Did you know that there are Magic: the Gathering pixel art Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cards? They look fantastic, but I've got some conflicted feelings about them.
Contemporary MTG expansions feature an incredible variety of different artistic treatments spread out across their cards. While it can be tricky keeping track of them all, for most players all of these contrasting styles serve to make the game feel more vibrant and diverse.
Many of these cards are created with beautiful artistic vision. Like the fable frame cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed that perfectly capture the storybook charm of the world they depict. Sometimes, though, the art can be uncanny, like the infamous Avatar source material cards that are just screen caps ripped directly from the show and hastily transplanted onto a Magic Card, legibility and frame composition be damned!
Fortunately, these pixel art Ninja Turtles were clearly designed with effort and intent. 15 cards from both the TMNT set and the Commander deck released alongside it are available in this style.
I have absolutely no complaints about the quality of the artwork here. Kirokaze, who was commissioned by Wizards of the Coast to illustrate these cards, has done a fantastic job. All of the characters, robots, and pizzas that he's penned look as though they've stepped straight out of an SNES game.
My only concern is one rooted in accessibility. All of these 2d ninjas only ever show up inside Collector Boosters. Consequently, currently at least, they all command pretty significant price tags, often in the triple digits. Since the variants of the Turtles that are featured here are the ones from the Commander deck, they all have partner. This encourages you to gather the whole crew, which will end up being a pretty weighty financial burden.
It's too soon to say whether these prices will ultimately come down. At the minute though, it's just a shame that collecting a handful of these cards that call back to classic games will end up costing about as much as a new console.
Fortunately, joining the Warganer Discord is completely free and is a good way of meeting gamers and artists of all kinds.