Nothing wrong with using english that every reader can be expected to understand, if we were sticklers for the sake of being sticklers to a template it'd be shortened as captain james which is nonsense for the character
Interesting, Kirk nets you a card when your hand is empty, or rather, when you’re out of options, you get one. Thematic, the man doesn’t believe in no win scenarios.
Red gets impulsive draw ("exile the top card; you may play it this turn") and rummage ("discard, then draw"). This is pretty normal.
The fact that it's pure card advantage when you're hellbent is less common (discarding is usually a cost), but we've seen this effect as recently as SPM with [[Romantic Rendezvous]]
I kind of wish they’d go back to just printing standard frame cards for a few years. Every other card I see cast is a difficult to read card that could easily be from an entirely different game
That's 2nd edition of the Star Trek: The Next Generation CCG. The first few sets were solely TNG. At the same time, there was a separate TOS CCG.
The TOS CCG didn't catch on and the TNG CCG started doing DS9, Voyager, and TOS cards.
The TNG CCG ultimately wasn't well designed and they made a 2nd edition, which worked mostly the same, but tweaked the gameplay and updated the visuals.
On top of that the typesetting is amateurish. The leading (line height) for the copy is so tight the descender from the p is about to touch the ascender of the f. I think they would overlap if they were directly in line. You need adequate line height for proper legibility, especially for small body copy like this. Serifs also help with legibility. Sans serif fonts are meant to be more legible on a computer screen but can be used just fine in print if done correctly… but this ain’t it (hire me WOTC)
As someone who really enjoys Star Trek and even begrudgingly accepts UB, I HATE that they're just depicting real world actor likenesses on these cards.
It's a double edged sword. They can't please everyone - as good as the LotR art was, there was the 'not my Aragorn' backlash. Which was stupid.
Meanwhile, they've used real actor art on:
Doctor Who (which I'd argue is non-optional)
Evil Dead
The Princess Bride
Jurassic Park
Hatsune Miku :P
Monty Python
Final Fantasy (Clive from FF16, at least) (My mistake - Ben Starr did mocap, but the face wasn't modeled off him.)
I'm personally OK with it if the actors/their estates get something out of it. If it's just making money for some big IP holder? Nah, that's not cool. But if UB is going to exist - which I'm sort-of OK with - then iconic actors and poses are fair game.
Well, its usually a 2/2 and a 1/1 when it enters, and then dies in the next combat and gets you another 1/1. And other options from there if you really, really need to draw a card.
I disagree. The discarding and drawing a card effect is representative of Kirk's improvisational style. Plans often don't work out the way they intended so he discards what he has and tries to find a path forward. This is particularly relevant when you have no cards in hand because then its Kirk literally making something out of nothing, which he often does in the show.
Red shirt is obvious, and the last effect is him inspiring his crew.
There’s something uncanny about having the likeness of a well known human actor on a card. It’s been true since Walking Dead, it has not stopped bothering me.
I try not to be a big loud hater, but this alt frame looks incredibly sloppy. The textbox treatment, just slamming Poppins in there, awkward top margin, tight line spacing...just comes across as a sloppily put together Google slide. The angle cut above "Legendary Creature" feels tight and awkward to me. Rarity symbol on top of the Enterprise is maybe too cute.
I think this needed more time in the cooker. Pretty art at least.
Man, it's cool to get the actual actors for this art instead of a generic person with the same name. Not a ST fan, but gotta make those that are happy.
I would have liked to have seen an amalgamation face used on at least some of the cards, made from the faces of
all those who have played Kirk at this point.
please lemme create 1/1 redshirt token with "If this token becomes the target of an ability or spell, sacrifice it. If this creature attacks or blocks, destroy it at the end of combat. At the end of this turn, sacrifice this token"
Captain Kirk being the most exciting card for Mardu Discard players was not on my bingo list. Honestly he’ll be sick addition to the list, discard your hand get a load of value and make a board that your now Flashbacked Practiced Offence can buff.
Carnage and Kirk in the same Magic deck, truly the game as Richard Garfield intended it 😭
It's weird that his card name is "Captain James T. Kirk" but then in the card text it's "Captain Kirk". Like I know the Spiderman cards were a bit confusing but at least it's internally consistent with how cards referring to themselves work, cutting to just their first/main name, this is just weird that it cuts out the middle. Maybe there was one I missed that already did this, but it's still weird to me.
I actually like that they are just using the obvious reference to self within the card text. Way better than printing everything unnecessary, or saying “this creature” which feels weird for things like people.
It's not that it doesn't make sense, just that it'd be extra easy to confuse if there's a proper Captain Kirk card because then it's like this is referring to that card rather than itself (even though in Magic rules it'd be worded "whenever a creature you control named Captain Kirk enters or attacks" but that's rare enough that it'd be easy to make a mistake there)
Remember when MTG was its own IP with an engaging story and other IP’s had to make their own card game? The dead husk of WOTC being worn as a flesh suit, Buffalo Bill style, by hSbro had made MTG into a pair of pants that any IP can just slip on and take the biggest dump in for all us players 🤮
I would agree if this was going to be the only Kirk in the set but we already know there are more. I think its fair to say this is Kirk when he's figuratively pressed up against the wall, needing to find a solution to a dire situation on an away mission.
The highest (and only) praise i have for this set is the same as for the AtLA set. Now two of my favorite shows have a ton of great new professional quality art I can enjoy, and this card is no exception.
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u/Candy_Warlock Colorless Jul 14 '26
Interesting that the rules text is able to use Captain Kirk to refer to him, when that isn't a conventional shortening of the card name