Magic: The Gathering reveals Doctor Who Commander cards The Tenth Doctor and TARDIS - cost, abilities, and more

Magic: The Gathering revealed some cards for the upcoming Doctor Who expansion at the most recent San Diego Comic-Con. The expansion, coming in October 2023, will feature many of the most popular characters from the long-standing British TV series. Players will have access to 200 new cards across 4 decks. There are still plenty of reveals to see, but two of the most interesting cards revealed so far were The Tenth Doctor and the TARDIS.

There were several other cards and tokens revealed, but the two biggest were arguably The Tenth Doctor and the TARDIS. Many fans are excited about the Doctor Who Magic: The Gathering Commander decks - here’s what fans can expect out of these cards.

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What do the Doctor Who commander cards The Tenth Doctor and TARDIS do in Magic: The Gathering?

Like the Lord of the Rings expansion before it, Doctor Who in Magic: The Gathering is a part of the Universes Beyond series. These are collections of cards that use settings not linked to the Magic: The Gathering canon.

However, this will be closer to the Warhammer expansion; it will just be a series of Doctor Who-themed Magic: The Gathering commander decks. There will be 4 released with a total of 200 new cards being added to the game.

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The Tenth Doctor

The Tenth Doctor in Magic: The Gathering (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

• Mana Value: 3UR
• Type: Legendary Creature - Time Lord Doctor
• Rarity: Mythic Rare
• Stats: 3 power, 5 toughness
• First Ability: Allons-y! - Whenever you attack, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card. Put three time counters on it. If it doesn’t have suspend, it gains suspend.
• Second Ability: Timey-Wimey - 7: Time travel three times. Activate only as a Sorcery

The Tenth Doctor is a really interesting Doctor Who card. He’s built for Red/Blue card draw/spell decks, that’s for sure. His first ability lets you suspend a card you exile, sliding 3 time counters onto it.

That means you could wait three turns to remove those counters, and then the spell triggers. Or, you could find another way to remove the counters, and play it for free anyway.

If you spend 7 colorless mana, you can use Timey-Wimey, which uses the new mechanic Time Travel. This new keyword lets you add or remove a time counter from each suspend card and permanent you control with those counters. You could in theory, set up some hilariously powerful combos this way, but it’s pure chaos.

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TARDIS

The TARDIS card in Magic: The Gathering (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

• Mana Value: 2
• Type: Artifact - Vehicle
• Rarity: Uncommon
• Keyword: Flying, Crew 2
• Stats: 2 power, 4 toughness
• First Ability: Whenever TARDIS attacks, if you control a Time Lord, the next spell you cast this turn has Cascade and you may planeswalk.

TARDIS brings back one of my favorite abilities in all of Magic: The Gathering - cascade. The Cascade keyword triggers when you cast a spell that features it. You reveal/exile cards from the top of your deck until you get to a spell that costs less than what you initially cast.

You can cast that cascaded spell without paying its mana cost. It’s key to many classic strategies and is 100% worth running in your Doctor Who-flavored commander decks. It also lets you planeswalk, for players running Planechase cards in their game. As a colorless card, this could appear in virtually any deck and be powerful.

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Doctor Who’s commander decks will launch in MTG on October 13, 2023. The set was designed by Gavin Verhey and Chris Mooney.