Just like that, spoiler season for Magic’s TMNT set is effectively at an end. While previews were likely truncated by the massive leaks in this case, it’s still strange to see all of the set so soon. Thankfully, the leaks didn’t ruin things entirely as Wizards still had a few gems to showcase at the last minute. In particular, many of the latest MTG TMNT spoilers are excellent in artifact and counter-themed Commander decks. If you enjoy these archetypes, you may need to add these newcomers to your TMNT shopping list.
Mona Lisa, Ever Adaptable
Mona Lisa, Ever Adaptable is yet another table-wide ‘punisher’ card. Every time a player casts a creature, it grants you a free Mutagen token. This has the potential to get out of hand fast in a four-player game, since your opponents will likely be casting one to two creatures per turn on average.
While Mutagen tokens aren’t super-exciting by themselves, there are plenty of ways to leverage a huge pile of them. You can sacrifice them to Grinding Station to fill your graveyard, for example, or to Krark-Clan Ironworks for a huge burst of mana. They can also easily turn on cards with Metalcraft, and get your Affinity pieces down as low as they’ll go. Even just playing it straight, you can convert them into free +1/+1 counters with Mutagen Man, Living Ooze.
What’s really exciting about Mona Lisa is that it also triggers when you cast creatures yourself. This opens the door to infinite combos with creatures you can cast repeatedly, like Gravecrawler and Ancestral Statue. You’ll need to run Mona Lisa in the 99 to access most of these synergies, but with instant wins on the line, this should be well worth doing.
Mighty Mutanimals
Speaking of infinite combos, Mighty Mutanimals can enable quite a few of them itself. While the base stats here are solid, a 2/1, a 2/2, and a +1/+1 counter for four mana, the Alliance ability is the card’s big draw. Like Rosie Cotton of South Lane and Ivy Lane Denizen, this creates infinite token loops with cards like Scurry Oak and Herd Baloth.
Each time one of these cards creates a token, Mutanimals will trigger, placing a counter and generating another token to continue the loop. While it’s more expensive than its peers, Mutanimals is also much more flexible. Since it triggers on any creature, not just a green creature or a token, it also works with Basking Broodscale. This also makes the card a much more reasonable play outside of combo turns, which is a big plus.
In an unexpected retro twist, Mighty Mutanimals also has some synergy with Magic’s long-abandoned Rebel creature type. The central gimmick of Rebels back in the day was their ability to search up other Rebels from the deck. Since Mutanimals is a Rebel, you can use these cards to tutor it up, which is a big advantage for a combo piece.
Michelangelo, Mutant BFF
As we’ve seen across all of its spoilers, TMNT has strong artifact and counters themes woven throughout. Despite being a mere uncommon, Michelangelo, Mutant BFF marries these two disparate themes perfectly. This card, like the classic Titan cycle, does something on entry and attack, in this case creating a Mutagen token. While this isn’t a huge advantage, the fact that it does something immediately while also providing ongoing value is great. As with Mona Lisa, there are plenty of ways to make use of these tokens in various strategies.
The more interesting element here, however, is that first ability. With Michelangelo around, all your creatures with counters essentially get free copies of Alpha Authority. This makes your creatures much harder to deal with in combat by itself, but it’s particularly good when paired up with Menace. With both abilities, your creatures with counters are completely unblockable, allowing for some surprisingly quick wins.
It’s also worth noting that Michelangelo works with any counters, not just +1/+1 counters. Persist creatures, and beaters like Bristlebane Battler, will get the buff too via their -1/-1 counters. It even adds some upside to Finality counters and the Decayed Counters from Rot-Curse Rakshasa. While it’s not going to set the world on fire, there’s a surprising amount of synergy here for a simple uncommon.
Skateboard
Despite its silly appearance, Skateboard actually seems like one of the most significant artifacts in the entire TMNT set. Lavaspur Boots sees a ton of play in formats like Modern and Legacy, where it’s a Haste granter that you can tutor up via Urza’s Saga. In Legacy, it’s particularly good since it effectively forms an instant win combo with the 20/20 Marit Lage token from Dark Depths. Skateboard fills the same role as Boots, but with a lot of extra utility layered on top.
Getting to tap any permanent you want when Skateboard enters is a big deal, and opens up a lot of possible plays. In the simplest case, you can use this to get a pesky blocker out of the way of your Hasty attacker. This will likely be most relevant for Modern Affinity, but Legacy Lands will love it to get Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student out of the way as well. You can also use it to tap down enemy lands to prevent interaction, or even to shut down artifacts like Trinisphere that need to be untapped to function.
On top of its wide range of reactive applications, Skateboard also has plenty of proactive synergy. You can use it to tap down your own creatures, like Kona, Rescue Beastie, to safely access their powerful abilities. It also serves as a cheap way to tap down your own Genesis Chamber, to deny opponents tokens on their turns. In both eternal formats and Commander, I can see Skateboard being a surprisingly impactful card.
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