Cowabunga, dudes. Let’s talk turtles.
When the full TMNT Magic set dropped, reactions were… mixed. I wasn’t a big TMNT guy growing up, and I’m still not thrilled about the rate of “Fortnitification” MTG is going through. That said – once you actually dig into the cards? There’s a surprising amount of real power here. Not just flavor wins, but cards that are going to slot into decks and do work.
So I went through every card in the set to separate the actual hits from the noise – the clear bangers, the sneaky sleepers, and the niche role-players that might quietly overperform.
But first, for those of you who came here for the quick hits:
TL;DR Picks
- Best Overall Card: April O’Neil, Human Element
- Best Sleeper: Raphael, the Nightwatcher
- Best New Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Commander: Splinter, Radical Rat
- Card I Don’t Want to Like (But Probably Should): Continue?
Alright—now let’s get into the cards that immediately make you think, “yeah, that’s gonna be good.”
The Clear Bangers from TMNT
$21.68 
What needs to be said? This card’s text is basically, “anyone got a Swords to Plowshares? No? Okay, I’ll proceed to punching you in the face now. Oh and watch out for the board wipe next turn.”
This two-mana Ninja with menace grows whenever any player’s permanents leave the battlefield – and he gets big fast. Fetch lands, treasure tokens, sacrifice fodder, flicker decks; there are so many ways to get this guy to be massive. Throw on a Vorrac Battlehorns for unblockability. Play with The Ozolith or The Ooze to keep the counters if he gets removed. Plus, pretty sick art and variants!
Speaking of – what a great card. The passive graveyard hate is already strong, its ability to provide +1/+1 counters to any deck is an added bonus. On top of that, the resiliency it provides to counters-based decks will have this be a strong contender for card slots in your 99.
Oh my. You get a free artifact whenever anyone casts an artifact, instant, or sorcery? This card would be good if the artifact was a new token called “Shiny Dirt” and did nothing. That they’re mutagen tokens is icing on the cake. Look to add April in your improvise deck, your artifact affinity deck, or your deck that’s looking to win with a Rise and Shine or Cyberdrive Awakener. Throw it in a Jackdaw deck and deck yourself. Do it! I believe in you!
Listen, folks – free artifacts are engine fodder and combo fuel. Basking Broodscale goes infinite with Donatello, for example, and there are a few other combos. Not as prolific as Chatterfang, Squirrel General – yet – but keep an eye on this guy.
Ravenous Robots with artifact-etb or creature-etb cards like Hedron Detonator or Impact Tremors will be good. Plus giving all your creature tokens haste can be a game ender in the right deck. Maybe you resolved a Clone Legion or Doppelgang?
Now that you have all those Mutagen tokens, start eating them for cards! Or throw this in your accursed Food or Clue deck and eat those for cards. This guy is colorless for only two mana, so he can find a home in many decks. You play Idol of Oblivion, don’t you? Similar idea, except you might actually swing with him.
I was really hoping this card would fly under the radar but its current price tag says otherwise. The first and third levels really pale in comparison to the second level: Dealing 2 damage to each opponent anytime you discard a card is excellent. There just aren’t that many ways to deal damage by discarding cards. Magmakin Artillerist, Brallin, Skyshark Rider and Glint-Horn Buccaneer come to mind. Wheels decks (Nekusar, the Mindrazer), Shark decks (Captain Howler, Sea Scourge), hell any deck that loots regularly will enjoy the damage this card deals.
I began to appreciate this Michelangelo’s card name when I started reading it as “Weirdness to one one” instead of eleven. Because it’s all about one more one one, right?
I love this card. It’s Adeline, Resplendent Cathar with squad. Pay 5 for 2 Adelines! 7 for 3! Then attack with anything, get a bunch of 1/1s! It’s an enchantment so it survives wipes! Lifegain-on-enter decks like Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim will love this, Aristocrats like Teysa Karlov will love this. Impact tremors, creature count matters, white weenie and tokens decks – they will love this! Just keep in mind your friend with the 10/10 lifelinking blocker will also love this. Time to play Tainted Remedy!
I don’t know how you can specialize in being a teenager – but hey, not all careers are meant to last.
At face value, for 3 mana this competes with Bastion of Remembrance and similar cards. Ninja Teen does the thing you typically care about most – draining life – but without the other upsides. It makes up for this in its other levels, providing added power and evasion at level 2 and the ability to reanimate creatures when your dudes don’t get blocked at level 3. A bit niche but with the right deck this can be very powerful. Ninjitsu decks that already run evasive creatures can use this to recover from board wipes. Self-mill, aristocrats and/or reanimator decks can run this for its numerous synergies, provided they can open up a path for unblocked attackers.
Listen, I’m kind of lukewarm on this guy – I think I just don’t want to like it. It’s obviously pretty good, but I’ve played cards like Faith’s Reward in the past without much, well, reward. This is half the cost, though, which makes it significantly more playable as a reactionary card. There are better ways to protect your board in white, though they’re all pretty pricey – Clever Concealment, Spectacular Spider-man, Teferi’s Protection, Guardian of Faith. That said this card is not exactly bulk bin either.
This makes me think this is probably better off used proactively in a sacrifice/reanimation style deck. Anyways …. let’s continue?
Sleepers From TMNT
These are the cards that are quite good but still relatively cheap. Though fair warning — writing about sleepers has a way of waking them up. Pick them up soon!
This card seriously slaps for any go-wide decks that routinely have weenies unblocked. Send one weenie home, pay Raph’s sneak cost, and completely ruin someone’s board and life total. Currently just a couple bucks! Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon anyone?
I hesitate to call Level Up a sleeper since everyone’s been comparing it to Seismic Tutelage to show the crazy power creep in just a few sets. Both Level Up and the Tutelage are under $2 now, why not play them both? The only downside to either of these cards is that they are a lightning rod for removal, so be ready with some protection magic.
Big Mother Mouser is also great as she doubles her own counters on attack and then produces an army for you upon her death.
The whole, “at your end step, flicker something” set of cards tend to not be cheap. Teleportation Circle, Conjurer’s Closet and Thassa, Deep Dwelling have all had or have large price tags – Don & Leo exile two things and bring them back and they’re currently less than a buck. Eh? Eh?
“You just get to double the power of all your creatures? Just for free? No other costs? Awesome!” ~Black players
I actually thought this card would be like $5 by now. Lifelinkers come to mind here, to regain you the life you’re paying. Or just own it and play Pact Weapon and other lich-style cards. Just keep in mind you cannot pay life you don’t have!
There are so few ways to destroy enchantments in mono black that any new card that gets printed and does so is worth considering. Feed the Swarm and Withering Torment are the gold standard, the latter having moved up considerably in price due to being instant speed. Shredder’s Technique is still sorcery, and punishes you less than Feed the Swarm does for using it; it has the niche ability of being a combat trick too. Consider this card for any deck that is light on enchantment or creature removal.
Black has surprisingly struggled with low mana value destroy-based board wipes over the years. Damnation and Toxic Deluge are still the best, but for a long time you had to pay 6 mana to board wipe in black. Recently they’ve printed Deadly Cover-Up and Villainous Wrath, both excellent in their own right, at 5 mana each. Game Over is the newest entry in the 5-mana slot, but this card’s upside is that it can be 3 mana in the right circumstances. Pod too fast? Are you being pummeled down to sub-20 life before turn 5? Slow them down with a Game Over!
On the topic of board wipes, shout out to Swift Demise. Not for every deck, but if you are constantly throwing around decayed-zombie, mobilize creature, dies-at-end-of turn tokens, or some other expendable fodder or playing Pestilence style cards, this can clear out a number of creatures on the cheap. It’s asymmetrical too – doesn’t destroy your own stuff!
Ok last board wipe entry – this one being mono Red. But it’s doing its best impression of Massacre Girl! So it’s kind of black? This has the upside of keeping your walls deck unscathed too. You’d think flyers would also not get zapped but what do I know? Spongebob Squarepants is in Magic now.
Being able to copy your commander (or anything else) for 3 mana an artifact is pretty fun. Maybe the artifact wants to be sacrificed anyways, like a Munitions from Weapons Manufacturing. Maybe you’ve got a Technomancer out that’s gonna bring the artifact back when you copy him.
Maybe – maybe you have a Goblin Welder who just sacrificed an Ichor Wellspring to bring back a Portal to Phyrexia. Now Dame is saccing the Portal to create another Welder who is just gonna bring the portal back.
Who knows! Who knows.
Rat players – obviously. You know what to do.
Non-rat players – don’t skip this guy just because he is obviously for the rat players. He’s two mana, he produces fodder for free, and can reanimate a creature for you eventually. This is kind of like Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia but with a bit more required setup and payoff that you can get for under a buck. Pretty easy include in my Old Rutstein deck.
At first glance this seems like a Zulaport Cutthroat for twice the mana and more lifegain. But the fact that the drain is a separate ability that only cares about when you gain life makes this guy so much more flexible. Anywhere you might run either a Cutthroat or Marauding Blight-Priest you could find a home for this – bonus points if you can do both. Dina, Soul-Steeper or Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, maybe?
It seems like half of the mono-blue decks out there want to win with cards that care about them drawing more cards. Why not double that up? Also can be used to punish other players with cards like Scrawling Trawler, Underworld Dreams or Sheoldred, the Apocalypse (you monster). 5 mana is a bit steep but you do need some time to set up your engine before pouring in the NOS.
It’s two mana, colorless, and has a colorless mana dump ability to copy artifacts. And it has an artifact creature anthem. I really just want to create numerous copies of Coveted Jewel with a Training Grounds out to deck myself.
Bury me with my jewels, thank you.
Niche Picks From TMNT
Flicker players – take note.
Splinter being a flicker target can be a real deterrent for people to attack you without Vigilance or Hexproof. You can continue the politics by giving people who don’t attack you cards, too.
Renet is a decent card without being flickered but Aetherize and Force of Despair exist and people don’t use those cards nearly as often as you’d think. Turns out holding up that much mana isn’t something people aim to do most of the time. However, Renet being an ETB makes her an interesting flicker target. Note that if you play a bunch of mass flicker effects for your own board, she will impact you too, so you need to be somewhat careful how you use her.
This is a legitimately good Ninja commander. You can use as many or as few Ninjas from this set as you want. Bust out all your Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty cards and have Splinter helm the deck. He doubles up Ninja triggers and gives you a way to make them unblockable. This would be fun to both build and play.
Maybe your Slime Against Humanity deck could use cards that are not just Slime Against Humanity?
This set is full to the brim of ways to get a bunch of artifacts out and this card turns them into power. This is Cranial Plating in Red and it comes with a way to make more of them.
If you’re running cards like Umbral Collar Zealot (affectionately named Viscera Seer’s Dad) or Arcbound Ravager then this card is basically Vandalblast with an upside of being able to use the artifacts first.
I guess Pantlaza, Sun-Favored discovered a 2 mana way to fly and get more buff.
He makes Blood and Mutagen tokens free and discounts Clues to 1 mana. Pretty slick!
Everyone’s favorite MTG plane is New York, right? Snark aside, a way to get a bunch of tokens late game is pretty nice. These rats, unlike some of their more recent cousins, can actually block, too!
Northampton Farm could find a home in decks with expensive commanders or with commanders that get targeted a lot. This is kind of like ‘Command Beacon at home’ but sometimes losing a land and paying 2 mana is significantly more affordable than paying 9 mana for your commander again.
End Step
Look, I came into this set skeptical — not a TMNT guy, not thrilled about the direction Magic is heading. But cards don’t care about IP, and a surprising number of these are genuinely fun and powerful. If you pick up even one card from this list and it improves your deck, the turtles did their job. Cowabunga, dudes.
What did I miss? What’s overhyped? And which of these are you actually sleeving up?