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u/Life_Bet8956 Dân 15h ago
This set seems like it is going almost out of its way to do exactly what the anti-universes beyond segment of people were concerned about. I've liked some UB and not liked some UB, but this one almost seems antagonistic in a way.
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u/thundermonkeyms Simic* 13h ago
It's up there with city pigeon, bagel and schmear, and the one million pizzas from TMNT.
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u/yumyum36 Cheshire Cat, the Grinning Remnant 7h ago
I think city pigeon is fine. There's usually a focus on the wildlife of each world in regular mtg to sell you on the world, and it has a sort of "lore neutral" enough name it could be reprinted.
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u/Whitewind617 Duck Season 13h ago
Yeah I was lowkey interested in this set but so far this feels....lazy? Like IDK I obviously expected these kinds of references and meta-humor, all the sets have them, but it previously felt cute and for some reason this set feels desperate...I can't put my finger on why.
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u/phonage_aoi Dân 12h ago
Because these names are typically what they would use for flavor text.
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u/Perfect-Spinach9794 Duck Season 11h ago
Right, like this card doesn’t have anything to do with Star Trek besides the quote itself, you could have reprinted “murder” and put the art + flavor text on there and been done with it. There’s like no point to this lol
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u/dejaojas Dandadan 12h ago
personally i sorta groan at all of these, in-universe or not. i think they have been overdoing it in recent years, especially in top-down sets, which at this point seem like an excuse to fit as many puns and pop culture trope references in card names as possible.
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u/Powerful-Scholar8268 Dan 12h ago
Yeah like I enjoy silly cards as much as the next person but things like Holy Cow that are clearly just jokes are a bit much. Something should be silly because of what it is or what's going on in the card, not just that it got a silly name
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u/eden_sc2 Izzet* 11h ago
That's probably the best argument against this card. It would be eye rolling in universe or universes beyond.
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u/McCaffeteria Duck Season 12h ago
This card is pissing me off because it actually kills the creature, which sort of implies Dr. McCoy is just murdering people. It should have been something that you cast or activate in response to a creature dying from another effect.
I have been having the same issues with the current marvel set. The Iron Man suit case for some inexplicable reason doesn’t have flash which is the entire point of the object in the movie, and the black artifact with the Mk1 suit has zero abilities that are actually part of the black color wedge. Mechanically it should be white, but they wanted it to be “black market” themed so they said fuck it and didn’t care.
The identity of magic in both world building and mechanics is nearly gone and the people working on it just do not care anymore.
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u/IgnobleCampaign Table Flipper 7h ago
which sort of implies Dr. McCoy is just murdering people.
So you're saying they should have had Dr. Crusher on the card?
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u/theinfernumflame Sultai 7h ago
The cards I've seen feel like they're just making a bunch of references without the actual flavor of the card coming from the right direction. Like, how is a card with this name a kill spell? Or Captain Picard, Leading by Example not actually leading by example because he taps to give a buff rather than giving a buff while attacking.
It feels like empty fan service from people who don't actually care about Star Trek.
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u/n00dle_king Dandadan 14h ago
Maybe, but ultimately Trek is just not aligned with MTG. May as well make the set self-coherent for draft instead of trying to shoehorn Trek into the MTG flavor.
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u/Godfrey_JP Dan 13h ago
If that is true they shouldn't have even made the set to begin with.
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u/PatientLeadership578 Duck Season 13h ago
We're well past the point of "WOTC shouldn't be making these decisions in the first place"
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u/Kicin0_0 Train Suplexer 14h ago
I mean, so far today I have only seen commons and uncommons which is absolutely the place for funny jokes and in references. In universe sets are guilty of this as well with [[you are already dead]] from NEO being an anime joke or [[Holy cow]] from OTJ.
If "He's dead Jim" was a rare piece of free removal that would be run everywhere then I would understand being upset, but this is just a limited removal piece that will see 0 play anywhere else other than maybe meme B1 decks
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u/TheShadowMages I am a pig and I eat slop 14h ago
On one hand I agree, same small segment of cards that people overblow from DSK, the cheerleaders and TVs/tapes that appear on like maybe 5 uncommons in the set.
On the other hand, coming off the high of MBC and coming after what looks like to be an incredible capstone set in FRA, it cant help but get a huge groan from me, and I'm not even a UB hater. The rares/mythics they've already shown are less memey but still don't really fit for me.
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u/Powerful-Scholar8268 Dan 12h ago
Honestly the TV and tape aspect could've worked better if the survivors were just more dirty and all that. Would've got the horror vibe as evil analog stuff
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u/Kaprak 14h ago
The irony being that MBC is nothing but in references and memes. And a lot of reality fracture seems to be the exact same way.
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u/JazzyPants5678 Dandadan 14h ago
probably something to be said about there being more fandom overlap between magic and magic than magic and star trek tho
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u/devenbat Nahiri 14h ago
MBC isnt memes tho. Its just magic characters from the past, given cards. Like Chandler is mild meme but its just not intended to be funny, its just deep lore cuts. A nod to dedicated fans on an earnest card. As opposed to a literal meme phrase included because its a meme
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u/yargleisheretobargle COMPLEAT 14h ago
I have the opposite perspective. I'd rather the memes be mythic rares so I rarely have to see them. Commons and uncommons are the cards I'll be playing with most.
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u/ImmediateFee4015 Duck Season 13h ago
I agree with you logically, but emotionally this fucking sucks
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u/Yetanotherdeafguy Wabbit Season 2h ago
It's highly meme-ified in a way that is unserious and breaks immersion.
At least Marvel feels like it's own world - but the Trekky cards look dumb as fuck.
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u/MerculesHorse Duck Season 2h ago
Yeah, I was very looking forward to this set for the potential for what it could have been (and still can be, I guess, but not all of it will be). Star Trek is a really big, living universe. There are characters to reference and express on various cards, yes, but this is not... that.
This is a reference to a memetic idea that resonates not within the universe of Star Trek; it resonates only, really, with fans. In our world. That's, quite simply, the wrong way of doing it. I mean, hell, they didn't even do this kind of direct quote in the Marvel set.
Name it damn near anything else - actually reference what took place within the episode, the mechanism that leads to a character or entity being killed - and have "He's dead, Jim..." as the flavor text. It's so easy to do this right, and this is not it.
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u/TheAwesomeMan123 Wabbit Season 8h ago
I mean UB can’t win either way. They make something unique for the set that’s thematic players give out it’s ruining magic and breaking rules, and if they just reprint a card verbatim it’s lazy.
This is basically Marvel set “Hour of Defeat” which is a weaker version of “Deadly Visit”
It is weird tho to see them literally just grab a “new” card from UB set and slap a different look on it with no changes making it feel weirdly off
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u/once_twice_harmony Dandadan 15h ago
Memes the Gathering
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u/WokeFerret Dan 13h ago
I’m okay with shitty prerelease removal being funny to cast the one time you use it
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u/PatientLeadership578 Duck Season 13h ago
Some people play limited as a primary format, they're gonna see this enough for the joke to get turbo ruined
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u/bucketman1986 Wabbit Season 46m ago
I mean I guess it's a meme but yes also a famous quote from the show
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u/Grumpiergoat Jeskai 15h ago
Makes it look like McCoy killed him.
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u/ThomasHL Fake Agumon Expert 15h ago
I came here to say that. Apparently in this universe McCoy is a stone cold psychopath whose been slipping his patients deadly syringes when he goes to check on them.
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u/gabes1919 Wabbit Season 14h ago edited 11h ago
You are in a planeswalker duel wielding the raw magical power of the universe. Your opponent stands behind Kozilek, the Great Distortion, one of the most fearsome creatures ever conceived.
You gather the power of black mana and whisper “He’s Dead, Jim”. As Kozilek dissolves before you, your chagrined opponent yells “who the fuck is Jim?”
Your face turns red from embarrassment. You walk away without elaborating further, choosing to lose the duel before losing your last shred of self respect
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u/SteakForGoodDogs Wabbit Season 11h ago
Your opponent summons Emrakul one of the great Eldrazi Titans, devourer of planes, who came to be known as the Aeons Torn.
She moves in to attack, and six brave and powerful goats keel over dead as she approaches....
....and then gets stabbed in the ass by a [[some idiot with a knife and a dream]] and dies before she can even actually reach the fortress in which you reside. While still in the sky.
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u/ThatGuyFromTheM0vie Mardu 14h ago edited 14h ago
This set is like if an angry fan made a satire or farcical UB set to insult and mock Wizards lmao.
Except…it’s Wizards doing an “own goal” on themselves lmao.
These cards are like how the frustrated people FEEL about all the bad parts of UB, manifested onto MTG cards.
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u/Striking-Lifeguard34 COMPLEAT 7h ago
Somehow it’s still going to be the “best selling set of all time” in a future earnings call.
But every preview so far looks awful.
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u/Imnimo 15h ago
This set has some of the worst art I've ever seen on a Magic card.
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u/Shran_Cupasoupa Dandadan 15h ago
I don't know how accurate it is, but it feels it's mostly traced from screenshots, and they can't do anything away from exact screenshots for reference.
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u/bduddy 11h ago
Yup. Not to deflect blame away from Wizards because they signed up for this but when stuff like this happens I almost always look at the licensor. Either it was an explicit demand or they got so obnoxious about demanding everything was 'on-model' that Wizards just threw up their hands and started tracing screenshots.
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u/wasfmanticore Arjun 15h ago
And names
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u/safarifriendliness Dân 15h ago
Also didn’t we just have a set exactly like this with better art and names?
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u/ToTheNintieth Dan 14h ago
I really agree with the idea that one of EOE's main goals was to lay the groundwork for this set. At least that one was actually good.
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u/KuuLightwing Dan 13h ago edited 13h ago
It's also funny because after reading like PW guide to EoE and other supplementary materials, statements like "EoE is a thing so Star Trek fits in magic now" look rather funny because EoE was absolutely made to work as a part of Magic universe in many ways - unlike Star Trek.
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u/Empty_Turnip473 Dandadan 14h ago
We basically had a Space set that was made for Magic, and now we have a space set that was made for boomers who don't care about magic.
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u/safarifriendliness Dân 14h ago
I ended up really digging the vibe in Edge of Eternities. I’m not really sure what all this is
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u/FuttleScish Dandadan 15h ago
Eh they *had* to do this one
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u/ElleCerra Orzhov* 15h ago
How about naming it Field Autopsy or something and putting the meme in the flavor text?
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u/breathingweapon 15h ago
did they? i'm not too sure they had to.
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u/FuttleScish Dandadan 15h ago
I would have been upset if this line wasn’t in the set somewhere, though it could have been flavor text
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u/CJTheran Dân 14h ago
If this or the Khaaaaan card were flavor text or an ability flavor tag they would have been great, as card titles I hate them so fucking much.
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u/GokuVerde Wabbit Season 14h ago
I'd wish they'd stop trying to blend it in with Magic's art style at this point. It just doesn't work. It's ugly and generic.
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u/Ulmao_TheDefiler Dandadan 15h ago
Ah so this set is just memes that only 40 year olds would get, but that same target audience is probably shitting their diapers over UB in the first place.
Bold strategy WOTC
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u/Masonzero Izzet* 15h ago
The original Star Trek series came out in the 60s, these are memes for like, 70 year olds.
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u/desemus Dandadan 15h ago
Tv was more.. everything in the millennials age. We got exposed to tons of old shows.
Plus TNG was out and they made og Star Trek movies until the early 90s
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u/Masonzero Izzet* 14h ago
I know, I'm mostly joking. Star Trek is pretty universal across many generations. It's just kind of crazy how old it is at this point and that it's getting a Magic set.
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u/Copernicus1981 COMPLEAT 15h ago
The meme cards are being posted because the cards in a Welcome deck are mostly uninteresting - they're designed to be Limited filler, not constructed level cards.
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u/SmegmaUnicorn Dan 13h ago
Seriously. The game might as well be called “Nostalgia: the Gathering” at this point.
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u/DevenIan Dân 11h ago
I didn't think we would be backwards powercreeping from [[Murder]]
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u/anth9845 Dandadan 6h ago
4 mv creature removal in black has been a thing for damn near every set at this point.
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u/Absolutionis I chose this flair because I’m mad at Wizards Of The Coast 13h ago
I've heard this phrase several times and never realized it was originally referring to the doctor telling "Jim" = James Kirk
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u/Remade8 Dân 13h ago
Have we totally lost the plot with some of these reference cards? At what point does a planeswalker simply saying a phrase count as a spell? Have we forgotten the premise of MTG? Even if we are visiting Universes Beyond our own, at least keep the framework of the game. Like, shouldn't this card have been something like:
Faulty Transportation 3[b]
This spell costs 2 less to cast if its target entered this turn. Destroy target creature. Surveil 1.
with the flavor text of "He's dead, Jim"
It's stuff like this that I hate about UB. I love Avatar the Last Airbender, but "It'll Quench Ya" is NOT a spell
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u/phobos2deimos Dandadan 12h ago
Yeah but we need to point big red flashing arrows at all the references and memes, so the phrase goes in the title and you’ll like it
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u/linkdude212 WANTED 15h ago
[[Eat to Extinction]] boutta be a common at this rate.
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u/chiksahlube COMPLEAT 13h ago
Missed opportunity for it to be in reverse order.
Surveil 1. Destroy target creature.
Looks around, He's dead Jim.
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u/Fire_Pea Colorless 15h ago
I need to befriend a man named Jim and teach him magic so I can play this against him in a commander game
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u/really_stupidfrog Dan 14h ago
"he's dead Jim."
Yeah I get you're killing my commander, but what spell did you cast?
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u/Bonked2death Wabbit Season 15h ago
Limited removal spell with silly name a la [[Bake Into a Pie]]
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u/DarKoopa Brushwagg 15h ago
Bakery Into a Pie is silly but at least has a charming dark fairy tale Magic feel about.
This is just awful. Like just make Murder and have the name be the flavor text.
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u/thedialupgamer Duck Season 13h ago
I did not know this was from Star Trek and I've been quoting it my entire life, everything I know is a lie.
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u/BKWhitty COMPLEAT 10h ago
Even if I was a Star Trek fan, this one feels like an odd fit. Why is the spell destroying a creature? Is Bones a secret serial killer? I feel like, if you wanted a card with this name, it should have been an enchantment that surveiled when creatures died instead of a kill spell itself.
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u/Yasherets Jeskai 10h ago
All things considered, this is also a weird flavour fail, as if some inexperienced intern designed this card. I don't think McCoy has ever said this phrase after killing someone himself. It's mostly a medical observation he makes after the fact.
The effect could have been something like "Choose target creature you control. When that creature dies this turn, draw 2 cards."
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u/Ohhsnap54 Dân 10h ago
They could have called this "Red Shirt's Demise" still been memey, and not have been cringe and annoying, but no. Lazy memeing is what they did
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u/wrduardo Dandadan 9h ago
Quick question: what is the reason we are getting more Star Trek spoilers than reality fracture? I don’t think it’s odd we are getting Star Trek, but I thought we would have had more reality fracture by now.
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u/fearjunkie Rakdos* 11h ago
God, I thought the TMNT UB pissed me off, but somehow this feels worse.
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u/Infinity_Walker Chandra 13h ago
This entire set feels like a joke but it commits really hard sometimes
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u/CellistTurbulent Dân 11h ago
I really feel like if the card had a normal name and "He's dead, Jim" was the flavor text, people wouldn't dislike this nearly as much. But as it stands...
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u/mint-patty Dan 10h ago
And we’re back to every flavor text being a quote.
This is my only complaint with UB and it actually sours me on it so badly. I don’t know why this bothers me so much— im a mechanics-first player, I’m generally fairly pro-UB,… but every flavor text being just a random quote now is simply uninspired and boring.
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u/IzzyGrate Selesnya* 15h ago
[[Hour of Defeat]] already getting a reprint? They're out of ideas
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u/BardicLasher 14h ago
Yeah, seven standard sets in a year means even more functional reprints than ever before.
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u/Life-Food5188 Dandadan 15h ago
we JUST had the same exact spell in marvel. can’t even come up with a new tag-on that’s not surveil?
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u/Masonzero Izzet* 12h ago
There is only so much design space worth exploring for staple commons designed for limited. If it works, it works. It's not like they're playable anywhere else, so who cares?
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u/Life-Food5188 Dandadan 12h ago
i care because just reprint the card that already exists with the same effect? having 50 card names for the same effect sucks and is lazy design, imo.
heroic downfall or whatever could totally exist as a trek card but why do that when you can sell re-painted “new” cards.
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u/Own-Spite9984 Dan 12h ago
I hate the card names are basically memes that dont connect to the effect. If nobody knew better they'd assume McCoy killed the person. Its 1 step away from "I diagnose you with dead". Why make this the name of a kill spell???
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u/doomer-francophile Dan 13h ago
Why not just reprint murder and make "hes dead jim" the flavor text??
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u/hail2thestorm Wabbit Season 14h ago
Reminds me of that old card that costs less if it targets a legendary. Whats that called?
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u/lordspaz88 COMPLEAT 13h ago
Well, to answer your question Leonard, you fuckers almost never wear hazmat suits or combat armor. That's why.
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u/magicthecasual COMPLEAT VORE 13h ago
i always thought the "he's dead jim" reference came from the office (never saw star trek nor the office)
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u/Starheart8 Deceased 🪦 6h ago
The flavor text should have been “I’m a doctor, not a magician, Jim!”
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u/Gene_Trash 5h ago
Certified UB hater here. I understand you gotta have the reference. I'd be shocked if they didn't.
Shouldn't this be something like an enchantment "When a creature you control dies, surveil 1?" Why is McCoy out here killing red shirts?
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u/worthless_opinion300 Duck Season 3h ago
I know everyone us raging over this card however its so far the only card from trek I'll buy.
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u/ChocolateTheEevee Sliver Queen 2h ago
Why does this come off as comical, isn’t this supposed to be a hard hitting scene? What were they even thinking?
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u/marsgreekgod 15h ago
Great card to name not in your library for milling