"Prepare for Assimilation! The Borg Queen Is Here to Steal Your Best Creatures."

"Prepare for Assimilation! The Borg Queen Is Here to Steal Your Best Creatures."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

Resistance is futile. Your creatures are no longer yours. Your carefully assembled Commander deck is now a recruitment pool for the Borg Collective, and The Borg Queen has arrived to make sure everyone gets a promotion they never applied for.

At seven mana, this legendary artifact creature demands a respectable investment. Fortunately, she rewards your commitment by giving all your artifact creatures +2/+2. Suddenly, those humble Thopters, Treasures-turned-constructs, and other mechanical monstrosities are looking less like spare parts and more like a serious threat.

But the real fun begins whenever The Borg Queen enters the battlefield or attacks.

Target an opponent, exile cards from the top of their library until a creature appears, and congratulations! That creature now works for you. It becomes a Borg artifact creature, gains a +1/+1 counter, and loses all its other creature types.

Your opponent spent six turns protecting their precious commander, carefully selecting synergistic creatures, and building an elaborate strategy. You simply hired their best employee without paying a salary.

And because this ability triggers on attacks, the Borg Queen can keep expanding the Collective. Every combat becomes a corporate acquisition meeting, except the negotiations involve absolutely no consent.

In Commander, this is particularly hilarious. Why build your own army when three opponents have already done the expensive deck-building work for you? Just remember that your stolen creatures lose their original types, so don't expect every tribal synergy to survive assimilation.

The +2/+2 bonus also turns your growing collection of mechanical employees into an increasingly terrifying workforce.

Of course, there is one small problem: six mana, three colors, and a legendary creature that practically screams, "Remove me immediately!"

Expect your opponents to cooperate against you. Ironically, the one time the table agrees on something is when everyone decides that you must be eliminated.

Still, The Borg Queen offers a wonderfully villainous Commander experience: steal creatures, build an army, and turn your opponents' strategies against them.

Resistance is futile. Your creatures will be assimilated. Your opponents will complain.

And somewhere across the table, someone is already checking whether Swords to Plowshares can save the galaxy.