MTG Reveals The First Cards From The Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Secret Lair

04.12.2023 - 19:09 / thegamer.com

Magic: The Gathering has unveiled the first three cards from its next crossover with Doctor Who, bringing the Fourteenth Doctor, one of his allies, and one of his biggest adversaries to the game for the first time.

Following on from the Doctor Who Commander decks earlier this year, the Secret Lair x Doctor Who: Regeneration Drop will focus on the 60th Anniversary specials, which hadn’t aired at the time of the original launch.

IGN revealed three of the five cards coming in the drop, which are mechanically unique and designed expand on the themes of the Commander decks.

The Fourteenth Doctor finally allows you to run every Doctor in the same deck – something that, due to the colour identity rules of Commander – wasn’t possibly before. Instead of being a straight Doctor Matters deck, though, the Fourteenth Doctor has a bit of a graveyard slant, dropping Doctors into your graveyard and letting him enter as a copy of any of them.

Like the main Doctor Who set, these cards will be legal in Commander, Vintage, Legacy, and Oathbreaker.

This is a really flavourful way of capturing the core mystery of the Fourteenth Doctor, which is why he regenerated back into the face of his tenth incarnation. Letting him revisit the abilities of long-gone incarnations is yet another reason why Doctor Who is one of the best crossover sets we’ve seen so far.

Backing him up is Rose Noble, the daughter of Donna we were introduced to in the first 60th special, The Star Beast. Hers is potentially one of the most powerful companions for a Doctor Matters deck, giving you card advantage just for playing the huge number of cards that are either a Doctor or have Doctor’s companion (this set’s version of partner).

The last card revealed is The Celestial Toymaker from next week’s final special, The Giggle. As a long-running enemy, doesn’t play into the same themes as Rose and The Fourteenth Doctor. He does something very different, being a commander focused on guessing and grouping cards, such as with Fact or Fiction, Boneyard Parley, Brilliant Ultimatum, or Hostile Negotiations.

Regeneration will be joining the ongoing Secret Lair Secretversary Superdrop, although it hasn't been confirmed when the sale of it will end.

The decks already played with voting and making choices, especially with other villains like Davros, Missy, and the Valeyard. It’s really cool to see how The Toymaker can slot into that same general vibe, without necessarily retreading the same ground. It being the first Esper (white/blue/black) creature of the Doctor Who crossover opens up some opportunities for deckbuilding at the same time.

Two more cards are set to be revealed for the Secret Lair ahead of it going on sale on December 11 through the Secret Lair site.