TMNT | Mechanics Review!

With the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming to Magic: the Gathering in less than a month, many players are excited to see the new cards. As it turned out, we got to see some of the set much earlier than we anticipated. At Lorwyn Eclipsed’s prerelease, some players received rares and mythics from TMNT as promos. In the following days, rather than pretend that didn’t happen, Wizards of the Coast decided to put all rares and mythics from the set into their card image gallery.

Spoiler season may be spoiled, but because of that, we get a headstart on finding the best new cards from this set. This article will go over all the cards we’ve seen so far from both the set and the precon. Let’s dive in.

Set Mechanics

This set’s most prominent new mechanic is Sneak, a rework of the classic Ninjutsu mechanic. If a card has Sneak, you can return an attacking unblocked creature you control to your hand to cast it for its Sneak cost during combat. If it’s a creature, it comes in attacking.

Because Sneak is an alternate casting cost, you can Sneak in commanders or spells from exile. It also benefits from cost reducing effects like that of Urza's Incubator or the Medallion cycle.

The set also introduces Mutagen tokens. Mutagen tokens are a new type of artifact token with “1, T, Sacrifice this token: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.” Mutagen tokens seem arguably worse than Map tokens from LCI, but multiple cards in this set can make them in large numbers, and they help blend the set’s artifact theme with its counters theme.

We also get a new cycle of Class enchantments. Class enchantments have an initial effect, and then you can pay mana to level them up and get more abilities. These new enchantments represent the unique role each member of the TMNT plays.

Most of the other unique abilities and keywords appear in lower numbers, so we’ll discuss them on a case by case basis as we go ahead.

White

White seems to be getting lots of +1/+1 counter support in this set. TMNT’s leader-archetypes fill out the set’s white cards, creating tokens and buffing your board; normal go-wide fare. The Sneak mechanic also folds nicely into mono-white and Azorius self-bounce themes that have been building over the past few years.

Agent Bishop, Man in Black is a callback to the classic Luminarch Aspirant. For one more mana, it puts an additional counter on your creatures. Commanders like Mikaeus, the Lunarch and Hamza, Guardian of Arashin will really appreciate this, but it’ll be absolutely perfect alongside Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam. Curving Dyadrine into Agent Bishop will guarantee you an extra draw and 2/2 robot every turn.

Sally Pride, Lioness Leader is a bomb for any white Bracket 2 list. For five mana, she makes a 2/2 Mutant for each nontoken creature you control, and when she attacks, she gives all your creatures a +1/+1 counter. As long as you’re playing nontoken creatures in your deck, Sally Pride can start threatening big damage out of nowhere.

I think the strongest card here is probably Turtles Forever. This card finds four legendary creatures, and then an opponent picks two for you to keep. Four mana is a lot, but if you have lots of high value legendary creatures, the value can be insane. Decks helmed by Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful and decks that can hold up four mana on an opponent’s turn will appreciate this new tutor.

Blue

Robots feature prominently in most of TMNT’s iterations, from the alien Kraang to the tinkerings of Donatello. This set has a big artifact theme, which is great news for blue players. Blue also gets a number of more generic value engines and bombs that shouldn’t be ignored when this set comes out.

Donatello, the Brains is probably this set’s best new blue card for commander. Whenever you make tokens, Donnie makes an extra Mutagen token. It’s reminiscent of Peregrin Took, who makes a more relevant token and can sacrifice those tokens to draw cards, but because this turtle is mono-blue, you can play him with commanders like Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Urza, Lord High Artificer. He’s also in the “Character Select” Partner set, which means you can play him as a 5 color commander alongside Leonardo, the Balance.

Does Machines is another powerful artifact synergy piece. It’s a Class enchantment; when it enters, it mills two and loots twice, it returns two artifacts from your graveyard to your hand for two mana at level 2, and then for five mana, it hits level three and can turn an artifact you control into a 0/0 creature with three +1/+1 counters at the start of combat on your turns. I’m mostly excited to see this with Emry, Lurker of the Loch and other artifact commanders with graveyard themes. In the early game, it sets up your graveyard, and later on, it helps you close out the game.

And of course, we have to mention the latest iteration of Thoughtcast, Kraang, Master Mind. It costs 8 mana to cast, but it also has Affinity for Artifacts, reducing its cost to just two blue mana if you control 6 or more artifacts. It’s a 1/4 that gets +1/+0 for each artifact you control, but more importantly, it refills your hand up to four cards when it enters. If you can dump a bunch of cheap artifacts onto your board, this card can draw four cards for two mana. Artifact players are eating good with this set.

Black

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is full of villains, and most of them end up here in black. This set gives black some excellent staples and great tools for iconic strategies, recontextualized through this series’ rogues gallery. Funnily enough, black gets lots of help with aggressive strategies in particular.

Rat King, Verminster is perhaps this set’s most pointed design. Relentless Rats decks have existed in commander for as long as Relentless Rats has existed, and Verminster may be the strongest rat commander we’ve ever seen. You can tap it and sacrifice three Rats to reanimate a creature–alongside every other creature with the same name in your graveyard. With mill engines like Out of the Tombs and Ripples of Undeath, you can assemble gigantic boards of rats ridiculously early.

Super Shredder is simple, but effective. It’s a two mana 1/1 with menace that gets a +1/+1 counter whenever a permanent leaves the battlefield, and this triggers off of you and your opponents. Every fetchland, removed permanent, and anything you sacrifice will add to Super Shredder’s power. Out of nowhere, this card can slam someone for 21 commander damage. If you see it across the table, keep a removal spell handy.

WOTC enjoys making reprints of iconic overpowered cards with thematic downsides, and in this set, we see Splinter's Technique. If you can Sneak it in, it costs only two mana. Even if you can’t sneak it in, it’s a strictly better Diabolic Tutor, a card that already sees plenty of commander play. If you have cheap creatures or evasive tokens, you’ll have reliable access to the two mana version, and if you have anything you’d want to tutor for, you’ll want to play this card.

Red

As with all IPs, the TMNT universe is full of chaos. Rambunctious teens, crazy scientists, and angry turtles all add to the set’s red representation. It gets some of the artifact and counter support, with surprisingly potent tools that are sure to strengthen red decks.

Casey Jones, Vigilante is a three mana 4/3 creature, but more importantly, he draws three cards for three mana. He can be a quick boost of cards for any low-curve deck, but he shines in Storm decks. If your mana is already online, Casey will let you go three cards deep, and even in Storm decks, Casey can be a perfectly fine value play. Most of Casey’s competitors in this role give ‘impulse draw,’ which is risky to use before your combo turn, as unused cards stay in exile. If you hit a Past in Flames off of Act on Impulse, it’ll be gone if you’re not ready to spend four mana. Because Casey discards your unused cards, you’ll still be able to use them later in Storm decks that take advantage of red’s recursion.

Ravenous Robots is reminiscent of last year’s Pinnacle Emissiary. There are lots of cards that make tokens when you cast artifact spells, but this is the first monocolor option at only two mana with no other restrictions. It also comes with a handy ability that gives your creature tokens haste. This set is chock full of quality token generators.

Closing out mono-red, we have Slash, Reptile Rampager. At first, its two effects may seem simple and generic: when a creature enters, it does 2 damage to each opponent, and when it attacks, you make a 2/2 Mutant. However, that first effect is shared by only one other card: Purphoros, God of the Forge. It costs one more mana, but it provides redundancy for one of the strongest Impact Tremors effects available, and can be used as a commander if Purphoros is out of your budget. Especially alongside the new Mobilize mechanic, it will be an incredibly potent option for your red creature decks.

Green

Green is supposed to be about nature, community and ‘going with the flow,’ but more than that, green is about having the best cards at the table, outside of Bracket 5. As per usual, green receives busted pieces of cardboard in this set. The token and counter themes come in with a vengeance here. There’s also the usual culprits: mana acceleration and creature cheating.

Michelangelo, Improviser is really good. He’s a four mana 4/4 with a Sneak cost that’s also four mana, and when he does combat damage to a player, he lets you put a creature or land on the field from your hand for free. First of all, the Sneak cost is essentially free. If you wanted to, you could use the combat trigger to put the creature you snuck into your hand back out. More often, you’ll use it to play a seven or eight mana monstrosity on turn three or four.

Mutagen Man, Living Ooze is possibly the most broken card in the set, not because of an ability it has, but because of a restriction it doesn’t have. It’s essentially a two mana 2/3 with trample with the ability “Activated abilities of artifact tokens you control cost 1 less to activate.” Usually, such an ability cannot reduce the cost of an ability to zero. This one can. Alongside other ability cost reducers, you can make any artifact token’s ability free to use. Think of the things you could do with a token copy of Retrofitter Foundry!

Finally, we have Michaelangelo, the Heart. When this set comes out, assuming prices aren’t insane I’m building a Simic deck with him and his brother Donatello from earlier as Partner commanders. He’s another two mana token generator, giving you a Food and putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control after you attack. He can make himself a bigger threat while making tokens, and with all the ways we have to use artifact tokens in Simic, especially in this set, it’ll be unstoppable. Booyakasha!

End Step

I’m still excited to see the rest of the spoilers. They haven’t shown an Ice Cream Kitty card, yet, so I’m waiting with bated breath. The TMNT set comes out towards the end of this month, so we’ll have everything soon enough. Have a great day.