San Diego Comic Con 2023 is underway and that means some Magic: The Gathering panels! Late Thursday evening, Gavin Verhey, Principal Magic Designer at Wizards of the Coast, led a panel on the upcoming Magic: The Gathering — Doctor Who set of four Commander decks, Collector Boosters, and Secret Lair drop.
Doctor Who is the next entry into the Universes Beyond product line, which features third-party IPs on Magic cards. The Doctor Who collaboration follows hot on the heels on The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, which saw The Lord of the Rings come to Magic in a full, draftable set.
Magic: The Gathering — Doctor Who, on the other hand, will be made up of four new Commanders decks, each featuring 50 new cards, 19 of which will be Sagas that tell the story of iconic episodes from the series, and 10 new Planechase cards that represent famous locations from the Doctor Who universe. It was originally announced last August and we got our first look at the product last May at MagicCon Minneapolis—but we didn’t get to see any cards that weren’t Planes or basic lands.
That changed this evening as Verhey showed off multiple new cards from each of the four Commander decks—as well as a new frame from the Collector Boosters—and even explained some of the new mechanics! Unfortunately, he didn’t know the details on pricing for these decks, but he did say that he expects them to cost something close to what the Warhammer 40k decks did.
Magic: The Gathering — Doctor Who Previews
The first Commander deck, “Blast from the Past,” is a Blue/White/Green deck that will contain the first eight Doctors and their companions. It will feature TARDIS, the hybrid time machine/spaceship that the Doctor uses to travel through time, as a Vehicle that gives your next spell Cascade and allows you to Planeswalk to a new Plane.
“Blast from the Past” will also feature the TARDIS Bay as a new Plane for Planechase:
What is a Time Lord that TARDIS references, you ask? Well, meet The Tenth Doctor, who will be featured in the “Timey-Whimey” White/Red/Blue deck that will also contain Doctors nine and 11, plus their companions.
As the name “Timey-Whimey” implies, the deck will feature a lot of time counters—suspend, vanishing, and more!
The Tenth Doctor will be accompanied by his companion, Rose Tyler. All of the companions have a new partner-like mechanic, called “Doctor’s Companion,” which will allow you to partner the Doctor of your choice and their companion in the Command Zone.
“Timey-Whimey” will also contain The Parting of the Ways, and epic Saga depicting the season finale of the Ninth Doctor’s first season.
Verhey also showed off a new Planechase card from the deck, Bad Wolf Bay. Look closely—you’ll see that Earth is now a Plane!
The third deck, “Paradox Power,” is a Red/Blue/Green deck that will contain Doctors 12 and 13, as well as their companions. Consistent with the deck’s name, the new mechanic will be Paradox.
Paradox states: “Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand” then you will get an effect. Verhey noted that the deck will contain many ways to cast spells from places other than your hand, like Escape, Cascade, Flashback, and more.
He also showed of Fixed Point in Time, a new Phenomenon for you Planechase fans.
The fourth and final deck is “Masters of Evil,” a Red/Black/Blue deck that will feature the villains of the Doctor Who universe, including Davros and the Daleks. Its mechanic is called “Villainous Choice” and will allow you to choose between two effect that will be bad for your opponents.
Verhey also previewed Exterminate!, a powerful new removal spell that will let you tap as many Dalek tokens as you’d like in order to copy the spell.
The final new Plane revealed this evening was The Doctor’s Tomb.
Magic: The Gathering — Doctor Who Collector Boosters
The Doctor Who Collector Boosters will feature a new frame: the TARDIS frame. There will be 30 cards total with this new frame.
Check out The Tenth Doctor in the new TARDIS frame:
Appropriately, TARDIS will also get a TARDIS frame variant:
More previews for Magic: The Gathering — Doctor Who will shown on July 28, 2023 at MagicCon Barcelona. Its debut will be on October 3, followed by its full release on October 13.