MTG Doctor Who spoilers shown off at MagicCon Barcelona
The latest Universes Beyond set focusing on Doctor Who is coming soon to MTG, and at MagicCon, fans got a closer look at it.
With the Universes Beyond: Doctor Who set launching this October, we got a bounty of new cards to look at from the Commander decks. While we should expect deck lists closer to September and October, it does give us a better idea of how the mechanics work within the MTG set.
MTG Doctor Who Blast from the Past spoilers
The deck, Blast from the Past, which focuses on the first eight Doctors, will be all about Historic. Historic is a keyword introduced in Dominaria and relates to legendary cards, artifacts, and saga enchantments.
The Commanders, The Fourth Doctor, and Sarah Jane take the lead here. It’s a Green, White, and Blue deck, with Tom Baker’s iteration being a green/blue card with Sarah Jane taking the role of white.
The Fourth Doctor is a 4/4 Legendary creature, with the themes of his unbridled knowledge and sneakiness flowing through the card. With him active on the field, his ability allows you to look at the top card of your deck at any time.
You’ll also be able to use Would you like a…?, which involves food tokens – or jelly babies. This ties into the Historic focus, which lets you play a Historic card from the top of your deck once per turn and then create a food token.
Sarah Jane, meanwhile, creates a Clue token with Investigate whenever you play a Historic card.
There’s also a regeneration-themed card, Time Lord Regeneration, which is instant and costs one blue mana. If a Time Lord creature you control dies, you can reveal cards off the top of your deck until you reveal another. It enters the battlefield and then everything is put at the bottom in a random order.
City of Death was the story saga featured, which allows for treasure tokens to be created, along with steps two through six to allow for the creation of a copy of a non-Saga token.
Timey-Wimey Commander deck brings time-bending mechanics to Magic
We also finally got a look at key characters like Rose Tyler, who will be the Timey-Wimey deck (white, red, and blue). This is led by The Tenth Doctor, who was revealed the other day. It’ll also feature cards with the Ninth and Eleventh Doctors on it too.
The deck appears to be focusing on the suspend mechanic, which will use time counters. Suspend allows you to cast a card for its suspend cost, and then once the counters are removed entirely, it becomes active.
Rose Tyler is also a white card, costing 1W, and is themed around the Bad Wolf storyline. For each time counter put on Rose, she gets +1/+1.
She of course also has the Bad Wolf ability, letting her get an additional time counter for each suspended card and each card with a time counter on it.
Joining them is The Face of Boe, which allows you to tap it to cast any spell from your hand with suspend on it. You only have to pay the suspend cost.
Key moments in the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctor’s TV stories are also represented. We’ve already seen The Parting of Ways with Eccleston’s Doctor, but we also get to see The Eleventh Hour. This is Matt Smith‘s debut story and of course, features food tokens themed around Fish Fingers and custard.
One of the Tenth Doctor’s lowest moments, Four Knocks, with the late Bernard Cribbins as Wilf trapped in the glass chamber. This card is unique in that it brings back the often underrepresented Vanishing mechanic.
Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor brings Team TARDIS to MTG
We also get to see cards of Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, which is going to lead the 13th and 12th Doctor-themed deck, Paradox Power (red, green, and blue). Joining her will be Yasmin Khan.
The Thirteenth Doctor has the ability Paradox, which lets you put a +1/+1 counter on any creature if you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand. There’s also Team TARDIS, which allows you to untap any creature with a counter on it at the end step.
Yasmin Khan meanwhile allows you to fuel the Doctor’s ability by exiling a card from the top of the deck and you can play until the end step.
Other cards featured include The Foretold Solider from the Twelfth Doctor story Mummy on the Orient Express. There’s also a The Flux card based on some of the final stories of the Thirteenth Doctor.
Become The Master of the Greatest Villians Commander deck
Lastly for Doctor Who, Greatest Villains, which is based around – you guessed it – the Doctor’s greatest enemies. This deck features Missy as its Commander, with Davros as an alternate option.
Davros, Dalek Creator, is 1UBR and allows players to create a 3/3 Dalek with Menace at the end step if an opponent has lost three or more life in a turn.
This deck is also focused on Villainous Choices, a new ability unique to the set. Davros’ reads:
“Then each opponent who lost 3 or more life this turn faces a villainous choice – You draw a card, or that player discards a card.
The lead card, Missy, the 12th Doctor’s incarnation of The Master, allows for the generation of Cybermen whenever a creature dies. Cybermen are represented – so far – by tokens and are 2/2 artifact creatures.
Her villainous choice is a little more powerful, as it either allows for each artifact creature to deal 1 damage to an opponent, or draw a card, and ‘chaos ensues’. Chaos ensues is the keyword that plays into the Planechase mechanics previously revealed.
Missy is also the focus of the saga Death in Heaven, which exiles all creatures from a player’s graveyard after milling two cards. The third step then brings all creatures back as Cybermen.
Another major villain is from the Sixth Doctor story, The Trial of the Timelord, in which an amalgamation of the dark side of the Doctor, The Valeyard, seeks his life. This card forces those making the villainous choice to do it again, as well as allowing you to vote an additional time.
Of course, within the collectors’ booster packs, there will be special TARDIS-bordered cards for key characters.
River Song comes to Magic: The Gathering’s Doctor Who set in typical backward fashion
More serialized cards will be coming to the set, with the various Doctors all getting their own numbered cards.
Finally, River Song will make an appearance with her card costing 1UR, and the abilities Meet in Reverse, which allows you to draw cards from the bottom of the deck rather than the top. She also has Spoilers, which puts a +1/+1 counter on River Song each time the opponent searches, scries, or surveils their decks. After, she deals damage equal to the power.
As a small surprise, Farewell is getting a reprint themed around David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor regeneration.
Wizards of the Coast also showed off new Wilds of Eldraine cards, as well as a peek at the upcoming The Lost Caverns of Ixalan too.
MTG Universes Beyond: Doctor Who launches October 13, 2023, and is available for preorder now:
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