When the Doctor Who Commander decks launched for Magic: The Gathering, many fans were understandably disappointed that there wasn’t a central commander that could represent every single Doctor. Fortunately, Wizards of the Coast acted quickly to address this.
Thanks to the Doctor Who: Regeneration Secret Lair and the introduction of The Fourteenth Doctor, players can now gather all seventeen Doctors into one deck. With the Doctor’s Companion mechanic, you’ll have access to all five colors of mana. So let’s get started and create our own Team TARDIS!
Sample Decklist
Since your commander is The Doctor (not just ‘A’ Doctor, but ‘THE’ Doctor), you can include a Doctor’s Companion in your Command Zone. We suggest using Clara Oswald, who pairs well with most Doctors and can add black mana to your color identity. Our sample decklist includes her for this reason.
| Commander | |
|---|---|
| The Fourteenth Doctor | Clara Oswald |
Creatures (24)
- Adric, Mathematical Genius
- Arcade Gannon
- Displaced Dinosaurs
- K-9, Mark I
- Morophon, the Boundless
- Roaming Throne
- Rose Noble
- The Eighth Doctor
- The Eleventh Doctor
- The Fifteenth Doctor
- The Fifth Doctor
- The First Doctor
- The Fourth Doctor
- The Fugitive Doctor
- The Ninth Doctor
- The Second Doctor
- The Seventh Doctor
- The Sixth Doctor
- The Tenth Doctor
- The Third Doctor
- The Thirteenth Doctor
- The Twelfth Doctor
- The War Doctor
- Unsettled Mariner
Sorceries (15)
- Cultivate
- Everything Comes to Dust
- Farseek
- Into the Time Vortex
- Living Death
- Patriarch’s Bidding
- Primeval’s Glorious Rebirth
- Quantum Misalignment
- Reanimate
- Search for Tomorrow
- The Five Doctors
- Three Visits
- Twice Upon a Time // Unlikely Meeting
- Urza’s Ruinous Blast
- Windfall
Instants (11)
- Arcane Denial
- Brainstorm
- Clockspinning
- Counterspell
- Decaying Time Loop
- Everybody Lives!
- Gallifrey Falls // No More
- Heroic Intervention
- Swords to Plowshares
- Teferi’s Protection
- Time Lord Regeneration
Artifacts (9)
- Arcane Signet
- Chromatic Lantern
- Confession Dial
- Heroes’ Podium
- Lightning Greaves
- Relic of Legends
- Sol Ring
- Sonic Screwdriver
- TARDIS
Enchantments (4)
- An Unearthly Child
- Bigger on the Inside
- Gallifrey Stands
- The Eleventh Hour
Lands (35)
- Bountiful Promenade
- Command Tower
- Deathcap Glade
- Deserted Beach
- Dreamroot Cascade
- Exotic Orchard
- Forest x2
- Frontier Bivouac
- Gallifrey Council Chamber
- Island x3
- Ketria Triome
- Misty Rainforest
- Morphic Pool
- Mountain x2
- Overgrown Farmland
- Path of Ancestry
- Plains x2
- Rejuvenating Spring
- Rockfall Vale
- Sea of Clouds
- Seaside Citadel
- Spara’s Headquarters
- Spire Garden
- Swamp
- Temple Garden
- Temple of the False God
- Thespian’s Stage
- Training Center
- Trenzalore Clocktower
- Undergrowth Stadium
This deck aims to perform as a High-2 in the Commander Bracket system. To aim for Bracket 3, consider integrating tutors to bring Doctors into your graveyard, such as Entomb, ensuring that you can make the most of The Fourteenth Doctor’s abilities.
The Commander
The Fourteenth Doctor is a legendary Time Lord with a power of 3 and a toughness of 4 that requires one blue, one white, and either red or green mana to cast. He has two key effects when he enters the battlefield: first, you can look through the top 14 cards of your library and put all Doctors into your graveyard. Then, he can enter the field as a copy of any Doctor you placed in your graveyard during that turn, bringing them in with haste.
His second ability enables The Fourteenth Doctor to mimic the abilities of other Doctors, usually at a lower cost than casting them directly. Since his color identity encompasses all Doctors, he is the only Doctor able to provide access to every version in one deck.
Clara Oswald
The Doctor Who decks also introduced a variation of Partner known as "Doctor’s Companion,” which allows you to include any card with the Doctor’s Companion ability in your command zone, effectively giving you a second commander.
Among the available companions, Clara Oswald truly shines. She’s a 2/6 colorless Human Advisor that makes all triggered abilities from Doctors trigger twice, functioning like a Roaming Throne in your command zone. While she is printed as colorless, another ability permits you to choose her color before the game, provided she’s your commander, allowing you to add an additional color identity to your deck. For this build, we chose black, granting access to rich resources in your graveyard after The Fourteenth Doctor mills through your deck.
How to Build the Deck
The core reason for choosing The Fourteenth Doctor is the opportunity to play with all Doctors, which is precisely what this deck excels at. While some Doctors have natural synergy with each other, they each have varied abilities that can make it challenging to settle on a specific theme. Some might focus on sagas, others on suspending cards, and some may be artifact-based.
This diversity among Doctors poses a challenge in establishing a central theme: a suspend-focused strategy will benefit only one Doctor, while a historic-focused theme may incorporate two variations. Ultimately, they all share the commonality of being The Doctor, creating a solid foundation for deck construction.
With four Commander decks and a Secret Lair available, there’s ample support for Doctors and Time Lords. The self-milling ability of The Fourteenth Doctor, combined with Clara Oswald’s black color identity, allows for a recursion theme centered around flooding the board with Doctors and overwhelming your opponents.
Ramp
The Fourteenth Doctor benefits from Green’s robust land ramp options, and as such, several land-fetch cards have been included. Cards like Three Visits, Farseek, Cultivate, and Search for Tomorrow all feature Doctor Who art to keep your deck thematic. The land base leans heavily on green to facilitate these ramp cards.
In addition to the green ramp suite and classic artifacts like Sol Ring, we’ve also incorporated Chromatic Lantern, which generates any color mana and allows your lands to do the same. This ensures you always have the necessary mana, while also helping you accumulate enough to do so.
Since all Doctors and companions are legendary, the next mana rock is Relic of Legends. Similar to Chromatic Lantern, it produces one mana of any color, but for legendary creatures instead. This means that all of your Doctors can help summon more Doctors and cast spells like proper wizards!
No Doctor Who deck would be complete without a Sonic Screwdriver. While it serves as a three-mana rock, it also has added versatility: it can untap other artifacts, grant creatures unblockable status, and enable you to scry. The last ability is especially helpful with The Fourteenth Doctor, as it allows you to review your top card before you begin milling.
Draw Options
Having access to all five colors lets you tap into the best draw cards available. However, this deck is designed around a theme, and ideally, you want to avoid being weighed down by a generic collection of "good stuff." Fortunately, you still have plenty of effective draw alternatives!
The Second Doctor finds his place in any Azorius (white/blue) group-hug strategy: he removes the maximum hand size for every player and allows everyone to draw a card at the end of their turns. In return, any player who benefits from this draw can’t attack you on their next turn, providing you with both cards and protection!
Rose Noble is another excellent companion for The Fourteenth Doctor, included for her ability to draw cards every time you cast a Doctor or a companion. She becomes an ideal target for Quantum Misalignment, which makes a nonlegendary copy of a creature, giving you the chance to draw two cards for each Doctor you play.
Arcade Gannon, although originally a character from Fallout, carries the Doctor creature type and can interact with numerous important cards in your deck. He has the ability to draw and discard cards, while also boosting his capability to cast Humans and artifacts from your graveyard. While these aren’t common in this deck, having options is never a bad thing!
Time Lord Regeneration
Casting all your Doctors can become quite pricey, but The Fourteenth Doctor can mill a multitude of them into your graveyard simultaneously. With Roaming Throne and Clara Oswald, he can move all Doctors from the top 42 cards of your deck into your graveyard.
To fully utilize the black identity from Clara Oswald, Living Death swaps all creatures in play with those in graveyards. It’s wise to watch your opponents to clear their graveyards before employing this strategy to maximize its potential.
Patriarch’s Bidding is a more suitable choice when you’re not up against tribal decks. When cast, each player names a creature type and reanimates all creatures in their graveyards that match. You’ll want to name "Doctor," but if another player goes for "Human," you’ll get companions in the mix, too!
Lastly, Primevals’ Glorious Rebirth is the prime option, as it reanimates all legendary permanents in your graveyard. This will significantly impact your deck, bringing back nearly every creature along with a few other permanents.
The standout aspect of Primevals’ Glorious Rebirth is that it also targets Gallifrey Stands** since it’s a legendary enchantment. This means you could toss it away (or cast it boldly knowing it won’t easily be destroyed) and bring it back when you have enough Doctors in your graveyard to secure a win!
