The Top 5 Best-Selling Cards From Universes Beyond: Doctor Who
Jan Rivera-Pagan
It’s time to board the TARDIS and travel across space and time, the newest Magic: The Gathering release, Universes Beyond: Doctor Who is almost here! This latest installment in the Universes Beyond series is jam-packed with quirky references, alien creatures, beloved characters and time-traveling shenanigans from the renowned British television series Doctor Who.
It’s a strange new universe filled with allies and fierce foes alike, so to help our sellers prepare for the journey, we’ve generated a list of the top five cards currently best-selling on TCGplayer for this release:
The first commander creature of its kind, River Song is widely regarded as having one of the most intriguing new abilities as a result of “Meeting in Reverse”, which mirrors the character’s lore of traveling through time in reverse by allowing players to draw cards from the bottom of their deck rather than the top after casting.
Additionally, River Song's second ability, “Spoilers” provides a detrimental counter for opponents who build their decks around surveilling and scrying game mechanics, as each time they do so it adds a +1/+1 counter to River Song, and deals damage equal to River Song’s power directly to the opposing player. In short, River Song is a legendary creature that thrives on long-term Commander gameplay, as its power builds up and eventually stacks to inflict massive amounts of damage to opposing players whenever they have to search their decks.
Harkening back to the classic serial saga of the same name, City of Death is a green mana saga whose main strategy allows a player to copy any non-saga token they control after creating a Treasure token.
It is important to note that in order to use City of Death effectively to create token copies, the player will first have to generate the Treasure token and make use of it to populate the field. However, as long as the player makes use of treasure and has a solid token-based build, this card will allow players to effectively create copies of tokens they control and overwhelm their opponents.
In keeping with the lore for River Song, River Song’s Diary is another card that inverts traditional Magic mechanics by allowing players to place spells into exile rather than in the graveyard after resolving their cast. Furthermore, once four or more cards have been exiled in this way, a player can choose one of the exiled spells at random and cast them without paying the mana cost.
On its own, this colorless artifact favors spell-based deck builds and allows players to re-cast strong sorcery and instant cards to their benefit when River Song’s Diary is on the field. As a result, players who prefer quick casting and an aggressive playstyle will gravitate to having this card in their deck.
One of the oldest creatures in the Universe, dubbed by an alien race as “the creature that God forgot,” The Face of Boe is a strong multicolor legendary creature that can circumvent mana cost for spell cards that have “suspend” as a key casting mechanic. This ability effectively reduces the cost of spell cards during the casting phase without the expected wait time for “suspend” to activate the card’s effects.
Although The Face of Boe’s abilities are somewhat capped by its limited mana type (only affecting blue, red, and white mana cards, and excluding green and black), this card still enables players to play high-value mana spells much quicker, leading to very aggressive strategies in competitive gameplay.
Everybody Lives! is an instant staple in a player’s white mana deck for its ability to provide hexproof and indestructible to a player’s creatures until end of turn, while also providing hexproof to the player until end of turn.Plus, it prevents them from being able to lose life that turn. Essentially, at the cost of not being able to win or lose the game, the player who casts Everybody Lives! receives damage protection for themselves and their creatures until end of turn.
Unlike Teferi’s Protection, another comparable card which gives the player and their creatures protection from everything until the next turn, Everybody Lives! still allows room for damage to be done via counters, such as poison or infection. However, given its cheaper mana cost, this card will still function at a similar level in providing protection for the turn, and give players a chance to buff and recuperate during a difficult situation in game.
All cards from Universes Beyond: Doctor Who are now available to list on the TCGplayer Marketplace before the set releases on October 13, 2023.
For more information on what to expect regarding Universes Beyond: Doctor Who, check out Navigating Universes Beyond: Doctor Who and its Variants.
Have questions for our team? Please contact us at catalog@tcgplayer.com.