Summary

Crossing time and space comes the mind-bending Universes Beyond:Doctor Whocollection toMagic: The Gathering. This new set includes four preconstructed decks, each one designed around specific characters, eras, and mechanics that work thematically with the show’s history.

200 new Doctor Who-themed cards are entering Commander, bringing with them all sorts of new synergies and combos for players to explore. Many of the combos here are fairly versatile, with functional redundancies across cards that have similar mechanics, so the combos listed are not the only way to build your deck. If you’re thinking of building a Doctor Who Commander deck and need a way to secure a win, consider tossing one of these combos to help you seal the deal

Image of the Missy, Ruthless Ripper, and Goblin Bombardment cards in Magic: The Gathering

5Missy + Goblin Bombardment + Ruthless Ripper

Once you get all three cards in play you can execute a powerful combo that gives you an infinite number of enter and leave the battlefield triggers, death triggers, and infinite damage. Missy is a unique legendary creature, turning any nonartifact creature you control into a face down 2/2 Cyberman artifact creature instead of going to the graveyard.

This works fantastically with cards with morph, since they don’t care how or why they’re face down, just if you can pay the cost to flip it back up. Ruthless Ripper has an extremely easy price to pay to flip it, all you have to do is reveal a black card from your hand to turn it back over.

Image of the Chronomantic Escape and The Tenth Doctor cards in Magic: The Gathering

Once it’s flipped back over, you sacrifice it to Goblin Bombardment, dealing one damage to any target, and turning Ruthless Ripper back into a facedown Cyberman to repeat the cycle over and over until you’re the last player standing.

4The Tenth Doctor + Chronomantic Escape

Sometimes you just want to sit back and relax a little without the looming threat of your opponents attacking. Pairing The Tenth Doctor up with the suspend card Chronomantic Escape keeps you safe turn after turn.

Chronomantic Escape has a suspend count of three, which is convenient since The Tenth Doctor time travels three times. With his ability you can cast Chronomantic Escape immediately for a total of nine mana. Chronomantic Escape also reexiles itself upon resolution, letting you cast it from exile again next turn.

Image of the Rousing Refrain and The Tenth Doctor cards in Magic: The Gathering

You need a fair amount of mana to keep the combo going, especially if you want to be able to cast other spells during your turn making this either a late-game strategy or one where you have other cards exiled to capitalize onThe Tenth Doctor’s timey-wimey ability.

3The Tenth Doctor + Rousing Refrain

Back again for a round of infinite loops, The Tenth Doctor paired with Rousing Refrain gives you all sorts of cast triggers, infinite mana, and even magecraft triggers. Rousing Refrain adds one red mana for each card in an opponent’s hand and then suspends itself when it resolves with three more time counters.

Using that seven mana, you can activate The Tenth Doctor’s ability again, removing all three time counters from Rousing Refrain then adding more mana back to your mana pool. If an opponent happens to have eight or more cards in hand, you can net infinite mana this way too.

Image of the Boros Reckoner and Donna Noble cards in Magic: The Gathering

Executing this combo requires an opponent to have at least seven cards in hand, making it a little more situational than other combos, but this can be mitigated through other cards like Storm-Kiln Artist, whichcreates a Treasure token every time you castor copy a spell.

2Donna Noble + Boros Reckoner

If you’re sick andtired of all those fancy spell combosand just want to smack an opponent with infinite damage, then Donna Noble is the way to go. Donna has an incredibly thematic ability called Soulbond which pairs her up with another creature when she comes into play. Then, if she or the paired creature would take damage Donna deals that much damage to an opponent.

Boros Reckoner has a special ability that lets it take damage dealt to it and redirects it to a creature or player as well. You have to give Boros Reckoner indestructible as well, but once you do all you have to do it deal some amount of damage to it. Both Donna and the Reckoner will trigger, having Donna dealing the damage to your opponent, and the Reckoner dealing it back to itself.

Image of Timestream Navigator and River Song cards in Magic: The Gathering

Since more damage was dealt to the Reckoner again, both creatures will trigger again, creating a cycle of infinite damage to take down any opponent’s life totals.

1River Song + Timestream Navigator

One of the strangest Magic cards to ever be printed, River Song has you draw cards from the bottom of your library instead of the top. There are a few ways to take advantage of this ability but one of the most straightforward ones is with Timestream Navigator.

For just four mana, you’re able to tap Timestream Navigator to put it on the bottom of your library to take an extra turn. Normally this is a one-time use, once it’s on the bottom of your deck there’s not really many ways to reliably go get the creature again but since River has you draw from the bottom of your deck, you’ll always have it available.

Timing is very important in this combo; you have to activate Timestream Navigator in your upkeep so that when you move to your draw step, you draw it, giving you the ability to cast it and then on your extra turn, you can activate its ability again. You’ll also want a reliable way to draw extra cards and some way to deal damage during your infinite turns since you’re always going to be drawing the same Timestream Navigator turn after turn.

Next:Magic: The Gathering – Every Doctor In Universes Beyond: Doctor Who, Ranked