Magic’s TMNT Commander deck almost rewrote the rules of Commander

'Character Select' could have been a real game-changer

Wizards of the Coast knows that most of the people interested in buying cards from the upcoming Magic: The Gathering – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set grew up playing video games based on TMNT. The main set depicts a unique version of the Turtles that draws inspiration from 40 years' worth of cartoons, comics, live-action movies, and games. To set the preconstructed Commander deck apart from the rest of the set, the design team went all-in on video game nostalgia. But they almost went too far and destroyed the fundamentals of Commander.

Wizards senior game designer Melissa DeTora served as the lead designer on the “Turtle Power!” Commander deck, and in a Feb. 18 blog post, she broke down the design process from start to finish. In it, she recalled spending all of her allowance to play the TMNT arcade game at her local bowling alley, and that’s exactly the kind of vibe she channeled into the set. In addition to a lot of references from the game — like Shredder boss fights and insta-kill seaweed — the deck also leans into broader video game references.

Early attempts to represent all four Turtles and their master Splinter led to the creation of Character Select. “We liked tying in the action of choosing a character, something that was related to the TMNT arcade games, so we made a new mechanic that represented selecting your character,” DeTora wrote. It would have functioned like an evolved version of the preexisting Partner mechanic that lets you have two Commanders instead of one. Character Select would have let you reveal up to five cards with the ability to give their combined color identity to two of the characters you select as your actual Commanders.

Anyone could have used their two favorite Ninja Turtles as their Commanders in a five-color deck. But DeTora and her team encountered several major problems with this mechanic, namely that it would require “major rules support” in both tabletop and digital Magic and that it would bend the Commander color identity rule almost to the point of breaking. And since the required mechanical description for Character Select would have taken up a lot of space, that would have left very little room to make the Ninja Turtle hero cards any good.

Character Select was scrapped, and the compromise was to give the pure-white Leonardo, The Balance, a five-color ability and Partner so he could give the deck all five colors and still team up with one of his brothers. But that means if you want to go five-color, you have to use Leo as one of your two Commanders. (Cowabummer if you’re a Mikey-Donny stan.) At least Leo is a universally great card: whenever a token you control enters, you can put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control, once per turn. And his five-cost ability gives all of your creatures menace, trample, and lifelink.

The other Turtle cards and Splinter all focus on tokens and/or +1/+1 counters directly, with a broad focus on the set’s Mutagen tokens (you can pay one mana to sacrifice them and add a +1/+1 counter to a target creature). Donatello creates an extra Mutagen token when you create one or more tokens. Splinter does the same when one of your nontoken creatures leaves the battlefield (so it works with something like Ninjutsu or this set’s new version of that ability, called Sneak). Raphael creates a Mutagen token when he enters and doubles damage dealt by creatures with tokens. Michelangelo gets trample and distributes a +1/+1 counter to one creature while also creating a food token. Because each has a slightly different mechanical focus, every pairing could headline a pretty unique modified version of the base deck. Raphael’s ability works with all kinds of counters, including blight. Splinter’s works with all kinds of blink and sacrifice effects. And Donatello’s could capitalize on everything from swarms of creature tokens to strategies involving clue, treasure, food, and so many more.

In her design article, DeTora explained how leveling up, gaining experience, and powering up are all central to the deck’s video game identity. For Magic, +1/+1 counters “represent the act of leveling up and getting stronger quite well.”

As pointed out in a deck reveal video from The Command Zone, "Turtle Power!" has 43 unique cards, meaning that almost half the deck is composed of new cards. As hosts Josh Lee Kwai and Jimmy Wong noted, it’s the most to ever appear in a precon — or at least close to it. Wizards could have relied more on reprints with TMNT-flavored art. Instead, it leaned into the set’s core mechanics to make one of the most unique decks yet.

Among the 43 cards are enchantments like Level Up and High Score, along with artifacts like Arcade Cabinet — all cards that might become staples in any kind of deck that focuses on +1/+1 counters. "Turtle Power!" may have abandoned Character Select, but it still gives players a lot of flexibility in terms of how they want to play out the deck’s core mechanics. Ultimately, the deck still flirts with rewriting Commander rules, proving that Wizards is willing to push them.

Universes Beyond sets often invite a lot of criticism from the hardcore player base for reskinning old cards for crossovers that don’t always fit well within Magic. But this seems like a lot more than just a superficial reskin. It’s a five-color design experiment that almost broke Commander, but settled on a compromise that still feels innovative.