Cowabunga Gains: Which MTG Card Prices Will Rise with the Turtles?

The TMNT precon just dropped so here are our predictions for cards to clear out of before the precons drop in 2 weeks, and cards that you might want to pick-up now because their demand might well rise with the precon releases.

The deck is weird from a flavour perspective: merging the heroes and the villains together, so Shredder attacks with Donatello? But they weirdly didn't give them villain types? But there are lots of rats with the turtles? Seems strange... So what are the overall themes of the deck? They're: +1/+1s, ninjas, mutants, turtles and tokens (foods, mutagens etc.). Here are the turtles:

Overall there's a lot of power in the deck that probably finds its way into other decks (a few of our picks below are commanders in their own right, so e.g. Michelangelo might find his way into e.g. food/token decks.)

It also doesn't have a lot of reprints, but those that currently have a value over $5 that you might want to try to ship now though because their supply is about to go up are: Voracious Hydra, Steelbane Hydra, Vigor, Wave Goodbye, Spire Garden, City of Brass, Undergrowth Stadium and Grand Coliseum.

BUT: Zimone's precon from the upcoming Secrets of Strixhaven may well want to be upgraded with the Hydras above so there might be demand for them in less than 2 months time. And that deck is also going to love cards like:

So you may want to hold these for 6 weeks...

Ok, lets look at what cards synergise well with the TMNT deck AND have price rise potential. But, we note that we're skeptical about the demand for this deck and our algorithms cannot predict market demand for the deck, only the impact of these cards on the existing market if they are popular.

Let's kick off with some Spidey spice:

1. Lyla, Holographic Assistant: has a few 10s of copies available on TCGPlayer and is one of the lowest supply spidey cards on card market. It's really unlikely to get very many more copies (the chances folks start opening those spidey collector boosters with their horrific EV just for Lyla seems slim...). She's a few $ or euros. Importantly here, she's ideal with Krang (although the CommandZone folks think you should cut that) ORRRR: with Fathom Mage its an infinite card draw loop and with Krang or Irma that infinitely pumps a turtle too... And Fathom Mage and Lyla aren't terrible with the turtles anyway. Lyla's going to be in New York somewhere so thematically it fits, right? right?

2. Silkguard has only one proper printing (a Kamigawa precon) and then the marvel bonus sheet. The marvel bonus sheet copies are pretty cheap for a card with less than ten copies ($5), similarly in Europe its a €3 card with a few hundred copies left and it guards all your Turtles and interacts well with all the +1/+1 (modified) mutagens.

3. Mutational Advantage: with ~200 copies in Europe and less than 30 on TCG player, it already has low supply because its excellent in soooo many decks.

4. Terrasymbiosis: Again, a completely different vibe for the deck vs the CommandZone rebuild removal of Krang, but a neat fit with Krang and Lyla and Fathom Mage and the turtles with 40 copies left and at $10 at the moment for a card that fits in so many +1/+1 decks.

5. Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor is a perfect partner for the Turtles: he's going to get bigger every turn with all those +1/+1s and mutagens and pump ALLL the turtles with that. Looks like we missed the window with this in the US because there are less than 10 copies left, but on cardmarket there's still quite a few.

6. Adrix and Nev: So obviously cards like Parallel Lives, Doubling Season and Anointed Procession are great pizza party friends for the Turtles but they're already at a premium. At about a quarter the price, there's Adrix and Nev who will pick-up a ton of extra pizza (mutagens). They've now been out of print long enough to have just hit that tipping point. Their price was also artificially suppresed by the short gap between their printings vs their popularity metrics. With just a few 10s of copies left on tcgplayer and at the crucial 200 copy region for cardmarket, if you want them for your turtles deck its probably a now or pay double sort of time.

7. Yuna, Grand Summoner, Tidus and Rikku: are hard to reprint and perfect chums for the turtles. Maybe this won't quite be the catalyst for them because of the sheer number of recent copies, but Yuna helps you fix your wonky 5-colour mana and gives the turtles the +1/+1s they need. Tidus gives the turtle dudes plenty more cards and proliferation and Rikku makes all those mutagens unblockability for Raphael. All three of them are currently less than $1.

8. Moonlit Meditation or Esix: So every time you make a mutagen or Michelangelo makes you some pizza you could instead be just copying your favourite card? Moonlit med has just got the Edge of Eternities printing at the moment - but maybe (much like FF) there's too much supply and this is too easy to reprint? Does seem pretty fun though turning pizzas into Vigors or our next card though... Esix is currently bargain priced at $0.39 with just the 2 commander printings. It might just have been out of print long enough for its price to start picking up.

9. Tyrant Guard (less than 20 copies): what better chum with a hard shell to protects these dudes? The buyout of these seems to have happened in the US, but cardmarket still has a few hundred copies of each left. And while you're jamming in the turtles tyranid friends, why not have Marneus draw you cards every time Michelangelo gets you another pizza slice? We might well have to wait for the grim dark future until either of these see a reprint so its unlikely their prices go down in the near future.

10. For those of us (me) who didn't know magic already had its own ninja turtles: Taeko has the single (Jumpstart - so no-ones ever opened it) printing and surely has to be added in the TMNT deck?! And since the announcement of TMNT, Reddit has been filled with chatter about Silver-Fur Master and Jenova to fill out the ninja or mutant parts of the deck. Both single printings with excellent synergy. Both are still less than $1 and obviously perfect company for your turtles dudes. But Silver-fur master is an uncommon so there are still quite a lot of copies left (and probably some in folks bulk) until its price does anything very interesting. In contrast, Jenova's into its last few 10s of copies, so might have a price spike on the cards.

11. We've all been desperate for this Nickleodeon team-up and now its finally here!! Desperate to assemble all your Turtles? Fear not! Spongebob (Jodah, the Unifier) will find them for you and with just the Dominaria printing (and Spongebob Secret Lair) supply of Jodah isn't exactly flooding the market!

Honorable Mentions: Normally we'd now list here all the stuff that doesn't have financial possibilities but works well with the turtles (all those Repulsive Mutations you've got in your bulk boxes), but its hard to follow SpongeBob...

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Thanks for checking out the article and for your support!

Jace & Garruk