Universes Beyond: Doctor Who

Universes Beyond: Doctor Who is a set of Doctor Who themed Magic: The Gathering trading game cards that were 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 sets based on  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 (set code WHO) contains 189 new Doctor Who themed cards as well as Doctor Who themed reprints of regular Magic: The Gathering cards. Universes Beyond: Doctor Who was the first Commander deck release to include collector boosters, with no additional new cards, that only feature alternate versions of the cards in the decks.

Commander Decks
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.
 * Two traditional foil cards of the Doctor-Companion face Commander pair, for the three Doctor decks, and Davros, Dalek Creator and Missy, for the Masters of Evil deck
 * An etched foil "display" Commander printed on a thicker cardstock not legal for play. This is the face card Doctor, for the three Doctor decks, and Davros, Dalek Creator, for the Masters of Evil deck
 * The remaining 98 cards of the deck
 * 10 oversized Doctor Who themed Planechase cards featuring 9 planes and 1 phenomenon
 * One six-sided planar die featuring one side with the planeswalker symbol and one side with the chaos symbol, with the four remaining sides being blank.
 * 10 double-sided tokens featuring Doctor Who themed art and mechanics
 * A deck box and a life wheel, for tracking the player's life total, both featuring the package artwork of the deck's face Commanders.
 * A 2-card sample collector booster pack

Package artwork by Chris Rallis:

Collector Booster Cards
The Collector Booster product contains no additional new cards which is a change from previous Collector Booster products for other Magic: The Gathering sets, including Universes Beyond series. The Collector Boosters feature foil and alternate art versions of the cards that can only be found in these boosters. These cards are alternate versions of the 201 cards (191 cards plus 10 basic lands) found in the four preconstructed Commander decks.

Types of cards found in Doctor Who Collector Boosters:

The 2-card sample collector booster packs found in each Commander deck product include an additional token/advertising card not found in any other product and two alternate-frame cards, at least one of which appears as rare or mythic rare.
 * Time And Relative Dimension In Space - TARDIS "Showcase" cards feature a TARDIS border with unique stylised artwork depicting Doctor Who 's most iconic characters and events.
 * Beyond the Borders - Extended art cards. These use the regular Universes Beyond frame treatment with the art only extended in the top half of the card. Only rare and mythic rare cards in the set get this treatment. Sagas, adventurer, and split cards are excluded.
 * Timey-Wimey But Make it Shiny - Traditional foil and surge foil cards. These are foil versions of the cards in the Commander decks. All card variants in the set are available in both foil treatments.
 * Travel With Your Favorite Doctor - Serialized textured versions of the first thirteen Doctor Showcase cards. Instead of an exact 500 numbered prints of each Doctor, each Doctor will have 500 plus the Doctor's "number" (i.e. The Fourth Doctor has 504 serialized cards, The Tenth Doctor has 510 serialized cards, The Thirteenth Doctor has 513 serialized cards).

Set Breakdown
Each individual named card released in this set has multiple variants with the exception of the promo Past in Flames. The following attributes apply to each card; the card frame: Regular, Extended, or Showcase; and the foiling: Non-Foil, Traditional Foil, Surge Foil, or Etched Foil. All cards in the WHO set, including tokens, feature a TARDIS as the set symbol. The full breakdown of cards in the WHO set is as follows: Similarly, the token subset is broken down as follows:
 * 0001-0191 - 189 New-to-Magic Doctor Who cards (includes three art variants of Sonic Screwdriver). Cards 0001 through 0008 are the face Commanders of the four decks and only exist in traditional foil. Traditional foil versions have the same card numbers but with a star indicator after the set code instead of a dot.
 * 0192-0195 - 4 Etched foil "display" Commanders printed on a thicker cardstock not legal for play.
 * 0196-0205 - 10 Doctor Who themed Basic Lands - two of each of the five basic land types. Traditional foil versions have the same card numbers but with a star indicator after the set code instead of a dot.
 * 0206-0331 - 123 Doctor Who themed Magic: The Gathering reprints (includes four art variants of Command Tower with different collector numbers).
 * 0332-0463 - 132 Extended art variants of only the rare and mythic rare cards between 0001-0191. This excludes the 19 sagas, 2 adventurer cards, and 2 split cards which do not have any extended art variants in the set. Traditional foil versions have the same card numbers but with a star indicator after the set code instead of a dot.
 * 0464-0534 - 71 Extended art variants of only the rare and mythic rare reprint cards between 0206-0331. Traditional foil versions have the same card numbers but with a star indicator after the set code instead of a dot.
 * 0464-0534 - 30 TARDIS "Showcase" cards. This treatment was used for all 15 Doctor cards (13 Doctors plus the War Doctor and Fugitive Doctor), all 5 Master cards (including Missy), only 4 Companions (the three face Commander Companions Rose Tyler, Sarah Jane Smith, and Yasmin Khan; and an additional in K-9, Mark I), 4 iconic enemies (Dalek Squadron, Davros, Dalek Creator, Weeping Angel, and Cyberman Patrol), River Song, and the TARDIS. Traditional foil versions and the thirteen serialized textured versions of the Doctors have the same card numbers but with a star indicator after the set code instead of a dot.
 * 0565 - Past in Flames traditional foil launch party promo card.
 * 0566-0605 - 40 oversized Doctor Who themed Planechase cards featuring 36 plane cards and 4 phenomenon cards.
 * 0606-0796 - 191 surge foil variants of all cards between 0001-0191.
 * 0797-0922 - 123 surge foil variants of all cards between 0206-0331.
 * 0923-1054 - 132 surge foil variants of all cards between 0332-0463.
 * 1055-1125 - 71 surge foil variants of all cards between 0464-0534.
 * 1126-1155 - 30 surge foil variants of all cards between 0464-0534.
 * 1156-1165 - 10 surge foil variants of all cards between 0196-0205.


 * T0001-T0032 - 32 different tokens available in non-foil and traditional foil. Traditional foil versions have the same card numbers but with a star indicator after the set code instead of a dot.
 * T0033-T0064 - 32 surge foil variants of tokens T0001-T0032. Note that T0064 Osgood, Operation Double is an alternative art from the non-foil/traditional foil T0032.

Blast from the Past
Blast from the Past is a green, white, and blue deck focused on historic spells, food & clue tokens, and planeswalking. The deck highlights the classic era of the show from 1963 to 1996 (and The Night of the Doctor from 2013) 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, exile or graveyard. The deck highlights the new series' more recent Doctors from 2014 to 2022 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 that presents the player's opponents with a choice of effects, all of which are detrimental to them. 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 and Missy as the alternate face Commander.

Secret Lair Cards
Two Secret Lair releases, Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands and Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels, were released on October 2nd, 2023 for sale as part of the Secret Lair Spookydrop 2023. Each set has five borderless full art cards that are functional reprints of existing Magic: The Gathering cards. Each set is available as a foil set and non-foil set. The cards are part of the Secret Lair set, SLD, and not part of the main WHO set, so they have the shooting star promo symbol as their set symbol instead of the TARDIS symbol.

Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands
The Dalek Lands cards showcase some of the Dalek's menacing appearances from the classic and new series. The Dalek Lands number from 1372 to 1376 and have a gold rarity symbol and R (rare) rarity that matches the original printing of these lands, known to Magic: The Gathering players as the "Kaladesh Enemy-Coloured Fast Lands". This reprint is notable in that this is the first time that this land cycle has been reprinted.

Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels
The Weeping Angel cards showcase some of their most iconic appearances in the show. The angels number from 1377 to 1381 and have rarity symbols and letters that match the original printing of each card. These reskinned reprints are reprints of Magic: The Gathering angels that all have the flying keyword on them even though, canonically, Weeping Angels are not able to fly.

Additional Cards
Players taking part in Launch Party events held from October 13th to 15th, 2023 at a WPN (Wizards Play Network) game store, were eligible to receive a Past in Flames traditional foil launch party promo card. This card is only available in traditional foil and is exclusive to WPN stores.

Card Notes

 * The deck designers deemed companions to be defined as someone who stays with the Doctor and travels with them for a long time. Notably, this means that some cards that do not feature the Doctor's Companion ability feature characters that would traditionally be considered companions of The Doctor or companions whose companion status are a matter of debate amongst fans. These are Astrid Peth, Wilfred Mott, Alistair, the Brigadier, Missy, River Song, Rory Wiliams, and Sergeant John Benton.
 * Alistair, the Brigadier and Kate Stewart form a mirrored pair of cards. They are both rare legendary creatures that cost four mana (one generic mana and the three colours of their respective decks) and have their power and toughnesses as 3. Each has a triggered ability that creates soldier creature tokens and an attack trigger that asks for a payment of 8 mana to strengthen all of the player's creatures for that turn depending on the main theme of their respective decks, namely historic and time counters. The key difference (apart from colour and theme) between them is that Alistair is a soldier himself while Kate is a scientist.
 * Sonic Screwdriver and Laser Scewdriver also form a mirrored pair of cards. Each of these artifact cards represents the iconic tool of the Doctor and the Master. They both have four abilities: a mana ability, an ability that costs 1 mana that taps or untaps an artifact, an ability that costs 2 mana that either surveils (discards bad ideas) or scries (saves ideas for a later time), and an ability that costs 3 mana that either goads a creature or makes a creature unblockable.
 * The new creatures types introduced in the Doctor Who set are: Cyberman, Dalek, Detective, Doctor, and Time Lord. "Time Lord" is the first two-word creature type but is treated as one creature type. "Time" and "Lord" are not individual creature types on their own (although Lord used to be a creature type but has since been replaced and deprecated). The set also formerly introduced the Scientist creature type to black-border cards which had previously only appeared on two silver-bordered cards from the "joke" set, Unstable. Similarly, the creature type Alien was previously used on a playtest card (not an official card) and eight cards in Unfinity, three of which are "acorn" cards which are similar to silver-bordered cards in that they are also not legal for play in most tournament formats.
 * Rather than create multiple new creature types representing some of the humanoid species in Doctor Who, the set uses the Magic: The Gathering "Human" creature type as a catch-all to include a multitude of human-like humanoid races/species. This includes Alzarian (Adric, Mathematical Genius ), Trakenite (Nyssa of Traken), Proto-Time Lord (represented as Human Time Lord for River Song), and other unnamed humanoid species (Astrid Peth and Idris, Soul of the TARDIS).
 * Some humanoid characters were not attributed to the Human creature type based on the precedent set by the other humanoid creature cards in the set. Do note that this is sometimes due to a space issue on the physical card layout as opposed to a game mechanic or flavour reason.
 * Davros, Dalek Creator, a Kaled, is typed as an Alien instead of Human
 * Flesh Duplicate is typed as a Shapeshifter without the additional Human type that other humanoids have
 * Nardole (correctly typed as an artifact (cyborg)), Vislor Turlough and Sisterhood of Karn are all missing a race type which should be Human
 * The Soldier and Warrior tokens are exclusively made by cards (The War Games, The Cave of Skulls, Alistair, the Brigadier, Kate Stewart, UNIT Headquarters) that would all be human in nature, however, these tokens do not have the human creature type. Human Soldier and Human Warrior tokens already exist in Magic: The Gathering from other sets
 * The Magic: The Gathering "Alien" creature type is used in the Doctor Who set as a catch-all type to represent multiple non-human species that did not get their own new creature types.
 * Auton Soldier is missing the Shapeshifter creature type associated with other Magic: The Gathering cards that use the same copy ability.
 * Karvanista, Loyal Lupari is incorrectly named. It should use the singular form of Lupar instead of Lupari. Lupari is used correctly in the adventure portion of the card as an adjective.
 * The Sea Devils card creates green Alien Salamander tokens with islandwalk to represent Sea Devils. Sea Devils are sea water reptiles that cannot be deemed to be salamanders since salamanders only live in fresh water. In addition, Sea Devils evolved on Earth and cannot therefore be deemed to be Alien. The correct creature type for the tokens should have been Lizard (like Madame Vastra) instead of Alien Salamander.
 * Osgood, Operation Double creates a non-legendary token that is a copy of itself when cast. Two card artworks exist for Osgood in the set that form one complete image and represent the Human/Zygon versions of Osgood. The left side of the image features Osgood in her question mark jumper and loose red tie with the Blue Osgood Box to her right (from the viewer's standpoint) while the right side of the image features Osgood with her scarf and red bowtie with the Blue Osgood Box to her left (from the viewer's standpoint). The Osgood, Operation Double variants are as follows:

Card Availability
With the four Commander decks sharing colours between them, some cards are available in multiple decks as well as being available as variants in the Collector Boosters. With the exception of Twice Upon a Time which thematically appears in two decks (the ones with the First and Twelfth Doctors), these cards are limited to colourless artifacts and land cards. With the exception of Basic Lands, only one of these cards is available in each deck. The cards are:

General References

 * Besieged Viking Village utilises the "boast" mechanic first seen in the real-world Viking inspired Magic: The Gathering set, "Kaldheim".
 * Artists Alice Zhang, Roberta Ingranata, Karen Hallion and Jeremy Enecio (via BBC Studios) have previously contributed artwork for the Doctor Who franchise.
 * The only historical figures featured on cards are Vincent van Gogh (Ecstatic Beauty), Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (Human Noble), and Nikola Tesla (Surge of Brilliance).
 * An upcoming unannounced Secret Lair will feature a reference to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors.
 * The Release Notes for Magic: the Gathering sets often have easter egg jokes placed within the card explanations. In the Doctor Who set, the easter eggs are:
 * Blink has the following text: "People often assume that Sagas are a strict progression from top to bottom, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey . . . stuff. That is, the rules support chapter abilities that appear to be out of order, like those on Blink. The first ability triggers when the first and third lore counters are added. The last ability triggers when the second and fourth lore counters are placed on it."
 * The Master, Multipled has the following text: "Notably, the part of myriad that makes you exile the creature tokens at end of combat is a triggered ability. This means that the ability will trigger, but you won't exile the tokens when it resolves. Since the tokens also have myriad, attacking with each of them will cause that myriad ability to trigger, causing the Master to, well . . . multiply."
 * Me, the Immortal has the following text: "Ashildr retains . . . I mean Me, the Immortal retains all counters, not just those granted by the first ability."
 * Weeping Angel has the following text: "As the first triggered ability of Weeping Angel resolves, it continues to be an artifact but will stop being both an Alien and an Angel until it becomes a creature again. It's just a statue, how dangerous could it be?"

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 also have episodes represented by associated Saga cards.

We're All Stories in the End - The 19 episodes represented are: Other cards are named after episodes, despite not being Saga cards: "The Cave of Skulls", The Five Doctors, The Sound of Drums, The Wedding of River Song, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, Flatline, and Twice Upon a Time.
 * 1) An Unearthly Child for the First Doctor
 * 2) The War Games for the Second Doctor
 * 3) The Sea Devils for the Third Doctor
 * 4) City of Death for the Fourth Doctor
 * 5) The Caves of Androzani for the Fifth Doctor
 * 6) Trial of a Time Lord for the Sixth Doctor
 * 7) The Curse of Fenric for the Seventh Doctor
 * 8) The Night of the Doctor for the Eighth Doctor
 * 9) The Day of the Doctor for the War Doctor
 * 10) The Parting of the Ways for the Ninth Doctor
 * 11) The Girl in the Fireplace for the Tenth Doctor
 * 12) The Eleventh Hour for the Eleventh Doctor
 * 13) Heaven Sent for the Twelfth Doctor
 * 14) The Flux for the Thirteenth Doctor
 * 15) Fugitive of the Judoon for the Fugitive Doctor
 * 16) Genesis of the Daleks for Davros
 * 17) Blink for the Weeping Angels
 * 18) Day of the Moon for The Silence
 * 19) Death in Heaven for Missy

Prices
The Doctor Who Secret Lairs were available in the following bundles (along with other non-Doctor Who Secret Lairs) for purchase from the Secret Lair website from October 2nd, 2023 until November 19th, 2023:


 * Fill My Cauldron with Almost Everything Bundle - Includes 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Foil Edition, 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Non-Foil Edition, 1 Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Foil Edition and 1 Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Non-Foil Edition - Sold for £371.99, €425.99, $372.74
 * Fill My Cauldron with Foils Bundle - Includes 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Foil Edition and 1 Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Foil Edition - Sold for £217.99, €245.99, $218.75
 * Fill My Cauldron with Non-Foils Bundle - Includes 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Non-Foil Edition and 1 Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Non-Foil Edition - Sold for £165.99, €193.99, $166.24
 * Fill My Cauldron with Dr. Who Bundle - Includes 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Foil Edition, 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Non-Foil Edition, 1 Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Foil Edition and 1 Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Non-Foil Edition - Sold for £109.99, €125.99, $110.00
 * Places to Trick or Treat Foil Lands Bundle - Includes 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Foil Edition - Sold for £92.99, €105.99, $93.75
 * Places to Trick or Treat Non-Foil Lands Bundle - Includes 1 Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Non-Foil Edition - Sold for £70.99, €82.99, $71.25
 * Secret Lair x Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Foil Edition - Sold for £39.99, €44.99, $39.99
 * Secret Lair x Doctor Who: The Dalek Lands Non-Foil Edition - Sold for £29.99, €34.99, $29.99
 * Secret Lair x Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Foil Edition - Sold for £39.99, €44.99, $39.99
 * Secret Lair x Doctor Who: The Weeping Angels Non-Foil Edition - Sold for £29.99, €34.99, $29.99