The Commander
Haste
Into the TARDIS — Whenever The Ninth Doctor becomes untapped during your untap step, you get an additional upkeep step after this step.
Guide
Gameplan
The Ninth Doctor is a 3-mana RU haste creature that hands you a free extra upkeep step every turn it untaps, doubling all your beginning-of-upkeep triggers. You partner it with a Companion to lean into your chosen strategy, then build a board of upkeep payoffs that snowball each turn before closing with damage or a value engine.
Strengths
- Doubles every "at the beginning of your upkeep" trigger, turning small payoffs into runaway value engines
- Cheap, hasty body that pressures opponents and dodges sorcery-speed interaction the turn it lands
- Pairs with any Companion background partner, letting you tailor the deck's plan and add a second commander's worth of value
- Izzet colors give deep card-advantage, ramp, and burn support
Weaknesses
- Its ability only fires when it untaps during your untap step, so the trigger is dead the turn it enters (haste mitigates board impact, not the upkeep value)
- Heavily reliant on having upkeep payoffs in play to matter; a clean board makes the Doctor a vanilla 3-mana creature
- Doubled upkeep triggers can include downside triggers (cumulative upkeep, suspend, etc.) you must manage
- As a value-engine commander it folds to board wipes and heavy graveyard/exile-based removal
Key Cards
- Sword of Feast and Famine — Untaps your lands each combat and its upkeep-adjacent value chains compound with extra turns of activity, fueling explosive turns.
- Howling Mine — Symmetrical card draw becomes one-sided value when your extra upkeep doesn't double opponents' draws but stacks your own upkeep engines.
- Mana Vault — Its untap-on-upkeep means an extra upkeep gives you an additional untap window, generating bonus burst mana.
- Aggravated Assault — Extra upkeeps plus repeated combat steps push toward lethal attacks and infinite-turn-style pressure.
- Sneak Attack — A repeatable red upkeep-leaning haste enabler that lets you flicker big threats while the Doctor keeps the value clock running.
- Smothering Tithe — Doubling your upkeep-driven token and tax engines flips Izzet's typical mana woes into a Treasure-fueled advantage.
Upgrade Path
Lean into untap and extra-turn synergies—add Time Warp effects, Aggravated Assault, and fast mana like Mana Vault/Grim Monolith that get re-untapped by the bonus upkeep window. Tighten the curve with cheap interaction (Swan Song, Counterspell, Pongify) and pick a high-impact Companion that matches your core engine, whether that's spellslinger payoffs or aristocrats. For top power, prioritize compact two-card combos your doubled upkeeps can assemble faster than the table can answer.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Snowballing card advantage from doubled upkeep draw engines into overwhelming spell volume
- ▸Extra combat steps and equipment turning the hasty Doctor into a fast clock
- ▸Big burn spells and X-spells amplified by accumulated ramp and Treasures
- ▸Pairing with a Companion to enable a focused combo or aggro finish
Archetypes
- Upkeep Value Engine — Doubling beginning-of-upkeep triggers turns cards like Howling Mine, Mind's Eye, and suspend payoffs into twice-the-value engines.
- Spellslinger — Izzet's instants and sorceries plus extra upkeep card draw fuel a draw-go control-burn plan.
- Extra Combat Aggro — Haste plus untap synergies and repeated combat steps push a tempo-aggressive Voltron-ish kill.
- Companion Partner Value — Pairing the Doctor with a Companion background lets you splice a second engine onto the deck's gameplan.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (RU), by popularity.
