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Sideboard Mastery: Leveraging The Beast, Deathless Prince in the Command Zone
There’s something deliciously brutal about The Beast, Deathless Prince walking off the top of your sideboard and into the fray with a sly grin 🧙♂️. This Doctor Who-inspired demon in the Doctor Who commander set has a toolbox of angles that reward patient planning, precise timing, and a willingness to steal your opponent’s best threat for a single moment of tempo. If you’re building around this 6/6 powerhouse, your sideboard becomes your knight in armor—an adaptable slate of answers to swing the matchup in your favor when game plans clash in the booth or the kitchen table. Let’s unpack how to tailor your sideboard to maximize The Beast’s disruptive, draw-powered frame while keeping your deck streamlined and consistent 🔥💎⚔️.
The Beast, Deathless Prince — Oracle text highlights a tempo-driven arc: you steal a creature on cast, untap it, grant menace and haste for the turn, and then The Beast itself comes in tapped with six stun counters. It’s a tempo-laden, board-warping piece that rewards careful sequencing and leverage of your own “draw off damage” engine when opponents’ creatures hit you. When a creature damages its owner, The Beast untaps and you draw a card. This creates a built-in resilience against attrition and punishes slow lines from control or ramp decks.
Core considerations for your sideboard
- Targeted removal and bounce to answer big threats that would otherwise be awkward to handle after The Beast hits the battlefield. Since you’ll often steal a key threat on cast, having post-board answers to uncompromising threats keeps your plan intact. Think flexible exiles and direct creature removal that can hit any color in a pinch 🧙♂️.
- Exile-based disruption to neuter the top-end threats your opponent relies on. The Beast’s deck often plays well with interruption that removes problematic commanders, planeswalkers, or indestructible threats before they stabilize. Exile effects help prevent recurrences of stolen threats later in the game.
- Graveyard hate and reanimation protection to slow down recurrences and reanimations that fuel your opponents’ big swings. In Doctor Who Commander circles, graveyard-based plans can be potent, so a couple of clear-out options in your sideboard can save games.
- Counterplay against flood and card draw—a few resilience tools that blunt heavy draw or mass-disruption engines. Thoughtful inclusion of countermeasures can tempo out opponents who rely on a long game plan to win the race you’ve started ⚔️🎲.
- Win-condition preservation—cards that protect your own board or accelerate your own threats in the right moments. The Beast wants to swing with tempo; keep its path clear by adding protection or redundancy that doesn’t derail your early curve 💎.
Versus aggressive archetypes (Aggro and Tempos)
Against fast starts, your sideboard should shore up the relationship between removal and pressure mitigation. Consider:
- One or two “flexible” removal spells that can hit multiple targets, ideally with immediate impact on the board.
- Countermeasures that buy you an extra turn to cast The Beast and untap it in time for a devastating tempo swing 🧙♂️.
- Brief spell-type disruption to slow down the critters you’ll inevitably face, ensuring you can untap The Beast when it matters most.
Versus midrange and control
Midrange and control players aim to grind you out with planeswalkers, removal suites, and recursive threats. Your sideboard should pivot toward disruption that buys space for your own inevitability. Consider the following directions:
- Strong single-target removal and exile to blunt their best threats before they stabilize and to reduce exile risk when you steal a creature on cast.
- Graveyard and recursion disruption to prevent the beat-down from returning a stolen creature after The Beast untaps for a draw engine you didn’t see coming 🎨.
- Counter-disruption or debuff tools that can slow the pace of their top-decks, letting your board develop unhindered.
Special cases: graveyard-centric and stax-oriented matchups
In formats or metas where reanimation and stax-heavy components appear, you’ll want anti-graveyard tech and stax-aware responses that still preserve your own plan. The Beast thrives on tempo and card draw, so anything that reduces the tempo of your opponent or accelerates your own can tilt the scale in your favor. A couple of well-chosen pieces in your sideboard can turn a tight game into a comfortable victory 🧙♂️🔥.
Practical deck-building tips for sideboarded play
When you’re committing to sideboard strategies around The Beast, keep your deck’s core identity intact. You want your plan to stay executable even after boarding in new tools. Here are a few pragmatic guidelines:
- Maintain a balance between disruption and gas. You want enough removal and disruption to slow down opponents, but you don’t want to abandon the draw and pressure that let The Beast shine.
- Preserve mana efficiency. The Beast costs {2}{B}{R} and the surrounding package should respect your color identity and mana curve; avoid overpacking into cards that won’t land on curve in certain matchups.
- Include at least one resilient plan for the late game. The card-draw trigger after a combat damage event gives you reach—don’t lose that edge by boarding out all your inevitability too early.
- Be mindful of the stun counters on The Beast. Its entry condition and the six-stun counters mean you’ll likely want to maximize tempo in the early steps and not assume a quick untap. Plan your line to either capitalize on the temporary steal or lean into the long game with your draw engine 🎲.
For players who love the ritual of tuning a sideboard after a Grand Prix or a Friday Night Magic, the Beast’s toolbox invites a playful, strategic mindset. It’s not just about bottom-line power—it’s about the little moments: stealing a blocker just long enough to force a trade, or untapping a big creature you can swing with on the next turn. The drama is real, and the tempo swings are dramatic 🧙♂️🎨.
As you refine your list, a reminder from the cultural side of MTG: the Doctor Who edition brings a vibe of time-warped power and legendary presence. The Beast, Deathless Prince embodies that hybrid of myth and mischief—a creature that makes you think twice about who controls whom, and when. And yes, in the right seat at the table, a well-timed steal can turn a losing race into a gleaming victory—an artful nod to how magic has always married risk, reward, and a pinch of chaos ⚔️💎.
Speaking of blending chaos with style, if you’re on the move between games, you might appreciate keeping your tech safe and sound. While you brew your sideboard plans, you can protect your daily gear with a sleek, durable carry—like the Slim Glossy Phone Case (Lexan Polycarbonate). It’s the kind of practical accessory that makes sense for any MTG fan who travels to events, scrimmages, or casual lounges. A small detail, but it fits the spirit of a game that rewards thoughtful preparation and sturdy gear 🎲.