With the 2026 Midterm Elections less than a fortnight away, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) began spoilers for its Universe's Beyond Star Trek crossover, embedding an outside intellectual property into the cannon of MTG forever. William Shatner, Whoopi Goldberg, Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Stewart, et al. in the same world as Jace Beleren, who died only six weeks ago in Reality Fracture.
Thinking about the current state of USA, where the top 1% wealthiest people have more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, Millenials and younger generations will never escape the crippling student debt undertaken by lies given to them in their formative years, and bankruptcy looms if you want to go to the doctor, unless you have heathcare through a job in the worst job market in decades. New MTG cards are a wonderful escape from the suffering that is the goal of our government's policy choices.
Then I saw this:
I'm a 
mage at heart. I've been a Legacy Miracles player for over a over a decade despite it not having been competitively viable since F.I.R.E. design became the defacto philosophy at Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 2019. My favorite Standard deck of all-time was Sphinx's Revelation-Elixir of Immortality control.
Reading Live Long and Prosper didn't transport me into the world of Magic: The Gathering, nor into the open spacetime of Star Trek, nor into the typical slop argument of Hasbro selling out its cash cow for a quick buck at the expense of all respect for its players.
Live Long and Prosper kept me exactly in the reality we're in. Every aspect of its effect conveying capitalism's constraints.
This spell can't be countered.
These midterms, as with every election in a two-party system beholden to the oligarchs who hold all the wealth and means of communication, are a chapter of the presentation that change for the better is possible. If you were born after Ronald Reagan's administration, then that has never actually been true despite the continuous facade that it is.
And yet, aside from violent revolution, voting with the hope that those who gain power will remain true to the promises they made to improve peoples' lives and overhaul the system for the greater good is the only avenue we have.
Double your life total. Draw cards equal to the number of cards in your hand.
Turns out to live long and prosper, you already have to be prosperous. The rich get richer.
You have no maximum hand size until your next turn.
This effect is relatively new, if not debuting in Star Trek. Prior to this, effects have always granted no maximum hand size for the rest of the game. Limiting the effect to only one turn is much more aligned with its concept of capturing capitalism in a card.
You could work hard to survive long enough with enough resources to cast Live Long and Prosper to good effect. Supposedly, we all could achieve the American dream if we work hard and go to school and blah blah blah. But can you actually move up? Your cap is actually a 7-card hand. Your cap is the rules that are already in place to bound you to your class in the first place.
Was This Dumb?
Yeah, probably. But Live Long and Prosper is the perfect encapsulation of what Hasbro has debased WotC into. If a designer were to design a card that represents the false promises we are sold every day, baked onto the make-believe of a misglorified past to obfuscate the reality of the future, it would be Live Long and Prosper.
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Featured image: Live Long and Prosper by Stella Spente
