Partner—Character select (You can have two commanders if both have this ability.)
Raphael turns +1/+1 counters into a damage doubler — load up your team (or one big threat) with counters, swing, and watch combat and pinger damage hit twice as hard. You ramp into counter payoffs, protect a wide or tall board, and close games fast through doubled commander/attacker damage. The Mutagen token he makes on entry is a built-in counter engine to get the doubling online.
Free, repeatable damage doubling that requires only one counter on a creature
Mono-red consistency and access to strong red ramp, removal, and haste enablers
Synergizes with both go-wide token counter strategies and go-tall voltron builds
Mutagen token gives immediate value and a way to seed counters
Partner—Character select lets you pair a second TMNT commander for flexibility
Mono-red lacks card draw and resilient recursion compared to other colors
Damage doubling does nothing if your counter creatures get removed or chump-blocked
Vulnerable to board wipes since the deck commits creatures to the board
No built-in evasion or protection — needs support cards to push damage through
Five-mana commander that wants to attack, so early removal sets you far back
Cheap, evasive damage that combos explosively with the damage-doubling effect on a counter creature.
Add counter multipliers like Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution, and Conclave Mentor (in a pairing) plus resilience tools such as The Ozolith and Heroic Intervention to survive wipes. Prioritize evasion and double strike enablers (Fireshrieker, Embercleave, trample sources) so doubled damage actually connects, and lean on red ramp like Jeska's Will and Treasure makers to deploy threats early. Pairing him with an aggressive or counters-focused Character select partner deepens the redundancy and raises the ceiling.
Legendary Creature — Mutant Ninja Turtle
