It's Eric Woodward (dotcom)

Last year saw the release of the “Universes Beyond: Doctor Who” set for Magic: the Gathering, which included 188 new (and mechanically unique) cards based on various doctors, companions, villains, and other characters from the long-running TV show(s). As a lifelong Whovian^[1], I thoroughly enjoyed the set and loved how they wrote each cards mechanics to be representative of the characters. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that a few characters were missing^[2] (well, one for sure, the second only in a vaguely-related way, but I digress…). At the same time, I stumbled upon the highly-functional (if somewhat overly ad-encumbered) MTGCardBuilder.com, so I thought - why not make the missing cards myself?

Of course, unlike my usual custom card fair, I wanted something that would still be legally playable (or at least, legal in my weekly Magic game), so I decided to make them as Skinned Cards - that is to say, skinned version of other, legal (real) magic cards. This allows me to use them as proxies for other cards I already have in my collection.

In truth, both of these are also in my “15 Doctors / Tribal Timelords” deck (coming soon), and coming up with themed proxies just makes them fit better with the rest of the cards.

Jack Harkness, Torchwood Captain

First up is everyone’s favorite flirtatious immortal, Captain Jack Harkness. His omission was a grave mistake, IMHO, but making a proxy for him almost broke me. After sorting through the 683 legendary humans in the Gatherer (as of writing), I finally found the one that had just the right abilities (and subtypes):

Dr. Who, Eccentric Scientist

The second one came about a bit differently… I started working on (what would become) the 15 doctors deck about a month after the set dropped. It was basically the best cards from the Blast from the Past and Paradox Power decks, plus a handful of singles for the missing doctors and other Timelords, and next thing I knew, I had a 5-color deck full of Timelords and their companions… That is to say, legendary Timelords and their legendary companions… Hmmm…

So, who do you choose to lead a tribal legendary deck? Only the best commander the job, Jodah the Unifier^[3]. But he’s a human wizard, how can I tie that in the any version of Doctor Who?

And that’s when I remembered the strange, Technicolor-saturated Peter Cushing “Dr. Who” movies of the 60s, wherein the good Doctor is actually a weird, whimsical, human inventor who fights off evil alien robots with his time machine, a description close enough to a “wizard” for me:

I hope someone enjoys these and finds them useful. If you do like them, you may also like my other custom magic cards. And a word of advice: if you want to get them printed at your nearest corporate print-shop, you’ll probably want to use the “self-service” copiers to avoid any uncomfortable conversations with the staff about copyright and fair use.

Oh, and while I was working on these, I went ahead and did another round of custom (and completely broken) Saturday Night Planeswalkers.

Until next time, share and enjoy!