Doctor Who is timeless, but the newest Universes Beyond set reaches our timeline on Friday! The set manages to include every iteration of the Doctor and a whole slew of their companions, which is reflected in the “Doctor’s companion” mechanic itself. But with 15 doctors and 27 companions, how will you figure out which Doctor/Companion pairings are best?
Well, you rely on your friends at Card Kingdom to break down the top 10 combinations — excluding those suggested by the Commander precons. Let’s get into it.
The First Doctor and Susan Foreman
While The First Doctor and Susan Foreman aren’t suggested by any of the Commander precons, if you know the lore of Doctor Who, then you know it makes perfect sense that these two go together. After all, Susan is The Doctor’s granddaughter! What’s more, Wizards of the Coast did a great job of making sure there was synergy between each Doctor and their onscreen companions.
The First Doctor gives you a +1/+1 counter any time you Cascade, while Susan Foreman makes planeswalking a heck of a lot better. When the First Doctor enters the battlefield, he tutors up his TARDIS, and it’s really the glue that holds this Doctor-Companion combination together.
The Second Doctor and Vislor Turlough
While the first combination I suggested will be obvious to Doctor Who fans, this one isn’t. Vislor is the Fifth Doctor’s companion, but in Magic, I think he makes an interesting companion for The Second Doctor.
Both of these cards have really unique designs and they happen to go well together. The Second Doctor shuts off hand size limits and forces everyone at the table into a decision during your end step.
Everyone can choose to draw a card, but if they do, they can’t attack you or permanents you control during their next turn. Notably, you always get to draw a card, so The Second Doctor is a pretty serious card advantage engine no matter what.
Meanwhile, Vislor Turlough can also be a card advantage engine, as he draws you an extra card every end step. However, when he enters the battlefield, you also have the option of giving him to your opponent.
Vislor wants your opponents to have as many cards in hand as possible, and The Second Doctor helps set that up. Because he even shuts down maximum hand size, there’s no limit to how many cards your opponent might have. Symmetrical card draw effects are particularly spicy alongside this pair.
The Third Doctor and Dan Lewis
The Third Doctor loves noncreature tokens. He makes them and he gets larger the more of them you have lying around. And, because he has trample, he can represent a very significant threat when you have a lot of them.
Dan Lewis likes noncreature artifacts, turning them all into Equipment. These two make for a great pair if you’re looking to build around Clue, Food or Treasure. When you have both in play, The Third Doctor will be able to hit even harder.
Also, the art comparison between the two is pretty hilarious, since you have The Third Doctor wielding a sword and Dan Lewis using a wok to take out a Sontaran.
The Fourth Doctor and Graham O’Brien
This might be the most powerful combination on the list. When combined, these two make for a pretty incredible Food engine.
The Fourth Doctor lets you play historic cards off the top of your library, and when you do, you get a Food token. Meanwhile, Graham generates a Food token any time you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand.
In other words, each time you cast a spell off the top of your deck with both of these in play, you get two Food tokens. Food also seems to get support in every other set these days, so it feels like these two are only going to get better with time.
The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown
Like the combination of The First Doctor and Susan Foreman, this one is obvious to those familiar with Doctor Who, as they are an on-screen combination. Fittingly, they both work really well with Historic spells.
The Sixth Doctor copies your historic spells while Peri Brown gives them all Convoke. If she’s in play, she can help you get The Sixth Doctor down more easily. Then, her ability to let your creatures tap to pay for your historic spells means you can power out some truly absurd spells on your next turn.
And the more expensive they are, the better they are to copy.
The Eighth Doctor and Jo Grant
This is another Doctor-companion combination that cares about historic cards, but these two do most of their work with the graveyard. The Eighth Doctor helps you load it when he enters the battlefield, and he lets you play or cast historic permanents from your graveyard once a turn.
Jo Grant gives all of your historic cards cycling, and she gets bigger any time you cycle. This means you can load the graveyard ahead of The Eighth Doctor’s arrival so he has cards to take advantage of right away. And, because you cycled them, that means you’re going to get a 2-for-1 out of each of card.
The Tenth Doctor and Clara Oswald
The Tenth Doctor is an absolute powerhouse. When he attacks, you exile cards until you hit a nonland, and then you suspend it with three time counters. In other words, he draws you a card that you’ll get to cast for free a few turns later.
His activated ability is a little harder to get going at seven mana, but when you reach that point, he can accelerate just how quickly you can get those suspended cards into play.
While Rose Tyler makes a great companion for him, Clara Oswald does, too. She makes the triggered abilities of Doctors trigger twice, so The Tenth Doctor’s powerful attack trigger becomes even crazier. On top of that, the fact that you can choose a color for her means you can go with any three-color combination you want to (as long as it also includes red/blue).
The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond (also Rory Williams)
This is another companion combination that comes directly from the show. The Eleventh Doctor can make small creatures unblockable, including himself. And that’s great, because when he hits the opponent he can suspend cards from your hand.
At the same time, making Amy unblockable goes perfectly alongside that effect, because she can remove time counters from your suspended cards. On top of that, when she enters the battlefield, she draws Rory Williams from your deck, a formidable creature that gets suspended when you cast it normally.
The Twelfth Doctor and Bill Potts
These two are also companions on the show, and they work just as well together in Magic.
The Twelfth Doctor gets bigger when you copy spells. That’s something he can do on his own with Demonstrate, but Bill Potts also lets you copy spells, provided that she’s the only target of them. This can work particularly well alongside spells with built in cantrips, like Crimson Wisps.
The Fugitive Doctor and Martha Jones
Both the Fugitive Doctor and Marth Jones love Clue tokens. They both make clues when they enter the battlefield, and they both like sacrificing Clue tokens.
The Fugitive Doctor can sacrifice a Clue when she attacks. If you do, you give an instant or sorcery in your graveyard flashback. It is a bit of a bummer that you have to put her in harm’s way in order to get that ability to trigger, but Martha makes it so you don’t have to worry about that! Any time you sacrifice a Clue, she can make one other target creature unblockable.
End Step
Those are the Doctor-Companion combinations I’m most excited about. There are many other ways to mix and match them that allows you to experiment with their unique abilities, and that’s certainly one of the most exciting things about this set. What do you think is the best Doctor-Companion combination? Let me know on X!
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.