The Magic: The Gathering creature card Time Stream Navigator has spiked by a hefty 363% due to new Doctor Who spoilers revealed at the weekend. This MTG card was printed in Rivals of Ixalan in 2018 and has slowly sunk to around $3.80 in recent months. It’s now shot to $17.65 by MTGGoldfish prices, thanks to a nifty new infinite combo. This extra-turn pirate/wizard card pairs great with the new River Song commander revealed for the MTG Doctor Who crossover decks on Friday.
Timestream Navigator is a really neat design for an extra-turn card, but it’s rather clunky by today’s standards. You need the City’s Blessing, and for the creature to stick around on your board dodging removal for a whole turn before you use its ability, and after you do so, the Navigator jumps to the bottom of your library, never to be seen again.
Unless you’re playing River Song, that is, a new MTG Doctor Who Commander card with an innovative effect that’s caused quite a bit of buzz in the Magic community.
River Song makes you draw cards from the bottom of your library, a usually totally inaccessible zone, almost as unobtainable as a card in exile. So you can use Timestream Navigator’s ability, then immediately draw it from the bottom of your library again on your next turn.
This turns into an infinite combo if you have any of Red’s umpteen haste enablers, as you can then reuse the extra turn ability as many times as you like. However, you’ll also need some kind of card draw if you require any new cards that aren’t Timestream Navigator. (Each extra turn, you’ll draw the Navigator first).
It’s a wicked and very fun combo, which is why Timestream Navigator is suddenly in the limelight, and shooting up in price. It’s even kind of flavorful, if you know your Doctor Who lore. Fans of both Doctor Who and Magic are giddy about the top-down mechanical design for this card. A quick primer: she’s The Doctor’s wife, but meets him in reverse – his first time meeting her is her last time seeing him. (It’s actually quite a lot more messy than that – as this infographic nicely demonstrates).
By MTGGoldfish’s calculations the card may well have hit its peak already, shooting to $20 on Saturday and then sinking down a little. On TCGPlayer meanwhile, Timestream Navigator looks to be at $10, rather than the $3 it cost last week, and may still be on the ascendant.
River Song isn’t the first Universes Beyond spoiler to cause a price spike – earlier this month, a popular Lord of the Rings Commander caused a major rise for a Warhammer 40k card – what a crossover! We’ve also seen an entirely different Lord of the Rings card go up by 1000% in the past week.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our guides to building a Commander deck, and the best MTG commanders. And don’t miss out on our MTG Arena codes guide.