Mark Rosewater, the lead designer of Magic: The Gathering, recently wrote an article about the history of turtles in the game. This article highlighted some of the Turtle creature type cards fans might be looking for their turtle-themed Commander decks as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set hits stores over the course of the next week.
The first turtle in Magic was actually a Giant Tortoise, drawn by Kaja Foglio. It was printed in Arabian Nights and initially had the creature type of Tortoise, which was eventually updated to the Turtle keyword. This turtle and the Giant Turtle from Legends set the tone for a creature type with great defenses, but sub-par attacking stats and abilities.
The vast majority of turtle creature cards published for Magic over the course of the next two decades weren’t great in constructed play, but were all-stars in limited formats. At some point, turtles gained the Shroud or Hexproof abilities as part of their typal design (probably because of their shells), which made a few of the turtles playable in constructed formats if they had extra abilities, like Calcite Turtle and Angler Turtle.
Overall, turtles were a pretty lackluster creature type until about 2020 when some turtles gained more creative, complex card designs, such as Yidaro, Wandering Monster. The first truly decent turtle for constructed formats was Dragon Turtle from Adventures in Forgotten Realms, which had the Flash keyword and a Sleep entering the battlefield ability. Then, came the release of the absolute best turtle cards (to date) in 2022’s Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty (see “‘Kamigawa Neon Dynasty’“). This set had the Kappa Tech-Wrecker, Kappa Cannoneer, and the Colossal Skyturtle, all of which should be staples in most turtle-themed Commander decks.
Beyond that point in Magic history, the most notable turtle cards (not being released in the upcoming TMNT set) are Ancient Adamantoise, from Final Fantasy, and a card that is actually not a turtle creature card at all. Spider-Ham, Peter Porker, from the Marvel Spider-man set, is a great catch-all card for Commander that gives several creature types +1/+1, including turtles.
Check out ICv2’s 2025 Magic: The Gathering product calendar for more information on future releases (see “‘Magic: The Gathering’ 2025 Release Calendar“).
Source: ICv2
