Hey Commander fans! How well do you know you ninja turtles? Mikey likes to party, eat pizza and get extreme, Raph is sarcastic and has those little Sai swords that don’t seem too practical in combat, and Leo leads and has the coolest weapons. Oh yes, and Don, who does all the pizza eating, trash talk, combat, and extreme stuff, plus designs, builds and maintains a batman level of technology out of what must have been garbage. I had this pointed out to me while watching a speedrun of the NES TMNT game. Indeed, Don is the turtle behind the turtles. Perhaps we should call him The Don.
One of the hallmarks of the TMNT franchise is merchandising, by which I mean vehicles! Turtles and vehicles go together like slow-footed early humans and the invention of the wheel: faster. That’s how we want to go in this deck. Faster. Not fast, faster. Archelos, Lagoon Mystic is our Donatello, and the vehicles are vehicles. There’s even a ninja surprise! Here’s the deck.
Up until now, Boros, the Commander-dominating combination of red and white, has had a monopoly on vehicles. Depala, Pilot Exemplar is almost single-handedly responsible, because the vehicles we have need a lot of help. While I don’t know that this deck will be competitive, we are at least using a few strategic aspects of vehicles in between meme cards.
Vehicles allow us to tap our Commander, which is the biggest payoff to this deck. They are immune to Meekstone despite mostly qualifying on power. They can be tapped for mana with Inspiring Statuary. They probably won’t Fade Away. They don’t brake for a Portcullis. And unlike most of the corresponding toys, these turtle vehicles are cheap! Which makes them excellent candidates to be bounced back to hand with our ninjas and replayed right away. Zoom.
All in all, this deck should be plenty of laughs, and may even steal a game or two. And don’t be surprised at how effective ‘ETB tapped’ effects can be at stopping combo and alpha strike decks. Something to file away in all future deckbuilding for sure. Thanks for reading. Your life matters. Black Lives Matter!
