Top 10 Streets of New Capenna cards for cEDH

As the spoiler season has finally come to an end, the new set is closer to release — and nothing better for competitive Commander players than knowing the cards that can be fun and interesting in Streets of New Capenna.

In this Top 10+ honorable mentions are not only the main set, but also the ones contained in the Streets of New Capenna Commander deck lists.

Mage's Attendant

This 3 mana creature has an interesting ETB, creating another creature with the effect of sacrificing it to counter a spell unless its controller pays one. Since it's an ability, it's harder to deal with it playing a counterspell, but it's still an effect that can be resolved with one mana, being a new version of Mana Tithe.

But the interesting thing is not only its effect, but the fact that they are two non-human creatures being made by one card, which can guarantee this card a place in Winota, Joiner of Forces lists or in Mono White lists, as one more way to avoid unwanted spells being resolved.

Void Rend

As I said in last article, it's a great removal.

An interaction that can't be countered, and the only restriction, other than being a 3 color removal, is not hitting lands. Preventing your opponent from interacting usually guarantees that the permanent will be removed.

It doesn't have a drawback that grants resources to your opponents (like Assassin's Trophy), and it doesn't have a mana cost restriction like Abrupt Decay. This makes Void Rend able to climb a space in some more Control lists, having the role of an efficient removal for threats and combo pieces.

10 — Make Disappear

This two-mana disruption looks promising to me. It has Casualty 1, which allows you to sacrifice a creature with at least 1 power to copy the spell — that is, it can counter up to two spells or guarantee that a spell will be countered by using both copies in the same spell.

This card might find a place on more storm-oriented lists, such as Krark, the Thumbless and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces, which benefit from spell copies and use them to generate value.

An interesting comparison is with the card released in MH2 Lose Focus: both have the same effect, countering a spell unless its controller pays 2, but Make Disappear has Casualty 1, while Lose Focus has replicate . There are different ways to copy, and in the competitive scenario, I see that the new spell stands out against Lose Focus, since even though it can be copied countless times, it requires spending more mana to do so.

9 — Patch Up

This card has great potential, being able to return up to 3 creatures from your Graveyard to the battlefield. This allows you to return important cards from the graveyard, such as Dockside Extortionist, to generate lots of treasure, or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer to generate treasures and steal cards from your friends' top deck.

Also, it manages to get back Thassa's Oracle with Sacred Guide, which can enable even more Esper lines with Thoracle as wincon. Even without using the Guide, the fact that it recovers multiple creatures from the graveyard generates enormous value for you, being able to put you back in the game and even make your victory possible.

8 — An Offer You Can't Refuse

This is an interesting interaction, one of the least restricted one mana counters we have, but also one of the biggest drawbacks.

It may be included in some farms and turbo lists precisely because it is a protection to the combo with a very low cost, even if it gives two mana to the opponent - because it doesn't matter how many mana your opponent will have if it allows you to win the game.

Of course, it's never good to think only of these cases, but preventing a problematic spell from resolving with the lowest possible mana cost is essential to being able to maintain the pressure in games, even if it ends up resulting in more resources for certain opponents.

7 — Rob the Archives

Even though it's a sorcery, this card has great potential. It will probably be more of an addition to red decks that run small creatures or as a card advantage tool in Winota, Joiner of Forces or Codie, Vociferous Codex decks, as it gives you card advantage and take Codie away from the battlefield, plus Krark + Sakashima, and other storm lines.

The possibility of using a card to “draw” 4 is simply wonderful, and even if the cards don't stay in your hand, it's a good way to find resources for the turn, besides being statistically almost certain to find the land drop by exiling 4 cards (unless you use less than 25). Keep in mind that Rob the Archives lets you play cards, which includes lands — as opposed to casting.

6 — Vivien on the Hunt

Simply a Birthing Pod-like Planeswalker, being a great addition to Blood Pod decks that run it and other similar cards to make successive searches for creatures with higher mana value, being able to replace it in this combo and also removing the need of 6 life (out of 3 activations),

She also already has an ability to protect herself, creating a 4/4 rhino, in addition to finding creatures, so you can keep the pressure on the battlefield.

I don't see many other decks using her, as the high cost doesn't make her viability much easier on lists where she doesn't make this combo. If you want to see the combo itself in more detail, it's over here.

5 — Toluz, Clever Conductor

Toluz was one of the legendary creatures that caught my attention the most in this set. Its effect is very interesting — every card you discarded while it's in play will be exiled, and when she dies, everything exiled goes into your hand.

It got me thinking about how to abuse this effect, and the most obvious answer is wheels — more specifically, hands-discarding wheels. The ones that imitate Timetwister aren't that interesting.

With that in mind, this commander has a huge potential to abuse these effects, especially if you use a Notion Thief. But it's not necessary, what you really need are cards to kill Toluz and reanimate her, plus as many rituals and mana rocks as you can to draw as many cards as possible with it.

There is still no definite list for this commander yet, but it is only a matter of time.

4 — Scheming Fence

First, what amazing art. Now, imagine how many permanents you can steal some abilities, preventing them from comboing and allowing you to generate value with it! This card must be on lists with access to its colors, such as Tymna & Malcom, Tymna & Sakashima (known as double Tymna), GAAIV and Tymna Kraum are the best ones with such colors in the metagame, and should be interested in this card.

There are many options, such as stealing the effect of mana rocks taking away access to important colors or positive mana, or stealing Thrasios' activated abilities.

I think a few fringe Brago, King Eternal lists will love it also a dedicated stax piece, which can change the named permanent to catch the current problem like a Codie, Vociferous Codex. There are countless possibilities.

3 — Cormela, Glamour Thief

This commander looks like a great option for those who want a commander to grind while having a one-card combo, as Inalla, Archmage Ritualist has done in the past.

Her abilities can give you mana and the recursion needed to loop Demonic Tutor, Dark Ritual, and a card that we already know about and combo with her is Saw in Half, which returns two cards for your hand (one for dead Cormela, and one for one of her tokens), so you can fully tutor your deck and win with Thassa's Oracle.

Remember that the mana generated by Cormela is only for instants and sorceries. This line is the main one seen so far, but there are many possibilities, precisely because it generates mana on the turn it hits the board.

2 — Smuggler's Share

This card is too strong for white, and exactly the way WOTC said it would do white's mechanics.

Smuggler's Share punishes opponents for ramping up or drawing cards, giving you treasures for each opponent who put more than one land on the battlefield, or giving you a draw for each opponent who drew more than one card per turn. There is no deck with white that won't like this card, even breaking it.

It can easily be compared to Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe. Its conditions to generate resources are a bit more restrictive than the aforementioned cards, but still, in white, it is not common for a card to give you these two essential resources to remain effective in the game.

1 — Professional Face-Breaker

If this card was already in the top 10 of EDH, imagine it now on cEDH! Many decks use treasure or care about attacking in format.

A card that is rare not to be in cEDH decks with access to red is Dockside Extortionist, which, together with this card, manages to "draw" cards and generate mana. Another present card in these decks is Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. We also have Grim Hireling, which is already a great treasure source, now together with this guy, it generates even more treasures, both to clear the board or "draw" cards.

Now that I've mentioned cards that will play with Professional Face-Breaker, I'll talk about the deck commanders he should join:

Magda, Brazen Outlaw that already generates plenty of treasures, will now generate even more, and there's one more way to spend them.

Prosper, Tome-Bound, which together with Professional Face-Breaker, can sacrifice a treasure to exile the top deck, cast, triggering Prosper, generating a treasure and being able to repeat the process.

Tymna the Weaver, who draws many cards by attacking with creatures and is almost always related to another commander with red like Kraum, Ludevic's Opus or Tana, the Bloodsower.

Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator that will spawn even more treasure when it hits, and it hardly doesn't command a red deck because it's entirely linked to combos with red cards.

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom that manages to almost combo with the card generating more warriors and treasures for her five mana ability

Anyway, as you can see, many decks are going to like this new friend of ours — which is why it's so high in the Top 10.

We received so many comments about this card after the release of this article that we felt obligated to at least mention here. If Ledger Shredder stay on the battlefield, it can wheel your hand several times, enough to make his 2 mana value cost ridiculous small. As the ability has a high synergy with the format that has so many low cost spells and a lot of cEDH decks are blue, this card can fit in most decks.

That was my pick of the best cards in this set for cEDH, clearly other cards also caught my attention, but during the cut I defined these for the reasons already mentioned. New Capenna has many interesting cards and should update many lists in the Metagame.

Until the next article!