Magic: The Gathering® | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mechanics
Cowabunga, dudes. The heroes in a half shell are headed to battlefields near you, and they're bringing their fierce allies, their sweet weapons, and their most fearsome enemies along with them. All your favorite characters are here, but where they really want to be is in your decks. Let's look at the keywords and other game mechanics in Magic: The Gathering® | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so you don't suffer from shell shock when you open the cards. Too derivative? I guess you'll really be able to shell out some damage! Too cliché? It's a shell of a good set! You'll love playing with the Turtles!
Mutagen
It's no secret—without the ooze that mutated the Turtles to begin with, their lives would have turned out differently and I'd be writing about the Foot Clan set. Mutagen is a new kind of token that helps your creatures achieve greater potential.
Each Mutagen token is an artifact token with "
Sneak
Shouting "Cowabunga!" as you run toward your enemy is flashy and makes for a good movie scene or comic panel, but sometimes it's best if they don't see you coming. Sneak is a new keyword that gives you an optional alternative cost to cast a spell.
You can cast a spell for its sneak cost only during the declare blockers step inside of combat during your turn, after blockers have been declared. If you cast a spell for its sneak cost, you do so any time you could cast an instant, meaning you could cast it in response to another spell or ability. Part of the alternative cost is listed after the sneak keyword—in Leonardo's case, that's the
Because the returning creature jumps back to its owner's hand as part of the cost, players can't respond by trying to take out the attacking creature. It's already back in its owner's hand by the time players can respond to the spell.
If the spell with sneak is a creature spell, that creature will enter tapped and attacking whomever or whatever the creature you returned was attacking. Note that this is a rule specific to sneak (and ninjutsu before it). Normally as a creature enters attacking, you get to choose which player, planeswalker, or battle the creature is attacking. Returning a creature may set your battlefield presence back a step, but it's a great way to regain access to powerful "enters" abilities, not to mention the mana savings on the sneak spells themselves. Plus, as blockers have already been declared, your opponent will suddenly have an unexpected enemy at their doorstep.
Not every card with sneak is a creature card. Didn't see that one coming, did you? What? There were early previews, and you did see that one coming? Look, over there!
Sorceries with sneak operate under the same timing rules as creatures. You can cast one for its sneak cost any time you could cast an instant during the declare blockers step inside of combat during your turn. And the way the sneak cost works is the same—an unblocked attacker is still returning to hand.
Remember that sneak is optional. You can always cast a card with sneak for its mana cost. You won't return any creatures to hand, and in the case of creatures with sneak, they won't enter tapped and attacking.
Disappear
The battlefield can be a chaotic place. Fists flying. Weapons twirling. Shells spinning. And then suddenly … ninja vanish. Disappear is a new ability word that, curiously, appears before abilities that care in some way if a permanent left the battlefield while under your control during the turn.
Disappear abilities will look back at the entire turn, even if the permanent that has the disappear ability wasn't on the battlefield at the time. For example, cast a creature spell using sneak to return an unblocked attacker to its owner's hand, then cast
Alliance
Unless you're Donatello in the original arcade game, we all need a little help sometimes. Alliance is a returning ability word that highlights abilities of creatures that trigger whenever another creature you control enters.
There's nothing fancy about alliance abilities. Pack your deck with creatures or ways to create creature tokens and reap the rewards. If you control multiple creatures that each have an alliance ability and a creature you control enters, all of their alliance abilities trigger. Those abilities can be put on the stack in any order, and the last one to be put on the stack will be the first one to resolve. If the entering creature itself has an enters triggered ability, that ability gets thrown in the mix with all the alliance abilities.
Classes
As Master Splinter likes to remind us, we shouldn't neglect our training. Class enchantments are back, and they're ready to help us hone our skills, one level at a time.
Each Class has three sections in its text box, with an activated level ability above each of the last two. Class abilities can be anything—triggered abilities like
Master Splinter once said, "The path that leads to what we truly desire is long and difficult." Fortunately for you, the path to what you truly desire from a Class card is "pay some mana." You can do that as a sorcery, meaning during your main phase if the stack is empty, you can activate the level 2 ability. For
If a Class is level 2, it's eligible to become level 3. For
You can control any number of Class enchantments, even multiples of the same one. Our heroes are Renaissance Turtles, after all. They act independently, though, so if you control two
Partner—Character select (Commander)
While the Turtles are prepared to go it alone, their adventures have proved it's always better for someone to have your back. Partner—Character select is a new variant of the partner keyword that allows you to have two commanders if both have that keyword.
A commander with partner—Character select can share top billing only with another one. You can't mix and match with the original partner ability or other variants such as partner—Friends forever. Use the combined color identity of both cards to determine what cards can be in the rest of your deck. For example, if Splinter and Donatello are your commanders, your deck can include cards whose color identities are blue and/or black, as well as basic Islands and Swamps, but it couldn't have a card with a red mana symbol on it or a Forest.
You are allowed to have a single commander with partner—Character select, and you are allowed to play cards with partner even when they're not your commander. You won't make Splinter mad. Disappointed, maybe.
Turtle Power
Your opportunity to grab a pizza the action is almost here. Magic: The Gathering | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles previews are being delivered as we speak, with the set's worldwide release on March 6. The set is available for preorder now from your local game store, TCGplayer, Amazon, and elsewhere Magic is sold. Then go ninja go to the Prerelease!
