Here to saveMagic: The Gatheringfrom evil aliens and disrupted timelines, Universes Beyond:Doctor Whobrings with it four preconstructed Commander decks, each one designed with a specific era of Doctor Who’s expansive history in mind.
Across these four decks, you will find cards representing thirteen of the Doctors who have appeared across the show’s sixty-year run, tons of companions who have joined the Doctor on their adventures, and some of the most dangerous entities who have ever threatened the universe. Each of the decks in this Universe Beyond is incredibly well-designed, taking into consideration each character’s history and skills, though some decks bring a little more power to the table than others.
4Blast From The Past
Combining all the older seasons of Doctor Who into a single deck is a tall order, given the show’s 60+ year history, not to mention books, comics, and other works that featured these characters, but the Blast From the Past deck does so extremely well. This deck features the First through Eighth Doctors as well as their companions and plenty of cards to support them.
Much of the deck is designed around historic synergies, cards that are either artifacts, legendary, or Sagas, to generate tons of value on the board. Leading this deck is The Fourth Doctor and his companion, Sarah Jane Smith, who work together to let you play historic cards from the top of your library and then create Clue tokens to dig through your deck faster.
This green, white, and blue deck does include some high-power cards, like the Treasure token changing Displaced Dinosaurs, and the historic copying card The Sixth Doctor. There are alsoa bunch of very unique Sagas, each one based on a powerful episode from the show.
The Blast From the Past deck might seem a little overwhelming given the number of legendary creatures and older references, but you’ll find there’s plenty of room on the inside to fit all of it in.
3Masters Of Evil
A departure from the other Doctor Who decks, the Masters of Evil preconstructed deck unites all of theDoctor’s most dangerous villainstogether to scheme against the rest of the universe. This blue, black, and red deck is called a Group Slug deck, a twist on the traditional group hug archetype.
Instead of giving all players little benefits over the course of the game, the Masters of Evil gives all players smaller negative effects like forcing all players to sacrifice a creature or to lose some life.
The rest of the deck is made up of a new mechanic called Villainous choice, which has your opponents choose between picking an option that hurts them or benefits you, and then the powerful myriad ability to make sure you’re sharing the pain across all players.
Leading the Masters of Evil deck is either Davros, Dalek Creator or Missy, letting you pick one or the other to lead, but not coming with a companion like the other Doctor Who decks. Some of the highlights from this deck are the incredibly powerful Weeping Angel card, along with the rare piece of blue removal in Cyber Conversion.
2Timey-Wimey
Bringing with it a new twist on one of the most powerful mechanics Magic has ever seen, as well as a new approach to a rather forgettable one, is the Timey-Wimey deck. Designed around the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors and their time travel shenanigans, this blue, red, and white deck manipulates time counters to make you the master of time.
At the front of the deck are the pairings of the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler, working together to keep the timeline intact while helping you cast supremely powerful spells for free. Anytime you attack with any creature, you get to exile the top cards of your library until you exile a nonland card, putting three time counters on it, and give it suspend.
You could always wait three turns to cast that card, or use the Tenth Doctor’s ability, or any of the other cards with time travel on them, to speed up time a bit
The Timey-Wimey deck is loaded with powerful cards, both new and reprints. The premier removal spell Farewell is featured here, while the new Commander staple Everybody Lives! gives all players a chance to escape death for a turn.
While the deck doesn’t provide lots of opportunities to take advantage of the Tenth Doctor’s suspend ability, it is a fantastic starting point for players looking to upgrade a deck to a higher power.
1Paradox Power
The final Doctor Who Universes Beyond deck has the narrowest scope, covering only the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors, and capitalizes on casting cards from places other than your hand to power up your other cards. At the front of this deck are the Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan, working together as a powerful one-two punch to add +1/+1 counters to your creatures and extra cards each turn.
The Paradox Power deck includes some very impactful cards, like the Saga Heaven Sent, which provides plenty of value over and over again, the wonderfully weird River Song which lets you draw cards from the bottom of your library instead of off the top,and then Clara Oswald, who is the most versatile companion for any Doctor-themed deck.
Clara is specifically designed to work with every Doctor, doubling up their triggered abilities to give you all sorts of value from your decks.
So much of this deck is built around accruing tons of value from your cards thanks to cards like Bigger on the Inside which helps ramp up in mana while giving your next spell cascade. Other cards like Into the Time Vortex have rebound, coming back on the next turn to give you three spells for the cost of one. If you’re looking for the best deck out of the box, Paradox Power is the way to go.
Next:Magic: The Gathering – The Best Green Cards In Universes Beyond: Doctor Who
