Universes Beyond: Doctor Who

Universes Beyond: Doctor Who is a set of Doctor Who themed Magic: The Gathering trading game cards that will be released by Wizards of the Coast on 13 October 2023. The set was announced 18 August 2022.

The Doctor Who set was part of Magic: The Gathering's Universes Beyond series, which utilises the worlds, characters, and stories of other intellectual properties while featuring the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering. The Doctor Who set was the third major Universes Beyond release (not including special Secret Lair releases and Universes Beyond cards available in regular sets), following the releases of sets based on Warhammer 40,000 and The Lord of the Rings.

The product release was comprised of four 100-card Commander decks, collector boosters, and tie-in Secret Lairs. The main set contains 200 new Doctor Who themed cards as well as Doctor Who themed reprints of regular Magic: The Gathering cards. Doctor Who was the first Commander deck release to include collector boosters, with no additional new cards, that only feature alternate art versions of the cards in the decks.

The Decks and New Cards
Each of the Commander decks is based around a specific theme featuring Doctor Who characters and Magic: The Gathering mechanics that fit into that theme. Every Doctor card is a two-colour Legendary Creature card, while every companion card is a mono-colour Legendary Creature card. Doctor's Companion is a partner variant keyword ability featured on these companion cards that allows you to designate that companion as part of a Commander pair so long as the other partner card is a Doctor (any version of the Doctor with the creature type exactly, and not anything in addition to, Time Lord Doctor). For the purposes of designing the decks, companions were defined as someone who stays with the Doctor and travels with them for a long time.

Each Commander deck package contains: There are 50 mechanically new Doctor Who cards per deck with the remaining 50 cards being Doctor Who themed reprints of regular Magic: The Gathering cards.
 * One foil Commander (The Doctor card for decks with a Doctor-Companion Commander pair or Davros, Dalek Creator for the Masters of Evil deck)
 * The remaining 99 cards of the deck
 * 10 oversized Doctor Who themed Planechase cards featuring 9 planes and 1 phenomenon as well as one six-sided planar die
 * 10 double-sided tokens featuring Doctor Who themes
 * A deck box and a life wheel for tracking the player's life total
 * A 2-card sample collector booster pack

Blast from the Past
Blast from the Past is a green, white, and blue deck focused on historic spells and planeswalking. The deck highlights the classic era of the show from 1963 to 1996 including all eight classic Doctors with The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith being the face Commander pair of the deck.

Timey-Wimey
Timey-Wimey is a blue, red, and white deck focused on the new Time Travel mechanic which manipulates time counters on the player's cards and time related Magic: The Gathering mechanics including suspend and vanishing. The deck highlights the earliest Doctors of the new series from 2005 to 2013 with The Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler being the face Commander pair of the deck.

Paradox Power
Paradox Power is a green, blue, and red deck focused on the new Paradox mechanic that provides an effect whenever you cast a spell from anywhere but your hand. This is combined with the Magic: The Gathering mechanics Escape, Cascade, Flashback and Retrace which cast spells from your deck or graveyard. The deck highlights the new series' more recent Doctors from 2014 to 2023 with The Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan being the face Commander pair of the deck.

Masters of Evil
Masters of Evil is a blue, black, and red deck focused on the new Villainous Choice ability word featured on modal instants and sorceries. These spells target the player's opponents who are presented with a choice of effects, all of which are detrimental. The deck has an artifact creature subtheme that includes myriad cards that duplicate attackers when attacking multiple opponents and artifact cards that have a mututally detrimental affect to all opponents or players. The deck highlights the villains of Doctor Who with Davros, Dalek Creator as the face Commander of the deck.

General References

 * There is at least one dinosaur card or reference to a dinosaur within the decks.
 * A reference to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors are expected to be present in one of the decks.
 * Art depicting Daleks in London features in one of the Secret Lairs released in October.

Saga Episode References
Saga is a card type in Magic: The Gathering that is used to tell a story through multiple chapters that occur when you first play the card and then on each of your subsequent turns. The saga cards in this set represent an iconic episode of each of the 15 Doctor's runs (including the War Doctor and the Fugitive Doctor). In addition, four villains will also have episodes represented by associated saga cards.

The 19 episodes represented are:
 * City of Death for The Fourth Doctor
 * The Parting of the Ways for The Ninth Doctor
 * The Eleventh Hour for The Eleventh Doctor
 * Death in Heaven for The Twelfth Doctor
 * The Flux for The Thirteenth Doctor

Basic Land References

 * Plains 0197 showcases the TARDIS amongst the mud pools on Androzani Minor. (TV: The Caves of Androzani)
 * Island 0199 showcases the TARDIS on an island beach next to the pyramid on Marinus. (TV: The Keys of Marinus)
 * Swamp 0201 showcases the TARDIS in a jungle swamp on Tigella. (TV: Meglos)
 * Mountain 0203 showcases the TARDIS on a mountain cliffside close to the Citadel of Peladon on Peladon. (TV: The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon)
 * Forest 0205 showcases the TARDIS in a jungle on Zeta Minor. (TV: Planet of Evil)