Love it or hate it, Wizards of the Coast has leaned hard into its Universes Beyond subset of Magic: The Gathering cards as a way to collaborate with all manner of brands and IP, including Final Fantasy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and soon, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This TMNT-themed set is an expansive release hitting card shops on March 6, and it includes the usual gamut of play and collector boosters, a Commander deck, chase cards, and more.
Ahead of its launch next month, I attended a virtual preview to learn from the card game makers behind this set about its narrative design, its video game-themed deck, a new multiplayer cooperative format for four players, and so much more. There’s a lot here, and I have a lot of card previews to show you, so get your pen and paper ready, turn on your deckcrafting brain, and enjoy!
Wizards of the Coast senior narrative designer and TMNT narrative design lead Crystal Frasier began the preview explaining her role in designing this set, stating, “We’re incredibly lucky with TMNT that a lot of our artists were already huge fans of the property, so a lot of them went above and beyond.” As Magic: The Gathering fans already know, every card has just a hint of storytelling happening, even outside of the sometimes-included flavor text, and that hasn’t changed with this set.
In the Vanish Lands pictured below, you can see that these basic land cards showcase various places around New York City, the metropolis the Turtles have always called home. However, if you look closer at the scenes, you’ll see remnants of the Turtles – that’s because these scenes showcase parts of NYC where the Turtles were just at, disappearing into the night to be heroes, according to Frasier. In the full-art Rooftop Lands, pictured in the gallery below, you’ll see the Turtles’ silhouettes as they leap from rooftop to rooftop, inspired by various TMNT media.
Vanish Lands and Rooftop Lands
Frasier says one of the best parts about designing this set was the breadth of TMNT iterations to draw upon for card art, and in the card below – Turtles Forever – you can see that on display as it features a different iteration of each turtle:
She adds that Nickelodeon, which owns the Turtles IP, was “incredibly supportive” of Wizards of the Coast creating its own iteration of the Turtles, and if you see art that isn’t from a previous iteration, it’s Magic’s own take on the mutants. Wanting to ensure every pack comes with a Turtle, Frasier says, “We gave a Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Mythic that charts the Turtle’s alignment,” which is why you have Raphael, Tough Turtle; Raphael, Most Attitude; Raphael, the Nightwatcher; and Raphael, Ninja Destroyer, for example, with flavor text of quotes from Master Splinter that speak to the Turtles’ training. Some of them, as you’ll see, are special silhouetted versions of the Turtles, too. Check them out below:
Common, Uncommon, Rare, And Mythic Turtle Iterations
Every Turtle gets a Team-Up card, too, with each of their brothers. Frasier says, “The vibe is to understand them as brothers and see how important that is to their family.” Donatello and Leonardo are the more serious and studious brothers, so you’ll see them on a team-up card, while Raphael and Michelangelo are the troublemakers, and that’s reflected in their team-up card, too. Here, Frasier shared the Turtle Van (an Artifact – Vehicle card) as well:
Turtle Team-Ups
There are various villains featured in this TMNT set, but the designers wanted to highlight Krang, “an eccentric little weirdo who has all the resources to make his mad schemes everyone else’s problem,” according to Frasier. Senior game designer and TMNT set design lead Eric Englehard says the blue Rare Krang is meant to capture his mad scientist vibes (and in the background, you’ll see various artistic iterations of his mecha-suits from the design team), while his Utrom Warlord Mythic card highlights how much of a threat Krang can be to the Turtles.
On the vigilante side, Englehard highlighted Casey Jones, Vigilante, describing him as Raphael’s BFF. Frasier adds that they have a lovely bromance occurring throughout the set, and Casey is the only person/card to make Raphael seem reasonable by comparison. On that front, the team took an effect that started with a blue card from Seekers of Kamigawa, a 2005 set, and turned it into a red card effect creature in Casey Jones, Vigilante. And finally, the team highlighted Cowabunga, a green sorcery card, here; Frasier says it emphasizes the idea that despite being heroes, these brothers are still teenagers. “They go on really cool adventures, fight aliens in space […], but they also hang out with each other, pick on each other, share meals, and find things to do. They’re just a couple of poor kids in New York City finding fun ways to hang out,” she says.
Englehard adds that, mechanically, the design team couldn’t capture the teenager vibe, so it relied on Frasier and the narrative design team to emphasize that, at the end of the day, they’re still teenagers. Check out all these cards in the gallery below:
Cowabunga, Casey Jones, and Krang
Magic: The Gathering- TMNT Mechanics
At this point in the preview, the design team switched from highlighting the cards’ storytelling elements to the mechanics associated with the set. There’s a brand new mechanic in this TMNT set: Sneak. Englehard says it captures the Ninja aspect and can appear on instants, sorceries, and creatures, adding that anything can happen in combat because of this mechanic.
Something else new to this set is Mutagen Tokens, which read as the following: “1 (Mana), Sacrifice this token: Put a +1/+1 counter on a target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.”
In terms of returning mechanics, Englehard says Alliance, which triggers when another creature enters the battlefield under your control, returns and pairs nicely with Sneak, “so you get unexpected triggers at unexpected times.” Slash, Reptile Rampager, is the headliner card for Alliance. The Krang & Shredder card features the Disappear mechanic, which is an old mechanic with a new name – Revolt has become Disappear, and it triggers if something you control leaves the battlefield during your turn, which Englehard says will pair nicely with Sneak and Mutagen tokens.
Two more things: classes return, after a successful introduction in the Bloomburrow set of 2024, and I can show you the Ninja Teen class card in the gallery below. Other creatures rely on adjectives from the classic 1987 animated series theme song, so expect class cards for “Party Dude” and more. The second thing here is Casey’s hockey bag, and if you read the description, it might sound like a familiar Planal card.
Bundles
Below, I’ll break down the various bundles you can purchase when this set launches next month.
Turtle Power Commander Deck
Where the main cards of the TMNT set lean into the various comic, TV, and movie iterations of the Turtles, the Turtle Power Commander Deck – Partner With Allies, Buff Your Team – is based around the mutant teenagers’ video game adventures. This deck features 43 new cards separate from the main set, which is quite large for a Universes Beyond Commander deck, and you’ll find all sorts of video game-inspired cards, from both old and more recent adventures. See what you recognize in the gallery below:
Turtle Team-Up: A New 2-4 Player Co-Op Game Mode
Turtle Team-Up is a brand-new multiplayer cooperative mode best played with four players, though it can be played solo (with some challenge). Englehard says Turtle Team-Up was “designed from the ground up as an approachable and exciting way to learn Magic,” adding, “You’re not competing against each other as you and your friends or your kids play together to defeat a horde of Shredder’s minions and 11 of the Turtles’ worst foes that live inside a boss deck.” You can use the included decks to fight each other; however, after you’ve grasped how they work, the primary mode is the co-op adventure.
It can be tuned to raise or lower the difficulty, and the bundle includes four player boosters in addition to four 60-card decks and a boss deck; there are 29 new-to-Magic legacy legal cards among the decks, with roughly eight new ones in each box.
Draft Night
You know the deal here: this bundle includes everything you need for a pick-two draft night with you and up to three friends. It comes with 12 play boosters and one collector booster, 90 basic land cards, and a bunch of tokens.
Pizza Bundle
This special edition bundle is the only part of the Magic: The Gathering – TMNT set that is not launching on March 6; it hits stores on March 27. It is a set of thematic pizza cards described by the team as a traditional bundle that comes in a themed pizza box with nine play boosters, a collector booster, and a TMNT spin-down die, alongside an entire set of Pizza Lands. You’ll even find Food Chain in this bundle, a classic Magic: The Gathering card tweaked to fit the theme of this Pizza Bundle.
Chase Cards, Special Editions, and More
Like every other Magic: The Gathering set, there are chase cards fans of TMNT will be hoping to find, and this time around, keep an eye out for Borderless Signature Kevin Eastman cards, Borderless Pixel Cards, Borderless Silhouette Cards, Source Material art cards, and Japanese Showcase cards. Check them out below:
Magic: The Gathering- Arena
Let’s wrap things up with a quick little Arena recap: there will be a new TMNT battlefield in Arena; not every card from the Commander Deck will make it to Arena, but every legendary creature of the Commander Deck will head there, and various bundles come with Mythic Turtles, special sleeves, and more.
Alrighty, if you made it this far, thank you for reading! This is a new type of feature for us here at Game Informer – while many of us here on staff love and play Magic: The Gathering, we haven’t really covered it much on the website (though we do post videos about Magic: The Gathering sets from time to time). We’re looking to cover this card game more here, and today’s preview is an example of how we might go about doing that.
With that said, please drop a comment below and let me know what you think of this preview style – Do you like it? Do you hate it? Do you like the galleries? Do you like the explanations and behind-the-scenes details?