After travelling to the neon-lit, Japanese culture-inspired vision of a futuristic Kamigawa earlier this year, Magic: The Gathering is now shifting to the no less visually arresting world of New Capenna. A city “built by angels and ruled by devils,” New Capenna is a 1920s-esque art deco noir metropolis, run by five crime families. This concept comes to life wonderfully well in the card art (and all the different treatments), but the designers have really doubled down on it for the mechanics too.
Each of the five syndicates is represented by a three-colour combination and a unique mechanic. You can read about each of them here but to give you an idea, The Obscura are represented by white, blue and black, and are magic users focused on deception; on manipulation and blackmail. The mechanic they utilise is “Connive,” which lets the player draw a card and discard a card. And if the discarded card is a nonland, the creature that connived gets a +1/+1 counter. It promises to be a useful mechanic that will help players dig through their deck and find what they need for the situation at hand.
So how does IGN’s card reveal for Streets of New Capenna tie into the five families? Well, it’s actually a tool that any of them could potentially utilise. Introducing Luxior, Giada’s Gift:
In addition to its base utility of being able to scale up creatures that already have counters on them, Giada’s Gift also has the unique ability that it can be equipped to Planeswalkers. What does this mean? It means the target Planeswalker retains its abilities, but otherwise becomes a regular creature with stats based on its loyalty counter. It’s thus able to attack during combat, just like any other creature. It also can’t be killed by Planeswalker destruction effects. It’s an intriguing idea that helps make this piece of equipment stand out, and may have some very creative applications.
Streets of New Capenna will be available to play on tabletop and in Magic: The Gathering Arena on April 29, and you can find out more about the set and its product lineup at the official website. Be sure to also check out IGN’s feature on the future of Magic and how its fanbase feels about the way the game is expanding and changing.
Cam Shea has worked at IGN since before the before times, and has played more Breath of the Wild than just about any other game. When he’s not playing games he’s mixing records.