The design process for the Magic: The Gathering® | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Turtle Power!" Commander deck was led by senior game designer Melissa DeTora, who also leads the Casual Play Design team.
Initial Concept and Color Identity
Lead product architect Athena Froehlich initiated the idea for a Commander deck within the set. The design team aimed to represent the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) universe in a single deck. A five-color identity was established early in the design process to accommodate all Turtles, Splinter (each with a monocolor identity), and other characters with diverse color identities.
A five-color identity was established early in the design process to accommodate all Turtles, Splinter, and other characters with diverse color identities.
Memorable Hook and Theme Development
To differentiate the Commander deck, the design team decided on a memorable hook. The TMNT video games were chosen as the primary thematic focus, given their cultural significance to many fans.
Initial brainstorming sessions generated numerous tropes from the games, including:
- TMNT-Specific Game Tropes: Instant-kill electric seaweed, Roadkill Rodneys, Foot Clan soldiers, recurring bosses (Bepop, Rocksteady, Baxter, Shredder, Krang), "Pizza time!," Shell shock visuals, Mousers, sewer surfing/auto-scrolling levels, saving April or Splinter, Shredder boss fights, Turtle van missiles, ninja weapons/items, helicopter chases, Turtle blimp, and the Technodrome.
- General Video Game Tropes: Insert coin, Continue?, Select character, bosses flashing red at low health, Game over, Combo attacks, High score, Level up, Arcade cabinets, and stacks of quarters.
The TMNT video games were chosen as the primary thematic focus, given their cultural significance to many fans.
Mechanical Theme Selection
The team evaluated several potential mechanical themes for the deck to ensure a functional and engaging play experience.
- Mutant, Ninja, and Turtle Typal: This was considered popular but deemed inconsistent with the video game flavor and had a limited reprint pool in existing Magic, leading to its minor inclusion rather than a main theme.
- Artifacts Matter: This was quickly ruled out as artifacts are primarily associated with Donatello and not all Turtles.
- Sneak (ninjutsu) and Disappear: While thematically resonant for Ninjas, this mechanic was considered challenging to design for new players due to requirements for high densities of specific creature types and payoff cards, along with a limited reprint pool.
- +1/+1 Counters: This theme was ultimately selected. It effectively represents leveling up, gaining experience, and becoming stronger in video games. Its broad nature allowed integration with various top-down video game card designs, and its flexibility across all five colors made it suitable for the deck's established color identity.
The +1/+1 counters theme was ultimately selected, effectively representing leveling up, gaining experience, and becoming stronger in video games.
Commander Card Design Evolution
Recognizing the equal importance of the four main Turtles and the arcade game concept of character selection, an initial mechanic called "Character Select" was developed. This ability allowed players to reveal up to five cards with the ability before the game, set their combined color identity as the commander's color identity, and then select two as commanders.
However, this mechanic faced significant challenges:
- It required extensive rules support in both physical and digital Magic.
- It bent the established Commander color identity rule, a principle designers take seriously.
- The ability's wordiness consumed too much card space, limiting design flexibility for unique card abilities.
Due to these issues, the "Character Select" mechanic was discarded. The final approach utilized a partner variant, with one of the Turtles featuring an ability to ensure the deck maintained its five-color identity.
An initial "Character Select" mechanic was developed but ultimately discarded due to complex rules support, bending color identity rules, and excessive wordiness.
Card Design Examples
The deck's design incorporated video game tropes, characters, bosses, enemies, and items. Notable card examples include:
- Irma, Part-Time Mutant: Designed to align with the +1/+1 counter theme, reflecting Irma's frequent mutations.
- Bebop, Skull & Crossbones and Rocksteady, Mutant Marauder: These characters were given the partner mechanic, reflecting their constant association. Their creative treatment depicts them in pirate costumes from the game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.
- Exploding Barrel: This card represents a common effect in beat-'em-up arcade games, where objects explode and deal damage to nearby entities.