Magic: The Gathering's crossover with the classic British sci-fi show Doctor Who materialised in 2023, with that signature TARDIS noise. Featuring characters and creatures from across the TV show's 60-year history, MTG Doctor Who packs in tons of references to both classic and NuWho, giving a whole lot of famous faces and alien races the Magic card treatment.
Doctor Who was the second major MTG Universes Beyond crossover release of 2023, with the even larger MTG Lord of the Rings set released a season before. It has more in common with the MTG Warhammer 40k deck releases that came out in 2022, with Commander decks and Secret Lairs, but no standalone MTG set accompanying them.
You can hit up our sister site The Digital Fix for the latest Doctor Who TV news, or read on to learn more about this timey-wimey set.
MTG Doctor Who release date
After months lost in time and space, MTG Doctor Who released on October 13 2023. It came just a little before The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, the final MTG set in the MTG release schedule for 2023.
The release was quite timely, dropping just a little before Russell T Davies' Doctor Who specials aired, also in November. For details of the Doctor Who season 14 release and every scrap of timey-wimey info on those specials, click that link to get a run-down from our sister site The Digital Fix.
MTG Doctor Who decks
The MTG Doctor Who crossover consists of a mixture of reprints with a Doctor Who theme and brand new Doctor Who cards. Wizards released four Doctor Who decks for MTG Commander, filling them with "doctors, companions, villains, locations and more" from the show's entire history.
Collector boosters containing special treatment versions of these cards and MTG Secret Lairs were also part of the release.
We had a suspicion that there might be multiple decks representing the heroes, and that the Doctor Who villains (who don't typically play nice) might be bunded up in one deck. For the last big crossover, it was fairly straightforward, with one deck each for four of the Warhammer 40k factions – but many of Doctor Who's most famous baddies are standalone.
What do you know, we were exactly right. The four MTG Doctor Who decks are as follows:
| Name | Color | Features | Commander | Theme |
| Blast From the Past | Green, White, Blue | First 8 Doctors | 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith | Historic/Tokens |
| Timey Wimey | Red, White, Blue | Doctors 9, 10, 11 | 10th Doctor and Rose | Time Counters |
| Masters of Evil | Red, Blue, Black | Monsters and Villains | Davros | Villainous Choices |
| Paradox Power | Red, Blue, Green | Doctors 12, and 13 | 13th Doctor and Yaz | Playing from Exile |
Each of the MTG Doctor Who Commander cards is paired up with a Doctor's Companion. In fact Doctor's Companion is a new mechanic, a derivative of Partner that lets you have two commanders, provided one is a Timelord Doctor, and the other is a Doctor's Companion. This allowed for broader color identities for the decks.
MTG Doctor Who cards
Wizards of the Coast's first spoiler for new MTG Doctor Who Cards was a pair of cards themed around the infamous Blink episode that had all of us afraid to take our eyes off the screen in 2007.
There's Blink, which removes creatures for clues, and makes angel tokens, and Don't Blink, a hate card for creatures entering the battlefield from exile (i.e. blink strategies!).
The actual Weeping Angel monster is a sneaky fella, a first striker with worse than deathtouch – it shuffles creatures it hits back into their library. It's not so good on the defence though, becoming an inanimate statue if a creature was played that turn.
Plenty more cards were spoiled at MagicCon from Barcelona MagicCon below:
Before this latest batch of Doctor Who spoilers, we were shown the Dalek's iconic Exterminate spell, The Tenth Doctor, and the Tardis. We also got to see saga card, The Parting of the Ways. This is one example of the many sagas in the set, each one representing an iconic episode. There are 16 in total, one for each doctor, plus the War Doctor and the Fugitive.
The Doctor Who decks also brought back the Planechase mechanic to represent the Doctor and companions' journey through time and space. Planechase cards include the Tomb of the Doctor, Bad Wolf Bay, and the Lux Foundation. Fans of this EDH mechanic were spoiled for choice in 2023, since March of the Machine also featured the fun but chaotic Planechase game mode.
In a purely aesthetic touch, the decks also feature a cycle of basic MTG land cards featuring the TARDIS.
For more Magic: The Gathering news don't miss our MTG release schedule, for all the set release dates currently available. Why not take a trip in your TARDIS to the launch date of a specific set?