Streets of New Capenna: Welcome to the Family

Walking through the cold streets of Melbourne with my phone in my hand. Following direction to a new & hidden metropolis. Rumour to and art deco city of metal & chrome that rises from a plateau of vast emptiness and long-abandoned townships. A world built by the angels now on the verge of all-out war as the five demon crime families battle for dominance. I’d never been to Nick & Nora’s but the home for the event of Magic: the Gathering newest set, Streets of New Capenna, sounded like it would be a magical place.

If like me, you’d never been to Nick & Nora’s, it an old-world art deco designed cocktail lounge in the hear of Melbourne CBD. And it was the perfect venue for this event. As everywhere you looked, from cards, to the tables to the wall and the roof; it just felt like you were immersed in Streets of New Capenna. I think the only way the team at Double Jump or Wizards of the Coast could have down a better venue, was to build it themselves.

The weekend before the media event, I sat down at my friendly local game store so had a brief play with the new set then. & Wow, the Streets of New Capenna is busier than Bourke Street when it comes to new mechanics. As I more casual player, I normally only have 2 older mechanics I kind of know and maybe 1 or 2 new ones. Yet 6 new ones are insane & a little overwhelming.

The New Mechanics for Streets of New Capenna are:

• Alliance – triggers when another creature enters the battlefield under your control, and can have an array of different effect. Eg. Life Gain or Treasure Tokens
• Blitz – put the creature into play for a single attack, and draw a card. It feels similar to mechanics like Dash, but then get an extra card
• Casualty – you to sacrifice creatures to copy spells
• Connive – you draw a card & discard a card, then gives them a +1/+1 counter for each nonland card discarded
• Hideaway – allowing you to exile a card from near the top of your library and then play it for free if you can meet a specific requirement.
• Shield Counters – These are special counters stops them being destroyed by damage or a spell, instead you remove the counter when that happens.

I didn’t great a chance to play with all of them, yet I got beaten by quite a few them. The shield counters saved me so many times…… though it only prolonged the lost, it was frustrating for my opponent & got me a few more turns.

My favourite new mechanic is probably casualty. As getting rid of chump blockers or early creatures that aren’t really doing much in mid or late game & could become an absolute game changer. As a draft or limited set I really enjoyed hitting the Streets of New Capenna & found a lot of cards I would love to use in commander.

Speaking of commander, that was exactly what I was able to sink my teeth into in the media event at Nick & Nora’s. We were gifted the one of the new commander decks that is broken down into the five demon crime families, which are:

• The Brokers (green-white-blue)
• The Obscura (white-blue-black)
• The Maestros (blue-black-red)
• The Riveteers (black-red-green)
• The Cabaretti (red-green-white)

I received the Obscura deck and looking through the cards, there were a lot of great cards. It seems like a massive step up from the previous pre-con decks. Several of the cards in my deck are cards I purchased myself for my most recent build.

It was easy to see that we were dealing with a more well thought out and these weren’t just a set for beginners. These are a set that will teach a beginner to play, & that will continue to grow with them & that are easily upgraded with so many commander staples.

Since this event, I’ve actually picked up the Riveteers & Broker decks for myself & brought a deck each for my Canadian Nieces that are just getting into Magic: the Gathering.

Streets of New Capenna is an amazing fun set and I’m excited to see if it has much of an impact on Standard or Modern. As it does feel like a great limited or sealed set that lends itself a little more to commander with the tricolor families theme, but only time will tell how it will impact each game style.