MTG Doctor Who Copy Spell May be the Best Card in the Set!

With 50 mechanically unique cards promised in each of the four Doctor Who Commander decks releasing next Friday, the MTG community is quite literally getting almost 200 new cards and a series of exciting reprints spoiled to them over this week. A few cards were spoiled ahead of time to give players a tease of what to expect, but a bulk of new content is coming to the community very quickly.

Because the Doctor Who set is primarily constructed of Commander decks (and a few Secret Lair reprints), there are a ton of themes present within the new Doctor Who spoilers. Many of these are, obviously, created with Commander in mind, and one of the more powerful themes in the Commander format is copy effects.

Whether you’re copying ETB effects with cards like Panharmonicon Panharmonicon If an artifact or creature entering causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time. , copying Historic Spells with The Sixth Doctor, or creating a literal copy of something with Spark Double Spark Double You may have this creature enter as a copy of a creature or planeswalker you control, except it enters with an additional +1/+1 counter on it if it's a creature, it enters with an additional loyalty counter on it if it's a planeswalker, and it isn't legendary. , copy effects are all over casual Commander. This particular article will be focusing on the ladder, as there are some very powerful copy effects coming out in this set!

This is, admittedly, partially because the new Doctor Who decks will be overwhelmingly blue. As stated by various MTG designers, Doctor Who, as it fits into the MTG color pie, shares a lot of predominately blue themes since The Doctor tends to outwit his opponents. Since copy effects are predominately blue, it makes sense that some powerful ones are making an appearance in this set.

Flesh Duplicate

Even though Flesh Duplicate is a clone with a downside, it may be one of the most powerful cards printed in the Doctor Who set. Two mana for a clone is absolutely absurd, even if it disappears in three turns, and a few examples should help explain why.

Flesh Duplicate has a rather dismal floor, literally unplayable in the extremely rare case that no one is interested in playing creatures. Considering that this is Commander, and almost every Commander is a creature, this should almost never happen. You can easily avoid this by playing creatures you would be interested in copying with Flesh Duplicate.

The ceiling on this card is almost limitless, capable of generating win attempts for just two mana. Getting a two-mana copy of something like Atraxa, Grand Unifier Atraxa, Grand Unifier Flying, vigilance, deathtouch, lifelink
When Atraxa enters, reveal the top ten cards of your library. For each card type, you may put a card of that type from among the revealed cards into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. (Artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, and sorcery are card types.) is absolutely ridiculous. Even if the body doesn’t get to stick around too long, spending two mana to draw a bunch of cards with no downside is already cEDH playable.

On the topic of cEDH, there are a ton of really powerful small creatures that Flesh Duplicate can copy. It’s uncommon for a resolved Grand Abolisher Grand Abolisher During your turn, your opponents can't cast spells or activate abilities of artifacts, creatures, or enchantments. not to end the game in that format, but in the case where this does happen, you can get your own Grand Abolisher and try to go for a win attempt.

Other common cEDH powerhouses include Gilded Drake Gilded Drake Flying
When this creature enters, exchange control of this creature and up to one target creature an opponent controls. If you don't or can't make an exchange, sacrifice this creature. This ability still resolves if its target becomes illegal. , Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy Whenever you tap a nonland permanent for mana, add one mana of any type that permanent produced.
{5}{G}{U}: Look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a non-Human creature card from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. (assuming you have fast mana), Dockside Extortionist Dockside Extortionist When this creature enters, create X Treasure tokens, where X is the number of artifacts and enchantments your opponents control. (Treasure tokens are artifacts with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") , Drannith Magistrate Drannith Magistrate Your opponents can't cast spells from anywhere other than their hands. , and many more. Many of these cards will pay off immediately, and having the longer-term static effects last for three turns should often be enough time for you to pull off a win attempt.

With the amount of powerful ETB effects in Commander being incredibly numerous, Flesh Duplicate just looks fantastic, and could be cEDH playable. Better yet, the power level of this card scales with what your opponents are pulling off, making this a great fit for many different power levels.

Nanogene Conversion

Nanogene Conversion is not the same type of copy spell that Flesh Duplicate is, but this card is capable of making a pretty hilarious splash. It requires some setup, but Nanogene Conversion can do some pretty silly things in the right hands.

The most important thing to note with this card is that it turns all creatures into the target creature that you control, not just yours. This can make using Nanogene Conversion to swing out on an unsuspecting player a bit less effective unless your plan is going wide.

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The most obvious candidate for this card is Slivers. Slivers generally care about all other Slivers on the board, so turning all creatures into the same thing can make for some very nasty Slivers. Sliver Overlord Sliver Overlord {3}: Search your library for a Sliver card, reveal that card, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
{3}: Gain control of target Sliver. (This effect lasts indefinitely.) , for example, can temporarily let you gain control of a bunch of opposing creatures if you have the mana for it.

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Otherwise, abusing attack triggers is a fun way to break Nanogene Conversion. The Haunt of Hightower was particularly harrowing example suggested by this Twitter user. Each attacking Haunt will force an opponent to discard a card and the discarded card will grow all the Haunts.

This aren’t the only ways to abuse Nanogene Conversion, but it is a good start.

Quantum Misalignment

Quantum Misalignment is a five mana Sorcery that will typically create two nonlegendary copies of any creature you control. Any deck that wants to have multiple copies of their Commander in play that can run blue will want this card, at least in casual Commander.

An example is Gorion, Wise Mentor Gorion, Wise Mentor Vigilance
Whenever you cast an Adventure spell, you may copy it. You may choose new targets for the copy. . Why copy your Adventure spells once when you can copy them multiple times? Any Commander that plays a significant role in their decks will also want this effect. Still, some other examples of common decks that may want this are Omnath, Locus of Creation Omnath, Locus of Creation When Omnath enters, draw a card.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, you gain 4 life if this is the first time this ability has resolved this turn. If it's the second time, add {R}{G}{W}{U}. If it's the third time, Omnath deals 4 damage to each opponent and each planeswalker you don't control. , Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice Flying, vigilance, deathtouch, lifelink
At the beginning of your end step, proliferate. (Choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each kind already there.) , Miirym, Sentinal Wyrm, Jodah, the Unifier Jodah, the Unifier Legendary creatures you control get +X/+X, where X is the number of legendary creatures you control.
Whenever you cast a legendary spell from your hand, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a legendary nonland card with lesser mana value. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. and more.

Auton Soldier

Auton Soldier is yet another copy effect that can ignore the Legendary rule. Considering how much demand there are for cards like Spark Double and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces Sakashima of a Thousand Faces You may have Sakashima enter as a copy of another creature you control, except it has Sakashima's other abilities.
The "legend rule" doesn't apply to permanents you control.
Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner.) , Auton Soldier and other new legendary-ignoring copy effects should easily be able to find a home.

Auton Soldier is a bit more expensive than the other copy effects shown off so far, but the trade-off is that this particular copy card comes with Myriad attached. This makes copying creatures with big bodies or powerful ETB effects even more devastating. Using Atraxa, Grand Unifier from our previous example, having multiple attacking copies of Atraxa that also trigger on entry can easily refill your hand seven and gain you 21 life pretty flawlessly.

Auton Soldier needs a more specific target to abuse his perks as much as possible but, once again, this card is quite adept at creating multiple Commanders. Played alongside effects like Discontinuity Discontinuity During your turn, this spell costs {2}{U}{U} less to cast.
End the turn. (Exile all spells and abilities from the stack, including this card. The player whose turn it is discards down to their maximum hand size. Damage wears off, and "this turn" and "until end of turn" effects end.) and Sundial of the Infinite Sundial of the Infinite {1}, {T}: End the turn. Activate only during your turn. (Exile all spells and abilities from the stack. Discard down to your maximum hand size. Damage wears off, and "this turn" and "until end of turn" effects end.) that can end the turn can also help the tokens created with Myriad stick around permanently.

There’s a Lot more to See!

With 200 new cards coming to Magic in just a week, the various glimpses we have into new content is really just scratching the surface of what Doctor Who will be bringing to the game. If anything, Flesh Duplicate suggests that a wide range of power levels will be satisfied with some of the contents in the coming set. Keep an eye on Wizards of the Coast’s official page to see what gets spoiled next! Of course, we’ll be sure to highlight the biggest spoilers here on MTGRocks.