HOW CIVIL OF YOU. everyone draws, everyone bleeds.

Opening hands

Seven cards from this build. Commanders start in the command zone. In multiplayer Commander, the first mulligan is free. For later mulligans, draw seven again; once you keep, put one card on the bottom for each mulligan beyond the free one.

KeepShow the seven

• Plains
• Island
• Swamp
• Arcane Signet
• Howling Mine
• Swords to Plowshares
• Arcane Denial

T1 land; T2 Signet; T3 the third land supports the Doctor from the command zone or interaction plus Mine. Delay shared draw if an opponent can exploit it faster.

BorderlineShow the seven

• Command Tower
• Island
• Mystic Remora
• Fellwar Stone
• Windfall
• Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• Force of Will

T1 Remora can find land three and T2 Stone develops, but Stone may not make black. Sheoldred needs two black sources; preserve the blue pitch card and assess whether the pod feeds Remora.

MulliganShow the seven

• Island
• Leyline of Anticipation
• Peer into the Abyss
• Wound Reflection
• Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
• Drogskol Reaver
• Exquisite Blood

A free opening Leyline does not supply lands or castable action. Mulligan this one-land expensive hand rather than keeping for flash alone.

The Second Doctor + Clara Oswald strategy guide

Pace and examples. Turn windows below are author estimates and illustrative sequences, not measured multiplayer results or guarantees. A first opponent eliminated is not a whole-table win. In multiplayer the first mulligan is free; later mulligans follow the London procedure. The commander starts in the command zone, outside the seven-card examples.

How Civil of You runs two commanders. The Second Doctor ({2}{W}{U}) reads: “At the beginning of your end step, each player may draw a card. Each opponent who does can’t attack you or permanents you control during their next turn.” He also removes every player’s maximum hand size. Clara Oswald is your second commander, declared black before the game, which sets the deck to Esper. That color choice applies from the command zone. The doubling does not: “If a triggered ability of a Doctor you control triggers, that ability triggers an additional time” is a static ability on her body, so it needs Clara on the battlefield (CR 113.6), which means paying {6} for a 2/6. With her out the end step fires twice: each player may draw up to two, and any opponent who takes the cards cannot attack you or your board on their next turn. Until she is cast, the end step offers each player one card, not two.

That end step, doubled once Clara is on the battlefield, feeds a group drawSymmetric card draw that refills every player's hand at once, not just yours. engine pushed all the way into drainA trigger that makes an opponent lose life and gains you that much, Blood Artist style. Life loss is not damage, so it goes through protection and prevention that only stop damage.. This deck grinds. Everyone draws off your effects, everyone bleeds for every card, and Wound Reflection doubles the bleed. You win by inevitability, and close with a combo or a deck-out.

Bard, King of Dale is a second draw-doubler alongside Teferi’s Ageless Insight, and they stack multiplicatively. With both out, one extra draw becomes four cards, feeding Sheoldred and Psychosis Crawler and accelerating the Thassa’s Oracle and Jace deck-out lines. Consecrated Sphinx runs the other way: it triggers only when an opponent draws, and the doublers then multiply its two cards into four or eight.

Bard also doubles token creation, so The Council of Four’s Knights arrive in pairs, which shores up the pillowfort behind Collective Restraint, and Smothering Tithe’s Treasures come two at a time: every unpaid opponent draw banks two mana toward a protected combo turn.

The quiet Doctor payoff is Trouble in Pairs. It triggers when an opponent draws their second card each turn, on any turn, so every opponent who takes both cards from a doubled end step pays you one back, so with Clara out that is three extra cards per turn cycle in a full pod. The Council of Four is narrower than it looks: it only counts cards a player draws during their own turn, so opponents taking the Doctor’s end-step draws never trigger it. Howling Mine and Font of Mythos are what turn it on.

Win conditions

Wincon 1 · Peer plus Wound, the aimed two-card kill

Peer into the Abyss at the biggest threat: they draw half their library and lose half their life, rounded up. Then Wound Reflection’s end step takes the other half, which is exactly lethal. One sorcery plus one enchantment already in play, no loop required. The Reflection is not the only partner: with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse already down, every one of those forced draws costs the target 2 more on top of the halving, which is nearly always lethal by itself, and Underworld Dreams and Orcish Bowmasters stack the same way.

Wincon 2 · The deck-out wins

Thassa’s Oracle wins when its enter trigger resolves with blue devotion at least your library size; Jace, Wielder of Mysteries wins by replacing an attempted draw from an empty library. The One Ring empties it fast, and under Unwinding Clock it activates on every player’s turn with the burden count climbing each time, while Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is the top end: flash him in and the seven cards land at your next end step, not before. Peer into the Abyss can also target you: the draw count is half your library rounded up, then Teferi’s Ageless Insight doubles those draws. At 40 cards, you draw exactly 40 and need a subsequent draw to win with Jace; at 41, the spell requests 42 and Jace replaces the empty-library draw with a win. Drogskol Reaver plus Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is the forced version: both triggers are mandatory, so any draw or lifegain with both on board draws your entire library, a win when Jace replaces the final failed draw, or when a legally flashed Thassa’s Oracle resolves and its enter trigger wins before the next mandatory draw resolves; otherwise the attempted empty-library draw loses the game. Elixir of Immortality is the insurance: it shuffles your graveyard and itself back into your library and gains you 5. The recursion is redraw and recast, since the Elixir puts itself back into the library as its ability resolves, so you draw it and run it back on a later turn.

Deck-out timing checkpoint. An Oracle already on the battlefield does not monitor your library. Cast it and resolve its enter trigger when devotion is sufficient. During the Reaver/Sheoldred chain, stop to check the next trigger before passing priority: with Leyline of Anticipation, cast Oracle above a pending draw while you can still win safely. Without flash permission, Oracle in hand cannot rescue an active mandatory stack. Elixir is insurance only if its activation can resolve before the failed draw; its lifegain also triggers Reaver.

Wincon 3 · Bloodchief plus Mindcrank, maindeck

Bloodchief Ascension at three quest counters plus Mindcrank loops mill and drain: any card that hits an opponent’s graveyard lets Bloodchief drain that player 2 and gain you 2, and Mindcrank turns the life loss into that much mill, which triggers Bloodchief again. Neither card targets, so the loop runs on one opponent until they are dead or milled out, then stops. Each new opponent needs their own starter, a card into their graveyard or a life-loss trigger: Sheoldred, Underworld Dreams, Orcish Bowmasters, Psychosis Crawler, Windfall, or Folio of Fancies’ mill mode all light it. Windfall with no maximum hand size in play dumps huge hands straight into graveyards, one Bloodchief trigger per card, and Folio can mill each opponent for their hand size every single turn under Unwinding Clock.

Wincon 4 · Sanguine plus Exquisite, off any swing

Sanguine Bond plus Exquisite Blood is a maindeck infinite off any life swing: life you gain drains an opponent through Bond, life an opponent loses comes back to you through Blood, and the two feed each other until the table is done.

The rule that wins games

Opening hand

Keep two to four lands plus early value. A turn one Mystic Remora or Bloodchief Ascension, or a rock into Rhystic Study, is ideal.

Leyline of Anticipation needs a functional hand. Its free opening placement is useful, but the other six cards must supply lands and castable early action. Flash alone does not repair a one-land expensive hand.

Three tutors stretch marginal keeps. With Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, or Enlightened Tutor in hand you can keep slightly loose; the tutor closes whatever gap the draw leaves.

Watch your black sources. Underworld Dreams costs {B}{B}{B}. Count your black before you keep.

Turn by turn

Piloting notes

The card play is easy. These are the judgment calls that decide the game.

Sideboard

Eight cards, a grind and control pivot. Toxic Deluge, Opposition Agent, Exsanguinate, Fate Unraveler, Kami of Jealous Thirst, Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, Maze of Ith.