Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mechanics Explained: Sneak, Disappear, Alliance, and Mutagen

With the advent of the new collab of Magic: The Gathering and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we get a new suite of mechanics that will highlight the set. 

Let's take a look at them now together!

Sneak

This is a mechanic I am particularly excited about as a Pauper Faeries player, since it's a new twist on an old favourite - Ninjutsu! The ability is wildly similar yet with key differences.

From the top - Sneak is an ability that has two costs: returning an unblocked creature to your hand and the mana cost indicated on the card. In the case of Dark Leo & Shredder, it's white and black. Since as per the rules of Magic costs cannot be responded to, your opponent won't be able to respond to you returning the creature to hand - essentially making it impossible to kill whatever you want to sneak out when the creature meets the condition of being unblocked.

Moreover, there is a timing restriction of only being able to do it on your turn in the declare blockers step. It's easy to remember though, because it's very logical. In order for you to have an 'unblocked' creature, the opponent had to have declared how they block. It also only makes sense to put such a creature into play before actual damage has been dealt. Therefore, the only logical step to do it in is declare blockers (before the damage step).

Crucially, in contrast to Ninjutsu, you're *casting* the new creature rather than put it directly into play. The natural consequence is that whatever you want to sneak in, can be stopped with some counterspell, while a Ninjutsu-d creature wouldn't.

Last but not least, there are noncreature cards with Sneak. In such a case, you still have to meet the timing conditions and costs, but the outcome is that you cast some noncreature spell for a cheaper cost.

Disappear

Now that we know Sneak, let's take a look at another mechanic that nicely synergises with it.

Disappear is a triggered ability which will look at the entire turn whether any permanent of yours left play that turn. In the case of Rat King, if the condition is met, you'll create a Rat token and put a +1/+1 counter on Rat King.

Previously mentioned Sneak, when returning an unblocked creature, allows you to meet the condition of a permanent leaving play - be mindful of that interaction when pre-realeasing!

There are numerous ways to make a permanent leave your battlefield - bounce it, kill it yourself if the Disappear effect is worth it, attack into a bigger blocker, or take advantage of the built-in synergy and use a different ability to enable it - like in the case of Rat King and the last sacrifice effect.

Alliance

Alliance is a pretty clean mechanic that triggers whenever another creature you control enters play. This is one of the ways to be advantaged in board stalls since, despite no attacks, you will be gaining some continuous advantage just by playing creatures.

It of course synergises with Sneak, as you're putting a creature into play!

Mutagen

Mutagen is the last ability I want to delve into. It represents an artifact token with an ability - similar to what we've seen numerous times with Treasure, Map, or Food. What does Mutagen do?

It's a way to boost your creature with a +1/+1 counter! 

The effect is simple, but there's much more happening under the surface that you need to be mindful of:

• If you stack a lot of counters on a creature, you might not want to Sneak it out
• You can wait on using Mutagens for a different creature - such as one that has more synergy with it
• Having Mutagens in play might fuel artifact synergies
• You can only do it sorcery speed

I love designs like these where a very seemingly simple effect has much more implications than it might be immediately obvious!

Conclusion

The abilities of TMNT makes me very excited for the limited environment. It's looking to be very combat-dense and tricksy - both things I love a ton!