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Magic the Gathering x Star Trek: Bolding Going to Prerelease Weekend

Magic the Gathering x Star Trek: Bolding Going to Prerelease Weekend

by Jason Garvin in Events & Store Updates

Last weekend was our Star Trek prerelease, the latest in a growing line of Universes Beyond sets featuring some of the most popular and widely-recognized franchises across media.

It was really cool to see not only the new cards (shout out especially to the shock lands which, between the art and the custom border look incredible), but also hear about your excitement to play with cards from your favorite Star Trek series'.

While we know there are some personal preferences when it comes to liking a Universes Beyond set (if you're not a Trekkie, for example, some of this set's most clever references would be lost), we want to thank everyone who came out to our events this past weekend! It was a ton of fun seeing you get excited about Spock, or open an alternate-art card written entirely in Klingon, and explore the final frontier of space.

Playing a Universes Beyond Prerelease

Participating in a Universes Beyond set, whether prerelease or draft, is mostly the same as any flagship Magic set--besides seeing your favorite characters, or recognizing specific settings, at least.

While the sealed items for a Universes Beyond set cost more (packs, boxes, etc.), our prerelease events are always $39.99. We do this to make them as accessible as possible, to as many types of fans as possible.

Once you arrive, it's our usual tournament check-in process. We sold tickets through out website which included a code for the MTG Companion App. Note that we highly recommend using the app--Wizards has worked hard to incorporate it into the tournament experience, and they've done a great job. Checking in using the app makes it easier for us to confirm your attendance and saves you time when you arrive.

Once everyone's checked in, we make some rules announcements, go over new mechanics from the current set, and play a short explainer video of what to expect during that set's specific prerelease event. Then, we pass out sealed prerelease kits, each containing 6 packs plus a foil rare or mythic rare card from the set that you'll use to build your deck. Note that for two-headed giant, each team gets 2 of these kits, instead, and can share cards from between them.

Rounds and Prizes

For a traditional prerelease, we play 4 rounds, and for two-headed giant, we play five. On Sunday nights, to keep things extra-casual and mellow, we play 3 rounds, and give out a pack to everyone who won their match at the end of each round (commonly known as "pack rounds").

For the rest of our events, two packs per person are added to the prize pool, which we then split and pay out to individuals or teams with a positive record. In a 4-round event, that means two wins, one draw, and one loss, or better. In a 5-round event, that means three wins and two losses or better. There's some intricate math in certain edge cases, but a short way to know if you'll win prizes is if the number of wins you hold is higher than the number of losses.

Prereleases are our most casual-friendly event, requiring only a basic understanding of how to play, and so tend to be extra fun and relaxed. Players are courteous and helpful, and it's not uncommon to see players giving constructive feedback on each other's decks between rounds.

More Ways to Play Magic

Whether you attended the Star Trek prerelease and want more, or are looking to get into events now, instead, there are so many options available!

Especially if you're from the greater Denver metro area, we're a great place to play Magic, as well as other card games, miniatures games, and other tabletop hobbies. We've been here for almost 18 years and would love to have you at our next events.

We run draft every Friday, for example. Besides prerelease, it's our most new-player-friendly Magic event. We provide the cards in the form of sealed booster packs, so you just need to bring yourself and a basic understanding of how to play a game of Magic.

In fact, tonight, we have our release-night Star Trek draft, so stop by if you're excited by Star Trek but didn't get to attend the prerelease!

Otherwise, as we go into the holiday season, we'll see a break in new sets. Instead, enjoy the holidays, pick up gifts, and continue to refine your Magic skills before the new year comes around. Once it's 2027, we'll have a whole lineup of new Magic sets releasing, starting with Nauctis: The Sunken Realm at the end of January.

 

*All photo credit goes to Ryan Taylor, who continues to do incredible work in photographing our events.

Tags: 2026 CCGs Magic the Gathering Prerelease

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When it has damage on it equal or more than this number, it's destroyed and will have to be redeployed back at your base later! B- This is how many Victory Points your opponent gets when they destroy this unit. As you win the game by having more victory points than your opponent at the end of Phase 2, destroying enemy units is a pretty good way of earning them. C- This number is where on the Timeline this unit starts the game. The lower on the Timeline it starts, the sooner it gets to act in the beginning! D- The name of the unit. It's important to know that you can have unit's with the same name, but they can not be the exact same unit card (with the exception of models designated by the Mass Produced tag) E- These are the different tags your unit has! They're important to know for any tactics cards you want to use or abilities that might reference them. F- This is what an attack profile looks like. Most units have two you can pick from and they have a few different things to them: It's Timeline Cost, which is how far it moves up the Timeline when used; It's Range, which is how far away a unit can be and still target an enemy; It's Strength, which is how many dice you roll before modifiers when you use the attack; Any abilities the attack has (this particular Char's Zaku II doesn't have any); It's Critical Effect, which will activate when one of your dice rolls a 9 or 10 during an attack! G- These are the abilities unique to this unit. Some are ongoing bonuses that will always be active, some might activate in response to something happening, and others might require you to activate them as a command on your turn. You can use each Command ability on your unit card once per turn. Tactics Cards Your Tactic deck is made up of nine unique cards. 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These Primary Actions include Dashing for additional movement, Attacking enemies, Rescuing allied garrisons for Victory Points, or Energizing your unit so it can use powerful abilities. Once you use a primary action, you move your unit’s timeline tracker forward a number of spaces on the timeline based on the cost of the action, showing that it’ll activate again later in the Phase when the timeline reaches it again! If there are any other allied units on the same spot, then your unit that just activated goes underneath them, showing that the other units will activate before the unit you just used. If you and your opponent both have units on the same timeline, then the player who did just activate goes. Once all units have crossed over the end of the phase, you'll score points base on the scenario objective and then draw three new tactics cards from your tactics deck. If that was the second phase of the game, then you count up Victory Points. The player with the most wins! Your mobile suit's free movement is called an Advance, and it can be used at any point during it's activation. This allows them to move up to three spaces on the map. Moving up elevation costs 1 additional movement per difference in elevation you're moving. In this example, the Zaku II Enforcer needs to spend 2 of it's movement to move up one elevation to grab the upgrade. However, if you move from higher elevation to lower elevation, you have no movement penalty (and there's no fall damage)! You can even jump across gaps as long as it's the same move action. When you end your movement on an upgrade, you pick it up and add it to your unit! It's permanently there until some effect destroys it. Not even your own unit's destruction gets rid of it. Each one does something different, and all of them are useful.  Strength upgrades let you roll extra dice when you attack.  Shield upgrades prevent damage you take and reactivate the next time your unit activates. 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