The Magic: The Gathering multiverse is full of all sorts of incredible planes of existence: realms where light and shadow are locked in endless cycles of transformation, lands where magic and technology become indistinguishable from one another, worlds ruled by warring, godlike dragons.
It also now has another in its vast assortment: New York City. Plain ol’ regular New York City.
That particular absurdity is thanks to the release of last year’s Spider-Man set—a set that, for myriad reasons, was not entirely embraced by Magic players to the level of success that other Universes Beyond crossovers have been, especially lately. But that lukewarm embrace makes for a fascinating challenge for the venerable card game’s next franchise team-up, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The set, out next month, is bringing back a number of familiar Magic mechanics that leverage the Ninja Turtle flavor, from Alliance—which triggers abilities based on another creature entering the battlefield under your control—to Disappear—the new name for Revolt, which inversely triggers abilities based on your creatures leaving the battlefield—or even new mechanics heavily inspired by familiar ones. But in adapting TMNT, it’s also bringing back New York as the primary flavor setting.
If one of the bigger critiques of Spider-Man was a feeling of disconnect for the broader theming of its cards, then TMNT has a lot to overcome in revisiting similar ground so soon after. But so far, based on previews of the set, it’s trying to do so by leaning in much more to the Turtles’ vibe than Spidey’s almost literally distanced view of NYC did across its cards.
“I wrote a whole presentation on this!” Crystal Frasier, senior narrative designer at Wizards of the Coast (and lead narrative designer on the TMNT set), joked to io9 and other members of the press at a recent presentation showing off cards from the new set. “We knew going in that going back to New York right after Spider-Man, people were going to wonder about [differences]. So we had a lot of time to figure out how does New York feel for Spider-Man versus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
The answer, according to Frasier, was one of perspective. “I lived in New York City for a while—except I lived in the scummiest parts of New York City that you never see in media outside of, like, the 1970s. Despite that unflattering description, it’s a place I adore deeply, and miss, and loved,” Frasier continued. “So we came up with this idea of the New York you visit versus the New York you are from.”
Spider-Man (and the upcoming next addition to the Marvel Universes Beyond series later this summer, Marvel Super Heroes) represented the former, with vistas that decentered its titular hero and put the emphasis on New York’s iconic skylines and the structure of the city itself. TMNT, meanwhile, reflects the latter, with art that physically and metaphorically lowers its view of the setting to the perspective of its four young protagonists.
“[TMNT‘s] New York is very homey and lived-in; all the spaces you have are repurposed,” Frasier explained. The TMNT set features sets of land cards that encapsulate that idea—one featuring the Turtles racing in shadow across the rooftops, and another, called “Vanish Lands,” which depict locales where the teens have just been, before slipping away into the dark to avoid being spotted.
“It’s also a sort of darker and more neon take,” Eric Engelhard, the TMNT set’s design lead, added. “I loved watching the art come in—a lot of the set takes place at night; it really just has a very different vibe [to Spider-Man].”
“We were very deliberate about the light sources we used, how they colored scenes, because New York is a city that never sleeps,” Frasier concluded. “At night, the lights are streetlights and traffic signals, car lights, and neon signs from windows. We thought about how all those paint this surreal vision of New York.”
Turning the lights off, so to speak, won’t be the only way the TMNT set has to differ from Spider-Man‘s vision of Magic‘s most weirdly normal new plane. But the art already shown off by Wizards of the Coast goes a long way in communicating a lot of that flavor in a way that Spider-Man couldn’t quite muster even with all its webheads—hopefully it’s a sign the set will do a much better job of conveying its flavor to Ninja Turtle fans and curious Magic players alike when the TMNT set drops in a few weeks on March 6. In the meantime, check out a few more cards from the standard set below!
Magic: The Gathering – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Preview Gallery
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