U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-ClassU.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class | Art by Pablo Mendoza

Last week, Magic players everywhere got their first peek at the cards from the upcoming Star Trek set. I'm excited to see more of these cards, as I'm very invested in seeing which of my predictions and hopes for this set from my 2025 article come true! So far, my favorite reveal is the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-ClassU.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class. I'm overjoyed to see different iterations of the Enterprise getting their own cards and not just one card with a few different art treatments. In celebration, this deck tech will be covering the U.S.S. Enterprise-D.

What Does the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class Do?

U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-ClassU.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class is a colorless legendary artifact spacecraft for . It has station, meaning you can tap a creature at sorcery speed to put charge counters on the Enterprise-D equal to that creature's power. When it has seven or more charge counters on it, the Enterprise-D becomes a 4/5 creature with flying and vigilance. Whenever one or more charge counters are put on it for the first time each turn, you exile the top card of your library and may play it this turn. The Enterprise is an impulse draw engine with impulse engines! I'm sure someone on the design team is very proud of themselves for that one, and I don't blame them.

A deck with the Enterprise-D at the helm is going to look very similar to other colorless commanders that serve as draw engines, like The VisionThe Vision or WeatherlightWeatherlight. If I had to place it into an archetype, it would be combo. Colorless commanders can be quite challenging to build "fair" decks around due to the low quality of interaction it has to work with. This incentivizes a focus on identifying the card pool's most powerful threats and attempting to generate a massive mana advantage and deploy those threats as quickly as possible, knowing that the long game favors the players at the table with higher quality cards, like Swords to PlowsharesSwords to Plowshares or Force of WillForce of Will. This leads to colorless having a reputation for decks that are either unplayable or broken, and my build of the Enterprise-D is going to feel more like the latter, and while this deck is somewhat capable of playing a normal midrange game, the big finish is almost always going to be some flavor of artifact-based combo.

Key Cards for U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class

First, the U.S.S. Enterprise-DU.S.S. Enterprise-D needs a crew to station it. This is the first source of complexity for this deck, as there just aren't that many cheap colorless creatures I'm excited to cast in Commander. Traxos, Scourge of KroogTraxos, Scourge of Kroog is a perfect candidate, having exactly enough power to station the Enterprise-D into a creature, and with a really interesting upside. Whenever you cast a historic spell, Traxos untaps. This combines nicely with The Eternity ElevatorThe Eternity Elevator, a spacecraft that can take advantage of any number of charge counters, and Paradise MantleParadise Mantle, which can turn Traxos into a mana dork that will often untap itself several times a turn.

Surge ConductorSurge Conductor is a card from Edge of Eternities Commander designed for the Inspirit, Flagship VesselInspirit, Flagship Vessel precon, and it serves this deck just as well as it does the Counter Intelligence deck. Not only does Surge Conductor offer a way to convert a trivially easy game action into advantage through proliferating charge counters on the Enterprise-D, it has incidental synergies with a smattering of other key pieces that use counters. Proliferating counters on mana sources, like The Eternity ElevatorThe Eternity Elevator, Astral CornucopiaAstral Cornucopia, and Everflowing ChaliceEverflowing Chalice, ticking up planeswalkers, and growing Walking BallistaWalking Ballista are all skills on this creature's resume.

The biggest source of power aboard the Enterprise is Shambling SuitShambling Suit, alongside a few permanents that produce ConstructConstruct tokens. While I'm not generally looking to get involved in creature combat when piloting this deck, creatures with power that scales with the number of artifacts in play both offer a nice way to station a spacecraft for a metric ton of counters and good blockers to disincentivize opposing creatures from coming in my direction. This is one of the few Commander decks that is not only excited for the one-mana artifact it will eventually find with Urza's SagaUrza's Saga, but is equally excited for the two tokens it gets to make along the way.

Over a quarter of this deck is comprised of spells that are only here to make mana. By that point, I'd say that ramping is the strategy more than a tool that enables it. Colorless decks have a lot of weak points in their pool of available cards, but mana production is definitely not one of them!

Ultima, Origin of OblivionUltima, Origin of Oblivion acts like a one-sided Mana FlareMana Flare, with the option to disarm opposing utility lands with its attack trigger. Not only will Ultima cause nearly all of the lands in the deck to tap for more mana, many of the lands I've included will also make multiple mana on their own. The classic combination of Planar NexusPlanar Nexus paired with the Urza landsUrza lands from Antiquities, CloudpostCloudpost, and more straightforward "sol lands", like Ancient TombAncient Tomb and Temple of the False GodTemple of the False God, are all here to keep the deck's mana production as consistent as possible. Mana bases for colorless decks are my favorite to build as there's little incentive against packing as much utility as possible into the lands. I only included one basic, mostly as a nod to Path to ExilePath to Exile and ErodeErode.

The Eternity ElevatorThe Eternity Elevator is the mana rock with the highest ceiling, with the potential to tap for dozens of mana at a time. However, it's far from the only rock that can make upwards of two or three mana. For that reason, several slots have been dedicated to untap effects, like Manifold KeyManifold Key, Voltaic KeyVoltaic Key, and Sonic ScrewdriverSonic Screwdriver, to maximize their potential. The early turns piloting this deck is mostly deploying cost-reducers and mana rocks just so they can help cast even more cost-reducers and mana rocks in the coming turns. With the Enterprise-D always around to draw an extra card each turn, the risk of running out of gas during that process is no longer a big concern.

On turn four or five, I expect the Enterprise-D to be firing on all cylinders (or fusion reactors, in this case). I'm drawing an extra card every turn and I have upwards of eight mana. What comes next? Well, there's plenty of combos to work towards, but I'll save that for the next section. There's also a solid suite of what I like to call "haymakers" to cast with all that mana. When looking for colorless haymakers, I often go look at what colorless ramp decks like Modern or Legacy Tron are playing. Everything from big eight-mana removal engines, like Ugin, the Spirit DragonUgin, the Spirit Dragon and Cityscape LevelerCityscape Leveler, are here alongside pieces that help in the longer game, like God-Pharaoh's StatueGod-Pharaoh's Statue and The Ten RingsThe Ten Rings.

How Does the Enterprise-D Win the Game?

Since Modern Horizons 3's release, I cannot fathom building a colorless deck without Glaring FleshrakerGlaring Fleshraker. This Eldrazi is quite possibly one of the most unfair cards I've ever played with or against in any format, and that holds true in Commander. It is a combo piece, going infinite with Sensei's Divining TopSensei's Divining Top and Mystic ForgeMystic Forge, but it's also an incredible source of mana generation that I'm happy to deploy at any stage of a game. Many other artifact combos suffer from using some pieces that aren't very good independently from their combo, which is not a problem that any piece of this combo suffers from.

Ugin, Eye of the StormsUgin, Eye of the Storms is an unbelievable upgrade for colorless decks. It's a removal engine, a draw engine, a mana production engine, and a win condition all stapled onto one seven-mana card. If I was forced to slash the budget of this deck, Ugin is the one card I'd cut nearly anything else from the budget to keep. Glaring Fleshraker greatly enhances Ugin's quality as a win condition, as using Ugin's -11 ability to deploy a Glaring Fleshraker and then spam colorless spells until the game is over, regardless of what combo pieces have been removed by that point in the game. Surge ConductorSurge Conductor can also speed up the path to Ugin's -11 with its proliferate ability, potentially letting it happen as early as the turn that Ugin hits the table.

A quick note for other pilots that may find themselves in the position where they can -11 Ugin: always start the sequence of spells cast from exile with Defense GridDefense Grid. It's the safest play, and no one needs the headache of navigating their win with a Baral, Chief of ComplianceBaral, Chief of Compliance or Katara, Waterbending MasterKatara, Waterbending Master player breathing down their neck.

Next up we have the funniest way to win a game of Magic this deck can produce: Karn, the Great CreatorKarn, the Great Creator can turn Aetherflux ReservoirAetherflux Reservoir into a creature. Then, that creature can be equipped with ShadowspearShadowspear, giving it lifelink. With enough life to pay into Aetherflux Reservoir's first activation, it will refund the life spent and each opponent can be dealt 50 damage.

The final and most complex way to win a game with a pile of artifacts is using Clock of OmensClock of Omens, Staff of DominationStaff of Domination, another artifact than can untap itself, like Basalt MonolithBasalt Monolith or Grim MonolithGrim Monolith, and an artifact that taps for six or more mana can generate infinite mana and infinite Staff of Domination activations. If any one piece of this combo were bad enough on its own, I'd probably just cut the whole thing. However, each of these pieces are individually useful to some degree and the possibility of assembling this Rube Goldberg machine is incredibly tantalizing.

U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class Commander Deck List

Conclusion

This build of

is firmly in Bracket 3 (Upgraded). It has the three game changers, several combos that consist of three or more cards, and a game plan that is too consistent and likely too oppressive for Bracket 2 (Core) tables.

I normally have month-long phases where I'm very into building certain strategies in Commander. Right now, colorless decks like this one or The VisionThe Vision, which I wrote about during Marvel Superheroes preview season, are part of one of those phases. It's probably a symptom of my recent foray back into Modern for this Regional Championship Qualifier season, where I've attended tournaments where as many as half of the players in attendance are playing colorless decks that utilize Glaring FleshrakerGlaring Fleshraker. So far, the best commander for the job has been SixSix, which I was pleasantly surprised to see a deck tech for by Arnaud Gompertz that everyone reading this should absolutely check out next!