While Magic: The Gathering Commander pre-con decks are a great way to start the format, they are far from perfect, and there are plenty of ways to upgrade each deck, regardless of your budget.
With a TMNT commander deck containing a total of six commanders spread across all five colors of mana, this leaves the deck a bit chaotic and unfocused at times, but there are ways you can fix that and bring the deck up to speed with a new, aggressive focus.
WUBRG problem
Before we get into possible upgrades, you will you must select a commander for this deck. Since the deck is structured around all colors of mana, you'll need to make sure your chosen commander has all five colors of mana anywhere on the card.
The commander rules state that your deck can only use the colors that appear on your commander, but that doesn't necessarily mean the casting cost.
To meet WUBRG requirements, you will you have to use the Heroes in a Half Shell card, or you can use Leonard, the balanceand pair it with one of the other commanders that includes the character selection ability, which is a partner variation. Leonardo has all five colors of mana listed on his card activate an ability so that choosing it makes the deck legal; having a partner is optional.
For these upgrades, we will build as if we were using Leonardo, the Balance, worked with Raphael, the Muscleand we will rely on a +1/+1 counter strategy. The mana base for this deck is also extremely strong, so we won't be making any adjustments here.
Magic: The Gathering – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Commander Deck Guide
Turtle Power! the pre-attack deck contains six possible commander cards, including all four turtles, and the synergies are already looking strong.
Creature Ins And Outs
Biogenic slime – out
This expensive creature generates two Ooze tokens and adds tokens to them each turn, and can even create more tokens as a mana ability, but it's just too costly at five mana and four mana to activate the ability; that's better spent elsewhere.
Shredder, Shadow Master – Out
While this card is super dangerous and would otherwise be easy to keep, if we lean heavily on counter generation and brute force to best support our commander choices, then this is a card that can can easily be omitted due to high casting costs and the likelihood that your opponents will do anything to prevent resolution.
Krang, The Almighty – Out
Another high cost creature that just doesn't add enough to justify the expense, at least not on the type of deck we build. The +1/+1 generation is also self-contained, making it easier to cut compared to a card like Leatherhead, Iron Gator.
Ouroboroid – In
This creature will start start your counter generation at the start of each of your combat phases. Adds X +1/+1 counters to all your creatures, where X is Ouroboroid's current power. If you manage to get tokens for it before the first phase of the fight, it activates and its impact only gets better after that. This card currently costs around $42.
Raphael, the night watchman – In
This Raphael card acts as a middle step as you build up to activate Raphael, the Muscle. It costs just three mana and gives all your attacking creatures double strike. Granted, this is a card that probably won't stay on the board for more than one turn, but its immediate impact if you can cast it with sneak is huge.
Evolution Witness – In
This creature will let you bring cards back to your hand from your graveyard whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are placed on it. Even if you lack ways to do this, the card can activate a two-mana adept and put two +1/+1 counters on top of itself if there aren't any already on it. This brings brilliant utility to the deck and is far more useful than some of the expensive creatures we've removed. In stark contrast to the Ouroboroid, this card can be found for less than 30¢ as a single.
Spells Ins And Outs
Continue? – Out
While returning up to four creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield is extremely useful, the fact that it can only be used for creatures placed in the graveyard in the same turn is a bit limiting. Instead, with Together Forever also in the deck and offering a better way to bring creatures back from the graveyard, we can drop Continue for another, more powerful spell instead.
Vanquish The Horde – Out
Given the aggressiveness we're aiming for with this deck, this spell just is too defensive and suits the control style much better. Wave Goodbye also provides a decent opportunity to clear the board if needed, but leaves all creatures with a +1/+1 token on the board.
Teferi's Protection – In
This three-drop spell protects you from damage for one round and everything you have on the board is discarded. If you've spent a long time building your board and are desperate to protect it, this is a great way to do it, as it's an effective defense against board wipe and even when you're low on health and under fire from your opponents. This card costs anywhere from $40 to $90 depending on the version you decide to buy.
Vampiric Tutor – In
A major command base, this one mana instant lets you kick around a bit find a card in your library and put it on top of your shuffled library once found. Playing this right before your turn gives opponents less opportunity to force another shuffle or mill a pick from your library, and the cost per mana is just ridiculously low. Copies of this card can cost as little as $50, but some go for nearly $500.
Enchantments and artifacts
Mole Module – Out
Nothing against vehicles, but this card it doesn't fit well compared to the enchantment we replace it with. For the same price, we can instead massively boost our aggressive strategy and not worry about milling and crewing as actions.
While this cheap equip artifact can create an annoying flying ninja token and let you sacrifice an equipped creature for card draw when it deals combat damage to another player, it is only isolated in its usefulness and it doesn't feel like part of the package.
Civil unrest – In
This enchantment allows every creature you own that comes into play to come with either haste or a +1/+1 tokenthen all creatures with a +1/+1 token when dealing damage to a player or permanent deal double damage instead.
Yes, it's a bit expensive as a five-man enchantment, and it would be ideal if it could get into the game much earlier, but given how out of control token generation can be, don't overlook that it could be used more for the haste aspect of it than the tokens. Creates an immediate sense of danger for your opponents. This card currently costs around $20.
Embercleave – In
A huge artifact gear card that gets cheaper with every attacking creature you have is perfect for this deck. It lets you equip a creature for free when you cast it, and it has lightning so it can be cast at instant speed. It gives target creatures +1/+1, double strike and trample. Use this equipment correctly and your target won't know what hit them. This card can cost less than $10, but on average you're between $10 and $20.
Magic: The Gathering – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Top 5 Green Cards
Here are our top picks for the best green mana cards from the MTG TMNT set across formats.
