Magic: The Gathering Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles Review, Part 1 of 2: The Mechanics

Returning once more to the streets of New York City (and the sewers beneath them), everyone's favorite crime fighting turtles spring into action in Magic's newest set. It includes characters from old interpretations and new, and it includes mechanics both new and revisited as well. In this article we’ll talk about those mechanics, and offer some thoughts on what they mean for Commander and other formats.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on March 3rd, and to the tabletop on March 6th.

New Mechanics

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Mutagen

One of the most iconic parts of Turtle lore, the mutagen that gave them their powers naturally makes an appearance. These artifact tokens can be sacrificed for 1 mana to grow your creatures the same as for our heroes, as well as to engage with the many artifact synergies within the set.

FromTheShire: Mutagen was definitely a required inclusion here with how integral it is with the story, and both the token creation itself and the ability seem good in Standard, though it feels both a little slow and a little underwhelming in Commander outside of possibly a few specific decks. I get why they did it this way BUT ALSO Mutate is like.... right there. I would have preferred that from a flavor perspective, and it seems like a natural place to bulk out that archetype.

Saffgor: Mutagen is an odd case, being closer to Blood than any of the other chaff tokens both in terms of how freely it's handed out, and in its single-mana activation. My main issue comes down to the extremely parasitic name, as this is a tough ask to reprint outside of some very specific Simic-y contexts in something like a Modern Horizons set. Moreover, a single counter doesn't independently do a ton for 1 mana, especially at Sorcery-speed, so I think we'll see this used more for Artifact synergies across the board like Clock of Omens & Improvise. Again, I have to stress, these are handed out like candy in this set.

BPhillipYork: It's really important that we get another sacrifice-able artifact token type to go with Treasures, Food, Clues, Blood, Junk, Incubators, and Scrap. It's very true that the mutation that lies at the center of the story is an important one and would need to be represented as a mechanic, I'm just not sure that this is the best way of handling it. The turtles got a lot more than +1/+1 it seems like, a love for pizza for one thing. In terms of the actual mechanics themselves, this is fine. It's quite useful for certain kinds of proliferate and proliferate lite abilities that sometimes struggle to get going, without a way to initially place a +1/+1 counter. This is also quite useful for creatures that need to hit a certain threshold or just need a lot of power or toughness, such as Viridian Joiner. These tokens are useful just useful as general artifact permanents that can be sacrificed for whatever. In the end with a mechanic like this it's a lore more about how pervasive and simple it is to create the mutagen tokens, especially repeatedly, than what it does individually. From there it's just a question of how you leverage it.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Sneak

The successor to ninjitsu, sneak spells are cast only during the declare blockers step - after blockers have been declared - by paying an alternative cost which includes bouncing an unblocked attacker to your hand. This is done as in instant, notably breaking normal timing restrictions, and can even be done in response to other spells or abilities. If it is a creature spell, it also enters tapped and attacking whoever it was originally attacking, no sneaking around Propaganda effects by attacking another player for instance.

FromTheShire: Opening this up to non-creature spells is very cool even if the effect isn't groundbreaking. It's a very powerful one and we should expect to see a lot of it in play, it just feels like it barely qualifies as a new ability with how close it is to ninjutsu.

Saffgor: I'm actually a huge fan of Sneak in terms of the problems it's attempting to solve, as not to repeat another Yuriko situation, but the fact it appears on both Creatures & non-Creatures isn't entirely intuitive. You basically need to have some prior conception of how Ninjitsu works to immediately grasp that the Sneaked Creature enters attacking, as that part is absent in reminder text where it'd not apply. That being said, these benefiting from cost reduction in a big way helps make some combos hum, and working like Web-Sling with the bounce as a cost is huge upside. If I had a nickel for every loopable alternate casting cost from a mediocre Universes Beyond set, I'd have two nickels.

BPhillipYork: This is a great expansion of ninjitsu, and is more fair in a lot of ways. Replacing an unblocked creature to cast a sorcery or some other sort of spell feels a lot more balanced than the way that ninjitsu could avoid the stack and do goofy things, and even allow you to create some really abusive situations. It also critically does not have the weird ignores the stack-ness that can make ninjitsu really counterintuitive and frustrating. And while Ninjitsu has been somewhat clarified as to when a creature is not blocked, this is very clear as to when a creature is eligible to sneak. So mechanically it's just a lot more sound, and the spell can still be countered, which makes it more balanced, and I think it's a great adaptation of a existing mechanic that both improves it and puts it into a mechanically appropriate place for the story.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Disappear

Disappear is essentially a trigger that checks to see if any permanents left the battlefield while under your control at some point during the turn, even if they were not in play when it happened.

FromTheShire: This feels even more like it's keywording something that has existed for a while solely in the interest of the flavor of the set. At least sneak offers some different lines, how is this different than Revolt? Look at Aid from the Cowl and tell me how this is a new ability.

Saffgor: Reasonable flavor given some of the aristocrats & Sneak synergies present, but I doubt this ever gets used again. The difference it has with Revolt is flavor, not function, as I think these turtles are less revolutionaries and more...evolutionaries. Something, something Mutant Ninjas. It's whatever.

BPhillipYork: This already exists on a lot of cards but it's now been keyworded. It's a useful mechanic that will probably end up being deciduous if not evergreen. It works really powerfully with certain kinds of permanents that make meeting the condition pretty trivial, namely fetch lands and various sorts of sacrifice-able artifacts (now including mutagen tokens).

Returning Mechanics

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Alliance

Alliance is a returning keyword that triggers whenever another creature enters under your control.

FromTheShire: I didn't think this needed to be keyworded when it originally releases either, but yeah pretty expected to get things that trigger off of creatures entering.

Saffgor: Echoing the above, this is a wet napkin of an ability that takes up space more than actually enhances any flavor.

BPhillipYork: This is also just a new keyword for an ability that already exists. It's basically evergreen at this point so I think it's a useful thing to have in the game designers pocket, but it's not all that exciting, even if it is very good.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Classes

Classes also return, enchantments with three levels that can be unlocked in succession by paying their cost at sorcery speed.

FromTheShire: There are only 3 of these is the set but they seem pretty decent, and class is a fine mechanic. Bit of a risk/reward as you have to telegraph sinking a bunch of mana into them to get their final effect which I think should be encouraged.

Saffgor: I'm a huge fan of classes, and as we saw in their return via Bloomburrow, there's a tremendous amount of design space remaining for the subtype. Better still, basically every class in this set is good if not great, and one in particular is perhaps my favorite card from the entire set. Glad to see something good come out of Turtles, even if their names are groan-inducing.

BPhillipYork: I really like class and how it works generally, though I think the flavor of it gets a bit confusing. It certainly lends itself to munchkin-ing and endless multiclassing jokes, but you can potentially end up with lots of classes, which is a bit confusing. It made a lot of sense in the set it was introduced, Dungeons and Dragons, but now it's sort of all over the place flavor wise, which is kind of disappointing. Still I think the whole design of pay some upfront and more later is really useful in the context of how magic works as a game, and a lot of these classes are really solid abilities.

Next Time: The Cards

That wraps up our look at the mechanics of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We’ll be back later to look at the most noteworthy cards in the set!

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