Magic: The Gathering Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles Review, Part 2 of 2: Our Favorite Cards from the Set

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.

Instead of a traditional set review, this time we're delivering you solely the hits from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, no fluff, no filler. While each of the Goonhammer Magic team has their own ideas on the best new pieces from the set, any time cards on our list are shared, we'll arrange comments accordingly.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #10: Shellshock

Saffgor: Not to be too much of a hipster, but this is a card I don't expect to see in many other countdowns for Turtles. Shellshock is a flexible piece of removal that often gets rid of at least one target, at Instant-speed, and produces three chaff tokens for all your Artifact synergy needs. Sacrifice them to grow a relevant attacker, use them for Affinity, or more, and at X=1 this takes care of a ton of dorks and little utility pieces, getting better the more mana (or X-cost synergies) in your deck.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #9: Casey Jones, Vigilante

Saffgor: Casey's a fairly simple design, but represents a ton of value in either Storm or discard, where you're somehow making his downside not matter. Either your opponent is dead, or you like discarding cards, and either way you come out ahead. The value of drawing 3 from a 3-drop cannot be overstated, and between cards like Displacer Kitten or similar blink engines he can pave the way for obnoxiously long turns.

FromTheShire: Casey gets a solid honorable mention from me, and I could easily see him ending up in the actual top 10 once we see the new cards hit Standard. Drawing 3 in an aggressive red deck with a solid number of instants could well mean closing the game out in response to the discard trigger, and there is already a discard focused deck this might slot into perfectly.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #8: The Hardened Scales effects

Saffgor: It's not cheating when the cards do the same thing, and will see play in the same decks, right? Both this Mikey and High Score are fantastic ways to crank up the amount of value generated via counter effects, and despite being an extra mana or two, each has a relevant-enough rider to warrant their inclusion unless you're playing super low to the ground. If I had to pick, High Score is probably the better of the two, but Mikey coming with a Mutagen does help kickstart decks like my beloved Maester Seymour.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #7: Mutagen Man, Living Ooze

Saffgor: As a Commander he's a bit of a conundrum, as I discussed in his dedicated article, but in other decks this card is a problem. Enabling a ton of combos by virtue of lacking a minimum on that cost reduction, strategies that make token Artifacts like Brenard, Ginger Sculptor based on other cards can go infinite quite quickly. As a combo piece, it's 2 mana, and if you need somewhere to dump your mana it's functionally a Hydra that makes a ton of tokens, and places 1 counter X times, both of which have ample opportunities for abuse.

FromTheShire: Coming in at #4 for my Standard oriented list, making your Mutagens free to activate seems stupid powerful and having built in trample is a huge boon as well. Top it off with the ability to create his own tokens and this feels like it could be his own deck with the other Mutagen creators and The Ooze and the Michelangelo shown above, though if it found its way into the Simic Rhythm deck I wouldn't be completely shocked either.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #6: Irma, Part-Time Mutant

Saffgor: Magic has become replete in ways to copy Legendary Creatures and skirt the Legend Rule, but Irma does so with not only the ability to be a Legend herself, but to also pivot between options and grow at the same time. She's whatever the best thing is on your board, at a given time, just slightly larger. I think this is a card which may go underappreciated, but she's already slotted in nicely to my Edea, Possessed Sorceress aggro deck since her reveal. You can read about that here.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #5: The Rhystic Mutagen Producers

Saffgor: Another twofer, because they're going to play fairly similarly in the 99. In either case, both April & Mona Lisa key off of any player performing a common game action(s), resulting in an untapped Artifact token; these can be used for everything from mana with Urza, Lord High Artificer, evading stax, or even comboing off with Clock of Omens and similar. As a Commander, I think I prefer April, but plenty of decks would love the free value onboard that these afford.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #4: Donatello, Mutant Mechanic

Saffgor: You'll probably see a focus on this guy sometime in the near future, because Donny here makes for some absolutely heinous combo material. Not only can he produce the necessary power to Station Spacecraft, their Charge counters are readily passed to cards like Magistrate's Scepter & Darksteel Reactor. Couple that with Vexing Puzzlebox, and suddenly it becomes clear I've found the third member of my counter-agnostic Commander trilogy, alongside Seymour & Spider-Man Noir. This isn't quite Urza, but in terms of Monoblue power that you might see in Bracket 4, he comes close.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #3: Continue?

Saffgor: While I wish this said 'permanents', the fact it also says 'four' makes up for that fact. This is a disgustingly efficient take on a Second Sunrise, and being both a way to generate aristocrat value and evade wipes in Monowhite makes it plenty appealing. There's not a ton to be said: It costs basically nothing, and recurs potentially quadruple or more of its worth in value. Not only that, but I've experimented with putting it under an Isochron Scepter, and well, that's a story for another time...

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #2: The Ooze

Saffgor: You like The Ozolith? How about Agatha's Soul Cauldron? The Ooze isn't either of those cards, but is enough of both effects to feel extremely competent for its cheap cost. Unlike The Ozolith, there's not necessarily a delayed means of floating out the counters, during combat, and if you have Artifact or token payoffs things get out of hand rather quickly. Furthermore, incidental gravehate is mandatory in modern Commander, and even if you never actually crack the Mutagen, something like a Krark-Clan Ironworks or similar turns this into an explosive mana engine. In short, it protects your investments, and wins with token synergies. A+ in my book.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Saffgor's #1: Ninja Teen

Saffgor: My favorite card in the entire set is Ninja Teen, and it comes down to the card's versatility. At its face, it pings opponents on deaths and more, which is great to start out with. Next, it adds evasion, and after that...holy hell, Sneak {3}{B} from the graveyard? For a 6 mana investment, this does explosive things alongside cost reducers, and the fact you can Sneak onto a snuck Creature, cycling through options and effectively putting them back in your hand, feels amazing. The big reason this is my #1 though? Gorex, the Tombshell, one of my all-time pet decks, makes this revolting. That list is full of cost-reducers, making that Sneak ~1 mana most of the time, and with Ancient Cellarspawn as the deck's secret Commander, the difference of mana for something like a Sibsig Muckdraggers will kill opponents out of nowhere. Not only that, but the card's first two modes aren't shabby either, with Menace synergizing with Gorex's Deathtouch, and the first trigger being another accelerant. I am the target audience for Ninja Teen, even if I'm not the target audience for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as a set.

FromTheShire: This comes in at #8 for me, mostly because it's on the slower side for Standard. The effects are extremely powerful though, and if things shake out so that Dimir Midrange can continue to do well, or a new actual Ninja deck emerges this could do quite well.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #10: Ravenous Robots

FromTheShire: This is a fantastic little token engine, and I could see it being played either an artifact heavy deck or a Boros tokens build as a haste enabler.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #9: Super Shredder

FromTheShire: This could be a bit of a meta call, but 2 mana for a menace creature that gets massive as Mutagens and Treasures and Map tokens get cracked, creatures die, elementals are evoked, etc seems like a great rate.

FromTheShire's #8: Ninja Teen

FromTheShire: See above.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #7: Dark Leo & Shredder

FromTheShire: Dark Leo makes blocking a huge headache for your opponent - even when he's not on the field if you have the mana open - and obviously if you ever trigger his second ability things will go extremely poorly for them. I think that half is less likely though not impossible, but the deathtouch is plenty on its own. There are quite a few solid Ninjas floating around already, and we could even see a full on typal deck with things like Splinter, Hamato Yoshi and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares to make your tokens really punch up. I don't expect it to be tier 1 but it should at least be playable.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #6: Splinter's Technique

FromTheShire: Speaking of Splinter cards, having a Demonic Tutor in the format is pretty wild where we already have a bunch of decks doing ninjutsu or adjacent things competitively. I honestly may be too low on this. I expect that we see the other Techniques appearing during their run in the format as well.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #5: Wingnut, Bat on the Belfry

FromTheShire: What's better than a straight up tutor you may ask? Well, how about an untyped lord effect for all of the mono red and Boros decks. It will frequently have flying as well so it can safely get in on the beatings too.

FromTheShire's #4: Mutagen Man

FromTheShire: See above.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #3: The Last Ronin's Technique

FromTheShire: Yes there is a setup cost, but creating 3 relevantly typed bodies for 2 mana is extremely good. Personally I plan to be doing some brewing with this in a go wide tokens deck with Warleader's Call and Raphael, Tough Turtle. Impact Tremors is also in the format, though maybe that is getting a little too cute. There will be less "Commander player playing Standard" options as well.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #2: Cool but Rude

FromTheShire: Even at level one, being able to loot every turn is great, and even more so considering that this will be in a deck like Rakdos or Izzet Monument where the discard is something you're actively looking for. This is close to copies 5-8 of Monument to Endurance - a downgrade to be sure but it means you're much more likely to have a version of what you're looking for and get the damage train rolling.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

FromTheShire's #1: Raphael's Technique

FromTheShire: Hey so remember how I just said there were already existing powerful decks that reward you for discarding? How do you think it will feel to sneak this out with a Moonshadow or Marauding Mako in play? Pretty great huh. Bet that will get a Bloodghast or Flamewake Phoenix or two in your yard. Maybe instead you're playing mono red aggro or Boros burn or Goblins or really any aggressive deck that plays red and need to find those last few points of damage but you're empty handed. I don't know that Izzet Lessons can make this fit with most builds only having Gran-Gran for creatures but hey who knows!

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