A turtle lives in a bowl like a goldfish, but is better at defending itself. If anything bothers it, the turtle just holes up inside its shell. Some Magic decks are like turtles: they don't really do much, but they have good defenses. The Turtle test measures a deck's ability to cope with this type of strategy.

For this test, the Turtle starts out with an Ivory Tower and six Circles of Protection in play (one of each color, plus a Circle of Protection: Artifacts). Every time you draw a land (whether you play it or not), the Turtle immediately adds the exact same land to his cards in play, for free. The Turtle never plays any cards other than the free lands, and doesn't use any non-basic land's special abilities (for instance, Maze of Ith's tapping ability or Strip Mine's land-destruction capability). The Turtle also draws a card every turn, trying to maintain a full hand of seven cards to gain as much life from the Ivory Tower as possible. Discard decks can interfere with this, and Vise decks can take advantage of it, especially if you destroy the Tower. The Turtle will always prevent as much damage as possible.

We won't even try to give "average" scores for this or the rest of the pet tests, because they vary so widely. The Turtle test is a lot tougher than the Goldfish, and players with decks that have no way of dealing with enchantments may consider it unfair. Fighting a Turtle can be frustrating. You may not have dealt any damage by the time you would have destroyed a Goldfish completely. (But look at the bright side--at least a Turtle won't replace his Circles once you destroy them, or play Karma or any of the other color-specific spells, like a real opponent might!)

Turtles are far from invulnerable, though, no matter what colors you play. The simple ways to beat a Turtle are: 1) destroy one or more of the appropriate Circles, 2) destroy or tap enough of the Turtle's lands so he can't power the Circles, or 3) overrun him with so many sources of damage that he can't stop them all. Other approaches include using Sleight of Mind (to change the color a Circle protects against), casting Manabarbs or Psychic Venom on his lands (if he taps a land to power a Circle, then he takes additional damage from the enchantment and has to power more Circles) or Feedback and Power Leak on the Circles, and, of course, Gloom and Ghostly Flame. A few anti-artifact cards, to get rid of the Ivory Tower, can keep him from building up too much life before you get past the Circles.