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Power Benchmarks: The Beast, Deathless Prince and the Red-Black Power Curve
In the Doctor Who Commander crossover, The Beast, Deathless Prince sits at a fascinating crossroads of tempo, value, and raw stats 🧙🔥💎. With a mana cost of {2}{B}{R} and a hefty 6/6 body, this legendary Demon is built to punch above its weight class in the midgame. It’s not just the numbers that make it compelling; it’s the trio of abilities that come attached to that four-mana frame. The Beast can steal a creature on cast, untap that creature, and grant it menace and haste for the turn—giving you a surprise swing that can redraw the battlefield in a single moment of cacophony ⚔️🎨.
That tempo swing is tempered by an unusual entry condition: The Beast enters tapped with six stun counters on it. Think of it as a built-in setup phase. You’re not bringing a glowing beacon onto the battlefield on turn four; you’re laying the groundwork for a dramatic late-game payoff. When you finally shed those stun counters, the board position you’ve prepared can shift from ‘nice threat’ to ‘game-changing threat’ in a single instant. It’s a design that rewards foresight, setup, and a willingness to embrace a slower start for a louder finish 🧙🔥.
What makes its statline sing at 4 mana?
- High raw power for the cost. A 6/6 body on 4 mana is aggressively efficient, especially in a two-color identity that already leans into black’s disruption and red’s aggression. The baseline is strong; the real value comes from what you can do with it once the stun counters fade 🧙🔥.
- Tempo via theft and haste. Casting The Beast lets you steal a target creature for a turn, untap it, and grant menace and haste for that same window. That’s a potent tempo play: you steal a spell, you swing hard, you threaten more than your own board presence can justify on its own ⚔️.
- Draw engine baked into the package. The creature-damage-to-its-owner trigger can grind a path to card advantage later in the game. In practice, it nudges you toward awkward trade-offs and multi-step lines where every tick of the clock matters 🎲.
- Color identity and deckbuilding synergy. The B/R color pair is expressly well-tuned for discard, removal, and aggressive pressure. The Beast’s ability slots neatly into Rakdos-inspired strategies that like to steal your opponent’s assets and remix them into new threats 🧙🔥.
- Collectibility and set flavor. Hailing from the Doctor Who crossover, the card carries a built-in storytelling hook that resonates with players who love lore and crossover art. The foil and nonfoil finishes further sweeten its appeal for collectors fighting the price-per-play curve 💎🎨.
How does it stack up against similar power profiles?
From a pure power-per-dollar perspective, The Beast sits in an elite-ish tier for four-mana multi-color bodies, thanks to its robust statline and a toolkit of disruptive and enabling abilities. When weighed against other four-mana four-color-ish or two-color Demon bodies, its ability to temporally steal and untap, plus the surprising card draw pedal, nudges its ceiling higher in longer games. Some notes to consider when benchmarking:
- The stun-counter entry is a two-edged sword: it curtails early pressure but amplifies mid-to-late game payoffs. If your playgroup is prone to quick, aggressive starts, you may find you’re spending a couple of turns underwater, waiting for the counters to drop 🧙🔥.
- In Commander, the last ability can turn boards in your favor during the late game when life totals become a chessboard. If you’ve stacked other effects that push damage through or recur stolen creatures, The Beast can become the quiet engine behind a dinner-table finisher ⚔️.
- As a rare with universes beyond flavor, it also appeals to players chasing thematic mashups. If your deck leans toward demon-tribal or Doctor Who crossovers, you’ll feel right at home with the narrative heft and mechanical punch 🔥.
Deck-building approaches and practical tips
If you’re dreaming up a red-black shell around this demon, here are practical angles that help maximize its power bench:
- Plan the stun-counter countdown. Don’t anchor your board after you play The Beast. Pair it with threats or disruption that don’t rely on immediate untapping to stay relevant during the countdown. This makes the eventual breakout even louder 📈.
- Target a flexible stolen creature. The best targets are bodies with strong attacker profiles or bodies that can swing into a favorable stalemate. The menace and haste boost your immediate damage ceiling and set up the draw engine in a meaningful way ⚔️.
- Leverage red-black removal and recursion. Cards that ping, destroy, or reanimate help you control what you steal and how the battlefield evolves. When your plan is about disruption and value, The Beast’s card-draw trigger can help you refill your hand after a few rounds of chaos 🎲.
- Stay mindful of legality and formats. In Commander, The Beast is legal in the legendary demon slot and plays nicely with many archetypes. The Doctor Who set flavor adds collector appeal, a pleasant bonus for players who like their power with a side of lore ✨.
Pro tip: when you finally untap The Beast and swing with your stolen creature, reserve a moment to appreciate the dual nature of the card—a forceful presence that also tells a story about how power, ego, and cunning collide in the multiverse. It’s exactly the kind of flavor-forward engine that keeps EDH conversations lively after a long night of games 🧙🔥.
Beyond the table, this card is a conversation piece that fuses two beloved mythologies with a modern design language. The art by Pavel Kolomeyets and the set’s Doctor Who veneer add a layer of charm that makes opening a pack feel like unsealing a small relic from a sprawling imagination. If you’re chasing a rare that can still surprise you on a late-game roll, The Beast, Deathless Prince earns its keep in the power bench for a red-black demon deck 🎨.
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