Pioneer: 5 Decks with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to try out

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season is approaching! The new Magic: The Gathering collaboration arrives on digital platforms this Tuesday, bringing the famous universe of Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael to the card game!

Pioneer might not be the format most impacted by the new set, but that doesn't mean there's nothing new. Izzet Affinity could become a viable strategy thanks to Krang, Master Mind, and strategies like Rogues gained some powerful Sneak spells that can make the Mill plan consistent and able to close out games with some frequency.

Check out below five decklists featuring the main additions from TMNT for Pioneer. Both for new decks and for established strategies in the Metagame!

Izzet Affinity

Krang, Master Mind and the support that Ravenous Robots provides to Pinnacle Emissary let us try an Affinity variant that resembles what the archetype does in Modern.

We maximize the number of zero-mana artifacts with Ornithopter and Tormod's Crypt—which has relevant implications in the current Metagame—and include Mox Amber alongside Emry, Lurker of the Loch and the new Casey Jones, Jury-Rig Justiciar, who provides red mana and, most of the time, finds another artifact to sequence.

In this list, we opted for a go-wide approach with eight token-creators and Chrome Dome, but we could consider other options. Cori-Steel Cutter takes advantage of the sequencing and how big Krang can grow with the artifacts we cast. On the other hand, Improvised Arsenal provides a pseudo-Cranial Plating in red.

Rakdos Monument

At its second level, Cool but Rude turns into a great complement for Monument to Endurance in a dedicated archetype. Rakdos Monument has put up some results in Standard by capitalizing on discarding permanents and applying pressure with Moonshadow to finish with Monument, and the new enchantment brings more consistency to that line while also helping fuel Delirium for Fear of Missing Out.

Pioneer offers Bloodtithe Harvester as both a threat and removal, plus Fable of the Mirror-Breaker as a card selection engine and long-term value. Maybe we need to blend in a few more elements from Rakdos Demons in this version, but betting on a more aggressive line seems like a more effective way to build a list distinct from the traditional variants.

Sneaky Rogues

Lorwyn Eclipsed was very generous to Rogues by giving us Flitterwing Nuisance and Bitterbloom Bearer. Now, TMNT brings Kitsune's Technique to turn the Mill plan into a real and consistent win condition alongside Thieves' Guild Enforcer and Soaring Thought-Thief.

The deck's core remains almost the same since the last set's release, and it's possible that four copies of the new spell are overkill considering they don't stack as well after the first, unless we can trigger multiple Enforcers on a single ETB or mill several cards with Thought-Thief—both lines we aim to replicate by running Mockingbird for more consistency.

Boros Convoke

Boros Convoke was the archetype that benefited the most from the new expansion: it received a solid enabler with Mechanized Ninja Cavalry and another way to put three creatures into play early with The Last Ronin's Technique while reusing ETBs from one-drops or even from one of the Convoke creatures, plus it facilitates the trigger for Cosmogrand Zenith.

We replaced Resolute Reinforcements with the new two-drop, which provides more consistency in casting Gleeful Demolition and is less punished by rare, but possible, hands with two red mana sources. We also included a full set of The Last Ronin's Technique—forcing us to cut Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.

Selesnya Company

There are two additions worth testing in Selesnya Company, one of the most established archetypes in Pioneer today. Agent Bishop, Man in Black acts as a mini-Ouroboroid that we can find with Collected Company, and Leonardo's Technique takes advantage of the fact that most of our creatures have an ETB effect, letting us recur two of them that were destroyed over the course of the game while also bouncing an Aven Interrupter to protect them again from a sweeper.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!