Precon upgrade guide · Star Trek Commander

We Are the Borg precon upgrade guide

Every one of the box's twenty creatures is a Borg artifact creature, so every artifact anthem it runs reaches the whole board. What it lacks is card draw that keeps flowing when the board stalls.

I'm writing this seventeen days before the deck reaches shelves. Star Trek Commander releases on 13 November 2026, and 37 of these 100 cards, the commander among them, are new Star Trek cards. Until that date a deck checker will refuse all 37, because Scryfall lists every unreleased card as not yet legal. Only a handful show a price at all, and those are preorders. So every card this guide adds is one you can buy today, priced at its cheapest released printing, and nothing here puts a dollar figure on the new cards.

The tribe is already done for you. All twenty creatures in the box are Borg, all twenty are artifacts, and so is anything The Borg Queen steals, which means every artifact anthem in the deck reaches the entire board. What holds the box back sits around that core: 38 lands plus fourteen pieces of ramp, six of those lands entering tapped, repeatable card draw that needs a creature to connect, die or be sacrificed first, and a few expensive cards that do less for an all-artifact board than they look like they should. Twelve swaps deal with all of it.

What are the best We Are the Borg upgrades?

If you buy a few at a time, buy them in this order. Prices are TCGplayer market prices for the cheapest released printing as of 27 October 2026, which is sometimes a promo or a Commander reprint rather than the original. Hover any name to see the card.

1. Kindred Discovery (~$5.16). Name Borg. Every token the box makes is a Borg, so is every creature the Queen assimilates, and 20 of the 23 creatures in the upgraded list are printed Borg. It draws when they enter and again when they attack, which is the draw this box lacks: its own repeatable draw needs a creature to connect, die or be sacrificed first.
2. Steel Overseer (~$0.24). Two mana, and every turn it puts a +1/+1 counter on each artifact creature you control, tokens and itself included. Nothing else on the list does as much per dollar.
3. Akroma's Will (~$16.51). With your commander out you get both modes. The one that matters is double strike: four creatures in the box give every artifact creature a trigger on combat damage to a player, and Jurati, Cordial Queen triggers on that damage too, so a double strike swing fires each of them twice. Protection from each color means no colored creature can block, and indestructible makes a bad block cost you nothing.
4. Hallowed Fountain, Godless Shrine and Watery Grave (~$7.49, ~$8.41 and ~$9.91). Duals that enter untapped for 2 life, in place of lands that always enter tapped. All three are reprinted in the Star Trek main set on the day this deck comes out, so these prices belong to older printings and may move once the new ones reach the market.
5. Sai, Master Thopterist (~$0.36). The upgraded list runs 43 artifacts, and Sai makes a 1/1 flying Thopter for each artifact spell you cast. Every artifact anthem in the deck pumps the Thopters, and flying carries them past the blockers that keep your Borg from connecting.
6. Swords to Plowshares and Infernal Grasp (~$1.27 and ~$0.34). One mana and two mana to answer a creature, in place of a four-mana spell that can't touch creatures at all and a seven-mana sweeper that takes your own board with it.
7. Idol of Oblivion (~$2.57). It taps to draw a card on any turn you created a token, and eleven other cards in the upgraded list make tokens. Late in a game it trades itself and eight mana for a 10/10.
8. Master of Etherium (~$0.26). Another +1/+1 for every other artifact creature, on a body as big as your artifact count. With 43 artifacts in the list, that body is rarely small.
9. Adarkar Wastes (~$0.35). It replaces Skycloud Expanse, which makes nothing until you feed it a mana. The Wastes tap for white or blue on their own from turn one.

All twelve adds are in that list. What leaves to make room is under the cuts and the mana base.

Every stolen creature becomes an artifact

The Borg Queen is a 4/4 that gives artifact creatures you control +2/+2, and she's an artifact creature herself, so she plays as a 6/6. Whenever she enters or attacks, an opponent you target exiles cards off the top of their library until they hit a creature card, and you assimilate it: it comes onto the battlefield under your control with a +1/+1 counter, as a Borg artifact creature that has lost its other creature types. That last clause is the one to build around. The stolen creature is now an artifact, so it gets her +2/+2 on top of its counter, and every other artifact anthem in the deck applies to it too.

The box carries plenty of those. Tempered Steel is another +2/+2, Locutus, the One Who Speaks and The Immortal Sun each add +1/+1, Class-4 Tactical Cube adds +1/+1 once it's stationed to seven, and Door of Destinies grows the Borg every time you cast one. Three more cards keep the theft going after the Queen. Gift of Perfection reveals from every opponent and lets you keep the creature you like best, Assimilate the Wounded takes creatures that went to the graveyard from the battlefield this turn, and Assimilation Assessor exiles a graveyard as it arrives and steals a creature from that pile each time it attacks.

The anthems speed up the Spacecraft as well. Station taps another creature you control and adds charge counters equal to its power, so a Borg token stations for three once the Queen is out instead of one, and Optimization Annex adds one more counter every time. Two boosted tokens take Borg Scout Sphere to six, and from then on every artifact creature you control has flying. That's the evasion plan I'd lean on, ahead of the one-turn tricks.

Steel Overseer and Master of Etherium are artifact creatures, so all of this reaches them, but neither is a Borg. Sai, Master Thopterist is neither an artifact nor a Borg, though its Thopters are artifacts. What the three miss is narrow: the list's two choose-a-type cards, Door of Destinies and Kindred Discovery, ignore them. Name Borg on both regardless. The box's tokens are Borg, assimilated creatures turn Borg, and 20 of the 23 creatures in the upgraded list are printed Borg, so three off-type creatures that each make the whole board bigger are worth what they miss.

The box's repeatable draw all comes with a condition

Look at the cards that draw more than once. Co-Option Adjutant and Hive Mind Coprocessor give every artifact creature a draw on combat damage to a player, the second at 1 life a card. Skullclamp needs a creature to die, Reclamation Specialist needs you to sacrifice an artifact creature, and Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct loots rather than draws. The Immortal Sun is the only one with no condition, and it costs six. The rest are one-shots: Thoughtcast, Thirst for Knowledge, Collective Override's card per attacker and the card Borg Scout Sphere draws when it enters.

That's fine while you're attacking, and this deck wants to attack. But a board that's stalled or swept also stops drawing. The three draw adds ask for less. Kindred Discovery pays out when a Borg enters or attacks, whether the attack connects or not. Idol of Oblivion draws on any turn you make a token. Sai, Master Thopterist sacrifices two artifacts to draw one, and a deck with 43 artifacts always has two it can spare.

The combat side already has its multiplier in the box. One, Borg Evolved gives every artifact creature you control flying, double strike, vigilance, menace, lifelink and ward 2, so each damage trigger fires twice for as long as it lives. It costs seven, the same as the commander. Akroma's Will is the four-mana instant version for the turn you need it, and it adds indestructible. Extraction Integrant's menace, Rogue's Passage and Transwarp Hub cover the turns you have neither.

Skullclamp stays, and it's worth knowing when it works here, because the anthems fight it. It gives +1/-1, so a bare 1/1 token dies and draws two. Once the Queen is out that token is a 3/3, the Clamp makes it a 4/2, and nothing happens. Use it early, before the anthems land, and on Stratagem Emulator while no anthem is out: the Emulator is a 2/1, the Clamp makes it a 3/0, and it dies to draw two cards and make three Borg tokens, because it counts its power as it died.

Swiftfoot Boots stays for the commander. The Queen costs seven and her trigger is the reason to cast her. With one more mana for the equip, haste gets you an attack trigger the turn she lands, two thefts for one cast, and hexproof keeps a single removal spell from undoing the turn you spent on her.

Six spells out, starting with a sweeper that kills your own Borg

Join the Collective is seven mana to destroy every creature, and it pays you one Borg token for each nonartifact creature it killed. Every creature you own is an artifact, so your board dies and earns nothing. Cast Emergency Regeneration first and your artifacts survive as indestructible, but that's nine mana across two cards for a result Battle of Wolf 359 gets alone: it shrinks only nonartifact creatures, by the number of artifact creatures you control. Toxic Deluge stays as the flexible one: you choose X, so it can clear everything or stop just below your own board's toughness.

Forsaken Monument gives +2/+2 to colorless creatures. Of the twenty creatures in the box, one is colorless (Reconnaissance Partition). It does pump the Borg tokens, but Tempered Steel pumps them for three mana and reaches the colored Borg too. The Monument's extra colorless mana is real ramp, but this deck already runs thirteen other ramp pieces, so the card has to earn its slot as an anthem, and as an anthem it misses nineteen of the twenty creatures.

The Best of Both Worlds costs six, takes a creature with chapter I, pumps your artifact creatures with chapter II and hands the creature back with chapter III. Gift of Perfection costs five and keeps what it takes.

Return to Dust asks for two white mana to answer artifacts and enchantments only. Swords to Plowshares and Infernal Grasp take its slot and the sweeper's, and Anguished Unmaking still covers the artifact or enchantment that has to go.

Darksteel Plate makes one creature indestructible for five mana all in. Emergency Regeneration does it for every artifact you control for two, at instant speed, for the turn that matters, and the Queen already has the Boots.

Wayfarer's Bauble spends three mana in total to fetch a tapped basic, in a deck that started with 38 lands. The next section is about why it wants fewer.

The other six cuts are lands.

A seven-mana commander on 38 lands and fourteen ramp pieces

The box's answer to a seven-drop commander is volume: 38 lands and fourteen ramp pieces, from Sol Ring and three Talismans up to Stonespeaker Crystal and Queen's Diamond. That's 52 mana sources in 99 cards, for an average mana value of 3.28. The upgrade keeps twelve of the ramp pieces and trims the land count to 36, still inside the usual 35 to 38 for this curve, and the average falls to 3.11.

The lands that leave are the ones that enter tapped. The box runs six that always do: Arcane Sanctum, Shore Leave Planet, Path of Ancestry and three cycling duals. Five go. Arcane Sanctum and Shore Leave Planet first, the second because it taps for blue only and its copy ability wants five more mana. Path of Ancestry is the right land for a deck where every creature shares the Queen's Borg type, but a scry doesn't pay for a tapped land on the turns this deck is racing to seven mana. Of the cycling duals I keep Irrigated Farmland, the white and blue one, because three of the upgraded list's four double-pip spells want two white or two blue (Tempered Steel, Disallow and Kindred Discovery) and only Battle of Wolf 359 wants two black. Fetid Pools and Umbral Expanse go, and so does Skycloud Expanse, for the reason in the ranked list.

In come the three shocklands and Adarkar Wastes. That takes the always-tapped count from six to one. Sources dip with the land count: white 27 to 26, blue 30 to 28, black 28 to 26. Cutting Return to Dust and Join the Collective leaves Tempered Steel as the only spell asking for two white, and the chance of having that by turn three on the play moves from 76% to 74%, a cost I'd take for five fewer tapped lands.

Three more lands in the box want you to control two basics: Eclipsed Steppe, Prairie Stream and Sunken Hollow. With 12 basics among 36 lands, expect those to enter tapped in the first few turns, though Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Contaminated Landscape all fetch basics and help them later. They're the next lands I'd replace if you want to go further, and Caves of Koilos at about $0.30 is the white and black one to start with.

Two cards that look slow stay because they make the commander cheaper. Võx, Child of the Collective gives your next artifact creature spell each turn undaunted, one less mana per opponent: in a four-player game that's three off The Borg Queen on any turn you recast her. Queen's Diamond taps for one mana per charge counter, for your commander only, and Optimization Annex adds a counter every time you station it.

What I left out, and what to look at on 13 November

Token doubling is the obvious next step in a deck where eleven cards make Borg or Thopter tokens, and the white options are all dear. Mondrak, Glory Dominus costs about $43 and Anointed Procession about $58, and either one would about double the upgrade's cost on its own. If you buy one more card, make it Mondrak: four mana, a 4/4 body, and a way to sacrifice spare artifacts for its own protection.

Teferi's Protection (about $36) is the best white answer to a sweeper aimed at your board, and I left it out for the bracket, not the price. It's a Game Changer, so one copy sets the deck's floor at Bracket 3.

The Star Trek main set comes out the same day as this deck and has Borg of its own. Primary Unimatrix Adjunct gives your artifact creatures double strike for four mana, the permanent version of the Akroma's Will turn. It isn't among the swaps because it isn't released and has no price yet, but it's the first card I'd look at once the set is out.

The upgraded decklist

The hundred cards after the twelve swaps, with the Star Trek cards in the printings the box ships. Hover any name to see the card.

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“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena, with no account needed.

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FAQ

Do creatures The Borg Queen assimilates get her +2/+2?

Yes. An assimilated card enters as a Borg artifact creature with a +1/+1 counter, and her anthem covers artifact creatures you control, so a stolen 3/3 arrives as a 6/6. Tempered Steel, Steel Overseer's counters and the other artifact anthems reach it the same way, and it stays yours, counter and artifact type included, even after she leaves the battlefield.

What bracket is We Are the Borg, stock or upgraded?

Neither list has a Game Changer, so neither sets a bracket floor, and most tables would read the upgraded list as Bracket 2. One caution for a deck that isn't out yet: no Star Trek card carries the Game Changer tag today, and Wizards revises that list on its own schedule, so the floor could rise later without a card in the list changing. The bracket checker shows the reasoning card by card.

Does Join the Collective spare your own creatures?

No. It destroys every creature, yours included, and only counts nonartifact creatures when it makes Borg tokens, so a board of artifact creatures dies and earns nothing. Cast Emergency Regeneration first and your artifacts are indestructible for the turn, which makes it one-sided at nine mana across two cards. Battle of Wolf 359 does that job alone, which is why this guide cuts Join the Collective.

Which creature type should Door of Destinies name in this deck?

Borg. All twenty creatures in the box are Borg. Door of Destinies only counts spells you cast, so tokens and assimilated creatures never add a counter to it, but they're Borg and they get the bonus. Kindred Discovery, if you add it, should name Borg too, and it does see tokens and stolen creatures, because it triggers when a creature enters rather than when it's cast.

What does it cost to make all twelve Borg swaps?

About $53 at the cheapest released printing of each card on 27 October 2026. Akroma's Will is the dearest at about $17, the three shocklands come to about $26 together, and five of the twelve cost under a dollar. The cards coming out have no settled prices because the deck isn't released yet. The shocklands are reprinted in the Star Trek main set, so theirs are the prices most likely to change.

Why does a deck checker reject this list right now?

Because 34 of its cards (37 in the box) are new Star Trek cards, and until the set releases on 13 November 2026 they're recorded as not legal in Commander. That's a placeholder, not a ban. The twelve adds are legal today, and the rest become legal on release day.