Magic: The Gathering officially spoiled a ton of new cards from the upcoming Star Trek set this week, including a very exciting cycle of rare lands.
For competitive Magic: The Gathering players, one of the most exciting parts of every set reveal is seeing which rare land cycle will be featured. The upcoming Star Trek set isn’t disappointing, with the inclusion of all ten shock lands.
Shock lands are a powerful staple in many Magic: The Gathering formats and offer players early game access to two different color mana at the relatively inexpensive cost of 2 life.
The following lands have all been confirmed in the Star Trek set visual spoiler:
Collectors will also be able to hunt down 10 special LCARS shock lands with unique art:
“Explore 10 different and strange new worlds with the 10 LCARS shock lands. Each LCARS shock land features a special frame that captures the Enterprise’s on-board computer, and the artwork depicts one of the many unforgettable planets explored in Star Trek. Whether you’re navigating Standard with Steam Vents or charting a course through Legacy with Watery Grave, you’ll want to add these lands to your personal database.”
Non-foil and traditional foil LCARS shock lands appear in Play Boosters and Collector Boosters. Surge foil versions of these cards appear only in Collector Boosters.
The inclusion of the full art LCARS shock lands is a very exciting addition that may add a bit of motivation for players to collect cards from this set, even if they already have a full set of shock lands from previous printings.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates as the Star Trek set release date approaches.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena. The Magic: The Gathering – Star Trek set releases November 13, 2026.
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Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming Star Trek set brings a handful of new mechanics to the CCG like most sets do, but it will also be introducing two new Commander specific mechanics.
Just about every Magic: The Gathering set features a handful of new and returning mechanics to shakeup the Limited and Constructed metagames, but not every set goes so far as to introduce new Commander mechanics.
Fans of the 100-card multiplayer format may be excited to learn that Magic: The Gathering – Star Trek is bringing two new mechanics to Commander this November.
Battlefront (Commander Only)
Battlefront is an ability word used to highlight abilities that care about the number of opponents you attacked this turn. This number will be used in different ways, depending on the specific battlefront ability. To attack an opponent means to declare one or more creatures as attacking that opponent. Creatures that enter the battlefield attacking won’t count. For example, if you attack a single opponent with a creature that has myriad, the number of opponents you attacked that turn is one, even though the token copies fanned out and went after each other opponent.
If there are multiple combats in a turn, battlefront abilities will remember who you’ve previously attacked. For example, say you’re in a game with three opponents, and in one combat phase you attack one opponent with Worf. Worf’s ability will trigger, and you’ll exile one card. If there’s another combat phase that turn and in that combat phase you attack the other two opponents, Worf’s ability will trigger again, this time exiling three cards
If instead in that additional combat you attack the same opponent you attacked in the first combat and one new opponent, Worf’s ability would exile two cards. Note that an opponent you attacked twice in a turn counts only once for battlefront abilities.
Seek Out (Commander Only)
Seek out is a new ability word that highlights triggered abilities that trigger whenever you draw your second card each turn. These abilities will trigger even if the permanent with the ability wasn’t under your control as you drew the first card.
So, if you draw Jean-Luc Picard, cast him, then draw a second card that turn, his seek out ability will trigger. Find a way to draw two cards during an opponent’s turn, and the ability will trigger again. Before you know it, your opponents will be left scrambling while you can relax behind a hand full of cards, a board full of colossal threats, and a nice cup of Earl Grey.
Once the full Commander decklists are revealed, it will be very exciting to see how Battlefront and Seek Out are put to use. Beyond the preconstructed decks, it will also be interesting to see how Commander players repurpose cards with these new mechanics into high-powered homebrew decks.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates as the Star Trek set release date approaches.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena. The Magic: The Gathering – Star Trek set releases November 13, 2026.
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Challenges with production and shipping are hitting Magic: The Gathering once again and cause some delays for a highly-anticipated Secret Lair bundle.
Magic: The Gathering collectors have had a lot of exciting products to consider lately, including the Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle. This collection is part of the new Magic initiative to give every new set the Secret Lair treatment.
Starting with Reality Fracture, every Magic Multiverse set will feature a Secret Lair Bundle that combines the set’s most popular and powerful new cards with a bit of Secret Lair flair. That means there will be special alternate art that provides a unique touch different from what players would find in Play Boosters.
Unfortunately, this first Secret Lair Bundle has been hit with some familiar issues. Due to production and shipping issues, the Reality Fracture Secret Lair Bundle is delayed globally and may arrive shortly after the October 23 release date. Exact delay timing will vary locally.
Secret Lair Bundles purchased as part of Secret Lair Chaos Vault bundles will follow typical Secret Lair fulfillment based on drop availability and production timing.
The Secret Lair Bundle was announced alongside the Strange School and Duality Distorted products, but the official announcement did not mention any issues with the production or shipping of those products at this time.
Magic: The Gathering and Wizards of the Coast will make an announcement if there are additional changes to Secret Lair Bundle availability.
A few Magic: The Gathering products have had delays recently due to similar shipping and production issues, so this may feel a bit familiar to players who follow the game’s releases closely. Hopefully these issues can be resolved quickly and collectors can get their hands on the new Secret Lair Bundle before long.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.
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In 1986, the New Republic held a reader competition to submit the most boring headline ever. The idea for the contest was inspired by a New York Times column from April of that year, headlined, "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." The New Republic said of the headline, "Each word taken alone is sleep-inducing. — Read the rest
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Magic Arena is bringing making some updates to the Arena Powered Cube Draft selection of cards, including the addition of one of the game’s most iconic combo opportunities.
The Splinter Twin combo first rose to popularity way back in 2011 when it emerged in the Standard format and the early days of Modern. Since then, it has been a popular combo option in various paper cube draft formats over the years.
After lots of requests from combo fans, the pieces are now being added to Magic Arena in the latest Arena Powered Cube update, which adds 22 new-to-MTG Arena cards and another 16 pieces of new-to-MTG Arena artwork.
Splinter Twin is now on MTG Arena. The combo notably has a replacement component in Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, which the team has added to MTG Arena to double your chances at building your combo.
With Divining Duelist, Glamermite, Pestermite, Restoration Angel, and Zealous Conscripts, there are enough creatures that combo with it while also having applications elsewhere. While the team has added Deceiver Exarch to MTG Arena, they’ve decided not to include it in the cube list as it only works as a combo piece (Pestermite is mostly a combo piece but can be used in a tempo and/or ninjutsu shell in a pinch) and requires two to three times as many loops as the other creatures do in order to create a lethal number of tokens.
The Arena Powered Cube Draft will be available to play from October 20 through November 10, so it should be very interesting to see how popular the Splinter Twin combo becomes and how different players react to seeing it at the digital table.
In addition to Splinter Twin, the update is also taking the opportunity to infuse some Reality Fracture flare into the Arena Powered Cube with cards like Stingcaster Mage, Seasoned Cryomancer, and Simulacrum Shaper.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering and Magic Arena news and updates soon.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.
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Magic: The Gathering is preparing to return to the world of Marvel Comics once again with the upcoming Marvel’s History of Heroes product and the full list of all 30 cards has just been revealed.
Magic: The Gathering has returned to the world of Marvel quite a few times lately and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down its pace. In addition to the upcoming Darkhold-themed set that arrives in April 2027, there is also a new Secret Lair Countdown Kit bringing more Marvel reprints and alternate art to the Secret Lair collection.
Each copy of Secret Lair Countdown Kit: Marvel’s History of Heroes contains 30 individually packaged Magic cards, each of which represents an era or moment from the history of the Marvel Universe. These cards randomly appear in non-foil, foil, or—when the stars and spells align—surge foil.
Marvel’s History of Heroes launches on November 2, 2026. The Secret Lair Countdown Kit: Marvel’s History of Heroes will cost collectors $199.99.
Here is the full list of all cards included in Secret Lair: Marvel’s History of Heroes:
A particularly interesting inclusion in the Countdown Kit is the appearance of two cards from a set that hasn’t been released yet. Doctor Strange, Master of Magic and Beta Ray Bill both appear in Secret Lair Countdown Kit: Marvel’s History of Heroes, representing the arcane and godlike corners of the Marvel Universe.
These are two uncommon cards from the main set of Magic: The Gathering | Marvel: Darkhold Destiny. Both cards will be legal in all formats starting with Magic: The Gathering | Marvel: Darkhold Destiny Prerelease events, which begin on April 2, 2027.
As always, shoppers should keep in mind that Secret Lair products are limited print runs and tend to sell out very quickly. That means that interested Marvel fans will want to act quickly and secure an order as soon as the Secret Lair drop goes on sale.
Be sure to check back soon for more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.
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Magic: The Gathering’s next big set officially launches in just about a little less than a month, but it sounds like some of the products may unfortunately be delayed due to production and shipping issues.
Reality Fracture just arrived a few weeks ago, but it’s already time to begin looking ahead to the next major Magic: The Gathering set. Spoiler season begins next week for the upcoming Star Trek-themed Universes Beyond set and the set is scheduled to arrive in stores on November 13.
That said, some unfortunately shipping and production issues may impact that release date for some of the products. Luckily, Play Boosters and Prerelease Packs are on track for availability during Prerelease and release events.
Other products may be delayed depending on your region. Some products may arrive after Prerelease events on November 6, while others may arrive after the set’s tabletop release on November 13.
“These delays are fluid, as our logistics teams are working to speed up timelines where possible, so always check with your local game store or retailer for availability information.”
As of today, here is the list of which products are impacted in each region:
Commander is an incredibly popular format in North America, so there will definitely be plenty of players eagerly awaiting the arrival of those preconstructed decks. We’ll be sure to stay posted on the latest updates and share any new schedule details as they become official.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates as the Star Trek set’s launch date approaches.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena. The Magic: The Gathering: Star Trek products are aiming for a November 13 launch.
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This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive their stories in your inbox every week.
Some 86 years ago, Missouri voters enshrined a system for selecting top judges that would remove political influence from the courts. And almost immediately, it came under attack.
Under what has come to be known as the Missouri Plan, lawyers help choose a slate of three candidates from which the governor must make an appointment for the state Supreme Court, appeals courts and, in some populous areas, the circuit courts.
In the first years after adoption, it faced pushback from party bosses who had historically used judicial seats for political patronage. They said it gave too much power to the lawyers. Voters, though, decisively defeated a repeal measure in 1942.
More recently, the conservative activist Leonard Leo, who viewed Missouri as a crucial battleground, tried in 2007 to persuade Republican Gov. Matt Blunt to reject a slate of Supreme Court candidates — part of a broader effort to weaken a judicial selection system that had become a model for some two dozen states around the country.
Blunt resisted and picked one of the three judges from the approved slate.
Then, in 2012, GOP lawmakers put a proposed overhaul before voters that, if approved, would have given the governor more control. Voters, by a 3-to-1 margin, turned back the plan.
Now the attacks are back, driven by a new grievance.
Reality Fracture adds a lot of new cards to the arsenal for Magic: The Gathering players, but one deck continues to dominate the field in the Modern format metagame.
Magic: The Gathering’s Modern format doesn’t have as many major shakeups as a rotating format like Standard, but a new set launch tends to bring a few new staples into the card pool that can have an impact.
At this point in the season, enough tournaments have taken place after the Reality Fracture launch for the number crunchers to begin studying what sort of impact the new set has had. Frank Karsten’s latest Metagame Mentor report reveals that Broodscale Combo is dominating the format by taking up 17.3% of the field and boasting an impressive 54.8% match win rate.
“Decks with poor matchups against Broodscale Combo, such as Esper Goryo’s, Esper Blink, Eldrazi Tron, Boros Land Destruction, and Dimir Midrange, are gradually declining in popularity… At the same time, decks with favorable matchups against Broodscale Combo, including properly tuned Boros Energy, Jeskai Blink, Jeskai Chant, and Azorius Chant, have been climbing in popularity. Azorius Chant in particular went 149-76 against Broodscale Combo across the last five Regional Championships, good for a 66% matchup. As a result, Azorius Chant has emerged as one of the best ways to defeat Broodscale Combo.”
Here is the full breakdown of the most popular decks in the Modern format as of mid-October 2026 (in order of popularity and performance):
For those who are less familiar with this format, Modern is a nonrotating 60-card format based on expansion sets, core sets, and straight-to-Modern sets from Eighth Edition forward, save for cards on the banned list.
Although Broodscale Combo is likely to be a top performer at upcoming tournaments, it sounds like there are plenty of decks that specialize in countering that strategy that players can bring to the table if they want to try and play the underdog and fight back against the top deck.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Magic: The Gathering news and updates.
Magic: The Gathering is available now at local game shops and digitally through Magic Arena.
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For years, but with increasing ferocity lately, the far-right has been directing its hatred toward Indian Americans and other immigrants of South Asian descent. Some Republican candidates have seized on this strain of bigotry, perhaps hoping a panic over demographic change will fuel voter turnout.
This week, this dark, very American story advanced to its inevitable next chapter, as a young man who police have described as unstable targeted a Hindu temple west of Chicago for a mass shooting.
However, when 19-year-old Alexandros Paporakis showed up at the temple in Aurora, Illinois, his gun jammed, police say.
He texted a colleague at Taco Bell, where he worked, about what he was up to. The colleague called the authorities.
“I think we were very fortunate that something much, much worse did not happen,” Palatine, Illinois’ police chief, Bill Nord, told press. “The seriousness of this alleged threat cannot be overstated,” he said later.
Police found tactical gear and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at the 19-year-old suspect’s home, as well as white nationalist material. They also found a manifesto titled “Why I Fought: A.K.A.: (Aurora Shooter’s Manifesto).” The manifesto targeted South Asian, Jewish and Black people, per local reports.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) was at the temple on Sunday when Paporakis turned up, he said, and on Thursday called on the feds to get involved.
“We know this type of hate is coursing thorough social media online, it’s exploded,” Krishnamoorthi told a local news station. “We can’t rely on luck, that’s why we have to condemn the hatred. We can’t stay silent, or worse, condone it or fan the flames.”
“Secondly,” he continued, “we have to redirect the FBI’s focus to domestic violent extremism and trying to uncover these plots.”
The FBI, under Trump, has largely abandoned efforts to track neo-Nazi extremists, in some cases repositioning resources toward targeting the president’s critics and political enemies.
The Trump administration effort to eject Muslim representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the country is the culmination of a years-long fixation.
It’s longtime Trump friend and now-former State Department Special Envoy for Arts and Culture Paolo Zampolli, who, Politico recently reported, has been in a bizarre, long-running, sprawling feud with his boss, cc-ing a dozen-plus people as they snap at each other over email. Among other issues, Zampolli blamed said boss, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, for, he thought, being the source of a New York Times article that said Zampolli got his longtime girlfriend deported by ICE as part of a custody battle over their son. (Yes, it’s messy.) The girlfriend, in turn, threatened to reveal details she said she knew about Trump, Melania, and Jeffrey Epstein. (Messy.) Anyway, Trump — who, as Josh Marshall observes, suddenly seems to have no taste for drama — canned Zampolli yesterday
No, says Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA).
“Right now we are defending U.S. assets there, so there is no war as we speak,” Wittman told HuffPost Thursday.
The European Commission’s bid to make the EU’s billions more responsive to the unknown crises of the future might also make them more prone to misuse, the EU’s top spending watchdog warned.
European Court of Auditors President Tony Murphy said key pillars of the Commission’s plan to overhaul the EU’s long-term budget would muddy the view for those in charge of making sure public money is spent as intended.
“It’s more difficult for us to follow the money,” Murphy said. “You’re saying to the member state, here’s a whole lot of money, and you make sure everything is okay. It’s sort of a self-policing.”
The warning comes as EU leaders continue fighting over the price tag for the EU’s post-2027 budget in Brussels this week — and as the auditors document an increase in misspending of taxpayer funds.
Yet separate from the budget’s bottom line is the debate over how that money gets divided. As a spending cycle marked by the pandemic, wars and climate-fueled disruption comes to a close, the Commission wants to make the next seven-year budget more agile by assigning about half of it — almost a trillion euros over seven years — to a single pot of money that countries can spend on objectives ranging from migration to agriculture and regional development.
Those agriculture and regional development funds — often delivered in the form of subsidies to farms and local projects — have long been vulnerable to fraud and misuse.
According to Murphy, giving capitals more leeway to shift spending would make spending even harder to track.
“There will be some flexibility, but at what cost?” he said in an interview. More of the oversight will depend on the checks each country has already put in place.
As it stands, misspending of the EU budget was on the rise last year, with errors affecting transactions for an estimated €5 billion according to the ECA’s latest report.
In the next EU budget, it might not be possible to even estimate such a number, Murphy warned, as each country’s auditors have different roles and ways of doing things. His head of cabinet, Wolfgang Stolz, added during the interview: “Year after year we have found that the work of these auditing authorities is not fully reliable.”
In a statement, the Commission defended its proposal, underlining that “key principles” of the current control system will remain in place. National authorities are “well-functioning,” the statement contended, but added that the Commission would maintain the right to ask capitals to “amend the plan or introduce correction mechanisms if needed.”
One of the Commission’s proposed innovations is putting the Common Agricultural Policy — historically a standalone budget line — into a behemoth umbrella fund known as the National and Regional Partnership Plans.
Murphy stressed that he’s not advocating for any model over the other. But as EU money increasingly merges with national budgets, it will be harder for Brussels to monitor where its money actually goes. The CAP is simpler to audit when “it’s not mixed up in this mixed bag,” Murphy said.
Headlines about farm subsidies paying for fake pastures in Greece and cash meant to support rural tourism in Slovakia instead going to luxury villas for the rich offer lurid illustrations of the challenge of policing these funds under the current system.
And the model for the new spending system — the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund — doesn’t bode well, Murphy said. While it became easier for countries to direct the funds where they were needed, the spending also became more opaque. The new national plans were designed using the same blueprint.
Under the current budget system, the ECA can physically visit a farm that receives EU funds. However, under the Covid recovery fund, the EU publishes only the top 100 beneficiaries each year.
“It’s not very transparent. I mean, where is the EU money actually ending up? That’s what matters,” Murphy said. “You have a fund where there are different policy areas with completely different objectives and timeframes, different delivery mechanisms and less predictability.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, campaigned earlier this year at a church alongside an Islamophobic pastor who has preached that Muslims are building a “caliphate” in the U.S.; that “Satan” is using Islam to launch an “apocalyptic” and “multi-front war” against America; and that the global “rebellion of Islam” is led “by the Devil himself.”
Ramaswamy, a billionaire businessman and former presidential candidate, is currently trailing in the polls to Democrat Amy Acton in the state’s closely-watched gubernatorial race. Earlier this year, on May 21, he held a campaign stop at the Liberty Valley Church — which describes itself as a “Bible-Believing Non Denominational Patriotic Church” — alongside Pastor Jeff Tauring.
Only two months before the event, according to a video reviewed by Talking Points Memo, Tauring delivered a Sunday sermon in which he told his congregation that the two main branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, both posed existential threats to Americans.
Listen on
Five years after the height of the Covid pandemic, how much better prepared is the EU for the next health crisis?
Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO health reporter Helen Collis and global health expert Michel Kazatchkine to discuss the mysterious death of a worker at a Russian anti-plague institute, and what it tells us about international health cooperation and transparency.
They look at what became of Brussels’ post-Covid ambitions — from the EU’s HERA health-emergency authority to better coordination of research — and at Donald Trump’s push to bring down US drug prices by putting pressure on Europe to pay more.
Plus: As Brussels tries to compete with the U.S. and China on biotech and new medicines, is it focusing on the innovation patients actually need?
Questions? Comments? Let us know on our WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.
The Missouri gerrymandering fight felt a lot like old-school Republican politics: boring, procedural trickery to rig the systems of government in their favor.
Newly-installed traffic lights at a busy corner in Stretford, England, keep failing and leaving motorists fightened and confused. Part of a £17.6m (about $24m) redevelopment of the town center, the new lights have gone out three times, reports the Manchester Evening News, a pattern one local councillor described as "very odd." — Read the rest
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