Magic: The Gathering’s new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set, released worldwide on March 6, has some of the most disgusting art in the history of the game — and I absolutely love it.
The Turtles’ identities are as tied to New York City pizza as they are to mutation and ninja training. Since food is already a well-established card type in Magic, the TMNT set had to include pizza as food. Publisher Wizards of the Coast even went so far as to design a special Pizza Bundle. Inside, there’s a cardboard slice of pizza with gummy worms on it. The cardboard inset underneath it is tainted with grease and crumbs. You can tell the design team wanted to play around with just how gross food could look in this set.
Eric Engelhard, the set’s lead designer, even admitted it: “The pizzas in this set get weird, (some might say they’re abominations),” he wrote in a design blog post, later describing the pizzas that the Turtles eat as “revolting.” Sure enough, some of the pizzas depicted in the set are nothing short of nauseating — especially when there’s a stray rat nibbling at them. There are some delicious pies to be had here, however. So here’s a look at all 20+ depictions of pizza across the set, ranked from delicious to atrocious.
21
Courier of Comestibles
The full art variant for Courier of Comestibles shows the young deliverywoman with a black eye and a throwing star stuck in her backpack. Despite clearly having a rough day, she still delivers a delicious-looking pepperoni, basil, and garlic pizza that I would 100% eat.
20
The Turtle Tots party scene
All four Turtles get cartoonish borderless art variants where they’re depicted as babies. Put all four together just right, and you get a complete scene. Raph has a slice on his head, but Leonardo, Leader in Blue and Michelangelo, Mutant BFF are both shown with some yummy-looking slices.
19
Study the Classics
Study the Classics depicts a pizza party hosted by Mikey with a simple pizza prominently placed on the table with tomato slices, green olives, and pepperoni. It’s actually an appetizing pizza!
18
Mona Lisa, Ever Adaptable
Like a lot of pizza depicted in this set, this one has too much cheese and not enough sauce. It’s also hampered by the fact that some kind of mutant cat has stolen a slice and Mona Lisa is about to drop the rest of the pie on the ground.
17
Ninja Pizza (Pixel Art)
The regular version of this card shows the Turtles stealing dozens of pizzas, but we just see the boxes. The pixel art variant, however, shows the iconic open pizza box from the classic TMNT video games, where it’s the only way to replenish your health. And look at that steam rising off the pizza! There’s nothing weird going on here, and bonus points for capitalizing on nostalgia.
16
Michelangelo, the Heart
The preconstructed Turtle Power! commander deck has all four Turtles as optional commanders alongside Splinter and April. Michelangelo’s version generates food tokens, and the art shows him breakdancing with a pizza on his head while his left arm and right leg prop up another two pies. The one pizza we can see clearly looks like pepperoni and olives fresh from the pizza shop. Delicious.
15
Cool but Rude
Cool but Rude is a really great card for players who like to rummage, and while the context here isn’t pizza-themed in any way, the art shows Raphael hurling an entire piping hot pizza right in the face of a Foot Clan ninja. It looks like your run-of-the-mill pepperoni pizza with a good balance of sauce and cheese, and no weird toppings in sight.
14
Food Chain
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles assemble with their sister Jennika to devour a pizza together. This one kind of looks like a horror movie given their insane expressions, like zombies eating a person. The amount of molten cheese flowing all over the place here is nothing short of disturbing. “Every pizza is some teenager’s prey,” reads the spot-on flavor text.
13
Everything Pizza
If those were edamame and black beans on the two slices to the left, I might consider Everything Pizza. But the blue beans make it clear we’re looking at a bunch of different-colored jelly beans on this pizza. I don’t even want to know what’s on the slice that the rat in the background already took.
12
Full Art Pizza Lands
Some of the toppings on the Full Art Pizza Lands in the set don’t actually look all that bad, but the real problem here is the river of molten cheese oozing from them. I’m not a fan of broccoli on pizza, but the Forest is edible, as is the Plains. The Mountain is probably too spicy with pepperoni and peppers. The Island has what looks like shallot, anchovy, and sliced sweet potato. As for the Swamp, black olives and mushrooms are not bad at all. It’s that third mystery ingredient that worries me.