Blast from the Past Precon: Decklist, Value, and Verdict

This is the precon I’m least in love with. I could see a huge fan of the series preferring this one since it jams so many of the Doctors in, but as someone who isn’t keen on Doctor Who lore, that doesn’t sway me much. It has the least interesting themes of the bunch; why choose a historic-matters deck when I can mess around with suspend, paradox, or be a literal villain? It’s not bad, and the reprint value is acceptable, but it’s just not interesting to me. People with legends-matter decks or saga decks will find plenty to use here, and the cards slot into different decks well enough, but it just doesn’t spark my excitement the same way the other decks do.

Blast from the Past is a Bant deck featuring most of The Doctors and a larger number of companions than the other decks, which means it has to most customization in terms of who you run as the commander(s). The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith team up as the face commanders, though I’d recommend experimenting with other combinations. These two are both card advantage legends that are great at bringing your synergies together but don’t put much pressure on your opponents.

There’s a heavy “historic matters” theme throughout this deck, which means an emphasis on sagas, artifacts, and legendary cards. I find that the deck does an exceptionally good job at creating tokens, especially Clues and Food, but it feels short on meaningful things to do with those tokens aside from sacrifice them for their normal effects. There are some powerful payoffs like Displaced Dinosaurs and Nyssa of Traken, but they’re sparse otherwise.

I could also see this deck being a little too smart for its own good, even for veteran players. It’s got a lot of fiddly pieces, cast triggers, and interactions like creating token copies of sagas and tracking tons of different game pieces. A challenge for some, an annoyance for others.

• All 9 Bant Commander Precons in Magic Ranked by A.L. Walser (July 7, 2026)