Golgari Gets Super Weird in TMNT

Posted on March 3, 2026

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is finally here, and it enters to one of the most contentious debuts I've ever seen for a Magic set. Between all of the fuss about pizza cards, the miscues with printings and spoiler season, and a general disdain for Universes Beyond, it feels like the set has a hill to climb before it even hits the shelves.

The saving grace for the set may just be that it's so much fun to play that it can't be ignored. I got to cast some spells during the Early Access Event, and my excitement level, despite all the complaints, is now through the roof. The set was a blast, and I enjoyed trying out many of the new cards and decks.

But, one of those decks stuck out more than all the others, and I think it has a chance to be a player going forward. Super Shredder, Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11, and Mutagen Man, Living Ooze make up a triumvirate of cards that may be good enough to give us a new deck archetype for Standard.

Golgari Super Weird | TMT Standard | Travis Hall

Sorcery (2)
2 Maelstrom Pulse

Artifacts (1)
1 The Ooze

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Card Choices

Super Shredder has been one of the hallmark cards of the set since it was spoiled, and I think he lives up to the billing. He gets out of hand so fast, especially since it counts the things that leave your opponent's side of the board too, and Menace makes chumping him a losing proposition when he's eating two creatures a turn.

Paired with Michelangelo, each Mutagen token adds four +1/+1 counters. Things might change once we get into an actual Best of Three Standard format with decks playing Deceit and Into the Flood Maw to reset him every time he starts to get out of hand, but as for now, he looks awesome. If you see this on the other side of the table, you need to answer it immediately.

There are a ton of ways to put counters on cards in this deck, and Michelangelo makes every one of them better. Paired with Earthbender Ascension in the late game (especially with Icetill Explorer), the combo let's you kill out of nowhere. I don't know why this card was slept on in preview season, we've seen how powerful the Hardened Scales effect can be. As of right now, I think this is the best of all the actual Turtle cards in the set.

I've been preaching about this card since it was spoiled, and I think there's a chance it's the best card in the set. This is good at every spot on the curve, as even playing it as an early 2-drop for aggression or defensive purposes can still give you benefits later by reducing the activation cost of other Mutagen tokens.

Cards like this are usually gatekept by phrases like, "This ability can't cause the cost to be reduced to less than one" style wording, and the fact that this doesn't have that is huge. Giving this Trample suggests they really wanted it to see play.

There are a handful of different ways I envisioned this deck when building it. One of the ways revolved around Ouroboroid, another around Jenova, Ancient Calamity, and the third is with the Icetill Explorer land package. While I will test with both Ouroboroid and Jenova once the set drops, I chose the third path for the Early Access Event. We've already seen that the Icetill and Earthbender Ascension package is viable, and it seems to interact favorably with both the Michelangelo side of the deck and the Super Shredder side of the deck.

Between Mutagen Man and Icetill Explorer, it's not difficult to drop this and immediately sacrifice three tokens/lands to trigger the Lifelink clause on the first attack, giving the deck some needed life gain elements. The clues are a great way to draw out of board stalls (especially if Mutagen Man is reducing their cost to one) and the counters work well with Michelangelo. I've been a fan of this card since it was printed and this might be the best home for it yet.

Having access to main board graveyard hate that just so happens to gel with the rest of the deck is a bonus, and I could see running more of these in the sideboard (along with a Leatherhead, Swamp Stalker, another sleeper TMNT card). This is a great way to stockpile some Mutagen tokens for a big turn with Super Shredder, or Obsessive Pursuit, while managing your opponents graveyard.

This card has almost become a victim of its own success, as I fought against including it in here because I thought this would just be seen as, "Yet another Badgermole Cub deck." But, in the end, the Earthbending plays well with Michelangelo, and the boost in mana production helps accelerate the end game (or gives you a ton of tokens with Mutagen Man).

This is just a staple Green card at the moment, and you have to think of ways not to include it in your Green decks. If the other colors can have staples that go in almost every deck of their color, why can't Green? Okay, Green also gets Llanowar Elves.

I did get the chance to run the deck through some matches during the Early Access Event and have the video linked below. I apologize for the audio, I didn't realize my mic wasn't working until the next day, when the event had ended. But, this will give you the chance to see the deck in action.