Magic: The Gathering Doctor Who Preview: Hear the Sound of Drums With the Master of Evil Commander Deck (Exclusive)

Doctor Who comes to Magic: The Gathering next week as part of Wizards of the Coast's latest Universe Beyond release, combining the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering with the characters and ideas from another popular property. The Doctor Who crossover consists of four preconstructed Commander decks spotlighting different eras of Doctor Who history. The release includes Collector Boosters and a Secret Lair set featuring alternative card treatments. The Blast from the Past, Timey-Wimey, and Paradox Power decks each feature the Doctor and a companion as their commanders. ComicBook.com has an exclusive preview of the fourth Doctor Who Commander deck, Masters of Evil, which instead focuses on the Doctor's greatest foes, both classic and modern.

ComicBook.com can reveal three cards representing different versions of the Doctor's archnemesis, the Master. "The Master, Mesmerist" is the original Master as played by Roger Delgado. "The Master, Multiplied" shows the Master as played by John Simms during the original David Tennant era of the show. "The Doctor, Gallifrey's End" is based on Sacha Dhawan's take on the character, played opposite Jodie Whittaker's version of the Doctor. There's also a "The Sound of Drums" card, representing the noise running through the Master's head that may or may not have driven him mad.

But the Master isn't the Doctor's only enemy. We also have a preview of "Renegade Silent," a villain from Matt Smith's time as the Doctor. Finally, we have two planechase cards with locations relating to the Daleks, "The City of the Daleks" and "Dalek Intensive Care." All of these card previews can be found below.

We also had the opportunity to ask Gavin Verhey, Principal Designer on Magic: The Gathering and the lead designer on the Doctor Who Commander Decks, for tips about running the Masters of Evil deck and insights into its creation. Here's what they had to say:

Masters of Evil looks like a fun deck. What kind of Magic: The Gathering player will enjoy it the most?

It's a blast to play! While it can appeal to all sorts of players, I really think it hits best at being the player who is going to have fun antagonizing the entire table. Something we encountered with this deck that I've never seen ANYWHERE else before is people enjoying being the villain: doing dastardly deals, inserting a bit of chaos, and attacking everybody! There's a lot in the deck that really lends itself to that. But also, of the four decks, this is among the more typical to pilot so if someone is newer to the game, it's also a good place to start.

Masters of Evil is unique among the Doctor Who Commander Decks in that it focuses on the bad guys. How did you try to let that evil side shine through in the gameplay?

People liked playing the villain – so how about we lean into that? We came up with a style of gameplay we call "group slug," where you're trying to hit ALL of your opponents. Abilities like Myriad, for example, let you punch all of your opponents at once! The new ability villainous choice also makes you feel like a villain as you put one or more of your opponents in the position of having to choose between two bad things. Villains love doing that – kind of a "who will you save Doctor, your companion or the spaceship of innocent people"? It makes for some great moments!

There are so many great monsters and villains in Doctor Who's 60-year history. How did you go about choosing which to include in the deck? Were there some that you were disappointed to have to cut or that you loved from the show but didn't work in Magic: The Gathering?

It was SO hard to narrow it down. I mean, we couldn't represent the entire show if we wanted to: there are more Doctor Who episodes than the number of cards in all these decks!

After a lot of hearty discussion, we tried to go wide and hit a ton of different moments, characters, episodes, and villains. That way, hopefully, your favorite is in here somewhere. But not everybody could make the cut and some had to be left on the cutting room floor.

One of the last new cards I cut when trimming down the Masters of Evil deck was a card that represented the Hand of Omega – from the old run of the show. It was really hard to pick and choose how much from the original run of the show to showcase here, and the hand ended up on the cutting room floor: it was either that or The Flood from The Waters of Mars, and ultimately the latter was just more recognizable and just had a stronger mechanical hook – you'll have to wait to see what it does.

Is there a standout card – from this preview, this deck, or the set as a whole – that you're particularly proud of, either because of how well it translates from Doctor Who or just how fun the mechanics seem?

A ton of the cards you're previewing today are actually total hits in this regard!

The Master, Multiplied is one of my favorite cards in the set! It's absolutely wild. In the show a ton of Masters begin showing up – and so here, he continues to replicate himself since the myriad copies don't go away at the end of the turn (myriad means when the creature attacks, you make another copy attacking each opponent and then the copies go away afterward… except they don't because of his ability!) and it's a really fun new deck to build with cards that create temporary copies of creatures.

Renegade Silent really feels like The Silence to me: once you look away from them you forget they exist,  but they manipulate what was going on. Perfect for phasing.

And the Master, Mesmerist captures the original Master so well to me, pulling the strings and making others do his bidding!

Not in your previews, one of my favorite cards in the set is River Song. Drawing from the bottom is just such a wild mechanic that fits her story of meeting the Doctor in reverse chronological order so well!

Any tips for players who are looking forward to fielding Masters of Evil?

My biggest tip is that you really want to find a way to deal 3 damage so you can trigger Davros every turn. An early myriad creature is perfect, but there are other ways to sneak it through too. Once you start that Dalek generation it's a lot easier to keep doing it over and over again, but ideally your opening hand can either land a turn three Davros with a mana rock or an  earlier creature that can attack for 3.

Magic: The Gathering's Doctor Who set will debut on October 3rd. Their global launch will follow on October 13th. The set, including Collector Booster boxes, is available for preorder now.