Magic: The Gathering Doctor Who review - "Lovingly crafted and creative"

Magic: The Gathering Doctor Who feels like a match made in heaven. It's truly one of those crossovers you’d be surprised hadn't happened sooner. 

After all, in the sixty years since it debuted, Doctor Who has successfully established itself as an absolute colossus of nerd culture. Merch emblazoned with the iconic sci-fi IP haunts the aisles of so many gaming and hobby stores that it’s become difficult to imagine a format where The Doctor wouldn’t feel at home. Meanwhile, Magic: The Gathering has really been demonstrating the ability to step outside of its own lore with its Universes Beyond range and kooky Secret Lair drops. With how lore-rich and monster-heavy the MTG and Doctor Who universes both are, it doesn’t feel like that much of a leap to imagine swapping out dragons and Planeswalkers for aliens and Time Lords. 

You might be sold on MTG Doctor Who in theory, but a great Magic: The Gathering Doctor Who crossover requires more than a superficial splash of Tardis-blue. Does this set provide an artful homage to the Doctor Who universe and a worthwhile addition to the collections of those already well-versed in the best card games? Let’s find out. Allons-y!  

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Features & design

• The star of the set are the four 100-card preconfigured Commander decks
• Each deck consists of 50 brand-new cards along with some rather swanky-looking Doctor Who themed reprints
• The inclusion of ten Planechase cards allows you to integrate Planeswalking into your gameplay
• Collector Boosters can be bought separately but won’t offer any card that can’t be found in the pre-cons. They do, however, offer an opportunity to come across some lovely foiled cards and alternate arts

So, what can you expect when you pick up one of the Doctor Who Magic: the Gathering commander precons? Well, each one of the four available has their own theming and represents a distinct chunk of Doctor Who history. 

Blast From the Past is a white-blue-green deck that offers a nostalgia-laden look back at the adventures of the first eight Doctors. Timey-Wimey is a blue-red-white deck that captures the greatest moments of the ninth to eleventh Doctor. Meanwhile, the most recent two Doctors have their escapades captured in a green-blue-red deck called Paradox Power. 

Fittingly, having the only instance of black in the set, Masters of Evil is a red-blue-black deck that features all of the Doctor’s most powerful adversaries.

Each of these decks maintains the high print quality you’d expect from a Wizards of the Coast product. And for a little extra bang for your buck, the deck also comes with a charmingly themed cardboard deck box, a life counter, 10 double-sided token cards, and a Collector Booster pack. Its box contents are pretty standard fare for a Commander precon with the exception of 10 Plane Cards, which enable you to play in the Planechase format.

These oversized cards are admittedly a little unwieldy and the likely absence of suitable storage boxes in your LGS means these jumbo game pieces might not make the cut when you’re deciding what to bring to Friday Night Magic. Not including a Planar die with the deck doesn’t exactly encourage those new to the format either. 

Don’t worry if Planeswalking really isn’t your style, though, as this game supplement is totally optional. That said, integrating Planechase mechanics into the deck is a superb fit thematically. The chaos of Planechase perfectly captures The Doctor and their companions constantly zipping across time and space. 

The set’s art, card names, and flavor text are also positively jam-packed with Easter eggs sure to please hardcore Whovians and casual fans alike. 

Gameplay

• Card mechanics add novelty and compelling, on-theme abilities
• Decks don't stray too far from tri-color archtypes
• Not necessarily beginner-friendly

While this tie-in might draw a few Doctor Who fans who are new to the Magic: The Gathering, this set isn’t particularly beginner-friendly.  If your MTG knowledge is lacking, you’ll likely need a bit of hand-holding and a quick peek at a wiki to keep up with the barrage of mechanics these decks can chuck at you.

Broadly speaking, each deck doesn’t stray too far out of their respective tri-color archetypes. However, they certainly keep things fresh by integrating a wealth of new and established mechanics into each and every card.

Timey-Wimey features a whole lot of time counter placement, suspension, and strategic exiling. The new time travel mechanic allows you to bypass waiting around for your time counters to hit zero, but you can benefit from suspended cards immediately by having Rose Tyler as one of your commanders.

Playing Rose Tyler will only cost you two mana before the mana tax hits but she can quickly rack up counters by attacking while you have cards suspended, making her one of the most valuable companion creatures in the set. While constantly monitoring time counters can be a headache, this deck’s synergy can make it a real winner.

Masters of Evil is a punishing, removal-focused deck. It debuts the Villainous Choice keyword which is just as menacing as it sounds. When played, you can force your opponent to decide between two detrimental effects. This is a great dynamic for multiplayer and can lead to some really fun in-game politics.

Blast from the Past plays heavily on rewarding the use of historic permanents including legendaries, artefacts, and sagas. As each Doctor has their own saga, and this deck manages to cram eight regenerations in one deck, there’s plenty of opportunity to work this mechanic to your advantage.

Paradox Power centers around casting spells from outside of your hand as a method of bolstering your game position. Once a card with paradox is on the battlefield, the keyword activates anytime an instant or sorcery is cast from exile, the graveyard, or the command zone. Its effects range from placing counters to creating food or creature tokens. Essentially, embracing a bit of chaos will take you far with this deck.

The entire set makes pretty active use of Saga enchantments and uses each of them to recount the narratives of some of the series’ most iconic episodes. While each of these are gems in their own right, the non-sequential Weeping Angels-themed ‘Blink’ Saga is a personal favorite. 

Another set-wide novelty is the Doctor’s Companion ability, which allows you to have two select Legendary Creatures acting as your Commander simultaneously. This variation of the Partner ability provides an opportunity for some really interesting combinations of any Doctor with any Companion – sometimes resulting in a very questionable level of canon accuracy.

Should you buy Magic: The Gathering Doctor Who?

Like previous Magic: The Gathering sets, the Doctor Who crossover is lovingly crafted and creative – carefully paying homage to its source material while effectively meshing its content with the framework of the wildly popular CCG. 

Diminishing returns do set in if you were looking for more than just the Commanders and you may not fully ‘get it’ if you aren’t a massive Doctor Who fan, but there’s enough there to keep even a casual enjoyer entertained. 

If you’re more partial to fantasy than sci-fi or Doctor Who is totally alien to you, you might be better off dropping your cash and playtime on another Commander deck. 

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How we tested MTG Doctor Who

Abigail spent weeks playing with the Doctor Who Magic: The Gathering set to get a good sense of how the decks work and interact with each other. She used the Masters of Evil Commander deck in particular.

For more information on our process, be sure to see our guide to how we test board games and the full GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.

For more recommendations, be sure to check in with the best board games.