Landing Party Upgrade Guide: Best Spock Upgrades

The final frontier has arrived in Commander. Landing Party is the Bant-colored Magic: The Gathering | Star Trek Commander precon led by Commander Spock, bringing together landfall, exploration, and a powerful new mechanic called strange new worlds.

Unlike conventional landfall decks that simply reward you for putting lands onto the battlefield, Spock cares about how many differently named lands you control. The more unique lands you discover, the more powerful the spells you can cast for free whenever he enters or attacks.

The original precon already contains excellent cards, including Exploration, Ancient Greenwarden, Scute Swarm, and Lotus Cobra. These give Landing Party a strong foundation, but there is still plenty of room to make its mana development, landfall engines, and commander triggers more consistent.

The best way to upgrade Landing Party is to increase your number of unique land names, add extra land drops, and turn repeated landfall triggers into meaningful card advantage and battlefield pressure. We’ll cover ten practical upgrades, ten specific replacements, budget-friendly improvements, and several ways to build around Spock.

How Does Landing Party Play?

Commander Spock is a five-mana 3/5 legendary creature with the strange new worlds ability. Whenever he enters the battlefield or attacks, you reveal the top card of your library.

If the revealed card is a spell with mana value no greater than the number of differently named lands you control, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. If it is a land, you may put it onto the battlefield tapped instead. If that card remains on top of your library afterward, you draw it.

This means Spock’s ability always offers a useful outcome: a free spell, another land, or a card in hand.

The important detail is that Spock counts unique land names, not your total number of lands.

For example, if you control three Forests, one Island, and one Command Tower, you have five lands but only three differently named lands.

Spock can therefore cast a revealed spell with mana value three or less for free, not five.

That changes how you should approach upgrading the mana base. Lands with unique names are especially valuable, provided they still produce the colors you need and do not slow the deck down excessively.

Why Landfall Works So Well with Spock

Although strange new worlds and landfall are different mechanics, they complement each other naturally.

Spock can put additional lands onto the battlefield, triggering cards such as Scute Swarm, Tireless Tracker, and Lotus Cobra.

Meanwhile, extra land-drop effects help you develop your mana and increase the number of unique land names available for future Spock triggers.

The original deck already includes Exploration and Ancient Greenwarden, two excellent cards for this strategy. The first accelerates land development, while the second doubles triggered abilities caused by lands entering the battlefield.

The ideal upgraded version combines these engines with additional landfall payoffs and ways to keep playing lands throughout the game.

The 10 Best Cards to Add to Landing Party

These upgrades focus on the precon’s core identity rather than turning it into a generic Bant value deck. Each card addresses a specific weakness or strengthens an existing synergy.

1. Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait is one of the most natural upgrades for Landing Party.

Aesi allows you to play an additional land each turn and draws a card whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control. Both abilities work perfectly with Spock’s strategy.

Extra land drops help increase your number of differently named lands, while the card draw makes it easier to find more lands and important payoffs.

Aesi also works independently of Spock. Even if your commander is removed repeatedly, Aesi can continue generating enough resources to keep the deck functioning.

Its six-mana cost is significant, but Landing Party already wants to ramp aggressively, making Aesi a powerful midgame engine.

2. Azusa, Lost but Seeking

Few cards accelerate land development as effectively as Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

Azusa allows you to play two additional lands during each of your turns, potentially developing your battlefield several turns ahead of schedule.

For Landing Party, the objective is not merely to accumulate lands. You want to deploy lands with different names so Spock can reveal and cast increasingly expensive spells.

Azusa is especially powerful alongside Tireless Tracker, Scute Swarm, and Ancient Greenwarden.

The main limitation is that she does not generate additional land cards herself. Pair her with reliable draw or land-recursion effects to make full use of those extra land drops.

3. Tatyova, Benthic Druid

Tatyova, Benthic Druid is another excellent card-advantage engine for a land-focused Commander deck.

Whenever a land enters under your control, Tatyova gains you one life and draws a card.

That means every land played naturally from your hand, every land found by a ramp spell, and every additional land put onto the battlefield by Spock can generate value.

Tatyova also helps solve one of the biggest challenges facing decks built around extra land drops: running out of cards.

With enough landfall triggers, she can keep your hand full while helping you find the unique lands needed to maximize Spock’s ability.

4. Felidar Retreat

Landing Party wants to develop a large battlefield, and Felidar Retreat turns your land drops into a flexible source of pressure.

Whenever a land enters under your control, you can create a 2/2 Cat Beast creature token or put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control and give those creatures vigilance until end of turn.

This makes Felidar Retreat useful in different stages of the game.

Early landfall triggers can establish a creature army, while later triggers can transform those creatures into serious combat threats.

The ability becomes particularly powerful alongside Ancient Greenwarden, allowing each landfall event to produce two triggers.

5. Tireless Provisioner

Tireless Provisioner generates either a Food token or a Treasure token whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control.

In most Landing Party games, the Treasure option will be especially attractive.

Treasures help cast Spock earlier, pay for expensive landfall payoffs, and deploy additional spells after you have used your available mana to develop the battlefield.

The interaction with Ancient Greenwarden is also excellent, potentially producing two Treasures from a single land entering.

Unlike Lotus Cobra, which generates mana immediately, Tireless Provisioner creates resources that can be saved for future turns.

That flexibility makes it an appealing addition to nearly any version of Landing Party.

6. Ramunap Excavator

Ramunap Excavator allows you to play lands from your graveyard.

This is particularly valuable because Landing Party already includes lands such as Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, and Fabled Passage.

Replaying those lands gives you repeated access to landfall triggers and additional opportunities to fix your mana.

However, there is an important distinction between landfall and strange new worlds. Replaying a fetch land that you already control no longer contributes an additional unique name by itself. Likewise, sacrificing and replaying the same land does not permanently increase your number of differently named lands.

Ramunap Excavator is primarily valuable because it lets you generate repeatable landfall value while keeping your mana development consistent.

It becomes even stronger alongside additional land-drop effects such as Azusa.

7. Wayward Swordtooth

Wayward Swordtooth provides another way to play additional lands every turn.

Unlike Azusa, it grants only one additional land drop, but it also offers a substantial 5/5 body once you have the city’s blessing.

That makes it useful both as an acceleration piece and as a potential combat threat later in the game.

The drawback is that it cannot attack or block until you have the city’s blessing, which requires ten or more permanents.

Fortunately, Landing Party naturally develops a battlefield containing lands, creatures, and other permanents. Reaching that threshold is usually realistic during a longer Commander game.

Wayward Swordtooth is a solid alternative when you want more land development without relying exclusively on expensive spells.

8. Crucible of Worlds

Crucible of Worlds provides the same essential land-recursion effect as Ramunap Excavator, but on an artifact.

It allows you to play lands from your graveyard, making fetch lands and other self-sacrificing lands much more valuable.

This works well with the original deck’s Fabled Passage and Evolving Wilds, while providing insurance against opposing land destruction.

Crucible of Worlds is particularly appealing for players who want a more resilient version of Landing Party built around long-term landfall value.

It does not grant additional land plays, so pairing it with Azusa, Exploration, or another extra land-drop effect produces the strongest results.

9. Field of the Dead

Few lands reward a diverse mana base more directly than Field of the Dead.

Whenever Field of the Dead or another land enters under your control, you create a 2/2 Zombie creature token if you control seven or more lands with different names.

This condition overlaps almost perfectly with Spock’s objective.

As Landing Party develops more uniquely named lands, Field of the Dead becomes a repeatable source of creatures without requiring you to spend additional mana.

It is especially powerful alongside extra land drops and land-recursion effects.

The main drawback is that Field of the Dead produces colorless mana. It should therefore replace a weaker utility land rather than an important source of colored mana.

10. Scapeshift

Scapeshift is one of the most explosive potential upgrades for Landing Party.

It allows you to sacrifice any number of lands and search your library for that many lands, putting them onto the battlefield tapped.

This can immediately create a large number of landfall triggers while replacing basic lands with more useful uniquely named lands.

For example, replacing several duplicate basic lands with differently named nonbasic lands can increase the number of unique names Spock counts.

With Scute Swarm, Felidar Retreat, or Ancient Greenwarden already on the battlefield, Scapeshift can generate an enormous amount of value.

It is a powerful card, but also one that rewards careful deckbuilding. To make the most of it, your mana base needs enough useful land targets that can be searched directly from the library.

What Should You Remove? 10 Cards to Cut from Landing Party

Unlike a conventional Commander upgrade guide, Landing Party requires particular care when choosing which lands to replace.

Removing too many lands reduces the consistency of Spock’s ability, while replacing unique nonbasic lands with additional basic lands can weaken strange new worlds.

For that reason, most of our recommended cuts come from the nonland portion of the original deck. We preserve the core ramp package, powerful landfall engines, and the majority of the diverse mana base.

The following ten cards are included in the official Landing Party decklist and can be replaced with cards that more directly support Spock’s strategy.

These changes preserve the original land count and do not remove any of the deck’s main mana rocks.

The most important improvement is replacing Temple of the False God with Field of the Dead. Both contribute a unique land name, but Field of the Dead supports the deck’s central strategy while avoiding Temple’s requirement of controlling at least five lands before producing mana.

The nonland swaps are more flexible. Removing Guardian Project makes the deck more dependent on landfall for card draw, while cutting Echo of Eons sacrifices a powerful hand-refilling effect for a more specialized land-based payoff.

Similarly, several original Star Trek creatures may provide thematic abilities or useful utility that you prefer to retain. These are strategic recommendations, not mandatory replacements.

For most players, we recommend beginning with Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Tireless Provisioner, and Field of the Dead. These cards improve the deck’s main engine while requiring relatively few changes to its original identity.

Best Budget Upgrades for Landing Party

Landing Party already contains several expensive and powerful landfall staples, meaning you do not need to rebuild the deck from scratch.

Tatyova, Benthic Druid is an excellent starting point because she turns ordinary land development into additional cards. She also provides a small amount of life gain, which can help stabilize longer multiplayer games.

Tireless Provisioner offers a flexible way to generate additional mana through Treasure tokens, supporting the deck’s expensive spells and helping you recover after disruption.

Wayward Swordtooth is worth considering when you need more extra land-drop effects, especially if you can consistently reach ten permanents.

Another option outside our main ten upgrades is Retreat to Coralhelm. It can untap a creature whenever a land enters under your control, potentially supporting additional mana production or utility abilities.

For players who want even more consistent landfall triggers, Springbloom Druid offers another affordable way to exchange a land for two basics, although fetching duplicate basic names does not necessarily improve Spock’s strange new worlds count.

The best budget approach is to focus on consistency first. Additional lands, reliable ramp, and repeatable draw engines will usually provide more value than a single expensive finisher.

Higher-Budget Upgrades: How Powerful Can Landing Party Become?

Landing Party can become substantially more powerful with a larger budget, particularly when you combine extra land drops with repeatable land recursion and premium landfall payoffs.

Scapeshift

Scapeshift has the potential to produce one of the most explosive turns available to a landfall Commander deck.

With Ancient Greenwarden on the battlefield, every land entering through Scapeshift can generate twice the normal number of landfall triggers.

If Scute Swarm is also present, the resulting creature production can become overwhelming.

Scapeshift is particularly useful in Landing Party because you can search for a collection of differently named lands, potentially improving Spock’s free-spell threshold at the same time.

Crucible of Worlds

Crucible of Worlds is one of the best long-term value cards for a deck containing sacrifice lands.

Repeatedly playing Fabled Passage or Evolving Wilds creates recurring landfall triggers while maintaining access to your colors.

This becomes particularly powerful alongside Exploration or Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

The result is an engine that can generate considerable value across multiple turns without requiring you to draw a new land every time.

Avenger of Zendikar

Avenger of Zendikar offers a powerful finishing option for players who want to convert land development into combat damage.

When it enters, Avenger creates a 0/1 Plant token for each land you control. Each subsequent landfall trigger places a +1/+1 counter on every Plant you control.

With a large number of lands and repeated landfall triggers, those Plants can quickly become dangerous attackers.

Avenger is especially effective in builds that emphasize Felidar Retreat, Scute Swarm, and other creature-token payoffs.

Finale of Devastation

Finale of Devastation gives Landing Party a flexible creature tutor and a potential late-game finisher.

Early in the game, it can search for an important engine creature such as Lotus Cobra or Tatyova, Benthic Druid.

Later, when enough mana is available, a large Finale can provide a substantial power boost and haste to your creatures, potentially ending the game with a single attack.

It is particularly attractive in landfall-heavy builds that generate large amounts of mana and creature tokens.

Cards You Should Keep from the Original Precon

One of the biggest advantages of Landing Party is the quality of its existing reprints. Several of its strongest cards would already be high-priority additions to a landfall Commander deck, so there is little reason to replace them.

Exploration is one of the deck’s most important cards. Playing an additional land every turn accelerates Spock’s development and supports every landfall payoff in the deck. It becomes even stronger alongside repeatable card draw.

Ancient Greenwarden is another premium inclusion. Doubling landfall triggers can dramatically increase the value of cards such as Scute Swarm, Tireless Tracker, and Lotus Cobra. It also allows you to play lands from your graveyard, providing an additional recursion engine.

Scute Swarm remains one of the most explosive token producers in Commander. Once you control six or more lands, its landfall ability can create copies of Scute Swarm, potentially generating enormous numbers of creatures.

Lotus Cobra provides an efficient way to convert landfall into mana. This becomes particularly important when you are playing multiple lands per turn and want to cast additional spells immediately.

Tireless Tracker creates Clue tokens whenever lands enter under your control. Those Clues provide valuable card draw, while sacrificing them can also increase Tracker’s size.

Heroic Intervention is an important protection spell. Landfall decks often invest several turns assembling engines, and protecting those permanents from removal can be the difference between winning and rebuilding from nothing.

Sun Titan provides another useful recursion tool, returning smaller permanents from your graveyard to the battlefield when it enters or attacks.

Finally, Fabled Passage and the deck’s other sacrifice lands should generally remain. They fix mana, trigger landfall, and become increasingly valuable alongside land-recursion effects.

The strongest version of Landing Party builds on these existing tools rather than replacing them.

Three Ways to Build an Upgraded Landing Party

Commander Spock supports several distinct approaches, and choosing one as your primary strategy will help you make more effective upgrades.

Spock Strange New Worlds Value

This is the most natural version of the original precon.

Focus on maintaining as many differently named lands as possible, then use Spock’s enter-the-battlefield and attack triggers to generate free spells and additional lands.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, and Wayward Swordtooth support this approach by accelerating land development.

The goal is to reach a point where most spells in your deck can be cast for free whenever Spock triggers.

Cards that manipulate the top of your library can also be useful because they help you control what Spock reveals. The original deck already contains Brainstorm and Ponder, both of which deserve consideration for that reason.

This is our recommended direction for players who want to preserve the precon’s unique Star Trek identity.

Bant Landfall Tokens

A second approach emphasizes creature production through repeated landfall triggers.

Scute Swarm, Felidar Retreat, Field of the Dead, and Avenger of Zendikar provide multiple ways to turn lands into creatures.

Ancient Greenwarden makes those triggers even more powerful, while extra land-drop effects help you develop the battlefield quickly.

This version can win without attacking with Spock repeatedly. Instead, it uses him as a source of value while its landfall engines build an overwhelming creature army.

Captain Kirk Exploration

Captain Kirk, Boldly Going offers a different direction for players who want to emphasize the Star Trek flavor and the deck’s legendary Spacecraft.

Rather than building exclusively around Spock’s strange new worlds ability, this version can prioritize the interactions between Kirk, the Starship Enterprise, and the precon’s other supporting cards.

Landfall remains useful, especially because the original deck already includes several strong engines, but the overall strategy shifts toward the specific payoffs provided by Kirk.

This direction is more thematic and may require more extensive changes to the creature package, depending on which Star Trek interactions you want to emphasize.

Is Landing Party Worth Upgrading?

Landing Party has one of the most interesting foundations among the Star Trek Commander decks. Spock’s strange new worlds ability rewards a form of deckbuilding that is different from traditional landfall, encouraging players to maximize land diversity rather than simply accumulate basic lands.

The original precon already includes several powerful Commander staples, particularly Exploration, Ancient Greenwarden, and Scute Swarm. That reduces the need for an expensive overhaul and gives the deck several strong engines from the beginning.

Its biggest weakness is consistency. Spock needs enough uniquely named lands to cast larger spells for free, and the deck needs reliable ways to keep finding and playing those lands.

Fortunately, those problems are relatively straightforward to address.

Our recommended first upgrades are Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Tireless Provisioner, and Field of the Dead. Together, they improve extra land drops, card advantage, mana production, and the deck’s ability to convert unique lands into meaningful threats.

With careful mana-base construction and a few additional landfall engines, Landing Party can become a powerful Bant Commander deck while retaining the exploration theme that makes it distinctive.

For Commander Spock, the most logical upgrade is simple: discover more worlds, make every land drop count, and let the cards do the rest.

Live long and prosper.

For the complete original 100-card decklist, see the official Wizards of the Coast Landing Party decklist. You can also explore our MTG Star Trek Commander Decks overview, Star Trek Mechanics Explained guide, We Are the Borg Upgrade Guide, Federation Fleet Upgrade Guide, and Klingon Fury Upgrade Guide for more Star Trek Commander strategies.