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Magic: The Gathering’s latest series is a black city for crime families
Entering the cyber future, a new Magic set, New Cape Napier, will go into the past. The real world of our past is like that. The latest entry, which draws on gangster and black metropolis tales, details five diabolical crime families — the Broker, Obscura, Master, Riveter and Cabareti — battling against a dwindling group known as the “Halo” control of magical resources. If you’re not ready to put on a suit or cocktail dress and rub shoulders with the magic gangster, you’ll be able to get even more of the mood as more cards will be destroyed each day from now on to release.
The series will hit MTG Arena on April 28, one day ahead of its global paper release on April 29. You can also wave early to the party, a pre-sale event starting April 22.
Demons and hobbyists prowl lavish parties in the Art Deco city, while mages cast spells in their stylish limousines. While we’re talking about Magic’s latest weird evolution, I’m going to put on a hat and coat.
What is the story of the new Capena?
For a city truly built by angels – Los Angeles, eat your heart – New Capena must be firmly ruled by demons. Five of them, to be precise, are the leaders of five crime families, competing to see who can win. Their big bones nitpicking each other is the control of the “halo,” which is apparently left over from the angels who built the city, who were betrayed by the demons of New Capena on their way out. If you’re a mafia demon, crime does pay.
Meanwhile, Planeswalkers like Elspeth, Vivien, and Ob Nixilis were involved. Elspeth is investigating to try to figure out if New Capenna is her home, while Vivien is traveling to find a natural balance. The two team up to stop a war between different families who are enraged by a mysterious “adversary” and encounter the Phyrexian consul Urabrask lurking in the city. The big secret is that Ob Nixilis is the man behind the mysterious Adversary character, and he’s been sucking all the auras he can get his hands on.
Who are these crime families?
- obscurity Is a gifted magician associated with black, white and blue mana. They are blackmailers, liars, masters of hallucinations and distractions who constantly make plans for their own benefit.
- Masters Is an elite assassin, associated with blue, black, and red mana. They are old money and like all the nobility and class that comes with better stuff. They are primarily vampires, and their front is an art collection organization.
- riveter Mostly construction workers, associated with black, red and green mana. Tough and rough, they built and destroyed the buildings of the city, relying on brute force and intimidation.
- Cabaletti Is the cult Druid faction, associated with red, green, and white mana. They throw the best parties and are the city’s never-ending senior center.
- broker is a demon lawyer, associated with green, white, and blue mana. They are a law firm that believes in doomsday prophecies, when all the auras are used up, the new Capena will fall, and their agents are experts in erasing memories.
Which previous mechanics are returning?
So far, we know that only one specific mechanic is making a return: oddly useful and themed Xanadu mechanical.
Xanadu Allows you to draw a card from the top of your deck and play that card for free when conditions are met.In the past, it was a hit and miss mechanic that was powerful when conditions were easily met
What mechanics does New Capenna introduce?
Unsurprisingly, the master vampire assassin really likes the new casualties Mechanic, give the spell an optional extra cost: Sacrifice a creature of the appropriate power. The return on your morbid investment is pretty good, though, as you can copy the spell for free if you pay the fee. With the number of early utility creatures – especially those with death triggers – Casualty is ready for some great power.
and alliance, you will be rewarded for building your board with more and more creatures.Entering the battlefield effect is usually very powerful, is the basis of many powerful decks in a variety of formats. To me, Alliance has the most potential to produce surprisingly powerful cards. Oh, and what else can reward you for gathering large numbers of people? Yes, this is the Druid of the Cabareti family.
With brokers we see a new type of counter with its own rules: Shield counter. These are like little shields, the next time they take damage or are destroyed, you cancel it and remove a counter. There are already some powerful effects in preview – especially Elspeth – but what’s most interesting to me is that in an older format like Modern, which is a sneaky benefit to white, its removal spell Mainly the banish effect, it ignores the shield counter.
Mainly with riveters, Blitz Allows you to cast a creature for an alternate (usually cheaper) cost and give it haste, but they die at the end of your turn. Thankfully, they also draw you a card, so it’s an interesting option to let the creature do damage quickly and replace itself, or in the case of the newly discovered troublemaker Jaxis, speed up and copy a significant biology.
Mystics and prophets in Obscura lead pamper Right at the head of their family: Raffine, Scheme Seer. Allows you to draw and discard cards, and each nonland card you discard also empowers your creature with a +1/+1 counter, so you can increase your aggression or filter out excess from your hand land. This would be a very useful situation, but anything that builds you some card advantage has the potential to be powerful.
What about showcases, special frames and alternative art?
If you’re a fan of cool alternative art and frames, you’ll be more than happy with New Capenna. Continuing the previous tradition, we will have many.
- We’ll see the return of extended borderless cards and etched foils again.
- Here’s another series where we’re going to get a whole land of art, each with truly stunning cosmopolitan-themed art.
- The new alternative frame is Art Deco and looks very nice and architectural.
- Here’s another version, called “Skyscrapers,” that will work on ten different lands. Five of them we know are new three lands (with three different basic land types at the same time), but the other five are a mystery, we only know that they are not the original three lands, nor are they basic lands.
- Each of the three planeswalkers appears in three different art forms (normal, borderless, and art deco).
- We’ll also get golden age frames, they’re already beautiful, but they also have a version called “Gold Plated” which has gold leaf printed on the frame and sparkles.
- Finally, there is a special gift box, the card Gala Greeters. They have a different artwork for each regional edition and those regional editions/languages will be the only place you will get that artwork.
