Magic’s TMNT Commander deck almost rewrote the rules of Commander

Wizards of the Coast leaned hard into video game nostalgia while building the Magic: The Gathering – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles preconstructed Commander deck. Lead designer Melissa DeTora, drawing on memories of arcade play, and her team tried to capture the feel of choosing characters in classic TMNT games with a proposed Character Select mechanic that would let players reveal up to five cards and give their combined color identity to two selected characters as Commanders.

Character Select threatened to change a core Commander rule by effectively allowing flexible color identities, and it would have required significant rule support for both tabletop and digital play. The mechanic was ultimately scrapped in favor of a compromise: Leonardo, The Balance, is a pure-white card with a five-color ability and Partner, so he can provide the deck’s full color range while still pairing with another Turtle.

That design choice means a five-color build requires Leo as one of the two Commanders.

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