Commander blueprint · Star Trek · Preview

How to build Data, New Life

Data, New Life puts a +1/+1 counter on himself for every card you draw and does nothing else, so his power is a running count of your draws. This mono-blue list draws in small, cheap pieces through the whole round and wins with commander damage.

Art by Kieran Yanner

His power counts the cards you have drawn since he arrived, and the damage keeps adding up

Data enters as a 0/1. Until you draw a card he deals no combat damage, so nothing that needs him to connect can trigger, and the first counter matters more than any after it. From there each attack hits for exactly the number of cards you have drawn since he entered.

Commander damage is totalled for each opponent across the whole game, so no single hit has to be big. Draw three cards between attacks and he hits for 3, then 6, then 9, then 12, and the player who took all four has taken 30. Draw six between attacks, which is what Mr. Spock makes of three, and a player who takes 6 and then 12 is on 18 and dies to the third. When he leaves the battlefield the counters go with him, but the damage he has already dealt stays on each player's total, because the game tracks it for each commander card however many times it is cast.

Fact or Fiction puts cards in your hand without drawing a single one

Data counts draws, and in Magic a card is only drawn when the text says draw. Fact or Fiction, Dig Through Time and Impulse all put cards into your hand, and none of them gives him a counter. That keeps three of blue's best card selection spells out of a deck that lives on cards. Lieutenant Commander Data's list runs Fact or Fiction and Dig Through Time, because he wants spells cast and does not mind how they arrive. This one needs the word.

The cheap draws do the most work. Brainstorm draws three, so it is three counters for one mana, and the two cards you put back take nothing away. Gitaxian Probe can be paid for with 2 life. Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble cost nothing and draw at the start of the next upkeep, so one cracked during the turn just before yours draws in your upkeep, before he attacks. Frantic Search draws two and untaps three lands, two counters for nothing. Ponder, Preordain, Opt and Consider are a counter each with a look at the top of the library first, and Thought Scour mills two cards from any library as it draws. Lonely Sandbar and Remote Isle are lands until you need a draw, and Cephalid Coliseum makes you draw three once seven cards are in your graveyard.

Discarding never removes a counter. Chart a Course, Thirst for Knowledge and Frantic Search all ask for discards after the draw, and Data has been paid by then. Hand size works the same way. The counters land as you draw, so discarding at the end of your turn costs cards and not power, and Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel stop it costing cards too.

Mr. Spock makes every card drawn two counters, and Thought Reflection doubles that again

Mr. Spock, Science Officer replaces each card you would draw with two, and both of those are draws, so each puts a counter on Data. Your draw step becomes two counters and Brainstorm becomes six. Thought Reflection does the same for seven mana, and the two multiply, the same way the rulings on Thought Reflection describe two copies of it: with both out, one card becomes four. Teferi's Ageless Insight is the third doubler, and it skips only the first card of each of your draw steps. Every other draw you make, on any player's turn, doubles once more, so with all three out a card drawn outside your draw step is eight counters.

The catch is that Mr. Spock and Thought Reflection are not optional. With both out your draw step is four cards whether you want them or not, and a Windfall for seven is twenty eight. Trying to draw from an empty library loses the game before twenty one damage can win it, so once two doublers are down, stop drawing for value and count what is left in your library. Blue Sun's Zenith shuffles itself back in, Echo of Eons and Midnight Clock put your graveyard back into your library, and Consecrated Sphinx, Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora and Mind's Eye all say may, so you can turn them down.

Consecrated Sphinx turns three opponents' draw steps into six counters

Consecrated Sphinx lets you draw two cards whenever an opponent draws one. In a four player game the opponents' draw steps alone are six cards and six counters a round, before anyone casts a draw spell, and twelve with Mr. Spock out. It also changes what some cards in the list are. Words of Wisdom draws you two and each other player one, which with the Sphinx out is eight counters for two mana. Arcane Denial lets the player whose spell you counter draw up to two at the next upkeep, and each card they take is two more for you.

The rest of the opponents' half is cheaper and less certain. Rhystic Study draws when an opponent casts a spell and does not pay , and Mystic Remora when they cast a noncreature spell and do not pay . Mind's Eye draws for one mana each time an opponent draws. Faerie Mastermind draws when an opponent draws their second card in a turn, and Ledger Shredder connives, which is a draw and a discard, whenever any player casts their second spell in a turn. All of these fire on other players' turns. Data cannot attack then, but he grows then, so he comes into your combat larger than he left the last one.

Each hit draws, so the next hit is bigger

Data is an artifact creature, so Co-Option Adjutant draws you a card every time he deals combat damage to a player. Curiosity does the same from a one mana Aura, Mask of Memory draws two and discards one, and Bident of Thassa draws for any creature of yours that connects. With all four working, one hit is five draws and five counters. None of those count toward the hit that drew them, because the triggers resolve after the damage is dealt. They count toward the next one.

Sword of Fire and Ice would be a fifth, and it stays out on purpose. It gives him protection from blue, and a creature with protection from blue cannot be enchanted by a blue Aura, so Curiosity and Aqueous Form would fall off the moment it was attached, and your own blue spells could no longer target him.

Getting through is the other half. Aqueous Form makes him unblockable for and lets you scry each time he attacks. Whispersilk Cloak makes him unblockable with shroud, Key to the City does it for one turn at the cost of a discard and offers a card for each time it untaps, and Rogue's Passage does it from the land slot. Shroud needs an order. Whispersilk Cloak and Lightning Greaves stop your own Auras and equip abilities from targeting him as well, so put Curiosity, Aqueous Form and Mask of Memory on first and the shroud last. Swiftfoot Boots gives hexproof, which only stops opponents.

Padeem gives him hexproof because he is an artifact, and artifact removal finds him for the same reason

Padeem, Consul of Innovation gives every artifact you control hexproof. Data is an artifact, so with Padeem out he is safe from targeted removal without any equipment, and your own Auras still go on him. So are Seven of Nine, Unassimilated, Co-Option Adjutant, Psychosis Crawler, the equipment and Mind's Eye. Padeem also draws a card in your upkeep whenever you control the artifact with the highest mana value on the battlefield, and Mind's Eye and Psychosis Crawler cost five.

The type cuts the other way too. An opponent's artifact removal is creature removal against Data, and a sweeper that destroys every artifact, or an overloaded Vandalblast, reaches him through hexproof because it targets nothing. A table holding artifact hate for someone's mana rocks is holding an answer to him as well, which is one more reason Fierce Guardianship and Counterspell stay in the core list.

Windfall is sized by the biggest hand, and this list keeps the biggest hand

Windfall makes each player discard their hand and then draw as many cards as the largest hand discarded. Discards cost Data nothing, so this deck sits on its cards, and Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel let it sit on more than seven, which means the largest hand is usually yours. A ten card hand makes Windfall ten counters for three mana. Echo of Eons shuffles every player's hand and graveyard back into their library and deals each of them a new seven, then comes back later from your graveyard for three. Midnight Clock is the wheel that refills you alone. It taps for blue, gains an hour counter at the start of every player's upkeep, and at twelve shuffles your hand and graveyard into your library and draws you seven, which in a four player game takes three rounds on its own, or fewer if you spend to add counters.

Every wheel but Midnight Clock also refills the table, and that is the price. Cast them once Data already has a way through and the table has used its removal, because seven new cards in each opponent's hand are seven new chances to find an answer.

Chasm Skulker and Nadir Kraken grow off the same draws when he is gone

Data costs two, so a recast costs four and then six, and that part is cheap. What removal really takes is the counters, and every card behind them has to be drawn again. Two other creatures feed on the same trigger. Chasm Skulker gets a +1/+1 counter whenever you draw and leaves that many 1/1 Squids with islandwalk when it dies, and Nadir Kraken lets you pay one mana per card drawn for a counter and a 1/1 Tentacle. Psychosis Crawler makes each opponent lose 1 life for every card you draw, so the clock keeps running on turns Data cannot connect. When he comes back, Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots give him haste, and Stroke of Genius or Blue Sun's Zenith cast for a big X on the turn before yours rebuilds him in one go.

The core list

Data and the 99 around him. Hover a name to see the card, and the price beside it is the cheapest paper copy on sale, which is the copy the hover shows.

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The budget rung draws on your own turn, and bracket 4 adds The One Ring

Neither ladder touches the engine. Data, Mr. Spock, Thought Reflection, Teferi's Ageless Insight and every one mana cantrip except Thought Scour stay in every rung, so moving between them changes how many cards arrive on other players' turns and how well he is protected, not what the deck is doing.

Nine swaps take the core list from at least $339 to at least $110. The cuts are mostly the cards that draw on other players' turns, Rhystic Study, Consecrated Sphinx, Mystic Remora, Faerie Mastermind and Ledger Shredder, and in their place come draws that happen only when you choose to make them: Arcanis the Omnipotent, Pull from Tomorrow, Deep Analysis and Merfolk Looter. That changes the rhythm more than the size. Data now grows mostly on your turn, in one large draw before combat, instead of a steady trickle through the round. Infiltration Lens makes a blocked attack worth two counters, Fierce Guardianship becomes Dive Down, which answers a targeted spell for , and Echo of Eons becomes Day's Undoing, a three mana wheel that ends your turn, so cast it after combat. With no Game Changers left, nothing holds the list above bracket 2.

Going up is ten swaps, at least $851 and eight Game Changers. The One Ring is the add that matters most here. Cast, it gives you protection from everything until your next turn, and after that each tap draws one more card than the last, one, then two, then three, every one of them a counter. Alhammarret's Archive is a fourth doubler that works like Teferi's Ageless Insight, Time Spiral is a wheel that untaps six of your lands, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a Brainstorm every turn, three counters a time. Kami of the Crescent Moon gives every player an extra card in their draw step, which is a bad trade on its own and a good one beside Consecrated Sphinx: with Mr. Spock out too, each opponent's draw step puts eight counters on Data. Mana Vault, Force of Will, Mystical Tutor and Cyclonic Rift are the usual reasons a blue list moves up, and Mox Amber taps for blue whenever Data is on the battlefield, since he is legendary. A list that grows its commander by eight on each opponent's turn is not one to bring to a casual pod without saying so first.

FAQ

Does Data, New Life get a counter for each card drawn or for each draw spell?

For each card. His ability triggers whenever you draw a card, so a spell that draws three puts three counters on him. Brainstorm counts as three even though two cards go back on top of your library, and the counters stay when they do.

What is the difference between Data, New Life and Lieutenant Commander Data?

Both are mono-blue Star Trek artifact creatures. Lieutenant Commander Data costs three, grows whenever any player casts a noncreature spell, and can pay a mana and remove three counters from among your creatures to draw a card. Data, New Life costs two, starts as a 0/1, grows only when you draw, and cannot spend his counters, so a deck built around him wins with commander damage while the other turns counters into cards.

Does Fact or Fiction put a counter on Data, New Life?

No. Fact or Fiction, Impulse and Dig Through Time put cards into your hand without drawing them, and he only counts draws. Cantrips, cycling, Clues and anything else whose text says draw do count.

How much does this Data, New Life deck cost?

At least $339 for the core list, with each card bought at its cheapest paper printing. Co-Option Adjutant and Cryogenic Stasis are not priced anywhere yet, so that is a floor, and the preorder prices on four other new cards should fall after release. The budget rung is at least $110 and keeps every draw doubler, and the bracket 4 version is at least $851.

Can I play Data, New Life in Commander yet?

Not until Star Trek is released on 13 November 2026. Until then deck checkers refuse him, and five other Star Trek cards in this list, as unreleased cards. That lifts on release day with no change to any ban list.

What bracket is a Data, New Life deck?

This core list is bracket 3 at the lowest, because Rhystic Study, Consecrated Sphinx and Fierce Guardianship are Game Changers. The budget rung drops all three, and nothing in it holds the list above bracket 2. No Star Trek card is a Game Changer yet, and Mr. Spock, Science Officer, a four mana creature that doubles every draw, is the one most likely to be looked at when Wizards next revises the list.

Is Data, New Life good?

He is a two mana commander that does nothing until you draw and then grows with every card. A list that draws four or five cards a round, as this one is built to, kills a player in three connections if he is left alone. A table full of cheap removal makes you rebuild him each time, which is why seven cards here make him unblockable or give him shroud or hexproof.