Crime Novelist turns each mutagen token into one red mana. Can also chain mutagen tokens without Ooze or chain two cost token sacrifices (food, clue, etc.) with Ooze with a single mana. Also benefits from Mikey.
This is huge!
Pineapple and green olives, baby.
It feels to me (a cis person) that if distinguishing between human lives and trans lives is a useful tool to point at specific harms done to trans people, then it is also useful to talk specifically about trans rights alongside human rights.
Genuine question. I get that mentioning trans rights in addition to human rights feels unnecessary and like othering. But phrases like "trans lives matter" are intended to call out the unique way violence is perpetrated against trans folks or the rights of trans folks are being violated, no?
Screenshot of a TMNT traditional sealed deck on Magic: The Gathering Arena. Deck. 1 Buzz Bits 1 Manhole Missile 2 Mouser Foundry 1 Raphael, Tough Turtle 1 Mechanized Ninja Cavalry 1 Raph's Jitte 1 Donatello, Gadget Master 2 Mind Transfer Protocol 1 Ooze Spell 1 Mutant Town Musicians 2 Spicy Oatmeal Pizza 1 Nobody 3 EPF Point Squad 1 April O'Neil 1 Return to the Sewers 1 General Traag, Heart of Stone 1 Metalhead 1 North Wind Avatar 8 Island 8 Mountain 1 Escape Tunnel
Screenshot of TMNT traditional sealed results on Magic: The Gathering Arena. 5 wins. 1 loss.
Cracked. Donatello & Spicy Oatmeal Pizza soloed 4/10 wins. Mouser Foundry & Jitte regularly picked off stragglers to keep the engine going. When I didn't have it, an EPF or two followed by Mouser or Mechanized Ninja Cavalry were enough. Trifecta of 5 drops punched hard.
@fireshoes.bsky.social
Want to do away with the Legend Rule for limited play but you’re concerned about having a rule just for those formats? Emblem! Distribute them in pre-release kits. Use Marvel or even a Magic set to introduce “Multiversal Madness”, use lore to explain why limited is “pure chaos”. #MTG
Included in the pile of #TMNTxMTG cards gifted to the new player was a copy of the bonus sheet All Will Be One. Gorgeous. My only bonus sheet pull was an Underworld Breach. I was also gifted someone else's kit which contained a Super Shredder.
I am not into Turtles, but this small detail was really nice and I found myself trying to complete the set. I managed to snag a red, orange, and purple. Still need the Leonardo blue, presumably the rarest of the bunch, but I'm going to keep my eye out for it.
One small & final #TMNTxMTG pre-release thought. The dice found in the pre-release kits? Amazing. Hats off to the person(s) who thought that through. The green is such a nice and vibrant green. I was surprised at how how many people didn't notice that the number colour matched the turtle colours.
For all the noise online, the community showed up and supported each other. People were excited to play something new; in the discussions I overheard, volume of sets didn't come up once. People played Magic, problem solving during deck building and game play. I got exactly what I was looking for.
There were some new players in the mix, excited by Turtles. There were regulars in TMNT hoodies. There was a nice moment at the end my second event where a guy gave away his kit & winnings to a new player at her first pre-release, taking the time to show her the valuable cards she could trade in.
Both #TMNTxMTG events I went to on the weekend had 36 attendees (not sold out) and the vibes were excellent. Yes, some people were low on TMNT as a setting. Yes, some people had concerns about the small set size. But I genuinely think those same people had a good time made the most of it.
Other thoughts. Mutagen tokens feel very strong. The flyers not as good as they were in Avatar or Lorwyn. Green feels strong. Small card pool does feel like it limits deck variety but there are unique things to do if you splash. Not that bomby? Bebop & Rocksteady suck.
If you're in one of their colours, you should be trying to find room for Genghis Frog, Lessons from Life, Karai's Technique. Others, like Baxter Stockman, Brilliance Unleashed, and Pizza Face require a critical volume of artifacts to be of value but their ceiling is very high if you do.
I think the archetypes are mostly a trap as there isn't that much to work with given the small set. Knowing when and what to splash are going to make a big difference, specifically with uncommons. Venus, Old Hob, and Metalhead are pseudo-bombs if you can activate their abilities.
To that end, I think commons like Buzz Bots; Donatello, Turtle Techie; Mind Transfer Protocol; Oroku Saki, Shredder Rising; Rock Soldiers; Zoo Excapees; Primordial Pachyderm; Ice Cream Kitty; Mechanized Ninja Cavalry; Nobody; and Slithering Cryptid are key. From white, you want the removal cards.
My first impressions of #TMNTxMTG are mid(dling) to good. Like Lorwyn, I think you need a glut of two and three drops make it through the midgame and that it will prove to be a grindy format.
I said this rather loudly when an opponent played one and his neighbour gave me some serious side eye.
Frustrated that on both days I didn't see it during deck building. Might try a third event this week to see if I can put it all together. Gonna follow this thread with some thoughts about the format.
Round three was another Golgari match-up. Won game one quickly with double combats with Raph & Leo and Venus. Game two turned into another grind fest but I eventually landed Don & Leo with Slithering Cryptid which was enough. Very happy with the pivot into Turtle Mutants. Genghis is a house.
Don't remember the specifics of game two except that it was grindy, his sneak deck was way better than mine, and it pushed us to time. So again we rolled for it and luckily I won the roll, with my opponent admitting he curved perfectly in game two and didn't think he'd have won game three.
White removal spells and zero synergy with anything I had going on in green. No mutagen synergies for Genghis aside from BFF Mikey. But it worked. Round two, game one, mulled to 5, my first spell was Michelangelo's Technique into Genghis & Leatherhead. Followed by Venus & game winning Turtle Power.
During deck building I saw the green turtles and Genghis but had no green removal and /nothing/ else in blue; Simic wasn't there. But I did have fixing in three Frog Butlers, two TRCI Building, and the Turtle Lair. 8 forest, 6 plains, those three land, and the frogs unlocked a really good deck.
Turtle stuff included Cowabunga!; BFF Mikey; Turtle Power; a pair of Venus; Raphael, Most Attitude; Don & Leo; Raph & Leo, Michelangelo's Technique and a Turtle Lair. Additional Mutant support in Kunoichi, Leatherhead, Gengis Frog, and Slithering Cryptid.
Game two I just sputtered. I had 7 removal spells and only saw two of them over the two games we played and sometimes that happens. That round ended quickly so my opponent and I took a look at my pile and rebuilt my deck as... 4C Turtle Mutants. This is where I should have been from the start.
On Saturday I fell into the Orzhov Sneak trap. I had some good payoffs in Leonardo, Leader in Blue; Turncoat Kunoichi; Oroku Saki, Shredder Rising; and Karai's Technique but only a single deathtouch and no flyers. Game one on the draw, I didn't sneak once as I couldn't get ahead on creatures.
My deck was basically a wall of two drops trying to trade and come out with a better board. The cards mentioned above, along with Casey Jones, Jury-Rig Justicar; General Traag; Old Hob; and Nobody all felt strong.
Round two against Golgari food went much better going 1-1 to time where we rolled to advance and I lost the roll. I won game one quickly and got my opponent to 4 in game two but his The Ooze generated so much value and he overwhelmed me.
