General [TMT] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

[Seeker]

Release date: March 6, 2026
Set codes: TMT (Standard legal), TMC (Commander deck), PZA (borderless full-art reprints like in Spider-Man)

New Mechanics:
Sneak is ninjutsu, except:
1) you cast the thing (thank god, it's counterable and also they put it on instants too and maybe other things)
2) only during the declare blockers step (thank god, no end of combat shenanigans)

Mutagen tokens have 1, T, sac: +1/+1 counter on a creature at sorcery speed:

Individual Cards:

Also Exists, but I'm too lazy to post:
full art "pizza" basic lands (not kidding)
pizza bundle with pizza basic lands and pizza-themed promo arts (not kidding)

Honestly, while I have zero feelings about TMNT either way, some of these previews are great. TMC Michaelangelo (why partner, dammit, give me normal cards), Raphael's Technique, Shredder, and Bebop+Rocksteady are all at least tentatively interesting for me.

 

[Seeker]

slightly salty that if we're going to have mythic Leonardo being "Legendary Creature - Mutant Ninja Turtle Samurai" they didn't put "Villain" on the villain cards right after we had Villains-Matter cards in SPM

but, you know, they're not gonna be in my cube, so it doesn't matter either way

 

[ravnic]

Hmm. On one hand I was hoping to see more Ninjutsu cards, but sneak working with noncreature spells is kinda genius.

Also Bebop & Rocksteady are a very neat discard outlet for green madness, but they might be too pushed, stat wise, for me. If they were like 5/4 I might even overlook that weird art

 

[Velrun]

I like Wish Ungiven.

 

[Velrun]

We have finally returned to New York after many weeks of other planes! Can’t wait to see what’s been happening since we last visited.

 

[ravnic]

I like Wish Ungiven.

Can't find that one

 

[Velrun]

Can't find that one

It’s the Turtles Forever.

 

[MusicalBen]

Naturally, the rhythm of planning, designing and printing has always been at odds with the rhythm of releases and set reception. But seeing so many different legendaries of the same characters on what appears to be a small (?) set feels strangely foreboding after how Spiderman turned out...

 

[Seeker]

Naturally, the rhythm of planning, designing and printing has always been at odds with the rhythm of releases and set reception. But seeing so many different legendaries of the same characters on what appears to be a small (?) set feels strangely foreboding after how Spiderman turned out...

April O'Neal, Hacktivist is #29, and certainly one of the first blue cards.

For comparison with two recent sets, DSK's Abhorrent Oculus is #42 and SPM's Amazing Acrobatics is #25.
Isn't "just" an artifact or gold heavy set, because DFT's Aether Syphon was #38 and SNC's All-Seeing Arbiter was #34.
Definitely looks like a Spider-Sized set.

We also know Bebop & Rocksteady is #140 and gold, which is a pretty low number for a gold card to be - SNC's Aven Heartstabber was #166, this matches better with SPM's Araña, Heart of the Spider at #123.

I'm going with "smaller than a normal 306, larger than Spider-Man".

ps we found out what Mutagen tokens do (1, T, sac, +1/+1 counter sorcery speed) so I put that in the first post

 

[MilesOfficial]

this is even worse than Spider-Man for me, ugh

the worst part is how much I like the designs



Michelangelo, the Heart
Compares reasonably to Scythecat Cub in terms of how much it accelerates your team, but doing it post-combat makes it not feel quite so oppressive. I like the gameplay of this more, and the food is a huge bonus for cards like Teething Wurmlet, the new hotness of Campsite Cuisine, my recent favorite Stridehangar Automaton, Samwise Gamgee, Umbral Collar Zealot, Arcbound Ravager or if you're particularly spicy, Tawnos, Solemn Survivor. It makes me want to put Rosie Cotton of South Lane back in, too.

I don't really want yet another trinket artifact token but the Mutagen one is pretty nice:



But unfortunately, it makes me want to consider Donatello, the Brains as a result. Ultimately, I don't think I'll go this direction, but I do hate wanting to have a critical mass of any new token I introduce, especially one that's not always clearly defined on cards.



Leonardo, Sewer Samurai is good for Reveillark stonks, that's always welcome. Clones are good to pair here of course, but also Kalonian Hydra, Marionette Master, Threefold Thunderhulk, Golgari Grave-Troll, Deep Forest Hermit and the like are fun. Unfortunately, you still have to pay for them, so you're not really "getting there" and it's more of a more narrow Serra Paragon than a Vesperlark, but it does incentivize filling slots more strategically with weird P/T combinations, which I do like. I really dislike finality counters as a solution to stopping bad gameplay loops from a practical standpoint, and I find that I still have to explain them to players frequently. Not for me likely, but interesting.



Although I do find the mana symbols very clever here, I really do hate these.

Ninja Turtles is worse than Avatar for the game of Magic because we get the triple-whammy of "modern day USA" with "cowabunga dudes pop culture" and "children's franchise". At least with Avatar, the world, world building, and aesthetics don't clash with what MtG historically has been, even if it's aimed much younger. Pretty bummed this is going to be the set after Lorwyn, and even more bummed we're getting yet another set that's far too small.

 

[ravnic]

I predict that I will add 1-2 instants/sorceries/artifacts with sneak and ignore the rest of this set for the well-being of my cube. Just give me something simple, like a Catalog with Sneak or such.

 

[Seeker]

I really dislike finality counters as a solution to stopping bad gameplay loops from a practical standpoint, and I find that I still have to explain them to players frequently. Not for me likely, but interesting.

I usually agree with your opinions but I'm actually kind of a fan of finality counters. Give them ten more years to have existed forever (so people actually know what they mean) and I will have zero complaints!

Other than that, your list of interested-if-they-weren't-so-ugly looks more or less like my list.

Leonardo, Sewer Samurai is one card closer to making me give in and run Goldvein Hydra - I think that card's underrated by most people just because it sort of kind of accidentally fits in every theme.

 

[Velrun]

Those Basic lands are abominations!
They don’t even a little bit resemble lands, let alone Island or Mountains.

 

[ravnic]

The All will be One phyrexian basics and other also didn't look like lands. I agree though, these pizza basics are horrendous.

 

[Velrun]

The All will be One phyrexian basics and other also didn't look like lands. I agree though, these pizza basics are horrendous.

They were lands with scriptures. They made sense in their own Phyrexian alien kind of way. Like a secret entrance at an underground cave where the password is written in a language long forgotten.

 

[MilesOfficial]

I usually agree with your opinions but I'm actually kind of a fan of finality counters. Give them ten more years to have existed forever (so people actually know what they mean) and I will have zero complaints!

Oh, I completely agree. They just have a bad habit of very rarely printing reminder text for them. Like I said, mechanically I get why they exist, think it's a good knob for R&D, and definitely prefer it to the Serra Paragon approach, but just like keyword tokens, it's not the most elegant solution to have something that's most often represented with a dice that signifies something other than +1/+1, and so I'm going to be a little biased against it as long as my playgroup doesn't keep up with the game enough to know it on sight.



Also, this card is interesting. I recently put in Homicide Investigator as a recurring trinket generator, and it strikes me as less than ideal due to being only "once per turn" when it's already limiting it to non-tokens. Splinter's tokens are much worse, but he's legendary and has menace in addition to getting rid of the "once per turn" rider and leaving a token on his own death. I don't think it's worth the swap, but if I went heavy into GB counters as a subtheme in the future, I'll definitely consider him.

 

[ravnic]

At least Mutagen is a term that has come up with the phyrexians before, so these tokens could make a comeback.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think I am actually going to try this card sadly
If you're thinking about it, you can use these:

 

[Seeker]

excuse me you forgot Zoetic Cavern the Land That Is A Spell

this is a joke obviously but I still had to post it

e: I do actually like "card types among spells you've cast" as a theme, it's like Goyf but different, real interesting, I just don't like the 3U 1/5 rate

 

[Chris Taylor]

excuse me you forgot Zoetic Cavern the Land That Is A Spell

this is a joke obviously but I still had to post it

e: I do actually like "card types among spells you've cast" as a theme, it's like Goyf but different, real interesting, I just don't like the 3U 1/5 rate

IDK if this is a plus or a minus for you but this probably draws you a card the turn its cast.

Also don't even get me started, me and @Onderzeeboot went delving through dryad arbors and Arixmethes and we're pretty sure if you manage to cast a land the fundamental rules engine of magic is broken or has changed.

 

[LadyMapi]

At least with Avatar, the world, world building, and aesthetics don't clash with what MtG historically has been, even if it's aimed much younger. Pretty bummed this is going to be the set after Lorwyn, and even more bummed we're getting yet another set that's far too small.

I mean, only one of the two sets has a card portraying a totalitarian dictator publicly mutilating his teenage son as retaliation for speaking out of turn in a war council meeting, and it ain't TMNT.

EDIT: For clarity, it's not one of those things where the series just implies that that's happening, or wraps it up in a metaphor. The only part that isn't directly shown on screen is the actual part where Ozai burns half of Zuko's face off. This happens in, like, episode 3 or 4.

 

[Seeker]

IDK if this is a plus or a minus for you but this probably draws you a card the turn its cast.

Also don't even get me started, me and @Onderzeeboot went delving through dryad arbors and Arixmethes and we're pretty sure if you manage to cast a land the fundamental rules engine of magic is broken or has changed.

yeah, definitely cannot cast a land at any point ever (and this is why it still matters whether a card says "cast" or "play" on the various Reckless Impulses of the world) - it's weird because it doesn't actually break anything as far as I can tell, it just is a thing they've never bothered to amend the rules to do? like it'd be awkward but if you just redefine the "play a land" special action to be "play a land with no other types", you're 95% of the way there

(I knew she'd draw a card off herself, just still too slow for me. My blue four-drops are like, Enduring Curiosity and Subtlety and I should probably cut Venser, Shaper Savant.)

 

[Brad]

I really like the art on Turtle Forever.

The whole set is working better for me than SPM did because TMNT has always been silly. Give us some pizza bullshit and call it a day. On that note, I really like the pizza basics and someone's food EDH is going to enjoy them.

 

[KeithCubes]

This is like ungodly pushed, right?
It likely won't be as much of a menace (no pun intended) in Standard, but with fetches and the higher density of game objects in most cubes, this looks like yet another 2MV must answer threat that requires barely any build around.
I have a bad feeling we'll start to see this stupid guy everywhere. There's some hint of purported synergies (blink, sacrifice, ninjutsu) but that's like saying Ragavan is good for artifact matters and play from exile themes.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Ninja Turtles is worse than Avatar for the game of Magic because we get the triple-whammy of "modern day USA" with "cowabunga dudes pop culture" and "children's franchise". At least with Avatar, the world, world building, and aesthetics don't clash with what MtG historically has been, even if it's aimed much younger.

Honestly, I think Avatar is actually a fantastic fit for Magic. It’s one of the most fully realized fantasy worlds of the 21st century — elemental 'magic' systems, distinct nations and cultures with deep lore, mythic heroes and villains, clear philosophies and aesthetics — all things Magic already thrives on. If anything, it feels like the Gen Z equivalent of The Lord of the Rings: a defining fantasy saga for its era, packed with deep themes, moral conflict, and adventure.

Given how well Magic handled The Lord of the Rings, both thematically and mechanically, Avatar feels like a natural successor. If Wizards treats it with the same care they gave Middle-earth, it could easily be another one of the Universes Beyond sets that enhances the game rather than distracting from it.