Big news in the multiverse! While the Magic community is still happily soaking in the glow of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Wizards has put out the first release information and card spoilers for the second new Standard set of 2022: Streets of New Capenna!
Since this was just an early teaser, most of what Adam Styborski showed off on the Magic website was artwork and lore details, but the reveals did include our first official spoilers and the major event dates revolving around this late-April release.
Completing Cycles
Following the strong cyberpunk-inspired look of Neon Dynasty, Streets of New Capenna will lean heavily into the aesthetics of art deco design and architecture, film noir, and a power struggle between organized crime families. Of course, being Magic, all of this comes with a fantasy twist – New Capenna’s streets are dominated by devils and other magical beings, as shown off in the art for preview rare Brokers Ascendancy.
The name and design makes clear this is a throwback to the Ascendancy cycle of enchantments in Khans of Tarkir, each of which captured one of the three-colored clans.
New Capenna will complete another three-color cycle: the Triome lands from Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.
New Capenna’s Five Families
It doesn’t take a super sleuth to figure out that Streets of New Capenna is built around the three-color shards. We also know the names and insignia of the criminal outfits associated with each of these color combinations:
White-Red-Green (Naya) will be represented by the Cabaretti, whose holdings include opulent gardens with an animalistic edge.
White-Blue-Black (Esper) will be represented by the Obscura, a ruthlessly organized security operation deploying out of the city’s tallest skyscraper.
White-Blue-Green (Bant) will be represented by the Brokers, whose ascendancy we’ve seen: a mercantile coalition of lawyers and traders who have amassed great power through “mutually beneficial” dealings.
Blue-Black-Red (Grixis) will be represented by the Maestros, a shadowy brotherhood of assassins whose classy style of execution only reinforces their fearsome reputation.
Black-Red-Green (Jund) will be represented by the Riveteers, whose name and aesthetic implies a ground-up control of city construction and logistics.
Each of these organizations will get their own Commander precon to emphasize their lore and mechanical themes from the main set, meaning there will be FIVE decks’ worth of new Commander cards to watch for at the end of spoiler season.
Key Dates
Following the recipe for success laid out by Neon Dynasty, art, story and worldbuilding will lead the way in their buildup to New Capenna. Story spoilers in effect started with the noir-ish short fiction snippet preceding the announcement itself, but there are plans for a serious story-preview season running from March 28th-April 5th.
After that, card previews proper will run from April 7th-15th, followed by Commander previews on the 18th-19th. With “Preview Week” complete, New Capenna will celebrate an in-store Prerelease weekend April 22nd-24th, with MTGO and MTGA getting the set a week later on the 28th. The set’s tabletop release is April 29th.
After that, there will be a handful of events to look forward to at your local game store. Stay tuned for Commander Launch Parties on April 29th-May 1st, Game Day on May 7th-15th, and finally the New Capenna Store Championships on July 9th-17th. WotC’s announcement showed off two of the new promos which will tie into this raft of events: Swiftfoot Boots and Mind Stone, both in foil and with the latter using the rare WPN promo art!
Full Art Lands and Card Styles
That’s far from the only beautiful card art you can get by opening New Capenna! WotC’s art directors have once again worn their influences on their sleeve with the reveal of these stunning full art basic lands! Dubbed the “Metropolis Lands,” each land has received dual artworks representing the glamor and grime that coat the eponymous city. And my gosh, they are stunning.
These Metropolis lands will be distributed throughout all New Capenna booster packs, just as the Ukiyo-E lands were available across different Neon Dynasty products. But that doesn’t mean Project Booster Fun is over. You’ll be able to open all sorts of dazzling “Golden Age” art treatments from a Collector Booster near you!
There are also a few different treatments for your new, precious Triomes (or whatever we decide to call these new lands). In addition to the default artworks shown above, borderless and “skyscraper” treatments have been revealed for these lands.
So, there you have it: all the latest dirt we have on the Streets of New Capenna case. It’s not much of a lead to go on, but this looks like it’s going to be a really big score, so we’ll keep our eye out for more information soon.
Tom’s fate was sealed in 7th grade when his friend lent him a pile of commons to play Magic. He quickly picked up Boros and Orzhov decks in Ravnica block and has remained a staunch white magician ever since. A fan of all Constructed formats, he enjoys studying the history of the tournament meta. He specializes in midrange decks, especially Death & Taxes and Martyr Proc. One day, he swears he will win an MCQ with Evershrike. Ask him how at @AWanderingBard, or watch him stream Magic at twitch.tv/TheWanderingBard.