I'm so excited about the new Turtles, y'all.

I mentioned previously that one of our earliest mandates was to make sure players got "a Turtle in every pack" so that Magic: The Gathering® | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lives up to what its title promises. (Most packs will also contain teenagers and ninjas and mutants, by the way; we're not here to screw around.) That means each of the fab four gets a legend at every rarity level—common, uncommon, rare, and mythic rare—plus team-up cards with each of their brothers.

That's a lot of iterating on a single character, and it's a moment where Narrative and Game Design need to work together closely. Each card needs a unique mechanical role that also reflects parts of the character's personality. You really need to know your characters to dig that deep.

To chase that goal, we hit on the idea of divvying each character's personality into four aspects—teenager, turtle, mutant, and ninja—then assigned those to the four different rarities. "Teenager" reflects the character at home; they're training and growing and have lower stakes. "Turtle" reflects the brother as a person; what's their core face they show the world? "Mutant" means high weirdness, interacting with the most over-the-top elements of the TMNT world. And finally, "ninja" is the character at peak skill, being a cool, competent martial artist and absolutely wrecking stuff.

0118_MTGTMT_Main: Michelangelo, Game Master 0120_MTGTMT_Main: Michelangelo, Mutant BFF 0121_MTGTMT_Main: Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11 0119_MTGTMT_Main: Michelangelo, Improviser

Let's take a look at Mikey. Because he is objectively the best turtle.

Michelangelo, Game Master shows him "training" in his own special Mikey way, and mechanically he gets a little better whenever he breaks something! Meanwhile, Michelangelo, Mutant BFF showcases his kindness; he reaches out to those around him, even when they're obviously going to bite. Mikey's mutant-tier card—Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11—takes our party dude to an alien cantina and a brawl with part-time alien, Screwloose, and he scarfs a slice of ka'trib pizza. Lastly, Michelangelo, Improviser, shows Mikey owning a dangerous situation in the way only Mikey can.

We ran each of the four brothers through the same cycles to help keep each iteration feeling fresh and unique.

But we didn't stop there.

0157_MTGTMT_Main: Mikey & Don, Party Planners 0158_MTGTMT_Main: Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order 0167_MTGTMT_Main: Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers

The Turtles emphasize teamwork—they train as a family, they play as a family. It made sense to emphasize that connection by teaming them up in pairs for one last round of legends. And that meant understanding their relationships with each other.

Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order emphasizes how well these two complement each other—Leo is precise, while Mikey is unpredictable. The artist, Jason Rainville, also gave us a depiction of Mikey doing a sweet bicycle kick. Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers is exactly what you'd expect from the two brothers with the least amount of self-regulation. Finally, my personal favorite of the cycle: Mikey & Don, Party Planners shows us the TMNT pairing who are most invested in just being teenagers and having a good time.

Turtles All the Way Down

I'm sorry, did you think we were done with Turtles just because we have 29 legends featuring the four brothers? (Leonardo has an extra team-up card, but it's not with who you think.)

This set is a gift to everyone running a Turtle typal deck, because, my friends, we have enough Turtle legends for you to make your own four-Turtle team without even looking at the brothers! I was like a kid in a candy store!

We have Slash—obviously—because Slash is an amazing addition to Turtles canon. Everyone loves the dark reflection trope!

0108_MTGTMT_Main: Slash, Reptile Rampager

But we also pulled in some of the lady turtles introduced in the IDW comics run, like Jennika and the team's adopted little sister, Lita.

0010_MTGTMT_Main: Jennika, Bad Apple Big Sister 0019_MTGTMT_Main: Lita, Little Orphan Amphibian

And Metalhead wouldn't be Metalhead if he weren't a Turtle in addition to being a Robot.

0044_MTGTMT_Main: Metalhead

And if, like me, you are an appreciator of the criminally under-loved (if admittedly troubled) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, you'll be excited to see Venus. We opted to lean more into her IDW redesign because giving this set a Frog sub-cycle was important.

0136_MTGTMT_Main: Venus, Torn Between Worlds

And of course we can't forget the ultimate in overgrown turtle tots, Tokka, teamed up with her brother-from-another-phylum, Rahzar.

0171_MTGTMT_Main: Tokka & Rahzar, Terrible Twos

My friends, they had to pull me away from the turtle tank before I added Kerma the Turtleoid, Don Turtelli, and the mutant turtle version of April from the Winter Special issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Adventures from 1994.

Although if you want to see mutant turtle April O'Neil, write to Wizards of the Coast now and demand the follow-up set: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze Token."

Magic: The Gathering | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles releases on March 6, 2026, and you can preorder cards now from your local game store, TCGplayer, Amazon, and elsewhere Magic is sold.