Streets of New Capenna Constructed Set Review and Decklists: Brokers (Bant)

Streets of New Capenna Constructed Set Reviews

Streets of New Capenna Limited Set Reviews

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Hello everyone! With the full spoiler for Streets of New Capenna live, we can finally get into breaking down the cards with constructed applications! For this set, I’m going to be splitting this into 11 articles, 5 for monocolored, one for each 3 color sect, then one for colorless and the stray multicolors. Since I did individual card reviews already, rather than repeat myself, I’ll link the article, but still give the verdict and decklist if that’s what you’re more interested in. For this, I’m going to cover every Mythic, every Rare, and then choice uncommons and commons that have potential. Let’s get into it!

As always, here’s the scale I’ll be using to label the new cards that potentially have constructed applications.

• 0/5 – Unplayable in every sense.
• 1/5 – Extremely niche play or very unlikely to see play.
• 2/5 – Niche to no play, maybe playable in certain conditions.
• 3/5 – Reasonable playable. Not format breaking, but has the power level to see play in some strategy (or strategies).
• 4/5 – Very strong card, but not the best the format has to offer. Has the power level to see a lot of play.
• 5/5 – The very top of the format. This card will create a huge impact going forward on the format.

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Falco Spara, Pactweaver

To start off, a 4 mana 3/3 Flying Trample is an ok stat line, but nothing to write home about. You do get a Shield counter which is nice, but still wouldn’t justify playing it. However, the ability to have a pseudo Future Sight that you have to give up any type of counter for is definitely interesting.

So if you cast something off the top using Falco’s shield counter, this reads as a 4 mana 3/3 Flying Trample draw a card. If that doesn’t sound exciting, well that’s because it isn’t. You need to build your deck around this to maximize the effectiveness of what counter you’re giving up and even then Falco doesn’t seem great. I could be undervaluing it, but I don’t believe slow 4 drops are where Standard is right now.

Rating: 2.5/5

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Rigo, Streetwise Mentor

First off, got to love the obvious Mentor of the Meek reference. What a classic. Second, a 3 mana 2/2 with a Shield counter and the capability to repeatedly draw cards is very interesting. However, the limit to how Rigo draws cards is pretty brutal. There really aren’t many decks that would like to play creatures with power 1 or less and not have ways to pump them. The only examples I can think is Clarion Spirit or token producers in general, but you would still be looking to pump them.

Maybe there is a deck that can really utilize Rigo, but I think it may be too hard of a build around. That said, the power is definitely there as only needing to attack is pretty nuts. This will be my first and possibly only rating where the difference is a full point rather than half.

Rating: 2.5-3.5/5

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Brokers Ascendancy

This is a really interesting take on a regular anthem as rather than provide a buff immediately, you get to keep the buff, get more, and increase planeswalker loyalty to boot. These types of effects haven’t necessarily been good for awhile, but this does seem very powerful and I feel could get out of control pretty easily uninterrupted. Furthermore if you have any creatures that care about +1/+1 counters in some way, this could be a great boon for them as well.

Rating: 3/5

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Soul of Emancipation

Wizards must really love reprints this set because I would recognize Terastodon anywhere! That said, this is a bit of a different take on it as it’s two more colors, a mana cheaper, smaller body, and makes Angels instead of Elephants.

Although I love nasty Terasty, my concern for this card is three fold: this is very expensive for Standard and if you’re forced to give the opponent Angels, Soul can’t block them, and this doesn’t target lands which makes it harder to create a big offense easily. A nice thing about Terastodon is that it easily outsizes the Elephants it made, but Soul doesn’t do the same.

With all these factors in mind, I’m really not seeing the competitive viability of this card unless you’re always using it to give yourself the Angels.

Rating: 1.5/5

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Endless Detour

Aether Gust that can hit anything and even act as a weird Restock? Pretty good! I’m not sure where this would fit exactly, but that is a good amount of versatility.

Rating: 3-3.5/5

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Brokers Charm

The metric I’ve been using for all the rankings of the charms without realizing it is the 7 test: If I can identify what cards the three abilities mirror and assign a mana value and it adds to 7, the charm is at least fine.

For this one, we have Clear Shot (3), bad Erase (1), and Divination (3) which does pass the test, but beyond that, is a great assortment of abilities. To threaten removal or drawing cards is similar to Archmage's Charm (obviously much weaker) which is a nasty play pattern to have to worry about. This seems a tad less versatile than Riveteers Charm, but it’s very close in power level.

Rating: 3.5-4/5

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Lagrella, the Magpie

I ain’t reading all that. I’m happy for you though, or sorry that happened.

Jokes aside, this is the weirdest Banisher Priest I’ve ever seen that can exile your own creatures to grow them, but if you take an opponent’s creature you run the same risk. I’m not seeing the potential here.

Rating: 1/5

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Disciplined Duelist

If Auras in Standard ever becomes a thing, Duelist would be first in line to get suited up. Until then, it’ll be relegated to the draft tables.

Rating: 1.5-2/5

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CONCLUSION

While Shield counters seems like an extremely powerful mechanic, it also seems like an incredibly hard one to balance as you can’t make any creature with one too good out of fear of it being too hard to remove. Unfortunately, I feel this was taken too far as the cards seem a bit weak for my taste, but may just need a dedicated shell to really shine in.

Thank you for reading!