If massive MTG bans affecting major competitive formats weren’t enough news for you, even more incredible announcements are hitting the MTG scene today, and these don’t just affect the MTG community, but other Pop culture communities as well!
Today, more info regarding an upcoming MTG Doctor Who Secret Lair has been revealed. We’ve known for some time now that the Fourteenth Doctor would be getting an MTG card as part of the Magic: the Gathering and Doctor Who crossover, and that card has finally been revealed! Here are all the cards revealed in a Doctor Who Secret Lair teaser on IGN!
The Fourteenth Doctor
The Fourteenth Doctor grants Commander players the opportunity to play the Doctor Kindred deck that Doctor Who fans would dream of. Inspired by this Doctor taking the face of a previous Doctor in the series, The Fourteenth Doctor has the ability to enter as copies of other Doctors in your graveyard. Adding to this theme is the bizarre four-colored identity of this Doctor.
The Fourteenth Doctor also comes with a way to get those Doctors into the grave. Casting it will grant one opportunity to get Doctor cards into your grave, looking fourteen cards deep to do so. You can then enter the battlefield as a copy of one of the cards milled this way, or otherwise was put into your grave this turn.
The first thing that strikes me with this card’s introduction is trying to make Gallifrey Stands work as a win condition alongside it. Either way, Gallifrey Stands becomes a rather powerful tool alongside The Fourteenth Doctor. Even if not used as a win condition, the Fourteenth Doctor threatens to put a bunch of Doctor cards in your graveyard rather quickly. Gallifrey Stands can retrieve them.
On that note, almost anything that cares about Doctor cards probably has a place in this deck. While a majority of those cards are within the color identity of The Fourteenth Doctor, consider this a reminder that, when utilizing Vislor Torlough as your Doctor’s Companion, you can essentially turn this into a five-colored deck.
You can find a Scryfall search of cards that have the word ‘Doctor’ in their oracle text here.
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The Celestial Toymaker
The Celestial Toymaker represents
Fact or Fiction
Fact or Fiction
Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
Kindred..? What a cool Commander idea!
Players wanting to utilize The Celestial Toymaker want to force opponents to make guesses, or otherwise arrange cards into piles. Notably, cards that specifically force choices on an opponent do not seem to apply here.
The Celestial Toymaker already offers a mini Fact or Fiction upon attack, but further synergies can be unearthed by adding other cards that arrange things into piles. There are a lot of Fact or Fiction-esque effects in Magic. Specifically typing ‘Piles’ into Scryfall while including the Esper color combination reveals 16 different cards to choose from. Here is a list of what is included:
- Boneyard Parley/[tooltips] [tooltips]Brilliant Ultimatum
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Death or Glory
Death or Glory
Separate all creature cards in your graveyard into two piles. Exile the pile of an opponent's choice and return the other to the battlefield.
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Do Or Die
Do Or Die
Separate all creatures target player controls into two piles. Destroy all creatures in the pile of that player's choice. They can't be regenerated.
- Epiphany of the Drowned
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Fact or Fiction
Fact or Fiction
Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
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Fight or Flight
Fight or Flight
At the beginning of combat on each opponent's turn, separate all creatures that player controls into two piles. Only creatures in the pile of their choice can attack this turn.
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Hostile Negotiations
Hostile Negotiations
Exile the top three cards of your library in a face-down pile, then exile the top three cards of your library in another face-down pile. Look at the cards in each pile, then turn a pile of your choice face up. An opponent chooses one of those piles. Put that pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard. You lose 3 life.
-
Jace, Architect of Thought
Jace, Architect of Thought
+1: Until your next turn, whenever a creature an opponent controls attacks, it gets -1/-0 until end of turn.
−2: Reveal the top three cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other on the bottom of your library in any order.
−8: For each player, search that player's library for a nonland card and exile it, then that player shuffles. You may cast those cards without paying their mana costs. -
Liliana of the Veil
Liliana of the Veil
+1: Each player discards a card.
−2: Target player sacrifices a creature.
−6: Separate all permanents target player controls into two piles. That player sacrifices all permanents in the pile of their choice. -
Make an Example
Make an Example
Each opponent separates the creatures they control into two piles. For each opponent, you choose one of their piles. Each opponent sacrifices the creatures in their chosen pile. (Piles can be empty.)
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Phyrexian Portal
Phyrexian Portal
{3}: If your library has ten or more cards in it, target opponent looks at the top ten cards of your library and separates them into two face-down piles. Exile one of those piles. Search the other pile for a card, put it into your hand, then shuffle the rest of that pile into your library.
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Sphinx of Clear Skies
Sphinx of Clear Skies
Flying, ward {2}
Domain — Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, reveal the top X cards of your library, where X is the number of basic land types among lands you control. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard. (Piles can be empty.) - Sphinx of Uthunn
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Truth or Tale
Truth or Tale
Reveal the top five cards of your library and separate them into two piles. An opponent chooses one of those piles. Put a card from the chosen pile into your hand, then put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order.
- Unesh, Criosphinx Soverign
Doing the same search on Scryfall for the word ‘guess’ reveals 12 results, but some of these are not legal for Commander play. As such, we will leave that search here for those interested to take a look.
Do keep in mind that these search options will not unearth every card that has some synergy with The Celestial Toymaker. Doubling combat triggers with Roaming Throne, for example, could also be a powerful tool. This does, however, give players interested in Fact or Fiction Kindred a place to start.
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Rose Noble
Rose Noble appears as the next Doctor’s Companion for The Fourteenth doctor, and with it comes a fantastic ability to aid your Doctor Kindred strategy. Drawing a card each time a Doctor or Doctor’s Companion enters play can be rather valuable, especially when your entire deck is focused around it. Sadly, we are unsure if we would advise this card for that strategy as your Doctor’s Companion.
While the Ward 2 that this card offers is a powerful line of protection, the ability provided by Rose Noble, at least in our opinion, is underwhelming for four mana. If this card dies once, it will immediately start costing six or more mana, which is incredibly expensive for an already underwhelming exchange mana-value wise.
My prediction is that the best Fourteenth Doctor Commander decks will utilize a different Doctor’s Companion. Needing to cast Doctor and Doctor’s Companion spells just makes Rose Noble that much more clunky.
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This Is Not Everything
Today, three of the new cards arriving in the next Doctor Who Secret Lair were revealed. Interestingly, five new cards will ultimately make an appearance, meaning that there are still two more to go.
This secret Lair is slanted to release December 11, exactly one week from today’s previews. The last two cards included in this Secret Lair will be revealed upon its availability for purchase.
A ton of mechanically unique cards are present within this Secret Lair, and mechanically unique Secret Lairs tend to be worth their weight financially. Hopefully, for supply’s sake, these cards will eventually see a reprint in a core MTG set, but that may not happen for quite some time. If these cards interest you, we would recommend considering the upcoming Doctor Who Secret Lair releasing on December 11.
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