cast stay in exile, lands included.

Commander Spotlight

Q, Your Illustrious Host ↗

TRC 187. {W}{U}{B}{R}{G}, 5/5, creature type Q. Tap three untapped Faeries you control: exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost.

Q isn't a Faerie. His creature type is Q, the same joke as the main set's Q, and he leads the Faeries rather than joining them. According to MTG Rocks' report of the October 27 Weekly MTG stream, the box was first meant to upgrade the Jeskai Federation Fleet precon, and Wizards made Q five colors because he wasn't strong enough as a Faerie commander in three.

That's why TurnZero HQ's pick is to build Q his own deck rather than treat the box as a precon pack. Five colors means no Faerie card is off the table for color, and every free spell Q flips is worth more the more expensive your deck's spells are. The other five cards in this box are a ready-made core: four make Faeries every turn they're working, and Jean-Luc makes those Faeries bigger. From there, Faerie cards like Bitterblossom (a Faerie every upkeep), Alela, Artful Provocateur (a Faerie for each artifact or enchantment you cast) and Faerie Mastermind (a Faerie itself, and it can make everyone draw, which turns on Troi) fill out the deck. Worf's Faeries enter tapped, so they pay for Q from your next turn, not the turn he attacks. How well it plays depends on your pod. Q needs three Faeries before he does anything, so a table with lots of cheap removal or board wipes will slow him down.

As Federation Fleet Upgrades

Five of the six cards fit the colors of Federation Fleet, the Jeskai Star Trek precon led by Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary. Three are a strong fit and two are fine. The deck is built around drawing a second card each turn: it runs Howling Mine, and two of its legends make an opponent draw on your turn too, which is exactly what Troi and Data want. Picard's own seek out then puts counters on a creature and a Spacecraft, which La Forge turns into Faeries.

Troi is better in this deck than she looks. Commander William Riker pays one and taps to have you and an opponent each draw two, which is two Faeries from Troi on your turn, and your second draw for Data. Ambassador K'Ehleyr has each player draw a card at the beginning of combat on your turn, which is a Faerie for each opponent. Howling Mine doesn't help her: it gives opponents their extra card on their own turn.

The Art

Alexander Gering painted all six cards as one scene: the Enterprise-D bridge full of glowing blue faeries. The cards make a grid three wide and two high. In the top row, Worf shouts with Riker behind him, Q rides a white unicorn in a red uniform covered in medals, and La Forge clutches his visor over a tricorder. In the bottom row, Data holds a faerie in his hand with Wesley Crusher beside him, Picard has a pair of faerie wings, and Troi laughs.

The name Worf, Still Not Merry looks like a nod to “Qpid”, the Next Generation episode where Q turns the crew into Robin Hood's Merry Men and Worf objects that he is not a merry man. Wizards hasn't said so; it's our reading.

For Collectors

The traditional foil versions of these six cards are only in the scene box. Non-foil versions are in Collector Boosters. Each Collector Booster has two rare or mythic Booster Fun cards, and Wizards gives each of those a 4.6% chance to be a non-foil scene box card, so about 1 pack in 11 has one. Wizards doesn't list the pool, but it's most likely all twelve cards from both scene boxes, so any one card is a much rarer pull.

The six art cards are the same panels without rules text, for displaying the scene on the easel while you play the foils. The three Play Boosters are regular Star Trek Play Boosters.

What We Don't Know Yet

Whether the art cards are foil. Wizards lists them only as “Art cards”, and some stores describe them differently.

Whether stores can sell it from prerelease. Wizards gives the scene boxes no date of their own, and stores list both November 6 and November 13.

What the cards will be worth. There's no market until the box is out. This page will get a value section once there are real prices.

Frequently Asked Questions