Streets of New Capenna Constructed Set Review and Decklists: Maestros (Grixis)

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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Lord Xander, the Collector

Lord Xander, the Collector May Revive A Standard Archetype That Hasn’t Seen Competitive Play In Years

Rating: 2.5/5

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Evelyn, the Covetous

Evelyn is an interesting design as it’s a Vampire payoff that’s not really a Vampire payoff in a set that has nothing to do with Vampires. Wrap your head around that one. Nevertheless, a 5 mana 2/5 Flash is unfortunately a pretty weak stat line, but we’re playing it for the ETB. When Evelyn or a Vampire comes in, you exile the top card of each player’s library and you have the opportunity to cast it down the road.

While I am a big fan of Gonti, Lord of Luxury abilities, I’m pretty unimpressed by this body which was part of the appeal with Gonti. 5 mana for an ok draw effect is not where Standard is right now.

Rating: 2/5

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Maestros Ascendancy

Now this is a funky design. So this is like having a nerfed Lier, Disciple of the Drowned but you need to sacrifice a creature each time to cast a spell. While you may be able to build a deck around that, this is at odds with the premise of the card. This card requires you to both have enough instants and sorceries worth casting again while simultaneously having enough creatures to sacrifice.

While this could be more viable if there were more token producing creatures like Sedgemoor Witch and Poppet Stitcher, I’m not seeing the utility of this when you can just play Lier instead.

Rating: 1.5/5

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Hostile Takeover

Speaking of funky, this is the weirdest wrath I’ve ever seen! So you can shrink a creature, potentially grow a creature, and then deal 3 the everything which is not a bad deal! This seems insane against decks that mostly get bodied by 3 damage wraths but have some creatures that are larger, and although that sounds niche, that probably covers almost every aggro deck in Standard. So the better question is if the growing a creature to a 4/4 at all helpful.

Potentially, but I’m thinking rarely. Grixis isn’t the colors known for playing the most creatures so I’m unsure how this will compare to cheaper wraths like Cinderclasm or more effective wraths like Burn Down the House, but this does have some interesting implications. To sum up, solid card, just not sure what to do with it.

Rating: 2.5/5

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Maestros Diabolist

Looks like Ophiomancer has a suave cousin in this set! Although making Devils is worse than Snakes with Deathtouch and only getting them on attack is less than ideal, a 1/4 body is still pretty annoying and the attacking Devil could also be hard to block.

I wish you could keep accumulating Devils as this could be an interesting take on Legion Warboss, but it’s utility is lowered since it is capped. Cool card, but not seeing many applications for it. Maybe it’s a solid board card against aggro.

Rating: 2/5

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Maestro Charm

Sheesh now this is a charm! Although I don’t think this is the best of the cycle, this has some pretty amazing utility. First you can dig deep into your deck AND stock your graveyard, you could get burn plus life gain in a pinch, or you have an extremely solid removal spell. This seems like a relatively strong draw to Grixis if you’re in Dimir or Izzet already as this has a lot of applications.

Rating: 3.5-4/5

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Cormela, Glamour Thief

This is a super interesting card as it is a bit pricy, but you do get a mana rebate if you play this with 5 mana and will have a reasonable mana rock moving forward. Then whenever your opponent decides to kill it, you get a card back in exchange so you’re never down in value. Overall this is still too weak to see play, but it’s definitely not too far off either.

Rating: 1.5/5

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Corpse Appraiser

Appraiser is an interesting new take on Sea Gate Oracle with the biggest body yet! A 3/3 is significantly better than a 1/3, but there is the downside of needing a creature to exile. However on the plus side again, this does dig 3 cards rather than 2 so if you can make this work, it is quite the strong card.

Overall it’s too much work to get this effect, but definitely close to playable, especially if a Grixis creatures deck becomes viable.

Rating: 1.5/5

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CONCLUSION

Unfortunately for Grixis, it seems like one of the weaker shards but it definitely has it’s fair share of interesting cards! While they may not be inherently good, there are a good amount of unique cards which may have applications we have yet to see.

Thank you for reading!