Highlights
- Commander decks from the Universes Beyond series bring together the worlds of Warhammer 40,000, The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, and more into unique and powerful gameplay experiences.
- Each deck in the series has a distinct theme and playstyle, such as the control-focused Mordor deck, the scry-heavy Elven Council deck, and the artifact-centric Necron Dynasties deck.
- These Commander decks feature iconic characters and mechanics from their respective franchises, offering fans exciting opportunities to explore new strategies and engage in epic battles on the Magic: The Gathering battlefield.
It has been an amazing year for Magic: The Gathering fans as Commander has gone deeper than ever before with the release of new Universes Beyond Commander decks. These unique decks draw inspiration from other worlds and franchises and adapts them to the mechanics of Magic.
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There have been three waves of Universes Beyond Commander decks, one for Warhammer 40,000, another The Lord of the Rings, and most recently an addition for Doctor Who. Each Universes Beyond has come with four Commander decks each, so lets see how they stack up to each other when put head to head.
10 The Hosts Of Mordor
Cast It Into The Fire
Taking the strength of Mordor and boiling it down into a single deck is hard but makes for a powerful and versatile deck. Led by Sauron, Lord of the Rings, this deck is all about controlling the board to make way for your biggest spells. Even Sauron himself has a powerful cast trigger, giving you at least two other creatures, one an Orc token and anything else of your choice from the graveyard.
The rest of the deck is filled with huge creatures like The Balrog of Moria and big flashy spells to destroy your opponents with like Decree of Pain and In the Darkness Bind Them to make sure you are the last one standing.
9 Elven Council
Scry Your Way To Victory
You can never go wrong with a good Simic deck and that’s exactly what you’ll find with the Elven Council deck. Helmed by Galadriel, Elven-Queen, this deck does a lot of things very well that all bring plenty of synergies together for a good time. You’ve got Elves as the main creature type in the deck, plenty of scry effects, and even some voting cards to swing the game in your favor.
As you look forward into the future with this deck, you can set up for swingy attacks with Commander bombs like Overwhelming Stampede or to keep your creatures safe from harm with one of the best protection spells in the game, Heroic Intervention.
8 Blast From The Past
The Day Of The Doctor Is Here
If you’re a classic Doctor Who fan there’s so much cool stuff to find in this deck, and if you’re not, there’s still plenty to enjoy. Much of this deck is focused on the Historic characteristic, which includes artifacts, legendary cards, and Sagas.
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There are eight Doctors in this deck, giving you the potential for up to eight different Commanders depending on your favorite. One of the cards with the most potential from the deck is Displaced Dinosaurs, which turns your historic cards into massive 7/7 creatures that keep all their original characteristics which can turn your Treasure tokens into massive beasts.
7 Masters Of Evil
It Takes A Good Enemy To Overcome Differences
Some of the most evil entities in the Doctor Who universe come together to form a powerful deck aimed at making your opponents make the toughest choice in the face of insurmountable odds. Affectionately called a Group Slug deck, the Masters of Evil deck introduces a new mechanic called villainous choice, which gives your opponents two options that either harms them or helps you out.
The other key mechanic that makes this deck so powerful is its ability to manipulate and abuse the myriad mechanics. This special ability creates copies of the original creature and attacks all players with those copies. There are several ways that this deck manipulates those tokens to keep them around long past their time.
6 Forces Of The Imperium
Only The Emperor Can Save You
From the depths of space come the forces of humanity to protect your games from the horrors of space. This white, blue, and black deck has a strong focus on Human creatures, which makes sense given the nature of the Imperium of Man, clues, and a new mechanic that the deck introduced called squad.
Squad functions a little like kicker, letting you pay extra mana when you cast a creature spell to get token copies of it. You can put squad creature to good use after any of the many board wipes that fill this deck, helping you keep the battlefield clear for your troops to invade.
5 The Ruinous Powers
Chaos Reigns
From the unknown horrors of the Warp come The Ruinous Powers, a blue, black, and red deck that relies on demons and massive spells to spread chaos across the battlefield. Leading the deck is a fascinating creature, the fallen Human Primarch Abaddon, who grants your spells cascade if their casting cost is less than or equal to the amount of life your opponents have lost this turn.
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You can keep turning your spells into 2-for-1s with this ability, or convert the deck to a more Horror-based creature deck, with some game-warping spells like Blood for the Blood God! and The Horus Heresy to shift the tide in your favor.
4 Riders Of Rohan
A Sword-Day, A Red Day, Ere The Sun Rises!
Another great Human-based deck, the Riders of Rohan Commander deck unites the forces of good on Middle-earth under one banner to fight back against your foes. Much of the deck is designed with the monarch mechanic in mind, with tons of ways to crown you king and then keep you in power.
The alternate commander for the deck, Aragorn, King of Gondor, is a powerful card, capable of opening up the battlefield to stop your opponents from doing anything to stop your attacks. Past that, there are plenty of cards to strengthen your Human kindred synergies and equipment to push damage.
3 Paradox Power
Time Loops On Top Of Time Loops
Another Doctor Who deck for fans of the show, the Paradox Power deck takes the best of green, blue, and red characteristics and builds a very solid deck around them. The Paradox Power deck takes the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors and sends them on adventures to make sure cards in your graveyard rarely stay there.
Much of the deck is designed around mechanics like escape, cascade, flashback, and escape, letting you get multiple uses out of your spells and giving you all sorts of 2-for-1s to get maximum value out of them. One of the best Doctor’s companion cards comes in this deck, Clara Oswald, who gives you extra triggers on your Doctor creatures.
2 Necron Dynasties
An Eternal Evil
The only mono-colored Universes Beyond deck is the Necron Dynasties, a deck with all sorts of artifact synergies and reanimator effects to ensure nothing stays dead for long. The majority of the creatures in this deck are all artifact creatures, mirroring how the Necrons have all been converted to metallic bodies ages ago.
There are incredibly powerful cards in this deck, like Trazyn the Infinite which gains all activated abilities of artifacts in your graveyard when he’s in play, and Biotransference, which turns all your creatures everywhere into artifacts, spreading the Necron influence across your deck.
1 Timey-Wimey
Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey… Stuff
You are the master of time with this blue, red, and white deck from the Doctor Who Universes Beyond collection. Led by The Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler, this deck is designed around manipulating time counters with mechanics like suspend and vanishing.
This deck includes some of the most powerful cards from the collection, including Everybody Lives!, a cheap protection spell that not only saves all creatures and players but makes it so no one can win or lose this turn.
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