Doctor Who: Battles in Time is coming back to North American shelves, and the first mainline set under the revived license lands October 15, 2026.
Obliterator is the headline release from Heathside Trading and Master Replicas, produced in partnership with BBC Studios, and it is the set most North American collectors will meet the relaunched trading card game through.
The checklist runs through every incarnation of the Doctor up to the Fifteenth, built on a rarity structure designed for both casual pack-openers and dedicated chase-card hunters.
Here is what is actually in the box, how the rarities break down, and what a North American collector should know before October 15 arrives.
The full 142-card base checklist splits across 90 common cards, 40 rare cards, and 10 super rare cards, with 2 Vortex Rare chase cards sitting at the very top of the rarity ladder above everything else.
Every sealed box also includes one oversized box topper card as a guaranteed bonus pull, and there are six different box topper designs in circulation for collectors chasing a full set of those as well.
Obliterator ships in both a Limited Edition and an Unlimited Edition, and both versions are built around the exact same 142-card checklist, so no one is missing cards by picking the wrong box.
The real difference comes down to the foil treatment stamped on each card's Obliterator logo, gold for Limited and silver for Unlimited, a distinction worth understanding fully before buying blind.
Unlike the Retroduction set that preceded it earlier in 2026, Obliterator is built entirely from new card art rather than reprints, spanning from the First Doctor all the way through the Fifteenth Doctor.
That range gives the set real appeal beyond nostalgia-only buyers, since newer-era fans get just as much representation on the checklist as collectors chasing classic-series monsters and villains.
The UK market saw Obliterator first, with the Limited Edition arriving in August 2026 and the Unlimited Edition following at general retail in September 2026.
October 15, 2026 marks the set's dedicated North American arrival, giving collectors on this side of the Atlantic a firm date to plan pre-orders and store pickups around rather than guessing at availability.
Every six-card pack guarantees one rare, with super rares landing at roughly 1-in-18 packs and the elusive Vortex Rares sitting at approximately 1-in-720 packs across the entire print run.
Box toppers land at roughly 1-in-36 packs, which works out to one guaranteed topper per standard 36-pack booster box, regardless of which of the six designs you end up with.
A single booster box reliably delivers a full run of commons plus a solid shot at several rares and at least one super rare, worth sliding straight into card sleeves as soon as the pack is open.
Collectors chasing a specific Vortex Rare should budget for a full case rather than a single box, since the 1-in-720 odds mean most individual boxes won't land one at all.
Obliterator isn't the only major 2026 Battles in Time release landing around this window, with Retroduction earlier in the year and Dalek Invasion following in December giving collectors three distinct sets to track within a single calendar year.
Budgeting across all three sets matters more than treating Obliterator as a standalone purchase, especially since pre-order windows for December's Dalek Invasion are already open while Obliterator stock is still settling in.
A single booster box is a reasonable starting point for most collectors curious about the relaunch, giving a full run of commons plus a handful of rares without committing to a full case up front.
Collectors who know they want to chase a specific super rare or Vortex Rare should plan for multiple boxes from the start, since a single box rarely settles a targeted chase on its own.
October 15, 2026.
142 cards across five rarities, plus six box topper designs.
Roughly 1-in-720 packs.
No, every card in Obliterator is new artwork running through the Fifteenth Doctor.
October 15 is close enough that pre-order slots at your preferred shop are worth locking in now, rather than waiting for release-day stock to thin out.
Whatever you pull on day one deserves a home immediately, and a toploader binder built for rigid 3x3 storage keeps new Obliterator rares protected and visible instead of loose in a drawer.
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