{"id":136744,"date":"2026-02-17T23:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/136744\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T23:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:04:08","slug":"how-magic-the-gathering-uses-the-tmnt-to-show-off-a-new-side-to-its-hottest-new-plane-new-york-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/136744\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Uses the TMNT to Show Off a New Side to Its Hottest New Plane: New York City"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Magic: The Gathering<\/a>\u00a0multiverse 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<\/a>, worlds ruled by warring, godlike dragons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It also now has another in its vast assortment: New York City. Plain ol\u2019 regular New York City.<\/p>\n

That particular absurdity is thanks to the release of last year\u2019s\u00a0Spider-Man set<\/a>\u2014a set that, for myriad reasons, was not entirely embraced by\u00a0Magic players to the level of success that other Universes Beyond crossovers<\/a> have been, especially lately. But that lukewarm embrace makes for a fascinating challenge for the venerable card game\u2019s next franchise team-up, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/a>. The set, out next month, is bringing back a number of familiar\u00a0Magic mechanics that leverage the Ninja Turtle flavor, from Alliance\u2014which triggers abilities based on another creature entering the battlefield under your control\u2014to Disappear\u2014the new name for Revolt, which inversely triggers abilities based on your creatures leaving the battlefield\u2014or even new mechanics heavily inspired by familiar ones. But in adapting\u00a0TMNT, it\u2019s also bringing back New York as the primary flavor setting.<\/p>\n

If one of the bigger critiques of\u00a0Spider-Man was a feeling of disconnect for the broader theming of its cards, then\u00a0TMNT has a lot to overcome in revisiting similar ground so soon after. But so far, based on previews of the set, it\u2019s trying to do so by leaning in much more to the Turtles\u2019 vibe than Spidey\u2019s almost literally distanced view of NYC did across its cards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote a whole presentation on this!\u201d 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. \u201cWe knew going in that going back to New York right after\u00a0Spider-Man, people were going to wonder about [differences]. So we had a lot of time to figure out how does New York feel for\u00a0Spider-Man versus\u00a0Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, according to Frasier, was one of perspective. \u201cI lived in New York City for a while\u2014except 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\u2019s a place I adore deeply, and miss, and loved,\u201d Frasier continued. \u201cSo we came up with this idea of the New York you visit versus the New York you are from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spider-Man (and the upcoming next addition to the Marvel Universes Beyond series later this summer, Marvel Super Heroes)\u00a0represented the former, with vistas that decentered its titular hero and put the emphasis on New York\u2019s iconic skylines and the structure of the city itself.\u00a0TMNT, meanwhile, reflects the latter, with art that physically and metaphorically lowers its view of the setting to the perspective of its four young protagonists.<\/p>\n

\u201c[TMNT\u2018s] New York is very homey and lived-in; all the spaces you have are repurposed,\u201d Frasier explained. The TMNT set features sets of land cards that encapsulate that idea\u2014one featuring the Turtles racing in shadow across the rooftops, and another, called \u201cVanish Lands,\u201d which depict locales where the teens have just been, before slipping away into the dark to avoid being spotted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also a sort of darker and more neon take,\u201d Eric Engelhard, the\u00a0TMNT set\u2019s design lead, added. \u201cI loved watching the art come in\u2014a lot of the set takes place at night; it really just has a very different vibe [to Spider-Man].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very deliberate about the light sources we used, how they colored scenes, because New York is a city that never sleeps,\u201d Frasier concluded. \u201cAt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turning the lights off, so to speak, won\u2019t be the only way the\u00a0TMNT set has to differ from Spider-Man\u2018s vision of\u00a0Magic\u2018s 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\u00a0Spider-Man couldn\u2019t quite muster even with all its webheads\u2014hopefully it\u2019s 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\u00a0TMNT set drops in a few weeks on March 6. In the meantime, check out a few more cards from the standard set below!<\/p>\n

Magic: The Gathering \u2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Preview Gallery <\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Magic: The Gathering\u00a0multiverse is full of all sorts of incredible planes of existence: realms where light and shadow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[58119,9,24,55,54,56,58120,58121],"class_list":{"0":"post-136744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-magic-the-gathering","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles","15":"tag-wizards-of-the-coast"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}