Lessons from LifeLessons from Life | Art by Kevin Sidharta

I was born a little too late to have caught the heyday of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) in the late '80s and early '90s, so I didn't exactly have much to latch onto with the theming of the new Magic set. But as we neared prerelease and I dug into the mechanics of the set, I began to get cautiously optimistic that it might actually be a banger.

I played a prerelease Two-Headed Giant event with a friend (highly recommend, by the way), and I was proven absolutely correct! This set totally rips!! I had so much more fun than I did at the prerelease events for Lorwyn Eclipsed and Avatar: The Last Airbender, despite having much firmer attachments to the Avatar franchise and to weird Jim Henson company puppets.

And as my weekly Commander night approaches, I've been thinking a lot about how much I learned in the prerelease event. And I've realized how many lessons this set can provide to a newer Commander player, especially in a Limited environment, where you can really engross yourself in the mechanics without worrying about somebody breaking out an unforgivably busted deck.

Commander players can actually learn some lessons from Drafting that, in the long run, will drastically improve your play.

So in this edition of How To Be New, allow me to ADHD hyperfocus lore dump on you for a few hundred words. I promise that there will be actionable advice. Or, at the very least, it'll convince you to go play a TMNT Draft event where you'll have an absolutely wonderful time.

Learn Turn Sequencing With Sneak

One thing that made prerelease for this set feel much more electric was the introduction of the sneak mechanic. Sneak allows a player to return an unblocked attacking creature to their hand to play a spell at a reduced cost. It's similar to past mechanics like ninjutsuninjutsu, but if you're like me and weren't around when Betrayers of Kamigawa first came out in 2005, it might feel pretty new and interesting.

Something I've been looking to improve on in my Magic playing for quite some time is how I order the actions on my turn. So many turns of Commander see a player take a bunch of actions in their first main phase and then just pass the turn, bypassing combat altogether. I do it all the time, especially in the early game, or towards the end of the night, when I'm just too tired to optimize.

But more experienced players play the bulk of their turns in their second main phase (and the most experienced players play their whole turn on their opponent's end step, but that's a discussion for another day). Why? Because of combat tricks!

Combat is the time when each player's board state is the most vulnerable. It's a lesson many players learn early on, mindlessly blocking with an important creature just because they have more toughness than the attacker has power (a move which, on its face, makes complete sense), failing to notice how much available mana the other player has. And then, boom! Their opponent (usually a someone playing in green) tosses down Wild HungerWild Hunger or GroundswellGroundswell, or OverprotectOverprotect, and your sweet Academy ManufactorAcademy Manufactor gets dumped into the graveyard.

One big surprising spell in combat can change the game entirely. It's the reason why things with flash and instants are so highly valued.

Because of sneak, this set really makes you consider how much mana an opponent has available when they attack, as any unblocked attacker could suddenly turn into a game-ending threat. And as a result, you start to learn how important it is to block smartly. You learn to check how much open mana your opponent has before determining blockers, often erring on the side of caution.

Then, later down the line, you learn to wield this power yourself, attacking with enough mana open for your opponent to think twice about risking their most valuable creatures.

Sometime later, you learn the power of just blocking what you can block and making them have the answer in hand. There is so much to learn about the game of Magic by improving your approach to combat. And the sneak mechanic forces you to really lock in and focus on combat more than you might in a typical game.

Learn to Accrue Resources With Food and Mutagen Tokens

I'm going to be honest with you, I always thought FoodFood tokens were sort of mid. A whole two mana just to gain three life? When I could, instead, just play another Hare ApparentHare Apparent*? It didn't make sense to me.

Then I played a TMNT draft in Arena where I kept myself alive through four turns of being attacked for lethal damage by sacrificing Food tokens. And I fully Danny Davitoed.

It turned out that I had vastly underrated things like Food and MutagenMutagen tokens (as well as their friends JunkJunk and ClueClue tokens). The flexibility they provide allows you to adapt to your opponents' actions.

Have you been holding up two blue manaholding up two blue mana all round, just in case somebody gets some bad ideas? First of all, great job. That's an extremely threatening thing to do at the table, and I applaud you for it. But has it got back around to you and nobody has cast anything particularly objectionable? Spend that mana to draw a card with a Clue! Or gain three life with some Food! Don't let those precious resources go to waste.

Spending all of your mana each turn is a great way to improve the strength of your gameplay. It's why mana curve is so valued in formats like Standard and Draft. Your mana is like your economy in a roguelike or MOBA, and the more you spend of it, the more useful, powerful game actions you'll tend to take.

Even though Mutagen tokens are less flexible, as they can only be used at sorcery speed, they can be good for setting up a threat that your opponent will have to deal with. If you pump up a flier with a Mutagen token or two before you pass your turn, your opponent might feel like they have to answer it. And if they spent their turn exiling it for two manaexiling it for two mana, rather than threatening the board for five manathreatening the board for five mana, then you made them play suboptimally.

They wasted their mana, and their turn, all because you used a couple of mana on your turn increasing the threat to their life total. That's great Magic gameplay!

And with things like Ice Cream KittyIce Cream Kitty, Pizza Face, GastromancerPizza Face, Gastromancer, Anchovy & Banana PizzaAnchovy & Banana Pizza, as well as other great disappear abilities through the setthrough the set, there are all sorts of ways to take that value and turn it directly into an advantage that will win you the game.

*In the Hare Apparent deck, any two mana that isn't spent on a Hare Apparent is mana wasted

Learn About Growing Threats With Alliance

I talked about this a bit in my article on threat assessment, but the biggest threats are the ones who will get harder to deal with next turn. And with the use of the alliance mechanic, which rewards you when more creatures enter the battlefield, that concept showed up in spades at my prerelease.

In this set, alliance abilities tended to show up on red and white creatures, otherwise known as Boros (). Boros tends to have a lower mana curve, preferring to play cards which cost two to four mana. As such, a good Boros deck can become an overwhelming threat by turn five. Especially if you're playing something like the Golgari () suite of cards in this set, you might have a higher mana curve, and need to weather this early storm until you can make your big swings around turn six or seven.

But how can you use your precious few removal spells to ensure that you survive until Raph & Mikey, TroublemakersRaph & Mikey, Troublemakers start making them wish that they'd never been born? The simplest answer is to deal with the threats that will grow.

For example, Raphael, Tough TurtleRaphael, Tough Turtle is an annoying customer, whose pings of one damage will constantly remind you of the growing trouble on the other side of the battlefield. But he might as well be an enchantment, as he's typically seen as too valuable by your opponent to risk attacking or blocking with.

However, Mighty MutanimalsMighty Mutanimals is going to make your opponent's whole board (or maybe even just the East Wind AvatarEast Wind Avatar that you have no way to deal with) stronger each turn. Mighty Mutanimals is a remove-on-sight threat, because it will grow.

It's the same with EPF Point SquadEPF Point Squad, who will quickly grow to be a lethal threat, versus Mutant Town MusiciansMutant Town Musicians, who can be thwarted with one solid multi-creature block. And when you add things like Ravenous RobotsRavenous Robots and Improvised ArsenalImprovised Arsenal, this set is full of all sorts of growing threats that you will have to figure out how to beat before they can overwhelm you.

And though it may sound impossible to deal with, I'm here to tell you that the feeling you'll get when you finish the comeback on an aggressive deck like that feels as sweet as a Guac & Marshmallow PizzaGuac & Marshmallow Pizza.

I know a lot of people are sort of mixed on this set. I'm not a huge fan of this property or this flavor either. But please do give it a chance. It's my favorite prerelease I've played since I started playing them with Duskmourn. Even if you don't get a ton out of killing something with an Anchovy & Banana PizzaAnchovy & Banana Pizza (which, if that's the case, please let your inner child out for an afternoon to embrace how silly and wonderful that is), there is so much you can learn from playing this set.

And, honestly, some not bad Commander cards are in here too. Believe me, the Cool but RudeCool but Rude I pulled on Saturday will definitely be making an appearance in my Doctor Doom, King of LatveriaDoctor Doom, King of Latveria deck come this summer (read more about what Vic's up to here). And if you catch me saying some stuff like this, please just let it slide.