Streets of New Capenna Limited Set Review: Multicolored Part 1

---

It’s every magic players favorite time, spoiler season. It’s like Christmas, but we get it multiple times a year! I get so hyped up for new sets and this one is going to be crazy with the first shard based set we’ve had in a long time. So lets jump right into see what’s going down on the mean Streets of New Capenna.

• 5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or just pack up your cards. (Tovolar's Huntmaster, The Meathook Massacre, Starnheim Unleashed)
• 4.5: Incredible bomb that still gives your opponent a slim chance. (Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Alrund's Epiphany, Grand Master of Flowers)
• 4.0: Great rare or the absolute best uncommons and removal. (Froghemoth, Morbid Opportunist, Skullport Merchant)
• 3.5: Great role filler or removal that you never cut. (Magic Missile, Cathartic Pyre, Battle Cry Goblin)
• 3.0: Good playable that I’m basically never cutting. (Usher of the Fallen, Search Party Captain, Dragon Turtle)
• 2.5: Decent playable and the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck to reach. (Mourning Patrol, Steadfast Paladin, Goblin Morningstar)
• 2.0: Mediocre filler that normally is your 20-23rd card(s). (Contact Other Plane, Mindleech Ghoul, Timberland Guide)
• 1.5: Replaceable, overall bad filler. Could also be decent sideboard cards. (Secrets of the Key, Spiked Pit Trap, Village Rites)
• 1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Secret Door, Mystic Skull, Funeral Longboat)
• 0.5: Very unhappy to main deck this, but maybe it has fringe sideboard applications. (You See a Guard Approach, Bramble Armor, Compelled Duel)
• 0.0: Unplayable in every possible situation. (Mimic, Change of Fortune, Curse of Shaken Faith)

---

Aven Heartstabber

Rating: 2.5/5

I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Baleful Strix. If that’s where you’ve set your expectations, then you’re going to feel like you got stabbed in the heart. You’re not going to have five different mana values in your graveyard that often so it will end up being a flying Spirited Companion that you had to wait for the card draw.

Black Market Tycoon

Rating: 3.0/5

In theory this card is crazy powerful, but in a lot of cases it is just going to be a two-drop mana dork. It’s hard to let it build up treasures without taking too much damage. All of the treasure payoffs in the set do make it better than your average elf, but certainly not a sure slam dunk.

Body Dropper

Rating: 3.0/5

Incidental +1+1 counters that don’t require mana is a great ability to have just hanging around. It also has the threat of activation so it’ll be difficult to profitably block when you can just drop a couple bodies to pump up the jams. Did you know Blitz sacrifices at end of turn? Just another way to make this guy huge.

Brazen Upstart

Rating: 3.0/5

The biggest drawback on a 4/2 for three is that it usually trades down. Getting to replace it with a new creature is a pretty big difference. Vigilance also plays a big part here as your opponent can’t just prevent you from getting the card by taking the damage and swinging back.

Brokers Ascendancy

Rating: 4.5/5

More like Broken Ascendancy, am I right? A few turns of this and all of your creatures will have ascended to the point of mercilessly beating your opponents face in. Totally fine with only a couple of creatures, but completely busted when you’re going wide.

Brokers Charm

Rating: 3.5/5

This will be used as a bite spell 65% of the time, card draw 30%, and the enchantment kill mode 5% of the time. All of that was of course done with a hyper geometric squirelinator calculon thingamabob and not at all just speculation on my part. It’s a charm with multiple useful modes, if it fits in your mana base you should probably be playing it.

Cabaretti Ascendency

Rating: 3.0/5

Speaking of math, we’ll keep it easy here. If a third of your deck is creatures, then this is going to draw you an extra card every third turn. Unless you are Floridamun, in which case you will just pay three mana to put a land on the bottom of your deck every turn. The pseudo scry ability makes it so it’s not just a total whiff when you miss.

Cabaretti Charm

Rating: 3.0/5

Two abilities that require creatures to be good and one that pops out two creatures make this charm good on most board states.

Celestial Regulator

Rating: 3.0/5

It’s not difficult to have a shield counter or a +1+1 counter just hanging out. As long as you do, then this is a larger, flying Frost Lynx. Even if you don’t it still clears the way for an attack on a decently statted flyer.

Ceremonial Groundbreaker

Rating: 2.0/5

I just picture this like the early parts of a survival game where you are beating off zombies with a shovel. So, I really want to like this equipment, but they make it really hard. Even with a bunch of citizens floating around this is still one mana too expensive to cast. That’s not even getting into the ride you are being taken for if you’re paying three to equip this.

Civil Servant

Rating: 2.5/5

As long as you have a cheap way to drop another citizen early, then a six-point life swing is really hard to race. I’d still play this even if I only has a couple other citizens because the 2/3 body for two does line up well with everything else in the format.

Cormela, Glamour Thief

Rating: 2.5/5

Unless attacking for two is your thing I don’t know how often haste is really going to matter on this, but if it’s turn five and you have a Maestros Charm you want to use then I guess that’s something. Double ramping is usually a good ability even if restricted to instants and sorceries.

I think the part the really matters is getting to replace itself after it dies. The body is one that encourages people to get it out of the way and if they do you just get to bring a spell back to deal with what they have going on.

Corpse Appraiser

Rating: 3.5/5

Organ Hoarder is now cheaper, but requires a creature in the graveyard. Unless limited has drastically changed, it’s pretty easy to get a creature into your graveyard so this will almost always be turned on. If you’ve already forgotten how good Organ Hoarder is, then feel free to pass these to me.

Corpse Explosion

Rating: 3.5/5

I’m going to be thinking of playing Necromancer on Diablo every time I play this card. Scalable sweepers are always nice since they give you the opportunity to 4D chess yourself into the biggest advantage possible while your opponent doesn’t know it’s coming.

Crew Captain

Rating: 2.0/5

I want to like this card more than I do, but it basically does four damage and then trades down. It doesn’t even necessarily do that all the time either because you might not even get to attack with it. If you’re in these colors already it’s a playable, but certainly don’t splash for it because it gets progressively worse as the game goes on.

Darling of the Masses

Rating: 3.0/5

She’s a real darling if you have a mass of other citizens. Popping out a token every time she attacks while pumping them up is a great ability. Just make sure you have some tricks to make sure she stays alive longer than that one attack.

Disciplined Duelist

Rating: 3.0/5

Double strike and shield both mitigate the usual downside of having a one toughness creature. Even later in the game, they are still going to have a hard time dealing with this without using at least two cards.

Endless Detour

Rating: 3.0/5

This can hit almost anything relevant your opponent does for only three mana. While they get to cast it again the next turn, it’s still card parity since they had to use their draw. It’s also the worlds most expensive Reclaim if that’s what you need to be doing.

Evelyn, the Covetous

Rating: 3.5/5

There are only three common vampires in the set and I only really want to play one of them (Glamorous Outlaw) so unless you hit the uncommon and rare lottery you are probably only getting one or two triggers off of this. Still, it is two cards for every trigger so instant speed Mulldrifter isn’t a bad way to win a game.

Exotic Pets

Rating: 3.5/5

I love this card. The baseline for it is great and there are so many ways for this card to be even better. Adding a shield counter and a +1+1 counter make this such a beating. That’s not even getting into all the ways to abuse alliance with the instant speed double trigger.

Falco Spara, Pactweaver

Rating: 4.0/5

There sure are a lot of cards in this set that you could subtract an entire ability off of and still have a really good card. I would be perfectly happy beating in with a trampling Phantom Monster with a shield. But hey if they want to throw in some card advantage, who am I to say no.

Fatal Grudge

Rating: 1.5/5

I won’t hold a grudge (certainly not a fatal one) against you if you play this, but it’s going to be very rare that it lines up well. I’m sure this will get some one at some point and they will tell everyone about how good it is. It’s not.  

Fleetfoot Dancer

Rating: 4.0/5

I just assumed this had flying off of the picture and had this rated a lot higher. One day WotC will get that kind of thing straightened out. There are going to be situations where this is straight bananas especially if you get to blow out double blocks with a pump spell. The lifelink basically forces them into situations where they have to take that chance and you can dance right around it like a champ.

Forge Boss

Rating: 2.5/5

How often are you really sacrificing your creatures? Unless it’s a heavy theme of your deck this is just a 3/4 for four that does 2 to 4 damage to your opponent over the course of the game. You can bump it up a whole grade if you have multiple Body Droppers and a few blitz creatures.

Glamorous Outlaw

Rating: 3.0/5

I am a huge fan of this whole cycle of cards as it provides early fixing for all three colors before coming back as a decent top end creature. Good early and good late is exactly the type of cards I like to stack my deck with. As we just saw with Imperial Oath, getting a decent scry on a six drop means that you almost always get to follow it up with straight gas. You might even get to steal a win with the two damage to the face.

Hostile Takeover

Rating: 4.0/5

This is an extremely hostile way to take over the game. Guaranteed to kill your opponent’s best creature while saving one of your small ones is a helluva way to sweep the board. The only reason I don’t have it higher is that its not nearly as effective if they have more than big creature.

Incandescent Aria

Rating: 3.0/5

This would be higher if it were in other colors, but Naya doesn’t really want to wipe its own nontoken board. It also doesn’t do enough damage to the larger creatures that could be a big problem for that deck.

Jetmir, Nexus of Revels

Rating: 4.0/5

I’m assuming that this color combination will usually have at least a couple of creatures on the board meaning this will come down as a 6/4 vigilance for 4. Pumping up random tokens is a huge deal and it’s basically free for playing an overstatted creature. There is also the dream where the game stalls until you have nine creatures and you just Embercleave your opponent into oblivion.

Jetmir’s Fixer

Rating: 3.0/5

Kind of odd that you’re sacrificing your mana fixers (treasures) to pump up your fixer. No matter what, this is a great aggressive card that is difficult to block and can turn into a huge threat if you have a few extra treasures floating around.

Jinnie Fay, Jetmir’s Second

Rating: 4.0/5

The crazy cat (and dog) lady of the set. While upgrading citizen tokens is really nice, this really shines with treasure tokens. Big Score suddenly dropping in two creatures at instant speed is just a huge swing while Black Market Tycoon and Glittermonger become tap to drop a creature into play. While her mana looks complicated, it is actually a lot easier to cast than most of the other three color cards in the set.

Lagrella, the Magpie

Rating: 4.0/5

Faceless Butcher is back baby! The rest of you boomers know what I’m talking about. Ignore the commander templating this removes any creature your opponent controls and one of yours if you’d like. Your creature must have spent a lot of time working out in that prison because it comes back yoked!

Lord Xander, the Collector

Rating: 3.5/5

Man, this guy collects everything! Cards, decks, permanents. Unless you ramp this out, you’re probably only getting them to discard one card off of it. The milling is only really relevant if you manage to get a couple of attacks in. But the body is huge in this format and if they deal with it, they lose half their nonland permanents. He might be expensive, but that’s a ton of value packed into one card.

Maestros Ascendancy

Rating: 1.5/5

This is an extreme build around that isn’t really worth it if you don’t have ways to make extra disposable creatures and enough high-powered spells worth running the whole engine for. I don’t think I’m ever going to try to build it, but if you manage to pull it off be sure to send the screenshots.

Maestros Charm

Rating: 3.5/5

Five damage is close to unconditional removal for non-shielded creatures so I’m playing this card as long as I can fit it in my mana base. Digging for another card or casually killing your opponent are just the sweet gravy on top.

Maestros Diabolist

Rating: 3.0/5

This vampire comes in hot and hastey with a little demon buddy along for the ride. Deathtouch means that it will almost always trade up for something and the free creatures mean they can’t just let it do it’s thing.

Masked Bandits

Rating: 3.0/5

I want to grade this higher just off of naming a raccoon card Masked Bandits. I see what you did there Wizards and I like it. If you’re playing this color combo then you’re playing this card for early fixing. A chonky boy with vigilance and menace is a fine way to top off your curve later.

Meeting of the Five

Rating: 0.0/5

Seriously just don’t even try it. This isn’t even remotely similar to The Kami War where pulling it off can win you the game. It’s not even a cool meme. This is eight mana to play maybe a couple cards. The end (probably of your draft if you try this).

Metropolis Angel

Rating: 3.0/5

If you don’t have any way to have creatures with counters then this should be chilling on the sidelines. Importantly this doesn’t require itself to be attacking so you can draw the card the turn you play this.  

---

Wrap Up

That brings us to the end of part one of our multicolor review. It’s a lot harder to summarize this than an individual color because almost everything is really powerful. It is really just the mana that is restrictive to whether you can take advantage of all of that power floating around.

Thanks for reading and check back tomorrow for the final part of our review containing the rest of the multicolored cards, artifacts, and lands.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

You can also find me at:

• Discord
• Twitch
• Twitter