Crime and Family a New Capenna Color Study 

Is New Capenna a plane you'll remember fondly, if at least for its take on shards?

If nothing else, New Capenna gives us a whole new look into the shards which is super valuable for anyone doing worldbuilding based on them

The theme is my favorite part of this set. Why do people want the same thing over and over?

What I enjoy about the Maestro is how they build on Strixhavens Idea of Red/Blue being the art combination. And I think that we can see a sincere passion for art here, as not just a front for their crime business, but something they actually enjoy collecting. Sure, it is a a passion for art corrupted by black: selfabsorbed and focused on only them having that art in their homes and businesses, but it is a passion no less. That is another way red fits into Maestro, I think. Cormelas card name and art are a perfect example for this.

I never understood how much I loved art Deco until this set.

I absolutely adore the Cabaretti, I prefer their ideals to the more traditional Naya views. I have a Jetmir commander deck and it's such a blast!!! Thank you for this great video, as well!

I really liked this one! As someone who's only sure about how strongly I relate to a single pair of colors (Gruul), shards will always come as a bit of a challenge. Cabaretti and Riveteers were specially that, since I could see myself going in both ways (I've been really Riveteer-aligned in life in both surroundings and values, but absolutely Cabaretti in choice of profession and formation). It just helps me realize how it's all about choice in the end. Gruul as nature, but going to either White or Black as a choice of values, nurture, or something to that extent!

Love your videos! Color theory is the most fun thing about magic for me, and I love hearing your takes on the colors and their combinations.

I love all the ideas put into New Capenna. The idea of shards being represented as crime families was a intriguing one. And I wanted to see how they would incorporate a Chicago Mafia feel into new Capenna, And overall I thought they did a very good job. This feels like Mafia crime, while not drifting to far apart from MtGs core. The other part about New Capenna I was intrigued about was that those would be DEMON Crime Families. I was curious to see how they would build Naya colored Demons into the setting and how they would each color work for the Demon Race. What would a white Demon be like? This was the part that sounded great in concept, but was lacking in execution. We got Halfdemons as leaders of the Crime families, which wasn't bad, if they would have build upon it. But marketing it as Demon Crime families was very misleading. Besides the leaders the lack of demonic influence was staggering. The Angels, while "missing" felt more as part of the set, than Demons. Once the City was build and the Angels betrayed, the Demons bailed. That was it. We get nothing else on the Demons of New Capenna. Mob Nixilis was the biggest demonic influence in a City, that should have been build around Demon Families felt severely disappointing.

I really enjoyed a lot about New Capenna. The unique styles, the fun and creative cultures, and the fresh take on the color pairings. I’m glad to see this video and you giving New Capenna some love.

Cool bit of trivia: this is the first set to have a demon in white, and the first to have a demon in green not accompanied by black

This set has been awesome for dapper Ob Nixilis alone. Glad to see you covering it, I've been fascinated by the factions!

Cabbaretti is basically what happens when you make city druids.

As a lawyer, I am subject to the duty of concurring with the entirety of the respective audiovisual piece (a.k.a. "The Video") including the perjury against my fellow colleagues.

The Maestros were so close. SO CLOSE, to being an interesting Grixis faction. If it were art as a form of expression and not as a form of ego, we would be getting somewhere.

New Capenna, hands down, is my all time favourite plane, simply due to the absolute flavour of the set. Llorwyn/Shadowmoor was the first time I was completely captivated by a plane, and I read all 4 books for that Cycle, but New Capenna tickles the area of my brain that old mobster films do, and especially the Riveteers, and some of the names of the cards, like "An Offer you Can't Refuse", "A Little Chat", "Sleeping with the Fishes", and "Whack"

I think the reason the cabaretti are so weird is that the environmental harmony related to green is used to hide the wild, powerful forces related to green. Green has had sneaky parts, but new capenna has the most unusual relationship with green compared to the other colors, so green’s sneakiness gets more emphasis than usual

I love these videos going over these new groups and how their philosophies are shaped,god these are amazing

More stuff like this please! ❤

I mean with the Five Families my personal take is that for them the "Main" color is the one on the right of the three colors The Cabaretti are White The Brokers are Blue The Obscura is Black The Maestros are Red and the Riveteers are Green

Its probably worth noting that the original members of the Cabaretti, namely its leader, consisted of druids who didnt care for their duties and wanted to drink and party instead.

Gangsters and Color theory! Count me in

There's also a soundtrack on Spotify for this set. I didn't know MTG released albums, but now you know too

New Capenna is amazing and your breakthrough of the color combinations' uses sold this set to me :)

The more of your videos I watch and the more of my own arcane work that I get done the more my mind is leaning into the Theory that Mana is real, and indeed has no color until interpreted by the human mind.

Just found this channel. Amazing. Such a great way for an old EDH player to enjoy new sets without playing it hahaha.

I really like the flavor of the 5 Families, and it's always a blast to have a new set doing something new with the pie

Thank you so much DiceTry. I have viewed this set with great distaste until I saw this video. I still prefer worldbuilding closer to the original Alara Shards, but your insights on these matter are very valuable nevertheless. I'm currently running a freestyle pen & paper with Magic colors for two people who've never played or consciously seen any MTG. Your take on this set really gave me a new way of working out structures and intricacies of self made planes :) Thanks alot! Also, I'd love to hear your view of my take on your Grixis Shard video :D

I'm just getting into the game and don't know why New Capenna has mixed reception, if it's underwhelming or overly strong, but I do like the general 1920's vibe

Yay! I have been looking forward to this!

I feel like many of the crime families color outside of their three colors. The Riveteers plan and construct buildings on a city planning level despite lacking Blue *and* White. Stuff like that requires organization, teamwork and an eye to the future, How does a Jund faction manage all that? Also, their leader is a Green-Red-Black Dragon. Just what possessed her to collect and foster a bunch of working class mortals and empowering them to work in building up a city for all while also themselves gaining their fair share? Like, how is this natural, how is it foremost selfish or predatory and just where does she retain the focus to stick to it over long periods of time, as a Jund Dragon infused with demonic essence? In your video when you talk about their Black side, you mention how it is the source for their sense of independence. Are you saying that they are more independent and separate than the Brokers and the Cabaretti? Despite the fact that, given simple demographic facts, they should be more closely intertwined with the vast majority of the working class population than the high society event managers or the top lawyers and politicians? The Cabaretti exclude people based on their interests and whims, all without Black. There's also barely any trace of tradition, wisdom or deference to the natural order, despite Green being at their center. Except if you replace those terms with style, social intelligence and fashion sense respectively. Which is a stretch. Also if we do that, what exactly is the role of White and Red anymore? Since in order to give Green meaning we gave it jurisdiction over Red's artistic streak and White's social acumen. Honestly, I find it hard to justify why any of the three colors should be considered more present than Black, given that we are still talking about a crime family. To see my point I propose two thought experiments: First, imagine if the Cabaretti had three sub-factions or wings similar to how Strixhaven split each College into two philosophical outlooks represented by two deans. What would the mono-Green focused group of Cabaretti look like? What's Cabaretti with its two allied colors pulled out of the limelight and its main color enhanced? You can do the same with the wings too if you want. Or try to find what they have in common with Boros. Second, try to forget what you know about Cabaretti's mana costs. Imagine that you only knew about all its lore minus a) the fact that it is one of five crime families each supposedly representing a different color combination and b) the abundance of Druid and Elf an animal tags that don't really seem to be reflected in the cards abilities or backstories (why is the caterer a druid?). Now try to assign one or more colors to this faction. What do you come up with? When it comes to the Brokers I'd simply say that it's weird to have a group that is both rich and self-serving and doesn't try to change the status quo despite not being Black, but instead White and a little Blue. If they were a new faction emerging in a place where rule of law is unheard of then Blue's hesitant caution and Green's acceptance of traditions and the "natural" state of things would make this make sense. But Falco Spara was there from the founding of the city *and* willing to sell out the Angels for personal power. But I don't want to be purely negative. So I'll share an explanation for all this that comes to mind. Namely that each Plane has it's own "overton window", it's own pre-colored center which then gets pulled in five directions by the color from there. And for New Capenna, built by angels and demons, the innate colors are Black and White. Thus no matter what color your magic, anyone in power is still Black enough to behave amorally and rise up through crime, yet White enough to organize and serve the city to some extent. And of course Orzhov enough to do organized crime and be loyal to the ingroup, benefiting friends at the expense of others. We see something similar in other planes. In Strixhaven five Dragons came together to found a school, an organized institution dedicated to learning, teaching and research. Something that is inherently Blue-White. And even the Green-Black Dragon happily agreed to participate. Centuries later its Red deans still agree to participate in structured teaching and school discipline, its Black deans care about the achievements of their students and want to pass on their philosophy despite it being theoretically more advantageous to them to just leech and benefit from a naïve and Blackless student body, and its Green deans are researchers willing to enact change upon the natural world and compromise their Green values for progress and community. Conversely New Phyrexia is still a hellscape of aggrandizement and exploitation, no matter what magic one powers it with. That's how a monster like Vorinclex can be considered purely Green. And the center is so far from Red that, instead of it being the color of action like anywhere else, it literally causes hesitancy and confusion.

Are more people having a hard time memorizing the families aside from the Riveteers and the Cabaretti? I ask this as someone who has a great deal of interest in Magic but due to multiple reasons hasn't played the game in a while. It's just that those two families really jump out at me in terms of theme and aesthetic, while the other three kind of kind of mix and meld together in my mind, even if in terms of MO and goals are different enough. Great video as always! These colour-focused sets are lovely for all colour pie enthusiasts, and I always gotta see what you have to say on it. (Unimportant aside: was the video's encoding causing glitches in the transitions for other people? Little squares of colour and text left behind from the screen previous to the transition in question. Maybe it's my computer acting up.)

I would've loved to hear how the soundtrack adds to the depictions of the five families

Hi Dice, I'm a big fan of GoT. Even though the series didn't end on the best note, I think a lot of people loved the characters. I was wondering if you would make some video where you assign favorite characters to given colors,pairs etc..( like the Arcane series for example). I think it might get some good response and numbers considering House of Dragon is coming up and GoT will start showing up more on YT and in the search engine.

What are the musics at 3:24 (it remind me of the soundtrack of a mobile game I play!), and at 6:42 (this one seems taken from a video game) ??

Don toretto would be proud

Greeting! Preiss algorithm gods! I see families in color theory as is main color but they try too present themself as other colors. Assasins trying to look as art colectors. Berserkets of red trying to look like green black "worker force". Idt itp. Who knows ai am propably wrong but.... Who knows. (Sory for languages writing from phone)

What would the Wedge mana factions look like?

Brokers is just the american judicial system and you cannot disagree lmaoo

I only disagree with blue not being seeing in Maestros, for me it really is. They create plans and strategies for achievieng waht they want, they eant ti control and rule based upon yheir on won way of thinking, because they think they have the most intelectual arts and knowlodges in yhe city of new Capenna

I just wish that the Cabaretti and the Riveteers were swapped. Partially because a Union run by an egomaniacal dragon... doesn't work. The Riveteers are a Union, let them have the color of Solidarity & Equality. Plus, the Cabaretti's entire thing would be so much more interesting with Black, expressed the way it is with the Aetherborn (Live Fast, Die Young & all that).

Was really hoping we'd get back to Alara sometime soon. And besides, Esper is about as far from traditional fantasy as I feel comfortable. I remember when they announced the "Godzilla" set was the first time I really felt worried about the sensibility of this game being jeopardized, only to find it was simply a new style of alt art alternatives, a decent solution especially if they want so badly to pander. Still, they're really testing the limits with NEO and now this, for goodness sake these cards have freaking tommy guns on them. And soon I might be forced to play against Frodo Baggins. Really threatens to shatter the immersion I've always been drawn to.