As we found out last year, Magic: The Gathering is getting a crossover with the classic British sci-fi show Doctor Who. Featuring characters and creatures from across the TV show’s 60-year history, MTG Doctor Who is sure to pack in tons of references to both classic and NuWho, giving a whole lot of famous faces and alien races the Magic card treatment.
This is the second major MTG Universes Beyond crossover release of the year, with the even larger MTG Lord of the Rings set coming out a season before. But MTG Doctor Who looks like it’ll be more akin to the MTG Warhammer 40k deck releases that came out last year, with Commander decks and Secret Lairs, but no standalone set accompanying them.
Details are thin on the ground right now, but here’s everything we know about MTG Doctor Who at this moment. And be sure to check out our 2023 MTG release schedule, for a better understanding of the time stream this year. Perhaps you plan to jump to a particular release date in your TARDIS.
MTG Doctor Who release date
We now know just when in time and space the MTG Doctor Who decks will be arriving. MTG Doctor Who is confirmed to release on October 13. It’s therefore scheduled to release a little before The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, the final MTG set of the year.
The release is also quite timely, as it comes just a little before Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who specials, which air November 2023.
MTG Doctor Who decks
A mixture of reprints with a Doctor Who theme and brand new Doctor Who cards are expected for the MTG Doctor Who crossover. Wizards has four Commander decks planned, and promises to fill them with “doctors, companions, villains, locations and more” from the show’s entire history. There’ll also be collector boosters, containing special treatment versions of these cards, and MTG Secret Lairs too.
We had a suspicion that there might be multiple decks representing the heroes, and that the Doctor Who villains (who don’t typically play nice) might be bunded up in one deck. For the last big crossover, it was fairly straightforward, there was one deck each for four of the Warhammer 40k factions – but many of Doctor Who’s most famous baddies are standalone.
What do you know, it seems we were exactly right, as the four MTG Doctor Who decks are as follows:
- Blast from the Past – featuring Old-Who, the first eight doctors
- Timey Wimey – featuring Doctors Nine, Ten, and Eleven
- Paradox Power – featuring Doctors Twelve and Thirteen
- Masters of Evil – featuring all of the monsters and villains
These decks will feature a new mechanic, Doctor’s Companion, which lets you have a second commander, provided one is a Doctor, and the other a Doctor’s Companion.
MTG Doctor Who cards
We’ve glimpsed a few Doctor Who cards already, such as a cycle of MTG land cards featuring the TARDIS. A reprint of the blue-white card Fractured Identity featuring the fourth doctor has also been revealed, perhaps hinting at the colour identity of a Doctor Who ‘heroes’ deck.
As for new cards, along with Davros, we’ve seen artwork for cards named Gallifrey Stands, The Fugitive Doctor, and The Eleventh Doctor. That’s a lot of time lord content – as you’d expect given the large number of Doctor decks.
Finally, Planechase is making another return, to represent the Doctor and companions’ journey through time and space. Fans of the game mode are spoiled for choice this year, since March of the Machine also featured the fun but chaotic Planechase game mode.
Source: Wargamer
