MTG Barcelona Reveals Absurdly Expensive Doctor Who Cards!

In a somewhat unusual fashion, MTG Barcelona has seemingly been kicked off with a variety of incredible new spoiler cards. Its not uncommon for much to be revealed at these cons, but to have one basically kicked off, thanks to U.S. time delay, is a different feel. Regardless, there’s a ton to cover.

The Caverns of Ixalan, The Wilds of Eldraine and Doctor Who have received a ton of new spoilers, and of the three sets, we got the most Doctor Who cards. There are some wild new Commander cards coming out in this Universes Beyond product, including a returning gimmick that should make for some expensive Doctors. Let’s take a look!

New Doctor Who Cards

The Fourth Doctor, part of the partner pair meant to helm the Blast from the Past Commander deck, provides incremental advantage for Historic decks. Able to play a Historic land or cast a Historic spell from the top of your deck once per turn, The Fourth Doctor, in his typical fashion, will offer one of his Jelly Babies to anything he casts from the top of your library.

This Commander simply seems fine, but gets a lot better if you can play Historic lands or spells on your opponents turns. Using Burgeoning with a lot of Historic lands, or running a lot of Historic spells that can be cast at instant speed, maybe with a Vedalken Orrery, seems like the best way to take advantage of this Commander.

Sarah Jane Smith, the intended companion for the Fourth Doctor, Investigates whenever you cast a Historic spell. This, combined with The Fourth Doctor, can create both a Food and a Clue Token whenever a Historic spell is cast – well, your first one, at least.

This subtheme screams for some Academy Manufactor support. Turning two tokens into six definitely seems like a ton of value for three mana. The Manufactor itself is also a Historic spell, triggering both abilities on cast. In fact, many of the cards highlighted in a breakout Chatterfang deck may be of interest to players who want to upgrade the Blast from the Past deck.

Experiencing the Regeneration of a Time Lord

Time Lord Regeneration is a cute new card that allows you to recreate The Doctor dying and coming back as a different Doctor! Of course, this probably won’t be in a canonic order, but with the theme of Magic’s Universes Beyond crossover being to ‘create your own episode,’ turning your Fourth Doctor into the First one seems like a goofy way to do that.

Fourth Doctor’s Saga

As mentioned by Verhey previously, there is a massive 19 sagas in the upcoming Doctor Who Universes Beyond product. Many of these Sagas are dedicated to individual Doctors, showcasing an iconic episode from their runs. This Saga depicts an episode in which the Fourth has to deal with a bunch of fake Mona Lisa paintings!

As such, its very fitting that this episode creates a Mona Lisa-based Treasure and starts potentially replicating that token. Of course, this card is better used replicating a big token creature, or something of the like, but it looks like a strong inclusion in any token deck.

Rose Tyler

Rose Tyler is the intended Companion for the Tenth Doctor who pilots the Timey-Wimey Commander deck. Even though you can mix and match Companions to Doctors, Rose Tyler really needs a Suspend theme to work properly. That said, Rose Tyler can get very big very quickly. As long as you have a bunch of Suspended permanents with Time counters, Rose Tyler gets a Time Counter for each one, which represents +1/+1 in stats. Considering the Tenth Doctor Suspends cards on attack and features the new Time Travel ability, this is a fitting combo.

The Face of Boe

The Face of Boe looks like a nightmare for players who are sick of seeing Cascade shenanigans in Modern. Fortunately, I do not believe that Boe is Modern legal, and even if it was, there’s a lot of watering down here. That said, the ability to cast suspend spells from your hand is quite spooky.

To get around casting spells for free, The Face of Boe requests that you pay the Suspend card’s Suspend cost instead, which can make various cards better or worse with the Commander. While this certainly does not seem powerful enough for Legacy play, it seems like an incredibly fun build-around Commander.

Four Knocks

Four Knocks looks back to one of the most tear-inducing moments in the all of Doctor Who. As far as the card goes, it just seems fine. The card does synergize well with Timey-Wimey’s Time Counter synergy, and gets a lot better if you can put four Time Counters on it. Notably, Time Travel does have the ability to do this, so you can theoretically get more than three cards out of Four Knocks. Either way, three mana to draw three cards over time still looks strong, and it gets better alongside Proliferate shenanigans.

The Eleventh Hour

Another one of the Doctor Sagas, the Eleventh Hour finds a Doctor, helps you cast it and creates a token copy of target creature that can ignore the Legendary rule. As long as you have a Doctor you’re consistently trying to find, this seems like a strong inclusion in many Blue decks.

The Thirteenth Doctor

The Thirteenth Doctor showcases the core mechanic of the Paradox Power Commander deck. Encouraging casting cards from outside your hand, Paradox is a lot easier to take advantage of than it may seem.

Otherwise, The Thirteenth Doctor synergizes well with creatures who activate their abilities by tapping themselves since it offers all of your creatures an opportunity to untap at the end step. The Thirteenth Doctor seems fine, but will probably not be breaking any formats.

Yasmin Khan

The Thirteenth Doctor’s intended Companion offers a way to enable The Thirteenth Doctor’s Paradox ability while also benefitting from the other ability she offers. All in all, this seems like a strong generic Companion that could be paired with a variety of different Doctors. In this sense, the only thing holding Yasmin back is its mediocre mana value of four.

The Foretold Soldier

A fabled villain from a murder-mystery style of Doctor Who episode, The Foretold Soldier absolutely excels in the flavor department. The Foretold Soldier could only be seen by one character at a time, so being only blockable by one creature at a time, with the requirement of it needing to be blocked, turns it into a bizarre removal spell. It is a tad bit inefficient though since you need to recast it for two mana every turn. On the plus side, this can make it difficult to remove should you choose to hold it back.

The Flux

The Flux does not encapsulate one Doctor Who episode, but instead looks over the final arc of the Thirteenth Doctor’s run. The card is pretty powerful, removing an opposing threat and offering four Impulse draws before adding a ton of mana. All in all, this seems like the most powerful card revealed this far, and should have some Commander interest thanks to Tom Bombadil impacting the secondary market.

Davros, Dalek Creator

To finish things off, for the Masters of Evil Commander deck, Davros, Dalek Creator helms the Grixis menace. This card also highlights the new Villainous Choice mechanic at the center of this deck.

To recap, Verhey revealed that Villainous Choice forces players to make a choice that has both options to their disadvantage. For Davros, opponents who have lost three life during your turn must decide whether they discard a card or you draw a card at your end step.

Otherwise, as long as an opponent has lost three life during your turn, Davros will start creating his Daleks. Davros and the Daleks both have three power and Menace, allowing them to take three life off your opponents to trigger Davros’ abilities.

Missy

One of the greatest Doctor Who villains in the entire series, Missy is at her true strength when you’re playing Planechase, which is a part of the Doctor Who Universes Beyond product. Even without Planechase, however, Missy’s static ability is absolutely incredible. Whenever another nonartifact creature dies, Missy turns it into a Cyberman under your control. The token above is a representative card of what the dead creature has become. More accurately, Missy will force creatures to return to the battlefield facedown as a Cyberman, which is rather unique and will prevent some reanimation shenanigans until the Cyberman dies.

The Villaneous choice truly gets stronger if you’re playing with Planechase, but Missy is still capable of forcing opponents into an incredibly awkward decision of taking a ton of damage thanks to your army of Cybermen, or drawing some cards and letting Chaos Ensue on whatever Plane you’re on.

The Valeyard

The Valeyard is truly a diabolic political Commander. Villainous Choices will trigger twice, and you get an unfair say should players be voting towards a verdict. This seems like a really fun build-around Commander

Death in Heaven

Death in Heaven is another army in a can effect that doubles as graveyard hate, which is very relevant at some Commander tables. Tom Bombadil players will definitely want a piece of this, and the card otherwise looks very powerful. Keep an eye on this one.

River Song

River Song is a truly bizarre character in the Doctor Who franchise who is, essentially, both a Time Lord and a Companion. The card hosts some incredibly bizarre abilities that can become very broken when built around.

First, River Song forces you to draw cards from the bottom of your library instead of the top. Anything that allows you to assemble cards at the bottom of your library in any order becomes incredibly complex when used alongside River Song. Dig Through Time, for example, will now look seven deep, find two cards, and set up the next five draws that you have. Scrying also plays a different role here, encouraging you to put the cards you want on the bottom of your library instead of the top.

River Song punishing your opponent for trying to see into the future is also an incredibly powerful option in Commander. There are a ton of Scry effects, and turning River Song into a potential Voltron threat makes it truly interesting.

A Final Farewell

Finally, for the main Doctor Who Commander decks, a Farewell has been spoiled as a reprint in the upcoming set. This is an elite board wipe in the Commander format, capable of resetting a majority of problematic board states.

Collector Booster Product

Alongside the four Commander decks this Universes Beyond crossover has to offer, Doctor Who also features Collector Booster product. Considering that there are no unique cards in this Collector Booster product, it can be a bit confusing to understand what exactly this Collector Booster is offering that is unique from the Commander decks. Turns out that the Doctor Who Doctors are going to have some incredibly expensive variants.

Serialized Doctors

Some of the most expensive cards in modern MTG product are serialized, and today’s panel confirms the return of Serialized cards for the various Doctors in Doctor Who! Each of the Doctors will have 500 numbered copies plus their Doctor number. For example, as seen above, the Fourth Doctor has 504 copies since he is the Fourth Doctor. More information will be coming up on DailyMTG.com. in the future.

Considering that serialized cards are still selling for hundreds of dollars, and how powerful the new Doctor Who Partner mechanic appears to be, there could be some serious value behind the serialized Doctor cards as players try to find them to represent their respective Commanders.

TARDIS Treatment

Otherwise, we now have some new TARDIS treatments to look at! These artworks, only available in Collector Boosters, offer another take on your favorite Doctor Who cards in a TARDIS-looking card border.

All in all, there are some incredibly interesting new cards previewed for the Doctor Who Universes Beyond crossover. River Song, in particular, looks like a very fun Commander that can be played with a Partner. Expect big things to come from this set.