RedLegendary Creature — Mutant Ninja TurtleRaphael, the Muscle
Mana value5Rank#8,837PartnerYes
The Commander
Double all damage that creatures you control with counters on them would deal.
When Raphael enters, create a Mutagen token.
Partner—Character select (You can have two commanders if both have this ability.)
Guide
Gameplan
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.
Strengths
- 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
Weaknesses
- 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
Key Cards
- Hardened Scales — Multiplies every counter you place, accelerating the threshold and the size of your doublers.
- The Ozolith — Banks counters off dying creatures so a wipe doesn't reset your damage doubling engine.
- Ancient Brontodon — Counter creatures with big power become game-ending once damage is doubled — any high-power counter creature works.
- Krenko, Mob Boss — Pairs token swarms with counter doublers, but more importantly red excels at making attackers wide.
- Fireshrieker — Double strike plus Raphael's doubling means your counter creature deals four times its power.
- Embercleave — Cheap, evasive damage that combos explosively with the damage-doubling effect on a counter creature.
Upgrade Path
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.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Doubled combat damage from a wide board of counter creatures
- ▸A single voltron threat with equipment, double strike, and counters dealing lethal commander damage
- ▸Pinger creatures with counters dealing doubled noncombat damage repeatedly
- ▸Big trampling counter creature plus haste swinging for an overwhelming doubled hit
Archetypes
- +1/+1 Counters — His ability rewards loading creatures with counters, the core engine of the deck.
- Voltron — Doubling damage on a single heavily-countered creature makes commander-style beatdown lethal fast.
- Aggro/Tokens — Go wide with counter tokens and double the whole team's combat damage at once.
- Burn/Pingers — Doubled damage applies to noncombat creature damage from pingers and direct damage creatures.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (R), by popularity.
