Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to be talking about Captain Jean-Luc Picard!

Captain Picard is a three mana 2/3 that gives other creatures you control +1/+1, whenever you cast a creature or Spacecraft spell create a 1/1 red Officer creature token and you can tap seven untapped Officers you control to search your library for a Spacecraft card, put it onto the battlefield with seven charge counters on it, then shuffle.

Game Plan

We begin our week long look at the upcoming Star Trek set on a bit of a solemn one. As I’m sure most of you are aware by now Sir Patrick Stewart has recently passed away, and one of his most well known roles was as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

My history with Star Trek is spotty, having seen clips and reviews here and there along with the more recent Star Trek movies. I enjoy many aspects of the franchise and do want to explore it more thoroughly because it does seem like a series that I would like.

As far as the card is concerned, Captain Picard is a solid Commander that will allow us to get some Spacecraft onto the battlefield along with being able to charge them up by a large margin to either have them completely charged up or mostly charged up. The idea is to cast some creatures and Spacecraft to get some Officers in play to cheat out some heavy hitting Spacecraft.

Support

Ideally we want to cast some cheap creatures to start packing the board with some Officers.

Deanna Troi, Psychic Counsel is a great example of what we are looking for because she is two mana and has it so that other creatures we control enter with a +1/+1 counter on them, meaning that the Officer tokens we make become 3/3 creatures with the buff that Captain Picard gives them and the +1/+1 counter.

There are also cards like Giver of Runes and Mother of Runes, cheap one mana creatures that can also give a creature we control protection from a color, or in Giver of Runes case colorless as well, which can help keep Captain Picard safe from a variety of removal spells while allowing us to block some problematic creatures without destroying our own.

Cosmogrand Zenith is an interesting card to consider because whenever we cast our second spell each turn we can choose to make two 1/1 Human Soldier creature tokens or put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control, and we can use both to either get more bodies in play that can block or Station some Spacecraft or boost the creatures we do have that can attack or again Station some Spacecraft.

Speaking of Spacecraft, there are a good number we can now consider for the deck. Of course one of the first to look at is the U.S.S Enterprise-D, Galaxy-Class which has it so that whenever one or more charge counters are put on it the first time each turn we can exile the top card of our library and play it this turn, and it just so happens to be fully Stationed when it has 7+ charge counters and becomes 4/5 with flying and vigilance.

If we want to keep in flavor, there is also the U.S.S. Stargazer, Here and There which becomes fully Stationed at 6+ counters and becomes a 4/3 with flying and has the Picard Maneuver which is whenever it attacks you create a tapped and attacking 4/3 Spacecraft Illusion artifact creature token with flying that is exiled at the end of combat.

We can make things more ideal for us casting some of the Spacecraft by using Type-03 Borg Vessel which makes artifact spells we control cost one mana less to cast and becomes fully Stationed at 7+ counters and becomes a 5/5 with flying that makes a 1/1 colorless Borg artifact creature token whenever we cast a spell.

With us delving into making a decent number of tokens of different types, it may also be worth it to consider Maskwood Nexus, which makes it so that creatures we control, creature spells we control, and creature cards we own that aren’t on the battlefield are every creature type so that we can tap them to cheat out some Spacecraft.

There are a few avenues in how we win, but one of the better options we have access to is through the Spacecraft Deep Space 9 which when it enters and at the beginning of our upkeep we exile the top four cards of our library and put all permanent cards exiled this way onto the battlefield and when it is full Stationed at 9+ counters then creatures we control get +3/+3, and since we ideally have a lot of creatures, we can make a massive swing for game.

Setbacks

Captain Picard is a pretty solid Commander all things considered, however there are few things that can be troublesome to deal with.

First of all, like many Commanders, Captain Picard is susceptible to removal, which makes it harder to cheat out the big Spacecraft we want because Captain Picard is the engine of that strategy.

What’s more, we are also reliant on a specific creature type in order to get those Spacecraft onto the battlefield. While we can remain in flavor and choose Officers from the Star Trek set, that would limit us in some regard because there are a solid number of cheap utility creatures we can make use of that are not the Officer creature type.

Captain Picard does make more Officer tokens whenever we cast a creature or Spacecraft so that becomes less of an issue, but he needs to be in play for that to happen. Also since we need a good number of Officers in play in order to tutor for a Spacecraft, we are very susceptible to board wipes.

Another issue is that we risk drawing our bigger Spacecraft much earlier than we would like. The thing about being able to tutor for something from our library to the battlefield is that it needs to be in our library to do so, and white doesn’t have many ways to get cards back from their hand to their library.

While we also gain the Officer tokens from casting our Spacecraft, a lot of Spacecraft tend to be pretty pricey to cast, and if we are nearing the end game can be a bit too late to the party in terms of winning us the game, especially since they don’t get the charge counter boost from Captain Picard.

Bracket Rating: 3

I think that Captain Picard is a solid Commander with a fairly straightforward play style that is actually much more varied than he initially seems.

The issues of removal and troubles that having a Spacecraft in hand aside, I think that getting to the ideal number of Officers in play is not that much of an issue to achieve and can potentially make Spacecraft decks much more viable, especially if you are able to add Captain Picard into other Spacecraft decks. On his own Captain Picard is great, but he can certainly make other decks better.

Thank you all for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Rest easy, Sir Patrick Stewart,

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual