Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Key Art | image credit: Wizards of the Coast and Viacom

This past weekend, during the Lorwyn Eclipsed Prerelease event, some of you may have seen the presence of strange promo cards lurking in your kits. A day into this very bizarre occurrence, we covered the leaks in a very roundabout way, as is the nature of our policy on doing so. However, this Wednesday, January 21st, Wizards of the Coast confirmed in a statement that this set of leaks was entirely a mistake, and entirely on them.

Thus, we can finally discuss them in greater depth and detail. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has apparently successfully infiltrated Magic: The Gathering!

As such, we have a journalistic duty to cover exactly what Wizards' statement is about and how it might affect things in the future. So read on while we do precisely that.

Wizards of the Coast's Statement

On January 21st, Blake Rasmussen of Wizards of the Coast published an article stating the following (with some Lorwyn Eclipsed cards interspersed to add a bit of levity to the piece):

This past weekend, your love of Lorwyn was wildly evident. We loved seeing all of your posts about pulls, packed local game stores, sweet decks (especially the Merfolk ones), and all-around enjoyment of this world and set. There's a good chance your joy sparked one of the best-attended, most beloved, and certainly among the most memorable Prerelease weekends we've ever held. You all seem to really love Lorwyn Eclipsed, and we couldn't be happier that you do. The weekend was almost perfect. Almost.

We, like you, were a bit shell shocked to discover that a small but noticeable number of players received foil rares and mythic rares from the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set. It was in no way planned or part of any kind of promotion. It seems like most of you had a blast, even with some non-Lorwyn Eclipsed cards sneaking their way onto your battlefields, and fun is fun as far as we're concerned.

But this still wasn't exactly the type of fun we had intended. [...]

Wizards' Fixes for These Unexpected Previews

The article continues to detail the issues of this unexpected infiltration, and how Wizards of the Coast plans to address it in the month-plus leading up to the official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set release.

For one thing, Wizards seems to have... Well, allegedly something planned for later. This "something" relates to allowing Lorwyn Eclipsed to have some more time in the spotlight, although the article does not state what it will be.

Beyond this, the preview season will undoubtedly be affected by this leak, although by Wizards' own admission, it's on them. There are still many common and uncommon cards, as well as plenty of supplemental cards, to reveal, according to Blake, so that's fun at least!

Finally, in the wake of the entirety of the rare and mythic rare suite of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set leaking, Wizards has put up all of the leaked cards on their Card Image Gallery for the set. You can also already see those on Scryfall, if that's where you prefer to see them.

Conclusion

So now, let's open the floor to you, dear readers! How does the prospect of additional time enjoying Lorwyn Eclipsed sound to you? Also, how do you think Wizards of the Coast is handling this rigmarole of a premature preview season for TMNT? Is this kind of thing a cause for alarm for you? (TMNT releases on my birthday, March 6th, so I'm personally still rather hyped.) Sound off in the comments below!