Commander blueprint · Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

How to build Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers

Raph & Mikey put the first creature card off the top of your library into every attack they make. This build fills the ninety-nine with creatures that do their work the moment they land, because a creature that arrives that way never gets to use an attack trigger.

Art by Aaron J. Riley

A creature that arrives attacking never attacked, so its attack trigger stays quiet

One rule decides more of this list than any other. A creature put onto the battlefield attacking was never declared as an attacker, so an ability that starts “whenever this creature attacks” does not trigger for it that turn. Inferno Titan shows both halves on one card. Its 3 damage divided as you choose happens as it enters, and the same 3 damage for attacking waits until it attacks on a later turn. Slash, Reptile Rampager splits the same way. The 2/2 Mutant it makes for attacking does not come, and its alliance trigger, 2 damage to each opponent whenever another creature of yours enters, fires on every creature the attacks bring in after it.

That rule keeps out three cards a Gruul creature deck usually plays. Pathbreaker Ibex puts all of its pump on an attack trigger, so a turned-over Ibex is a 3/3 with no effect on the fight it joins. Leatherhead, Iron Gator comes in the Turtle Power! precon from the same release, and its two +1/+1 counters on each of your creatures also wait for an attack it was declared in. Hellkite Charger only offers its extra combat on a turn it attacks normally, so it went to the budget rung, where a cheap dragon matters more than the timing does.

Combat damage triggers are the other kind that works. Old Gnawbone makes a Treasure for each point of combat damage one of your creatures deals to a player, its own included on the turn it was found. Balefire Dragon deals the damage it dealt to a player to each creature that player controls. Hellkite Tyrant takes every artifact the player it hits controls. And Raphael, the Nightwatcher gives your attacking creatures double strike from the moment it lands, so a Nightwatcher turned over by the trigger doubles the damage of the attack it has just joined.

No one-mana elves, because the reveal would turn them over

The trigger treats a Llanowar Elves and a Craterhoof Behemoth as exactly the same find, which makes the cheapest creature in the deck the worst thing it can hit. A 1/1 that taps for mana, found in the middle of a turn seven attack, is a trigger thrown away. So this list ramps with lands and artifacts: four mana rocks and seven land spells, with Castle Garenbrig among the lands. Only seven of the thirty-two creatures cost four or less, and each of the cheap ones does its job whether you cast it on turn three or the attack finds it on turn eight. Wood Elves puts a Forest onto the battlefield, Solemn Simulacrum fetches a basic land, and Sakura-Tribe Elder can be sacrificed for one straight out of the attack. Eternal Witness returns a card from your graveyard and Reclamation Sage destroys an artifact or enchantment. The one creature here that makes mana every turn is Groundchuck & Dirtbag, an 8/8 with trample for six that adds each time you tap a land for mana, which is a fine thing to find at any point in a game.

Worldspine Wurm is here for the turns you never cast it

The far end of the same logic is a creature you would never pay for. Worldspine Wurm costs eleven, and in your hand it is a dead card. Turned over by the trigger it is a 15/15 with trample for nothing, and when it dies it leaves three 5/5 Wurms with trample behind. It is the only card in the ninety-nine above nine mana, and it is a risk taken on purpose. Two cards cover the draw that puts it in your hand. Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant puts any number of creature cards from your hand onto the battlefield as it enters, whether you cast Ghalta or the trigger found it. Michelangelo, Improviser puts a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield each time it connects with a player. The Wurm also shuffles itself back into your library whenever it reaches a graveyard, so a discard or a sweeper sends it back to where the next attack can find it.

It is the only one because every card like it is a dead draw, and the trigger only rescues the copies it turns over. Below the Wurm the list stays castable on purpose. Eight cards cost seven, three cost eight and Apex Altisaur costs nine, and with fifteen ramp cards plus Castle Garenbrig behind them, those come down from your hand on ordinary turns as well as off the top of the library. A second eleven-drop would add a 15/15 to a handful of reveals and another stuck card to a lot more opening hands, while the reveals that end games are already covered by Craterhoof Behemoth and Terror of Mount Velus.

Sylvan Library and Lurking Predators work the top of the same library

Anything that sets up the top card picks the next free creature. Sylvan Library lets you draw two extra cards at the start of your draw step, then pick two cards drawn that turn and pay 4 life for each or put it back on top. Put back a creature and that is the creature your attack brings in, while the other card can stay in your hand for the life. Lurking Predators reads the same end of the library on your opponents' turns. Each spell they cast turns over your top card, puts it onto the battlefield if it is a creature, and lets you send it to the bottom if it is not, which clears the way for your next attack as well.

Terror of Mount Velus and Craterhoof Behemoth change the fight they join

A creature found this way enters before blockers are declared, so whatever it does on entering is done before anyone decides how to block. Craterhoof Behemoth gives every creature you control trample and +X/+X, where X is how many creatures you control. Terror of Mount Velus gives your creatures double strike until end of turn. Dragonlord Atarka deals 5 damage divided among creatures and planeswalkers your opponents control, which tends to remove the blockers before they get to block, and Fury does the same job with 4. Apex Altisaur fights one creature as it enters and fights again each time it is dealt damage, so a 10/10 can clear a small board on its way into the attack.

Warstorm Surge and Terror of the Peaks make the entry itself a weapon. Each has a creature that enters under your control deal damage equal to its power to any target, so with both out a Terastodon turned over by the trigger is 18 damage to aim before combat damage, on top of the three noncreature permanents it can destroy. Four cards draw off the same moment: Guardian Project, Soul of the Harvest, Elemental Bond and Garruk's Uprising, and the Uprising also gives every creature you control trample, which matters because only eight of the thirty-two creatures have it printed. Kessig Wolf Run gives it to one more creature for , along with +X/+0. That is six cards of card draw in all, low for a hundred-card deck, and it is enough because every trigger is already a card off the library that never had to pass through your hand.

Karlach untaps the free creature too, if the reveal resolves first

Seven cards here give you another combat, and each one is another attack for Raph & Mikey and another creature off the top. Relentless Assault is one extra combat and Seize the Day is two, counting its flashback. Aggravated Assault repeats for as often as you can pay and untaps every creature you control. Port Razer and Raphael, Tag Team Tough each add a combat when they connect with a player, and both still do it on a turn the trigger put them into the attack. Moraug, Fury of Akoum adds one for each land that enters during your main phase, so a fetch land kept back until after the first combat is two landfall triggers and two more attacks.

Karlach, Fury of Avernus is the best of the seven, and it asks for one decision. Its trigger fires when you attack in the first combat of a turn, untaps every attacking creature, gives them first strike and adds a combat after this one. Raph & Mikey trigger at the same moment, and you choose the order. Put Karlach's trigger on the stack first and the reveal on top of it. The reveal resolves first, the creature it finds is already attacking when Karlach untaps the attackers, and it gets first strike with the rest of them. In the extra combat Raph & Mikey attack again, which is a second free creature in one turn. Karlach does nothing on a turn the trigger finds it, because the attack it would have reacted to has already been declared.

Sneak sends the found creature home to arrive a second time

Both of the four-mana Turtles in the list have sneak, this set's own take on ninjutsu. You cast the card for its sneak cost by returning an unblocked attacker you control to your hand during the declare blockers step, and it enters tapped and attacking. The creature the trigger just found is usually the right one to send back. It cost nothing, it has already done its trick, and casting it again later does that trick twice. An Inferno Titan nobody blocks can go back to your hand for the sneak cost of Raphael, the Nightwatcher, and the Nightwatcher takes its place and gives every attacker double strike, the commander included. Michelangelo, Improviser goes one better for . It enters unblocked, and when it deals combat damage it can put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield, which may be the Titan you picked up a moment earlier, with its 3 damage on entering all over again.

The hybrid cost takes either colour, and red is the one that runs thin

Raph & Mikey cost , and each hybrid symbol takes red or green, so the commander never asks for one colour in particular. That is what makes Castle Garenbrig worth its slot. For and a tap it makes six green mana that can be spent on creature spells, so six lands with the Castle among them cast the commander. The colour that needs watching is red. Green has 31 sources and red has 25, and thirteen cards in the ninety-nine cost two red, from Raphael, the Nightwatcher and Relentless Assault at four mana up to Etali, Primal Conqueror and Balefire Dragon at seven. Two red sources by turn four come in 77.7% of the time on the play. Three of the land spells are better than that number shows. Farseek, Nature's Lore and Three Visits can each fetch Stomping Ground, Cinder Glade or Sheltered Thicket, and all three of those tap for red as well as green.

The core list

Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers and ninety-nine more, thirty-two of them creatures, for about $385 with no Game Changers anywhere in it. Rest the pointer on a card name to bring up the card.

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The budget rung loses the second combat and keeps the free creature

The budget rung is twelve swaps, and they are the twelve dearest cards in the core list, each traded for one that costs under five dollars. Most of what the deck does survives. Craterhoof Behemoth and Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant become Jubilation and End-Raze Forerunners, and both of those give your other creatures +2/+2 and trample as they enter, so a lucky reveal still swings the combat it lands in. Terror of the Peaks becomes Where Ancients Tread, which deals 5 damage for each creature that enters with power 5 or more, and most of these do. Etali, Primal Conqueror becomes Woodfall Primus, which destroys a noncreature permanent as it enters and comes back once when it dies. The card draw changes shape. Guardian Project and Sylvan Library go, and three creatures that make you the monarch come in: Regal Behemoth, Skyline Despot and Dawnglade Regent. The monarch draws a card at the end of each of your turns, and a 7/7 with trample swinging every turn is the easiest way to take the title back from whoever stole it. Dawnglade Regent also gives your permanents hexproof while you hold it, which covers the commander.

What the budget list really gives up is speed of the second attack. Karlach, Fury of Avernus and Aggravated Assault were two extra combats that work from a standing start. Hellkite Charger and Scourge of the Throne, which replace them, only make one when they are declared as attackers themselves, so on the turn a reveal finds either dragon it is a flier and nothing more. Raph & Mikey get two triggers in a turn less often here, and the deck wins a little later for it. The rung carries no Game Changers and holds thirty-five creatures counting the commander, two more than the core list, so each reveal digs a little less deep.

Bracket 4 picks the creature before the attack instead of hoping for it

Nine swaps get from the core list to bracket 4, and most of them take the luck out of the reveal. Worldly Tutor puts any creature card from your library on top. It is an instant, so cast it on your own turn after you draw, and the attack that follows brings in exactly that creature, Craterhoof Behemoth or Terror of Mount Velus if the board is ready to end. Sensei's Divining Top rearranges the top three cards for as often as you like, and the two new fetch lands, Windswept Heath and Bloodstained Mire, shuffle away a top that has nothing good in it. Natural Order skips the reveal altogether: sacrifice a green creature and put any green creature card from your library onto the battlefield. Sneak Attack does the same from your hand for a creature, and anything with a trigger on entering keeps what it did after it is sacrificed at the end step. Mana Vault, Ancient Tomb and Jeska's Will get you to seven mana sooner.

Out go the cards that only made sense without that control. Worldspine Wurm was there for a reveal you could not steer, and once you can steer it, an eleven-drop in hand is a dead card again. Rishkar's Expertise, Colossal Majesty, Skyshroud Claim, Gruul Signet and Acidic Slime make room, and three lands that always enter tapped go for the faster ones. Natural Order, Worldly Tutor, Jeska's Will, Mana Vault and Ancient Tomb are all Game Changers, two more than bracket 3 allows, so this list belongs at a table where a turn four commander with Craterhoof Behemoth waiting on top of the library is a normal opening.

FAQ

Does the creature Raph & Mikey find get its attack trigger?

No. It enters tapped and attacking, but it was never declared as an attacker, so an ability that triggers when it attacks does not fire that turn. Triggers on entering, abilities that are always on and triggers on dealing combat damage all work. Inferno Titan deals its 3 damage as it enters and not again for attacking, and Pathbreaker Ibex does nothing until it attacks on a later turn.

Can the creature Raph & Mikey put into play attack a different player?

Yes. You choose which opponent or planeswalker it attacks as it enters, and it does not have to follow Raph & Mikey. That choice is worth making with Balefire Dragon and Hellkite Tyrant, whose damage triggers punish whichever player they hit, and with Port Razer, which only adds a combat if it gets through, so send it at the player with the fewest blockers.

Can Raph & Mikey lead a mono-green or mono-red deck?

Yes, if you want one. Each of their two hybrid symbols takes red or green, so they can be cast off Forests alone or Mountains alone. Their colour identity is still red and green, so the deck is allowed both colours, and this list uses both because all seven of its extra combats are red cards while most of its ramp is green.

Is Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers the same card as the Raphael and Michelangelo in Turtle Power?

No. Raph & Mikey, Troublemakers is one legendary creature from the main Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set. The Turtle Power! precon has Raphael, the Muscle and Michelangelo, the Heart, two separate cards that can lead a deck together as partners. This list plays three other Turtles with those first names, Raphael, the Nightwatcher, Raphael, Tag Team Tough and Michelangelo, Improviser, and since no two of them share a full name, the legend rule lets all four sit on the battlefield at once.

What bracket is this Raph & Mikey deck?

Bracket 3, though it holds no Game Changers at all, so nothing printed on the list would stop a lower one. What makes it a 3 is how it wins: extra combats, each bringing in a free creature, with Craterhoof Behemoth and Etali, Primal Conqueror among the possible finds, end games faster than a bracket 2 table expects. The budget rung keeps the Game Changer count at zero and loses most of that speed. The bracket 4 rung adds five of them and the tutors that pick the reveal.

How much does a Raph & Mikey deck cost?

About $385 for the hundred cards. Old Gnawbone, Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant and Terror of the Peaks are the three dearest, and together they are over a quarter of that. The budget rung swaps out the twelve dearest cards for about $104 in all, and the bracket 4 rung comes to about $752.