Streets of New Capenna 

The Godfather Meets Wizards in Streets of New Capenna

It's time to pack some heat and channel your inner gumshoes, flappers, and gun molls, as crime does pay on the Streets of New Capenna! The 2022 spring premier set transports us to the seedy underbelly of the glamorous industrial metropolis of New Capenna, the only remaining populated area on a devastated plane whose original name is now lost to memory. Built by angels, this sin city has fallen under the control of five criminal families each led by a different demon boss representing one of the five shards of the allied colors of mana. With a setting inspired by the Jazz Age of the Roaring Twenties, Streets of New Capenna emphasizes an art style based on 1920s Art Deco and focuses on visual elements and narrative tropes found in gangster movies. It released on 29 April 2022 and features two special showcase treatments – the "Skyscraper" frame for the lands and a brand new foil treatment called "gilded foil" for the 45 "Golden Age" three-color cards, which are printed with a special three-dimensional gold finish embossed along the frame.

Never Go Against the Family

Streets of New Capenna is a multicolored set, the first using allied shards since the Alara block. It includes plenty of common mana fixing that defines the Limited environment, allowing the players to easily draft a deck belonging to one of the five families. Each family describes a different color triplet and brings into play distinctive themes and mechanics.

• The Bant colors (white, blue, and green) belong to the Brokers. They control the powerful lawyer firm of the city. Their boss is a Bird Demon and their headquarters are in the wealthy district of Park Heights, inspired by Golden Age Hollywood. Mechanically, the Brokers can grant their creatures shield counters, which are discarded as a replacement effect whenever the creature is dealt damage or destroyed.
• The Esper colors (white, blue, and black) identify the Obscura They're scheming mystics and magicians, led by a Sphinx Demon, and also headquartered in Park Heights. Their family mechanic is connive, a keyword action found on creatures that let their controller draw and discard a card and then rewards for discarding a nonland card by placing a +1/+1 counter on the conniving creature.
• The Grixis colors (blue, black, and red) are represented by the Maestros. They maintain a façade of art collectors and fashionistas, behind which are hidden the elite assassins of New Capenna. Their leader is a Vampire Demon and they reside in Park Heights as well. Their mechanic is called casualty, an optional additional cost that lets us sacrifice a creature of (at least) the specified power when we cast a spell with a casualty to create a free copy of it.
• The Jund colors (black, red, and green) take the form of the rowdy Riveteers, the construction workers of the city. They're blue-collar artisans specialized in demolitions, and their syndicate is located in the lower area of New Capenna, called Caldaia, and based on 1920s Chicago. At the top of their food chain sits a Dragon Demon, and their mechanic is called blitz, an alternative cost with several effects. When cast for its blitz cost, a creature will gain haste plus the ability to draw us a card when it dies, but it'll have to be sacrificed at end of turn.
• The Naya colors (red, green, and white) match the Cabaretti They're the glitterati of New Capenna, a fun-loving cabal of rich hedonists that constantly throw the most outrageous parties. Their leader is a Cat Demon, their neighborhood is the Manhattan-inspired midtown of Mezzio, and they're the main source of the mysterious mystical drug called "halo", whose traffic fuels the entire city's criminal enterprises. The Cabaretti mechanic is alliance, an ability word with a wide range of effects, all triggered by a creature entering the battlefield, much in the same way as landfall works with lands.

Supply and Demand

But there's more going on in New Capenna than just the five families and their illegal dealings. The set completes the cycle of triome lands started in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, where they were all wedge-colored. This also means cycling is back for the occasion, if only in this specific instance. A more unexpected return is hideaway, last seen in a premier set at the time of its first introduction in Lorwyn. The mechanic has been reworked so that it now expresses the number of cards we look at from the top of the library, and it doesn't necessarily cause the permanent with hideaway to enter the battlefield tapped anymore. More themes of the set include "counters matter" in white-blue; different mana values in the graveyard in blue-black; sacrifices in black-red; Treasures in red-green; and Citizen tribal in green-white.