The Wildest Multi-Doctor Episode

Commander / EDH* Alt Win Battlecruiser Cascade Legendary Matters Lord Partner RGWU

EtchedMyr

Land (35)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gallifrey Council Chamber
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Jetmir's Garden
• 1x Ketria Triome
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Plaza of Heroes
• 1x Raugrin Triome
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Rockfall Vale
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Spara's Headquarters
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Stormcarved Coast
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Trenzalore Clocktower
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Instant (8)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Everybody Lives!
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Reverse the Polarity
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Creature (25)

• 1x Adric, Mathematical Genius
• 1x Alistair, the Brigadier
• 1x Displaced Dinosaurs
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Jamie McCrimmon
• 1x K-9, Mark I
• 1x Peri Brown
• 1x Roaming Throne
• 1x Sarah Jane Smith
• 1x The Eighth Doctor
• 1x The Eleventh Doctor
• 1x The Fifteenth Doctor
• 1x The Fifth Doctor
• 1x The First Doctor
• 1x The Fourth Doctor
• 1x The Fugitive Doctor
• 1x The Ninth Doctor
• 1x The Second Doctor
• 1x The Seventh Doctor
• 1x The Sixth Doctor
• 1x The Tenth Doctor
• 1x The Third Doctor
• 1x The Thirteenth Doctor
• 1x The Twelfth Doctor
• 1x The War Doctor

Enchantment (11)

• 1x An Unearthly Child
• 1x Annie Joins Up
• 1x Banish to Another Universe
• 1x Bigger on the Inside
• 1x Fugitive of the Judoon
• 1x Gallifrey Stands
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x The Day of the Doctor
• 1x The Eleventh Hour
• 1x The Girl in the Fireplace

Commanders (2)

Artifact (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Confession Dial
• 1x Heroes' Podium
• 1x Maskwood Nexus
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sonic Screwdriver
• 1x TARDIS
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Curiosity
• 1x Talisman of Impulse
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Talisman of Unity

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Everything Comes to Dust
• 1x Search for Glory
• 1x The Five Doctors
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Twice Upon a Time

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The release of Secret Lair x Doctor Who: Regeneration has allowed us a on-flavor way of being the writer of the most insane episode of Doctor Who, with references and cameos spanning from all across the history of the show... and even including spotlights for every single incarnation of the doctor. I hope to give you my insight on how I crammed all of this into a 100 card EDH deck, without having to make it bigger on the inside! But first... let's run the intro.

Deck Building Philosophy

My goal going into this was to try to create a Fourteenth Doctor deck that includes all of the printings of the Doctor, and us running those printings actually being meaningful towards the win-condition of the deck. While there are fantastically creative ways to make The Fourteenth Doctor a cEDH deck or interesting combo deck, that is not where I am hoping to go. The cEDH combination is typically the combination of The Fourteenth Doctor and K-9, Mark I, which is a deck that utilizes combos with Food Chain while using Fourteen to give you easier access to The Third Doctor as a combo piece for Food Chain while also giving you an extra color. I will leave it to ComedIan MTG to fully explain his logic as to why this is likely the most viable way of running a Doctor Who cEDH deck, and is likely how I would run it if I wanted to compete at cEDH tables. However I value more the zany wackiness of the deck when you cram in all of the doctors, and having a deck that I can play in good consciousness with most pods.

With all that being said, let's analyze the cards central to my goal... all of our doctors. Truly in theme with the show, they are all hyper individualized and distinct from each other. They all serve very unique and narrow purposes, and do so because they were designed with the intention of being the heads of their own build-around EDH decks. If you build this deck too much in one direction to suit one of them, you risk neglecting another and running into the trap many EDH decks do of trying to do too many things. So in that vein, it is important to see what few things they do have in common to determine our deck theme. Which is... they are all historic permanents, and in some way contribute to getting more historic permanents onto the battlefield (with a few exceptions.)

While some lie and say that all of their children are their favorites, in this guide I am not going to be so tactful, and outright say that there are doctors that win my heart more often than others. Some are in here simply because of my being too stubborn, or caring too much about the character behind them, to remove them. (I'm looking at you, Ninth Doctor, in my deck that has (at the time of this writing) ONE upkeep trigger besides cards incidentally put in suspend thanks to Gallifrey Stands (which to be fair, is a big one).

Some of our all stars are The Sixth Doctor, which duplicates some of our hardest bombs, The Third Doctor who can get absolutely massive in this deck and be a lethal threat on it's own, and the The War Doctor of which thanks to the construction of this deck, ends up being a common win-con that we rely upon. The majority of the doctors, thanks to the majority of them appearing in the historic deck... tend to work themselves well within the historic deck theme. With our Time-Lord friends from the Timey-Wimey and Paradox Power supporting us by giving us accelerated access to cards by both helping us to cheat casts from exile to fill our board and giving us payoffs for doing so.

You might notice that besides berating Gallifrey Stands in my tangent about the Ninth Doctor, that I haven't mentioned it much. Many people going into building this deck are likely going to be trying to maximize their ability to win with this card... I am here to say that I feel like that is a waste of time. I have yet to actually win with this card, with the closest I have gotten being a turn away where instead of waiting, I spared my opponents by killing them through combat damage instead of just passing and risking the heart break of someone board wiping me. I want to win with this card, and there are certainly ways of maximizing your odds that I will briefly go over. However I would rather the deck be generally strong in winning through the much more easier to attain and harder to counter combat damage than fully putting my chips into a single enchantment's trigger that can be disrupted in a plethora of different ways. The card is still a great way of 'drawing' doctors milled by our commander, and is made as a natural step in our game plan to maintain our ability to threaten our opponents, however it should probably be valued in importance by it's ETB ability more so than the Christmas miracle it's alt-wincon is. For our real wincon as I have mentioned before is casting the doctors themselves... and I will explain why through our partner commander choice.

Evaluating our Doctor's Companion

The nature of Fourteen being four colors means that regardless of what partner you choose, you will have access to a four color deck. With two of the eligible Doctor's Companions even giving you access to a fifth in Black. While there are many note-worthy Doctor's Companions in the deck, I am going to focus it down to four. Two that I would use in the Four-Color version, and the only two you could use to achieve Five Color goodness.

Rose Noble is the choice that I went with in this list, and is the one I play the most often over the table. Besides her being the natural partner with Fourteen in the Secret Lair, I just feel she provides us the most value for what we are hoping to do here. By making every Doctor and Doctor's Companion in our deck a cantrip, she essentially removes a major down-side of this strategy. She allows us to always replace our cards that by themselves are sub-optimal with more cards that when played make them as a whole, fantastic. She is often my go to first cast from the command zone, despite being a mana more expensive than the doctor. In the 'story' of this deck with Rose Noble in it, we mulligan to keep a hand that allows up to play early ramp that then allows us to play her on turn two or three. Which then turns on our whole deck for filling our board with marble machine like parts that helps us orchestrate our overtly complex win-state. It is because of the absolute value of this card replacement that I feel like the only companion to come close is...

Sarah Jane Smith is another good companion for Fourteen. By being a cheaper alternative to Rose, Sarah proves to be more accessible as the game drones on and commander tax makes it more and more difficult to maintain your draw engine in the command zone. Her creating clue tokens instead of immediately drawing you the card does create an unfortunate two mana tax that you otherwise wouldn't have. However, these clues also contribute to our historic permanent count. She also counts all of your historic spells towards her advantage engine, while Rose seems to only care about the people in our deck. The unfortunate stipulation of the ability only triggering once per turn, lacking natural protection, and her unfortunate toughness is ultimately what relegates her for me in the 99 instead of the command zone. However ironically she can prove to be a much better choice in more highly interactive and board destructive pods, or in variations of this deck that elects to work more on other people's turns by incorporating historic flash enablers like Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage or Gandalf the White if you do not care as much about 'maintaining the theme' as I do. By spacing out your playing historic permanents across each players turn, you will find yourself making a lot of clue tokens fast. With cards like The Fifteenth Doctor, you will also be very efficient on mana while creating these clues too. Ultimately both choices have value in the four color list, however I prefer the choice that can trigger multiple times per turn, as I find myself in quite a few situations where the immediate satisfaction is important.

Clara Oswald and Vislor Turlough make up our choices to make this deck a five color deck. Clara Oswald is not only a fan-favorite companion but is as well highly synergistic with the deck... in theory. Astute eyes may have noticed that Clara is absent in the 99 of my current version of the deck, and this is primarily due to the printing of Annie Joins Up from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. "There ain't room in this town for the three of us..." as I will start the saying, and when comparing our six mana 2/6 Clara to the four mana 4/4 Roaming Throne with ward 2 (if you can afford it's price like I can)... that could also name humans to encompass our companion half of the deck if our board state favors that more... and Annie Joins Up covering all of our legendary creatures... Clara's limitations are outshined by her competencies. She is MUCH better when you consider her ability to be a panharmonicon in the command zone, and compared to Vislor is miles ahead as a choice. Unfortunately however if you are putting either of these in the command zone, you are doing it not because either are more efficient or better choices than Rose Noble or Sarah Jane, but because you want access to black. Of which... black gives you a lot. More powerful tutors, access to cards like Jodah, the Unifier and running into Morophon, the Boundless as a 'Doctor' milled by Fourteen's effect. One of the most compelling cards in black that has tempted me towards these two is Black Market Connections because of it's ability to provide ramp, draw cards, and contribute doctors to our goal of achieving victory with Gallifrey Stands.

TL;DR on Doctor's Companion choices, if you are wanting to run a deck that maximizes victory with Gallifrey Stands. I would suggest running Clara Oswald in conjunction with The Fourteenth Doctor, and then running tutors for our enchantments and cards that can very quickly get us doctors into play, as well as a wide array of changeling cards to try and improve the quality and quantity of our doctors. You compromise on aesthetics, but achieve the thing you are looking to do. If you only want Gallifrey Stands for value, with the win-con being an extra little treat if you get lucky... then read on as I evaluate some of my other choices for this deck that runs Rose Noble as our TARDIS Co-Pilot.

Other card choices and synergies...

As mentioned in the beginning, the War Doctor can be quite a wincon on it's own. That is because it can be rather explosive with our two cascade outlets in TARDIS and Bigger on the Inside as well as a one or two drop. You simply need to attack with the War Doctor and the Tardis, let the Tardis's effect resolve with the War Doctor's still on the stack, and cast a one drop like Swords to Plowshares to give the War Doctor time counters equal to your current deck size. I own a Mana Crypt, but I don't play it for this reason. Two drops are less guaranteed, however they can still get you to a high count for the War Doctor. This combined with a trigger doubling in Annie Joins Up and Roaming Throne and... congrats you killed three players. The War Doctor is silly, and seeing him shine in this deck has me wanting to make a War Doctor + K-9 deck in earnest.

Alistair, the Brigadier has an insanely low pick rate of 45% according to EDH rec. Nearly everything we are casting is historic, you are going to fill the board with soldiers and pump for a lot with his attack trigger. He is worth putting in because otherwise you will find yourself durdeling more often than you are attacking. This is also why Displaced Dinosaurs makes the cut as well. Spend less time struggling to get in, and confidently trample (not literally) over your opponents with Dinosaurs with PHDs. Heroes' Podium also helps us in the issue of not so great stats. Cards like Reverse the Polarity and The Girl in the Fireplace help us get our creatures past our opponents boards. We also run only one sided boardwipes in Cyclonic Rift and Everything Comes to Dust to help us get in. Everything Comes to Dust does have some weaknesses, for even though it is highly likely in 99% of games you play no one else will be running Time Lords or Doctors... if you have Maskwood Nexus out... the card does nothing. This non-bo has been enough to make me consider Arcane Adaptation instead... however then we lose out on Changeling tokens, which makes Gallifrey Stands that much more out of reach. I do want to try and win with this card sometimes, and for just one mana less Adaptation does nothing else for us besides make a handful of creatures that don't already trigger Rose trigger Rose. I would love to hear opinions about how to solve this problem.

Weaknessess

To be straight forward... this deck is inordinately fair for my tastes. I feel very out of my element not having win the game buttons, or reliable ways to win the game outside of damage. The deck is rather straight forward because it plays mostly with what is on the battlefield, and it's lack of instant speed interaction can be a problem. We play one counter spell, and often times we aren't playing it as that. Counter spells in a deck that is trying to play on curve and cascade for value absolutely suck when they clunk up our plays. No one wants to cascade into a counter spell or suspend one. Another recurring issue is sometimes your board is doing too much, and you are taking a lot of time resolving triggers (that you need to be attentive to not miss] and filling your board with junk. (Not... literal junk mind you, despite how much our deck might like having access to those tokens.) You run the risk of annoying your playgroup and making yourself look like the threat unnecessarily. We run powerful cards like Smothering Tithe that might be a good cut for you not just because of budget concerns, but because you might not want to deal with the grief of having the target on your back this enchantment has earned the right to give you... with not enough payoff to actually protect you from the heat you will get for resolving it.

The deck likely has too much ramp, and Three Visits and Farseek are in my crosshairs for cuts. Their ramp is more permanent because land destruction is more rare in commander than artifact destruction... however I want to always be casting historic permanents. Talismans do more on draw in the later game then either of these cards. I am actively looking for suggestions for more interactive cards that we can use to get rid of threats or defend our board state against the threats of others. Adding Heroic Intervention is already on my short list. I would also love to hear more ways in which I can crush stalemates. In lower power boards our battlecruiser often times fall behind other battlecruisers because we are a bit behind on stats when we need to fit a very strict deck building theme when other decks can run the best of the same colors we are.

As always, I would love to hear feedback on this list! Thank you for your comments and contributions! Despite our ending on some dreary weaknesses, I have won more with this deck so far than I have lost. I do think it makes a powerful battlecruiser for the value it generates alone, it just might need some help in some regards to become the truly efficient machine it can be! (It also might be better with a few less canon doctors ran... and some more doctor-like imposters instead in the form of changelings.) However this is my attempt at capturing the sweet sweet flavor of seeing all of my favorite British gentlemen and gentlelaides in one deck.

Allons-y~!

Date added	8 months
Last updated	8 months
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 74 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 2 - 0 Commons
Cards	99
Avg. CMC	3.55
Tokens	Alien Rhino 4/4 W, Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Copy Clone, Food, Horse 2/2 W, Human 1/1 W w/ Doctor Tribal, Human 1/1 W w/ Ward, Human Noble 1/1 W, On an Adventure, Shapeshifter 2/2 U, Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders	Who?