Turtle Power Upgrade Guide: 14 Easy Changes You Can Make

Heroes in a Half Shell | Illustration by Victor Maury

Turtle Power! is the only EDH Precon in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles MTG set.

Directly inspired by the TMNT video games, we have a 5-color EDH Precon deck that features all the turtles, their allies, and their villains in a single pack. Tropes like Big Apple, 3 a.m. should be familiar to anyone who played one of the SNES’s finest games in Turtles in Time, while Arcade Cabinet and Continue? directly refer to the high success these games had in arcades.

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Magic: The Gathering | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Commander Deck - Turtle Power! | Collectible Trading Card Game

• TAP INTO TURTLE POWER—Magic gets a quadruple dose of mutagenic mayhem as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles make their debut on the battlefield!
• PARTNER WITH ALLIES AND BUFF YOUR TEAM—Unleash mutagenic mayhem and battle your friends in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format.
• INCLUDES 43 NEW CARDS—This 100-card ready-to-play Commander deck introduces 43 never-before-seen cards to Magic: The Gathering
• CONTENTS—100-card deck with 43 new cards, 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy insert, 1 reference card

$59.95

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This precon is surprisingly very good, and today we take a look at some easy changes you can make to solidify it. We’re still in a Bracket 2 EDH deck, which is usually where precons belong, so don’t expect anything crazy here after the suggested changes.

Turtle Power! Deck Overview

Turtle Power! is a 5-color EDH precon deck, and we'll be using Leonardo, the Balance as the main commander. Leonardo has partner—character select, so you can pair it with one of the other three Turtles, Splinter, or April, if you want a second commander. Leonardo is already a 5-color commander, so choose the partner based on which ability you want more in the command zone.

The primary commander wants a mix of a token go-wide deck and a +1/+1 counter deck. A lot of cards in this precon put +1/+1 counters on creatures, double the number of counters, or make tokens, so the theme is very cohesive. Heroes in a Half Shell is an alternate 5-color commander, and it cares specifically about mutants, ninjas, and turtles dealing combat damage. Around 16-18 cards total fit one of these requirements, so it doesn’t look like a good plan with this decklist alone.

Upgrade Plan

Like many precons, this deck has a lot of different faces, and that’s alright, especially given that you can have so many partner combinations and take the deck in one direction or another. For example, cards like Ninja Pizza and Coin of Mastery hint at a “sunburst” subtheme of sorts, while cards like Krang, the All-Powerful would be very good alongside Psychosis Crawler or Smothering Tithe to double these permanents’ triggers. April O'Neil, Live on the Scene cares about mutants, ninjas, and turtles that enter the battlefield, but we have a lot of cards that don’t fit this criteria, and so on for other potential partners.

I’ve chosen Michelangelo, the Heart as my partner, because it’s cheaper, it makes tokens and +1/+1 counters, and I’m leaning this deck more into green anyways. The main upgrade plan will be to add more token makers to the mix. The mana base is already very good, especially for a 5-color precon, so I’m not touching it. Finally, I’m keeping my additions under a budget, so no Doubling Season or similar staples.

Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order

Suggested Cut: Fast Forward

Just to strengthen the fact that we’re playing Mikey & Leo as partner commanders, Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order is just what the doctor ordered for this deck. The trigger is limited to just once every turn, but this card can be your personal Howling Mine. Not to mention, just 2 hybrid mana to cast. As much as I like to goad creatures my opponents control, I don’t think Fast Forward belongs in this deck build.

Kodama’s Reach

Suggested Cut: Biogenic Ooze

This deck already has Cultivate, so let’s add Kodama's Reach for more redundancy. I’m a little worried that this deck doesn’t have that many basics, so if that becomes a problem in testing, I’d add a Forest or two over the Thriving lands. I get that Biogenic Ooze hits all the deck’s themes, but it’s just clunky and slow.

Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11

Suggested Cut: Voracious Hydra

Michelangelo, Weirdness to 11 is a cheap 2-drop that amplifies your token and +1/+1 counter capabilities. Mutagen tokens go well with the +1/+1 counter themes, and Mikey will happily bolster your counter generation. Green creature for green creature, I don’t love Aggro Amalgam (Voracious Hydra) in this build. Many times, it’s just a big creature, and I prefer to go wide here.

The Cabbage Merchant

Suggested Cut: Level Up

My cabbages! The Cabbage Merchant will gladly give you some Food, which are tokens and +1/+1 counters in this deck thanks to Leonardo, the Balance. This card has become a green staple in Commander, and it’s one of our most expensive adds, but it’s very important to what this deck does. Since I’m taking out big, dumb creatures, Level Up is probably good to go, too.

Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff

Suggested Cut: Irma, Part-Time Mutant

Similar to The Cabbage Merchant, Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff is a way for you to create Treasure steadily. Not only are you getting ramp and color fixing, but also more tokens for your main commander to do its work. Irma, Part-Time Mutant is nice as a way to copy an attacker, but we’re going in a different direction with this build.

Evolution Witness

Suggested Cut: Harmonize

With a commander that gives +1/+1 counters to all creatures, Evolution Witness is a serious card advantage engine, and this deck has a lot of permanents. You can get a lot of recursion this way, although this isn’t a mill deck per se. I’m taking Harmonize out because the deck has a lot of card draw, and the Witness is at least a recursion option.

Kami of Whispered Hopes

Suggested Cut: Foot Chopper

Again, in a deck that easily spreads +1/+1 counters around its creatures, Kami of Whispered Hopes is a solid inclusion. This card generates a lot of mana in the long run. Like Level Up and many others, Foot Chopper shines when you have a big 9/9 or greater to sacrifice and draw cards.

Tireless Provisioner

Suggested Cut: Tokka & Rahzar, Unsupervised

Still in the token creation department, Tireless Provisioner is a classic green Commander card. You can opt between a Food and a Treasure, and although this deck doesn’t explicitly enable landfall, you have a few ways to ramp. Tokka & Rahzar, Unsupervised, while fitting the deck’s themes, is one of the cards I wanted to take out of the deck to reduce the fixing needed. Perhaps if Raphael were my partner commander, though….

Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon

Suggested Cut: Krang, the All-Powerful

Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon does everything this deck wants. Each time a creature attacks, Anim Pakal gets counters and you create tokens, which is perfect with Leonardo, the Balance. And look, Krang, the All-Powerful isn’t bad at all, but I just think we needed more ways to trigger it constantly. Maybe if we had April as a partner commander.

Tendershoot Dryad

Suggested Cut: Mole Module

Tokens is the name of the game. Creating a token each upkeep triggers your commander a lot while Tendershoot Dryad stays alive. This card is a bit fragile, but if you can untap with it, you’ll probably be fine. Later in the game, the Dryad can pump out some 3/3’s. Mole Module is a 5-mana vehicle that reanimates, but it’s clunky for me, and it doesn’t play into the deck’s themes. Besides, I’m cutting expensive stuff.

Gilded Goose

Suggested Cut: Coin of Mastery

Gilded Goose is similar to Birds of Paradise, a 5-color staple, and it can also make tokens whenever you want, including on your opponents’ turns. Players usually create a Food token with the Goose just to use their mana, but here, we’re actually unlocking our deck’s synergies. I’m axing Coin of Mastery to weaken the “use mana from a Treasure” theme.

Swords to Plowshares

Suggested Cut: Exploding Barrel

Good old Swords to Plowshares. Deck needs some good, cheap, clean interaction, after all. Exploding Barrel is fun, but I’m not seeing the counter effort be worthwhile.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

Suggested Cut: Acidic Slime

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is one of my pet cards, and I’m adding it to a deck whenever I have a chance. Mass token generation is too good to ignore in this deck, and attacking everybody for free with a bunch of 2/2’s or bigger is very good, too. I’m cutting interaction in the form of Marauding Mutagen (Acidic Slime). This deck already has a good amount.

Basking Broodscale

Suggested Cut: Electric Seaweed

Basking Broodscale makes a 0/1 Eldrazi Scion each time it gets a +1/+1 counter, so it makes some tokens we can use to attack and ramp. The logic here is reversed: This card receives the +1/+1 counters and creates the token after that, so the token rarely triggers your commander because of the turn restriction. But if you just cast this card, you can adapt and get the +1/+1 counter chain going. Something has to go to make room, and that’s Electric Seaweed, which can be nice in some scenarios and in other deck builds.

The Final Deck and New Cards

This is the final decklist, with all the modifications.

Upgrades Only

Here we have just the cards suggested for the upgrade. You can even get all the cards just by clicking on the shopping cart icon on the box above.

Commanding Conclusion

Heroes in a Half Shell | Illustration by Victor Maury

Turtle Power! is one of the best precons MTG’s released in a long time. It has a strong mana base with top-notch reprints, and the cards all work together with the +1/+1 counter theme. It’s interesting because depending on which partner duo you choose, the deck can be more aggressive, more controlling, or have different thematic focuses (blink, go tall, go wide). Besides, the new cards that this deck offers are really good and are probably making their way into existing Commander decks, too. Some cards, like Continue?, will probably become format staples in the long run. What I did here is simply give the deck a better direction, with easy inclusions.

What do you think about Turtle Power! as a precon, guys? Would you take the deck in a different way with other partner options? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for having me, and I’ll look forward to your comments.

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