Even though spoiler seasons seemed to slow down for new Magic product, that has not been the case for this week. Commander Masters spoilers, after lasting two weeks worth of time, is finally finishing up. That said, not even 12 hours after the reveal of the final Commander Masters cards, contents of a new product starting hitting the internet. We have some initial spoilers now for the new Doctor Who Universes Beyond crossover. Containing Commander decks and Collector Booster product, this is a similar, but slightly larger, product to the Warhammer 40K crossover.
While spoilers already hit the internet last night, some new information has been released this morning on Gavin Verhey’s Good Morning Magic YouTube channel. This also highlights a new Commander mechanic that may drastically alter how the Doctor Who product will affect Magic: the Gathering.
A New Partner Mechanic
For cEDH players who are strictly trying to build the most powerful decks they possibly can, its not uncommon to see two Partner Commanders sitting at the helm of their strategy. Two Commanders at the helm offers players even more choices for what the most effective plan of action can be. Instead of getting an extra card in your starting hand, you can instead, effectively, have two.
Like normal Commanders, these will cost two more to cast for each time you cast them, but they don’t stack on each other’s deaths. As such, this truly functions as though you have two Commanders in your Command Zone.
Announced as part of an incredible first look into the Doctor Who product on Good Morning Magic is the new Doctor’s Companion mechanic. As may be understandable from the text, this appears to be a new mass partner system, similar to Friends Forever from the Stranger Things MTG crossover. This text here may not make sense to players who are unfamiliar with Doctor Who, so we’ll take a moment to explain that. If you already understand the concept of Doctors and Companions, you can skip to the next section.
Read More: New Commander Spoilers Reveal Enormous Extra-Turn Spell!
Doctors and Companions
As stated by Verhey in his Good Morning Magic video showcasing what we currently know about the new Doctor Who Product, “fans of Doctor Who identify by when they started watching and who there Doctor was.”
This show has been going on for a LONG time, and there are more than ten different Doctors in existence. Each of these Doctors, generally, also have a Companion that they bring along on their adventures. As showcased in some of the artwork previewed during the video, these Companions meet a variety of different endings.
For the sake of the new Partner mechanic, Companions, in terms of Doctor Who lore, are defined by the following: “They need to be someone who stays with the Doctor and travels with them for a long time.” Some examples for companions that were given while explaining this mechanic were Sarah Jane Smith, Rose Tyler and, well, any of the Doctors. These Companion characters are the ones who will appear with the Doctor’s Companion mechanic.
More New Mechanics
Judging from the information we received from Verhey’s introduction to the Doctor Who Product, most Doctors are going to be multicolored, while Companions will generally be monocolored. All of the Doctors who have appeared in past season of Doctor Who are getting their own cards as well, so there’s a ton of different combinations that players can use with the new Doctor’s Companion mechanic.
While we do not know what these cards are capable of yet, The first Doctor is UW while Susan, his Companion, is Green. The combination of the fourth doctor and his Companion is UG and White, respectively.
Moving over to the Timely Wimey deck, the Tenth Doctor, which was actually spoiled, is a UR Commander who partners with a mono white Companion – normally, at least. We won’t be seeing Rose’s card until next week.
The new mechanic for the Timey Wimey deck is Time Travel. As shown on The Tenth Doctor, Time Travel is like a Proliferate mechanic for Time Counters – except it takes away Time Counters or adds them, whatever you like. Since The Tenth Doctor Suspends cards off the top of your library with Three Time Counters, Time Traveling three times will, basically, cast everything that he’s exiled for free, if you want them to be cast.
You can expect to find the ninth, tenth and eleventh Doctors in this deck.
The thirteenth Doctor is also UG, but her Companion is Mono Red. We don’t know what her card does yet, but the new mechanic for the Temur Paradox Power deck is Paradox – something that cares about spells cast from anywhere other than your hand. There are a few cards that already care about this like See the Truth, but there are plenty of ways to do something like this. From Cascade to Flashback and Impulse draw effects like Reckless Impulse, this mechanic is a lot easier to enable than it seems.
The Temur Paradox Power deck covers the current seasons of Doctor Who, highlighting the twelfth and thirteenth Doctors.
Finally, the new mechanic coming to the Masters of Evil Grixis deck is one called Villainous Choice. We haven’t actually seen a card with this yet but, from Verhey’s explanation, this mechanic forces opponents to make a decision between two bad outcomes. Notably, this deck does not have any Doctors or Companions since the theme of the deck is simply the villains of the IP.
A Ton of New Sagas
In addition to all the new information from this new video above, Gavin Verhey has confirmed that 19 new Saga cards will be included in Doctor Who Commander. Considering that Tom Bombadil currently has Saga cards igniting the secondary market, this may cause the trend to reignite even stronger than before.
With a massive new Partner mechanic system being released in these Doctor Who Commander decks, this Universes Beyond Product is definitely going to leave its mark on the Commander format. If all of the Partner Commanders are incredibly synergy-based, like the Tenth Doctor, we may not see these cards impact Commander’s top tables too heavily, but The Tenth Doctor doesn’t necessarily need to be in a Time Counters deck to shine. This card can essentially Suspend and cast cards off the top of your deck anywhere.
The stage has been set for these cards to make a big statement. All that’s left is to see what they do.
Read More: MTG Players Suspect Wizards Is Reprinting Reserved List Cards!
