Magic: The Gathering is set to introduce a novel game-ending condition with its upcoming Star Trek Universes Beyond set, drawing inspiration from the infamous Kobayashi Maru test. While most Magic games conclude when a player's life total reaches zero, the game also supports alternative win and loss conditions such as deck depletion or specific card effects.
The Star Trek set will feature a new card that embodies the concept of a no-win scenario. The mythic rare blue enchantment, named Kobayashi Maru Scenario, presents players with a choice at the beginning of their upkeep. These choices include drawing two cards, returning an opponent's creature with a mana value of 3 or less to its owner's hand, or creating two 1/1 red Officer creature tokens. However, after three turns, the only remaining option is to "abandon ship" and lose the game.
This design echoes cards like Demonic Pact, which offers significant advantages but imposes a ticking clock on the player. Players might attempt to leverage the card's benefits to win quickly or remove the enchantment before its ultimate effect takes hold. Alternatively, echoing Captain Kirk's ingenuity in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," players could potentially use cards like Donate to give the Kobayashi Maru Scenario enchantment to an opponent as their own defeat becomes imminent.
The Star Trek set will also reintroduce mechanics from previous sets, including Spacecraft and Station. Players will be able to crew iconic starships, and the Borg faction will utilize an "Assimilate" mechanic to convert opponent's creatures into Borg artifact creatures. The United Federation of Planets faction will feature a "Federation" mechanic, granting power boosts to creatures based on the number of creature types among non-Borg creatures controlled by the player. Additionally, the "Strange New Worlds" ability will provide rewards scaled by the number of differently named lands a player controls, and "Beam Me Up" will allow players to return a creature to their hand to cast an instant or sorcery from their graveyard.
The Magic: The Gathering Star Trek set is scheduled for release on November 13.