The Twelfth Doctor Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on January 12, 2024

The Twelfth Doctor | Illustration by Alexander Mokhov

The scene in the art for The Twelfth Doctor is an entrance where he shreds on guitar while riding on a tank. So metal! Metaphorically, and literally.

When building a Commander deck for this Doctor, I felt it was important to choose the official color of heavy metal for the Doctor’s companion – black! But that’s trouble, as there are only two choices: the non-synergistic Vislor Turlough, or Clara Oswald, who synergizes and can be any color.

Making Clara black feels like a flavor fail (or is it?), but it does allow you to take what looks like a bad Izzet spellslinger commander in a crowded space and convert it to a deck that wants to steal your opponents' decks. Think Gonti, Lord of Luxury that goes to 11. Like the Doc’s amp.

The Deck

Clara Oswald | Illustration by Marta Nael

The Commanders

The Twelfth Doctor isn’t blowing the doors off the TARDIS in terms of popularity as a commander, but I think that’s because no one's tried this black angle yet. Doctor Who fans probably don’t want to think in terms of their hero in a black deck, but I can’t watch Peter Capaldi in this role without thinking of his Malcom Tucker on The Thick of It, so it works for me (I watch a lot of British TV. Deal with it.).

The other impediment is demonstrate. That’s what’s exciting at first glance. Having a lot of copied spells feels like magecraft, madness (which casts the discarded card from exile), replicate, and all sorts of nonsense. Copying extra turn spells is a classic Izzet annoyance. Copy spells and swell the Doctor? But the way demonstrate works is that the chosen opponent gets the spell off the stack before you get your two copies. That makes a spellslinger version of The Twelfth Doctor much worse!

What works fine if an opponent gets it first? Creatures! When I cast a creature that triggers the Doc, an opponent of my choice gets a copy and I get two. Now that’s Commander 2023! I get double dudes while dishing off party favors to allies, whoever I need to buy off this turn, or someone I need to stay alive for another turn.

Okay. But how do you win?

You have a ton of creatures, so the first thing is that maybe you just beat down, especially when you’re getting piles of them when The Doctor is in.

Those creatures also often steal your opponents’ wincons! Pirates. Goblins. Vampires. There’s a ton of stuff that grabs their cards and then lets you play them. Super annoying, yes, but note that the Doc lets you give them back a copy of the thing you took. Seems fair to me (walks away, hand in pockets, whistling).

Finally, there’s a lot of the Prosper, Tome-Bound playbook, with fewer Treasure pieces. There’s stuff that impulse draws off your library, spells and permanents, some of the discover cards from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and a few finishers that deal damage when you play cards from exile.

Clara Oswald isn’t amazing in your deck. It’s a 6-drop that only works to duplicate The Twelfth Doctor’s +1/+1 counters ability. I could have built a deck with lots of spell copy effects, but Voltronning with two fragile 6-drops on the battlefield seems like asking to lose, especially because you’d be dishing spells to your opponents, most of which would disrupt your plan. Still, with the Doc and Clara out, you can swell The Twelfth Doctor up pretty decently if folks have run out of interaction. I’d guess this hardly ever happens, but it’s there if you need it.

I think the combination of creatures, disruption from your card thefts, acceleration from exile draw, and a bit of extra damage effects are enough.

Wincons

You’d love to swipe a few wincons, but there are some cards that allow you to do damage or make bodies when you cast something from exile, and quite a few are from the Doctor Who Masters of Evil precon. Most of these also participate in grabbing cards from either your own or your opponents’ decks, but these are the key cards for you, in the end.

• Flaming Tyrannosaurus (which feels like the most The Lost Caverns of Ixalan card from among Doctor Who’s cards!)
• Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos
• Iraxxa, Empress of Mars
• Fires of Mount Doom
• The Ruinous Powers
• Impending Flux
• Passionate Archaeologist
• Tasha, the Witch Queen

Theater of Horrors and Invasion of Kaldheim // Pyre of the World Tree can do some damage, but if you need those to finish a game, you might be in trouble.

Scrapers

There’s no keyword for the ability you associate with Gonti, Lord of Luxury to exile cards off an opponent’s deck to cast, and a casual inquiry netted “Gonti effect” from quite a few people. But “gontiing” is unsatisfying. I’m going to suggest “scraping,” which echoes “scrying” and kind of refers to the way you’re scraping off the top of your opponent’s deck?

Anyway, I wanted a lot of this, but many of these creatures are overcosted, so I’ve filtered the list. There’s some ETB creatures like Gonti, but more common in your deck is the effect first seen on Daxos of Meletis to scrape a card when combat damage happens. This is because you want to keep doing this, and the ETB version is inefficient without blink, but there are too few of those to make a deck. So that’s what most of your creatures are. The best hit all opponents’ decks, but you’re looking for various kinds of scraping here as efficiently as possible. In addition to the wincons, there’s:

• Breeches, Brazen Plunderer
• Etali, Primal Storm
• Florian, Voldaren Scion
• Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
• Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
• Moria Marauder
• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• Thief of Sanity
• Valki, God of Lies / Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor

The other kind of scrapers you have are spells and enchantments that do something similar. Enchantments work out the best for their constant trickle of cards:

• Court of Locthwain
• Fires of Mount Doom
• Rogue Class
• Stolen Strategy
• Theater of Horrors
• The Ruinous Powers

But the spells are okay, too:

• Decadent Dragon
• Lidless Gaze
• Siphon Insight

Impulse Draw & Discover

This deck has plenty of this now classic red method of exiling cards from your own deck to play. You’ve got a number of creatures that do that on ETB or combat damage:

• Bonehoard Dracosaur
• Eruth, Tormented Prophet
• Laelia, the Blade Reforged
• Professional Face-Breaker
• Prosper, Tome-Bound
• Stromkirk Occultist
• Unlucky Witness

You’ve got spells that also do it, but I’ve tried to limit down to the most efficient:

• Ecstatic Beauty
• Ignite the Future
• Jeska's Will
• Light Up the Stage
• Reckless Impulse
• Wrenn's Resolve

I’m also pretty pumped about Brass's Tunnel-Grinder / Tecutlan, the Searing Rift. It’s a Tormenting Voice variant at worst. That’s actually not a great effect, I know. But if you need cards, it can get you some and then flip to a land which discovers every time you cast something in your deck full of permanents!

Chimil, the Inner Sun looks to be the best discover card in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. You don’t really have enough instants for this to synergize perfectly, but it still gets you cards and has that great anti-counter text.

You’re likely thinking of other impulse draw artifacts or enchantments you might include, but this deck is durdly enough! There’s no room for a bunch of 4-drops that pull one card off your deck and functionally do little else like Visions of Phyrexia, although I have a soft spot for the kind of bad but enticing Vance's Blasting Cannons / Spitfire Bastion.

Graveyard

Casting from the graveyard is synergistic with the Doctor, but given the upcharge for things like flashback and disturb, those are really limited in this deck for more efficient spells. You have a few spells that can cast from your own graveyard:

• Chainer, Nightmare Adept
• Magus of the Will
• Underworld Breach
• Tarrian's Journal / The Tomb of Aclazotz

If you happen to have a super expensive copy of Yawgmoth's Will lying around, by all means this is the place for it!

Also, you grab from your opponents’ ‘yards with Mnemonic Betrayal. If you’re in a graveyard-heavy meta, Author of Shadows is a reasonable, if too slow card to consider.

Other Synergies

There’s a lot of one- and two-offs here that fit the plan in different ways.

Mizzix, Replica Rider, Nalfeshnee, and Wild-Magic Sorcerer duplicate some of what’s happening with The Twelfth Doctor.

You don’t have a ton of interaction, as this is more of a tap-out beatdown deck, but there’s the synergistic Malevolent Hermit / Benevolent Geist, swipers Hostage Taker and Hurl Through Hell, as well as the tricksy Zoyowa's Justice which can tuck a threat in a pinch but can also recycle one of your creatures to do its version of cascade and drop another trigger.

You have three cards that you can cast repeatedly when they die, which helps with your triggers and fuels the board: Flameskull, Skyclave Shade, and Squee, the Immortal.

There are two cards that grant you card draw with combat, which seems useful in a deck like this: Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor (who has a relevant activated ability if you ever get to that much mana), and Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar.

Finally, there’s Praetor's Grasp, which can nab all sorts of things you can cast with synergy. You have few Treasures, but you’re three colors, so you can at least get a board wipe in black or red or someone’s Cyclonic Rift.

The Mana Base

No mana rocks. I know. But I don’t think this deck can win if it comes out hot on the backs of a Sol Ring into Arcane Signet, etc. You just don’t do things fast enough, and you need your political stuff to work. I’d rather just build up at a slow durdle and block as needed while promising gifts to those who you need to dissuade. That works better if you look weak. I also don’t think there’s enough space here for enough ramp to get you going quickly enough to matter. You need a lot of pieces to flow, which takes some time, even with ramp. I know that sounds like battlecruiser Commander from 2013, but this deck can’t win if the table doesn’t want you around on those first five turns, and they’ll hate the idea that you’ll steal their cards, so this is the way to make it through to where you can start buying people off with copied spells.

There’s lots of dual lands given your colors and the double pips on so many of your cards. There are a few pricey lands in here, but I’ve left off the original duals and the good fetch lands. Feel free to add them. I feel like these are the good lands you likely have if you’ve been buying cards the last five years.

There’s also “family fixer” Glamorous Outlaw, which is terrible fixing but comes from exile, so it’s worth a slot.

I’ve added the three on-color discover taplands from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Hidden Cataract, Hidden Necropolis, and Hidden Volcano. You’re not a super-fast deck, and those seem too synergistic to pass up. Replace them with basics if taplands make you sweat. I have one basic in here, which is risky, so these might be the cut if you’re worried.

There’s some lands that make your stuff unblockable: Access Tunnel, Minas Morgul, Dark Fortress, Rogue's Passage, and The Black Gate obviously. Mount Doom is lovely value when you need it. Trenzalore Clocktower is more value for playing with a Doctor. Shelldock Isle is great synergy for you, and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire does its job.

The Strategy

Play creatures. Attack. Save The Twelfth Doctor until the boards are all messy enough that board wipes seem unlikely or they've already been used. Save Clara Oswald until you can win with the Doc and/or you’ve banked enough opposing counterspells in exile to protect everyone.

The Doctor is a value engine that can also serve as a political engine. So he's not exactly necessary for your deck in all circumstances. His biggest use, politically, is to ally with another creature deck player so the two of you can beat down on another player. You help arm them for battle and let them swing. But it’s also nice to be able to work the table to give value to the players who don’t target you, and that’s not a bad stance to take from the beginning.

The hardest part of playing this deck is keeping all the exiles straight. You’ll need to make cards or markers for the different exile zones or you’ll get lost, cheat by accident, or give up and have to hang your head in shame. It's easy to tuck cards under something like Tasha, the Witch Queen, because if those cards go away, the ability to cast them also goes away. And for a card like Fires of Mount Doom, you’ll want to use the card that way to remember to add the damage. For others, here’s what you need:

1. Your card exile – play until end of this turn
2. Your card exile – play until end of next turn (and when the turn ends, as part of your cleanup, move these cards to area #1)
3. Opponent card exile – until end of this turn, use mana as though it were any color
4. Opponent card exile – play forever, use mana normally
5. Opponent card exile – play forever, use mana as though it were any color

As a sample, here’s how popular cards populate those zones:

1. Jeska's Will
2. Wrenn's Resolve
3. Stolen Strategy
4. Praetor's Grasp
5. Siphon Insight

Still with me? You can do this. Arts and crafts!

Combos and Interactions

Nothing in the deck goes infinite, so that’s of note in your Rule 0 conversations. Most of the key interactions have already been discussed, but note that some cards, like Tasha, the Witch Queen, trigger off not only cards they exile and play but all cards you play from exile. But others, like Fires of Mount Doom, only levy the damage effect for cards that are exiled by that particular card’s effect or ability.

To keep track of this, and to keep slow thinking opponents honest, I use colored glass beads like we used for counters back in the olden days of simpler board states. You can use whatever, but having a pair of colors is important. How does this work in practice?

Here’s an example. I have a Tasha out, a Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos, The Twelfth Doctor, Passionate Archaeologist, and a Fires of Mount Doom. I’m going to do two things on my turn, I hope. I’m going to trigger Hidetsugu and then cast the card, and then do the same for Fires.

When I exile the card with Hidetsugu, I reveal it, and it does damage via my demon. Okay. People can respond to that if they like. Then Hidetsugu does nothing else with the card, so I’ll slide in into exile zone.

Then I cast the spell from exile, and when I do so, I drop a different-colored counter on every permanent that triggers off that casting, like Passionate Archaeologist, and I put another corresponding counter on what I’m targeting, as I need to select all my targets at once when each effect is put on the stack (with Tasha, I just use the counter to note that I need to make a token). You can imagine the stack Arena would populate if you did this digitally. That way I can’t cheat and redeploy targeting in response to something like Teferi's Protection.

These are cast triggers, so if someone then counters the spell or stifles an effect, those are also then put on the stack. Then I move through the triggers after opponents have a second to respond. The Twelfth Doctor is going to demonstrate this, so all of that flies onto the stack, and as they're my effects, I can order them. I usually let the Doc resolve last so that giving an opponent something doesn’t interfere with the rest of my triggers. Also, it’s simpler.

Then I get to my initial spell resolving, assuming there was no counterspell. Perhaps there are triggers for resolution on the table?

There’s more to say here, but I wanted this example to show the potential complexity of a turn so you can see why you need something visual to denote the triggers.

Budget Options

A few of these cards like Praetor's Grasp are worth a few bucks, while some like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer are a lot of bucks, but most of these cards are reasonable outside of the mana base. Replace all you need to replace with lands or mana rocks if you insist.

Other Builds

You can add some rocks if you want, and maybe reduce the creatures. You can add control elements and reduce, as well. I don’t buy those are viable strategies for this deck, but I know folks who begin and end Commander deckbuilding with Sol Ring. If that’s your dogma, I don’t want to stop your fun!

I don’t see a reasonable spellslinger version of this deck. The free spells that resolve first are deadly to most ways you might want to win. But if you want to play Grixis spellslinger, Kess, Dissident Mage is always there for you. There aren’t enough magecraft cards to make it worth it, anyway.

Adventures doesn’t seem super great here. It’s too slow to play adventures in Commander even with Gorion, Wise Mentor making the synergies cheaper and easier.

The only other reasonable option is madness. Cards cast off madness come from exile, so it works. If you have a madness deck but are tired of the Anje Falkenrath Rakdos life, this The Twelfth Doctor might be what you need. You can replace Clara Oswald with Vislor Turlough and can now add some blue pipped madness and discard cards to your deck, like maybe Circular Logic and Welcome to the Fold? Blue and Dimir have a lot of looting cards that could really build out the deck in different ways!

Commanding Conclusion

Passionate Archaeologist | Illustration by Nino Is

I think this deck is a fun challenge. You really have to be on top of your triggers, and the paths to victory are highly skill-testing. Plus, the political elements are highly complex. Basically, almost every type of skill you need in EDH is on the line here. That’s a challenge I want to undertake!

I also like the idea of building out a wallet of exiled opponent spells you can use for the interactions you need. That feels like an interesting power position.

Finally, I think this is the best iteration of a deck to heavily utilize scraping cards off your opponents’ decks, and I haven’t seen that work before.

Let me know how it works for you if you try this out! What decks did you beat, or is this construction too fragile to operate in the cold, harsh reality of your Squid Game LGS? Did you try the madness angle? How was that? I’d love to hear good ideas in this deck design space, so drop us a comment below or on Discord.

Happy brewing, deckbuilders!