Legendary Creature — Time Lord Doctor

The Ninth Doctor

Mana value3EDHREC#6,864

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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.