Locations
Welcome back!
If someone had told me even five years ago that my review of the Spider-Man set would immediately be followed by either a preview of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle set or the Avatar set, I would have laughed.
And yet, here we are.
For the most part, I'm pretty okay with it. While I'm not the biggest Avatar fan - I don't dislike it, I just never really got into it - I did grow up with TMNT. I played the arcade game to the point of exhaustion, I wanted the show and movies religiously as a child, and the number of action figures I owned was staggering.
In the next couple of articles, I want to take a look at some of the 31 TMNT cards that have been previewed so far and talk about the ones that pique my interest the most. You know how it goes! I will also mention that some of the cards are from TMT, which I believe is the regular Turtle set, and some are from TMC, which is the Turtle Commander set.
So let's begin!
Leonardo, Sewer Samurai
It's interesting to me that Leonardo, Sewer Samurai has reminder text for what a finality counter is, even though finality counters have been around since 2023, but there's no reminder text for what sneak is, even though it's a brand new ability debuting in this set. I blame the sheer text length of abilities on cards nowadays.
Just so we're all clear, sneak says the following: You may cast this spell for {sneak cost} if you also return an unblocked attacker you control to hand during the declare blockers step.
While this may seem like ninjitsu, there seems to be two key differences: 1) the reminder text in question is from an instant and it has not yet been specified whether the card you "sneak" into play will be attacking if it is a creature, unlike Ninjitsu, and 2) there are spell types other than creatures that have sneak, which better explains point one.
As I mentioned, the biggest issue I see is that the sneak reminder text, which is present on another previewed card, does not specify that creatures will be attacking when snuck in. We don't have a creature card that has the sneak reminder text, so it may include attacking, but I feel like it would be weird if the reminder text for the ability is different depending on card type.
Without attacking, I can't actually imagine a situation where sneaking Leonardo would be better than just casting him for a less-prohibitive mana cost, so it sure feels like when we get the full text of sneak, it should include attacking when a creature is cast that way. I guess we'll see though.
Turtles Forever
I don't think this card is super strong. I just happen to really love the art, with the different generations and iterations of Turtles, and I think Gifts Ungiven variants are cool. Also, the card just seems like a fun "draw two cards for four mana" card.
April O'Neil, Hacktivist
The worst thing about April O'Neil, Hacktivist is that she costs four mana. If you can get past that, she's easily drawing you one to two cards per turn (if not more), with one feeling like the absolute floor each turn. I think drawing two cards per turn off of her seems like it could be fairly easy, and five toughness keeps her out of range of a good amount of removal.
Donatello, the Brains
It looks like most turtles have two to three versions previewed, and Donatello seems to have 2.5. It looks like a cycle of turtles that have been released are the expensive-yet-very-medium versions that often come in things like theme decks. I'll likely be avoiding those, but this Donatello is interesting.
We have a 2/4 for three mana, with partner for you Commander players out there, that makes an additional Mutagen token whenever you make one or more of any other token. While Mutagen tokens aren't super exciting on their own (1, {T}, Sacrifice this token: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.), whenever a card is able to consistently put free artifacts of any kind into play, they're worth a second look.
Donnie & April, Adorkable Duo
Here's Donatello's 0.5 preview. Five mana makes me a little suspicious of this one, but I do love the flavor and the two different modes. In Commander this seems great, giving you both a worthwhile ability and letting you bestow a gift to a player of your choice. In one v. one, this is either a 3/3 Mulldrifter or a 3/3 creature that returns one of three card types to your hand. While I think it's a little too expensive, the versatility here is kind of nice.
Krang, Master Mind
Krang actually seems kind of wild for Affinity decks that want to quickly empty their hands. He feels like a Master of Etherium combined with a Thought Monitor, both of which have seen a good amount of play. If you can engineer a game where you drop a handful of Mox Opals and Memnites and Myr Enforcer variants onto the board, allowing Krang to draw you two to three cards as a 5/4, that seems like a decent deal.
Thanks for reading and I'll catch ya next time!
Frank Lepore
