Away From Keyboard – Magic: The Gathering - Doctor Who
Feature
The Good Doctor
Doctor Who has been around for nearly sixty years, but I must admit that I am one of those rare people who hasn’t been caught up in the adventures of the time travelling doctor. So, when Hooked Gamers were invited to attend the preview event for the latest Magic: The Gathering set, based around the good doctor, I was a little apprehensive. Would my lack of Doctor Who knowledge be a disadvantage?
The set contains aspects from every era of the famous TV series, whether you're as fan of the original Doctor, the most recent Doctor, or anyone in between. There are famous locations, glorious villains, and of course, you couldn't have the doctor without the Daleks – “Exterminate!”
Set mechanics
The Doctor Who set has a host of new and reprised mechanics, and I must admit that it took me a while to get used to some of the new mechanics – particularly as during the event, we played the Commander format. Whilst some of the other players were clearly Doctor Who aficionados and were reliving memories of their favourite episodes, I took that time to study some of the new keywords and the set mechanics.
Doctor's Companion
The Doctor hardly travels anywhere or anywhen without a companion. They are close friends, confidants, and in this case, second commanders. Doctor's Companion is similar to the partner ability.
Each card with Doctor's companion is a legendary creature. In Commander games, you may have two commanders if one of them is a card with Doctor's companion and the other is "The Doctor." That means a legendary Time Lord Doctor creature with no other creature types.
During the game, the two commanders operate independently. For example, the "commander tax," the additional cost to cast a commander from the command zone, is tracked for each commander separately. Similarly, commander damage dealt to player by each commander is tracked separately. If a card refers to "your commander," it refers to both, although if it's trying to perform an action on your commander, like put it into your hand, you choose which one it's talking about.
Paradox
Paradox is an ability word that's used to highlight abilities that care about casting spells from anywhere other than your hand. Often these abilities are triggered abilities that trigger whenever you do so. Some paradox abilities count the number of spells you've cast from anywhere other than your hand that turn to determine the magnitude of their effects. This is a great keyword when you have cards suspended in exile.
Villainous Choice
Villainous choices offer opponents two unfortunate outcomes, but they get to choose which one befalls them. A player offered a villainous choice can always choose either option, even if the effect of that option turns out to not do anything.
This can affect multiple players at once, but if multiple players are offered a villainous choice, the first opponent in turn order makes their choice, then that effect happens. Then, the next player makes their choice, that effect happens, and so on for each player faced with a villainous choice.
Time Travel
It wouldn't be a Doctor Who set without Time Travel.
Time Travel is a new keyword that allows players to manipulate the flow of events. When players cast a spell with this keyword, for each suspended card (a suspended card is a card that has been placed in exile via the suspend ability) and permanent that they control with a time counter on it, players can add or remove a time counter.
Planechase
Each of the Planes comes with differing abilities, most having a secondary ability set once Chaos Ensues (upon rolling the planer die). And with each affecting players differently, players will either want to stay in the current plane or choose to roll to change the Plane – hopefully one with a better outcome.
The Cards
The Doctors
With fourteen different official doctors, each is represented in card form in the Doctor Who set. Whether your favourite was Tom Baker, David Tennant, or Jodie Whittaker, you'll be able to see them lovingly displayed. With no Planeswalkers within this set, the good Doctors are the next best thing.
Planechase Cards
Each Commander deck (four different types) features 10 new Planechase cards, each of which depict a specific location or moment in time from the Doctor Who series. As mentioned previously, these cards will feature a range of abilities that will suit different players at various stages of the game.
Lands
There are lands the depict various locations from the series and they look lovely. But in addition to that, the basic lands have received their own Doctor Who treatment, with the Tardis appearing in some form in each of them.
Product Types
Commander Decks (100 cards) - four variations
• Timey-Wimey (blue/white/red)
• Masters of Evil (blue/black/red)
• Blast from the Past (green/white/blue)
• Paradox Power (green/blue/red)
Collector Boosters (15 cards)
For more info about the Doctor Who set, visit The Doctor Who set page. And, as always, follow us on Instagram for news updates, reviews, competitions and more.