What Happens in Streets of New Capenna? 

Streets of New Capenna sounds like the biggest victim of 1 set per setting. It could really do with at least 2 sets, one to introduce New Capenna and the main plot, and then a second to focus on Ob Nixilis' takeover and the return of the Angels.

I feel like the single set visits to planes has really done damage to the story, makes it really hard to get into the story in any way since the last Ravnica. 2 set blocks should be the way

"Ob Nixilis enters stage left, Vivian tries to 360 no scope him with an arrow but he swats it down, so she tells Elspeth to deal with him while she deals with the incoming draft chaff" Might be my single most loved sentence of MTG lore ever.

It's almost like this, like Kamigawa, should have been two sets. One set with Elspeth rediscovering her old home with Urabrask and Tezzeret doing actual things. Then a second with the Halo story being more fleshed out.

I think I know EXACTLY what happened here. This set was not initially meant to be for Elspeth, it was meant for Davriel Kane. He is a literal 1920's style character who specifically makes complex deals with demons to gain power, to such an extent that he's currently in hiding on Innistrad. The fact that he was an accountant might even imply that he was working for the Brokers, perhaps as a black aligned Maestro plant, before gaining the power to planeswalk. So I have the supreme feeling that they top down made this plane to be his home, and then just decided to not use him, perhaps because he's not the biggest of characters or they went in a different direction with the main storyline. Either way, it's still safe to say that this is his home plane, no matter how this story played out in the end.

I feel like they were hoping revealing elspeths home plane would help carry the set but I’d agree they seem to have tried to fit too much into one set. I’d also agree that it seems like maybe the story or overall the set was very different and changed to fit newer parameters within this ongoing developing story.

This story had so much potential, but was so overstuffed that the depth of any individual plot line was razor thin. This story was a great outline for a full size novel.

I honestly really enjoyed the writing of the story this time around... with one exception. The ending lore dump absolutely reeked of "hey we have a word limit and you're getting too close to it." But the actual writing style of the author I found very endearing and excellent. And The Side of Freedom is my new bar for all future.upcoming side stories

I feel like WotC's visual design for settings is almost always on point, as it is with New Capenna. Unfortunately, worldbuilding and storytelling is more than just visuals, and I get the feeling that was sidelined in pursuit of ticking off as many gangster tropes as possible.

Had a terrible day at work, seeing this as I clocked off definitely brightened my mood. Thank you Guys!

I'm grateful Magic Arcanum explained the new lore on prerelease day. It was extremely fun playing Jetmir for tonight's prerelease, but all the flavor text had me curious about the story.

Elspeth continues to be the biggest underdog out of the main characters in mtg. I really hope she gets a proper badass heroic moment at some point. EDIT: I'll add this - magic has this pattern of making really cool and interesting places and characters and completely undermines it by constantly going back to and relying on a tiny handful of preexisting characters while making the rest pretty empty feeling. they don't ALWAYS do this, but it happens wayyyy too much. I really wish they'd actually make the stuff specific to the plane the main focus and make the planeswalkers and such a little less of the focus. I get that planeswalkers and big bads and stuff are like THE thing they're doing but it just feels so lame to constantly have the same characters over and over and over just in different backdrops.

I don't think it's fair to compare Ravnica and New Capenna. Ravnica has had 10 sets, cards from supplemental sets, online stories, novels, and comic books to establish its setting and flavour. New Capenna has had one set, and an online story. New Capenna hasn't had the same opportunity to fully describe itself to the playerbase that Ravnica has/had. I think New Capenna highlights the need for the return of 2 to 3 set blocks. As you put, Ryan, this story had so much content to cram into a single set, such that it felt like simultaneously everything was going on, and little at all. I think a three set block would have suited this particular story and the sheer amount of activity within, but even a two set block would have given us a full set to establish and immerse us in the world, and a subsequent set to give us all the action and send us off to the next. (eg Kaladesh-Aether Revolt & Amonkhet-Hour of Devastation.) It's truly a shame, because this set has gorgeous art direction. Still, I enjoyed what I read from the New Capenna story, and it excites me for the rest of this newest Phyrexia arc.

The visual style and flavour of the set is absolutely my favourite in all of magic. I just really hope that we return to the plane at some point in the future.

I like to compare the Tarkir block with Streets of new Capenna. Both have five 3 colour bosses and families and a war or conflict between them. But the fact that Tarkir had 3 different expansions made the story more clear and easily to understand. I hope that Wizards will make more 2 or 3 expansions blocks for each world in the future. Sorry for my bad english

Hearing that Xander died puts a tear to my eye, he was such a dashing fellow, and awesome card

Fantastic video, I always look forward to these. On the note of the jambled up stories: Bring. Back. Block. Structure. Honestly, who can tell me what happened on Kaldheim vs what happened in Return to Ravnica block and give me both very cleanly and clearly? We don’t have the time to appreciate set stories and flavor with one set coming out with a crap ton of cards that won’t be remembered flavor wise in about a years time…

Honestly I think this story mostly brought down by being written as s vehicle to carry along the overarching phyrexian narrative with planeswalkers running amuck rather than getting to stand up on it's own two legs, Ob Nixilis never has his motive explained aside from maybe generic power, what the hell is urabrask doing and wasn't he disliked by the other phyrexians, and why suddenly tie in a planeswalker to a world where she almost certainly was never originally supposed to be born in. The chaos between 5 mob families and urabrask alone could have carried a story, maybe even a few sets worth, but what we got was a bizarre road trip

I love the higher quality editing that this channel has now been getting. The new card transitions in and out and the glowing effect around the cards both look great! Even with all that extra quality in editing you were still able to produce this video on time for prerelease too.

This might my favorite part of the build up to a new set. Really appreciate the concise version of the story, and the mess that comes from trying make sense of it all

I'm getting back in the game after several years without playing, your videos help to keep up with the many sets coming out. Thanks and keep it up

Always love your lore/story videos. Help me understand the sets! Keep up the awesome work!

always look forward to your videos! Thanks for this short, easy explaination

I love your channel! thanks to you I don't have to read through the kind of boring storylines the last sets had (except Crimson Vow/Moonlight Hunt)... keep on the great work!

Really elegant telling of a sadly kinda subpar story. I appreciate the work you guys do

I was a casual player for a long time. I kind of lost interest when they changed the release format and did the whole "Return to Everything We Already Did Before" sets. I'm not sure about the new settings but I'm glad to see them introducing new planes again. I think the only one set per plane is another thing. I did prefer the annual cycle with a trilogy for each plane. It seemed to work better for theming and worldbuilding and also serve to feature mechanics better.

I love this style of video thank you!!!

Good summary👍🏻 I think they do the lord a disservice spending so little time on each plane. It’s quite a shame: early Magic had such tremendous and developed lore, and the Bolas arc was very well-developed as well. It seems they dropped that as soon as Bolas was locked away, and started trying to fly through it to keep pace with product development.

I defo agree the story is very overstuffed. Thank you so much for your amazing time and energy put into these videos! It gets me into the stories of Magic and honestly makes me feel seen as someone who primarily loves these worlds for their story potential. Honestly with all of the complaints I am still hyped for the set. The set up for the plane itself is super intriguing and even though I am not a mafia person I love the families aesthetics. Some friends and I got very into it and made characters and stories in the world of New Capenna while also trying to make slightly more sense of the mess the main story left behind, and also avoiding the Planeswalker part since we didn't wanna self insert into the grand plot with this project. A big gripe with the main story was how little characterization the world leaders of the crime families and other stuff got and it was a very fun task to do that ourselves! It has become a genuine brainrot of mine and while fanfiction does not make a good canon plot. It does help stomach the missing potential in this really fun world. I think there is a lot of potential to tell interesting stories! The watered down Ravnica comment makes sense but I feel any world will be in comparison. Which is why I think it is so fun to even just for myself and my friends who are MTG lore mages to add that nuance to these worlds. I guess I am saying that I am disappointed with the official story, but happy that the set exists and that it brought me and my friends together to "Fix it fic" this world with so much conceptual promise. Stories are amazing and I am glad this set gave me a springboard to get back into a writing flow. I hope for the audience of MTG Lore mages that when something in any plane or card excites you to create you do it as well! Even if it's not canon I feel like Magic has such an amazing multiverse to play around in and tell stories we wanna tell. While we have talented lore mages who give us the main stories I would love to see the community writing and creating whatever they want to in any plane MTG puts out. Exploring avenues they want too and just having fun.

I love that the Phyrexians are slowly(very slowly) being brought back to the forefront little by little. I do want them all back now but I'll take what I can get. These videos help a great deal thanks to your incredible storytelling Ryan. Biggest question I have is that if all the Praetors are receiving new versions I can't wait to see what Elesh Norn's is going to look like.

I really appreciate that you do this. I've recently decided to complete a collection of all Story Spotlight cards, and it frustrates me that there's no given order anymore, after there used to be up until around War of the Spark. So I use these videos to put them in chronological order to the best of my ability. So I just wanted to say thank you for doing this and for making sure you discuss all the Story Spotlight cards, regardless of whether or not they fit in with the written story!

Subscribed! Your recaps are very helpful.

thank you for explaining new capenna thoroughly as im interested with the world of new capenna

Super informative very clear and understandable much appreciated video thank you

I feel like Elspeth has the most established rep as a straight-up ass-kicker. She's been a knight and a monster slayer and all sorts of stuff. I think it's pretty wild she would lose 1v1 vs Ob in this story

It felt to me like the story needed at least two more chapters, maybe exploring further how the absence of the Adversary and the supposed return of the angels changed everything. Might have been interesting to tie that in with Vivien and Elspeth needing to recover Ob Nixilis' stash of Halo, instead of surprising them with a convenient one from Xander. That could also be used to tie up Jetmir and Jinnie's stories, since they most certainly would be looking for that stash aswell. But I think the set (meaning the cards themselves) has enough space for all this. I didn't think any of the cards were particularly out of place, only that they weren't explained thoroughly enough. Though maybe a return to the plane in the future, after the Phyrexians are dealt with, could explore how the rest of the plane gets repopulated, and how Elspeth finds her literal home/birthplace (maybe even her own grave :o).

The story wasnt transparent through the cards unfortunatly. Than I remembered your youtube channel, but i forgot your name. I found it anyway, looking for the beard, freeing me from not understanding - understanding there isnt enough story. Thank you! :)

I found your channel recently after coming back to mtg after an 18yr hiatus. Your channel, and Magic Historian, are my 2 favorite mtg channels. Your voice is smooth, sense of humor isn't too cringe, and you lay out the lore & flavor of mtg in a very digestible format. Keep up the good work!!

I am always amazed at how easily and clear the story is told

This is my favorite pack and story

Thank you very much for this very cool Video 😊🤴🏻👍🏾 my favorite RU-vidr and Plane 😊👍🏾 thank you very much , good Job

Thank you for the summary. I understand it way better with this video.

Thank you for doing this! This story feels like it’s like one of those middle movies that need to set up for a new one. Like it’s all leading to the Phyrexians and we just sorta needed to get through this to get to that.

Amazing video!! I really think they are going to return to this plane within the next 3- 10 years. My guess is it's going to be in the same fashion as dragon of tarkir where the Angels are back and running the mobs terribly and it's up to the demons to take it back. I believe that explains the slight disconnect between the story and visuals to leave space for a return set with Giada (probably getting a spark) and the rest of the freed angels. Hopefully this comment ages well lol.

It's sets like this that make me think we should go back to 3 set blocks story wise and would also allow mechanics to be fleshed out in creative ways like the fact we only got one card with extort that I'm aware of

I understand why they want Planeswalkers in every set, but they need to do a better job of including them in the story. They all feel a little shoehorned lately, but Vivian is biggest perpetrator in this story.

Story time is my favorite time. Something looks different though!

I find this sets story to be a confusing mess. I'm particularly disappointed with Urabrask's poor showing. He is easily my favorite praetor and he got done dirty by this story. A praetor showing up should always be a major story point, but his presence is so unimportant that even in this review he is only mentioned twice.

The very reason I watched this video was to know what Urabrask did in New Capenna. Disappointment doesn't even begin to express what I feel... But it's not your fault, of course. Great video, as always !

Just got the 5 commander precons ordered. They should be arriving today. Hope they are a fun set!

Love this set

As always, great video, great narration. It's also a shame that the story it's also greatly underdeveloped, like it has been for many years after they started having one set to cover a whole arc: empty characters, 0 character development, rushed narrative, tons of red herrings, etc. It is what it is, so there is no point beating a dead horse. It is however very fun to listen to what You have to Say and how it is presented, and that's a gift by itself. Thank You for the work.

Great job guys good job

This is one of my favorite sets since Kaldheim, absolutely love the aesthetic

What I would have done if I was WoTC would have been a whole year of "clue tokens" instead of treasure tokens. Starting in Inistrad, you return to the original plane of clue tokens. Initial clues would have hinted at the wedding. Maybe reprint that blue-green tracker that made a clue for every land. Once you are at the wedding, more clues prop up, story wise related to new phyrexia and kamigawa. Scrap the blood tokens to avoid too many types of tokens at once in the set, and instead have black-red be proper vampires tribal. Perhaps a return to madness, or perhaps expand the dance theme with two creatures attacking per turn. Have maybe one archetype where clues shine, like "drawing a second card every turn" or "drawing during your opponent's turn", or "keeping mana open to cast flash / instants / pop clues". Throw in a couple clue tokens in kamigawa that relate to phyrexians and their designs. And then bam. Replace the brokers as a crime family with the police. Have one plainwalker investigate phyrexian plans there. Clues foreshadow the fact that the next set is going to be phyrexia or something like that. Completely scrap the "halo is treasures" subtheme, rework red-green into something else, and make white-blue-green control-and-clues a full standard archetype using cards from 4 different sets. Brokers and obscura now fully explore the potential of clue tokens. Some cards have you mill when you pop a clue. Information broker makes it so that every clue token is simultaneously a treasure token. Etc. The things that might have been. Alas...

wow! what a story! I got literally none of that from playing the prerelease

Biggest flavor fail is clearly not reprinting defenestrate over murder

THANK YOU! I have seen so many people justifying the inclusion of angels in the set with the ending "implying they were freed", but literally nowhere is there even a remote reference to this at all. I was almost convinced something was going over my head.

New Cappenna felt like it was an excuse to do shards of Alara color combos now that Alara has been put back together, but they didn't really think about differentiating the families from the shards until the set was like, releasing lmao.

Glad you do these so i don’t have to read. Whatever happened to your podcast type videos where you two drank coffee and talked about magic? I really enjoyed those.

I'm really happy to see that Ryan shares the frustration that so many people had with New Capenna's story. It really felt like the story in the cards was just completely different than the story we were told in the... story.

I watched this video for the soul purpose of finding out what Urberask was up to. "Urberask was there". Thanks wizards. Riveting story telling.

All I know about this set is that the soundtrack is absolutely fire

I love This Plane I love characters and setting and I hope they come back to it soon

Yay!! :D I'm such a big fan of your storytelling! I have a series on my channel about lore from a card game called Splinterlands and I'm using your vids as my format. Hopefully I can emulate it. not there yet, but hopefully, soon lol more power to you! :D thanks!

the return of urabrask was something that I didn't imagine, and asking help to elspeth revealing that she is the one that elesh norn fear the most was something incredible, the prelude of new phyrexia arc has ended and dominaria United will be the beginning of the most waited arc

New Capenna is a reminder of what can go wrong when designing strong mechanics first and then throwing a story on top.

You should do one of these on the side story that happened in the Magic Discord. The ARG was a blast!

Glad we stayed up tonight

One could argue Urabrask being hidden for most of the set is perfectly on flavor for the praetor

When this set got announced I was not the hyped about it. But the story is more interesting then I thought.

Ok, so I''m glad you mentioned the Angel cards. Those have been driving me nuts. A key part of the world is literally "ANGELS ARE GONE," and yet here we are, with Angels at common! COMMON! I could understand an artifact angel here and there as a facsimile of Angels, I can even accept a Mythic angel nightmare. But just regular angels at common???????????? It drove me nuts. Also, I'm a bit sad you didn't mention the fact Urabrask is betraying New Phyrexia, or that Elspeth seems absolutely fine working alongside him; because at the end Vivien name drops him and Elspeth reacts like nothing actually happened.

I agree completely with the statement this set's story didn't come through in the cards. I had no idea who Elspeth was working for, but did get she was searching for home. The mob family story with Ob Nixulus was fine, but details of the angels and demons was not present in the cards. Loved this recap bringing it all together though.

I love the setting and art direction for this plane and i think the mechanics are fun, but the story was lacking. Also, why was there no Riveteers side-story? We get 0 insight into Ziatora or any the other Riveteers, or what they're like. That annoys me

- hey, Elspeth, didn't you...like...killed literal Gods (plural)? - yes - and brought yourself back to life out of spite? - yup - and weren't you the plane's greatest hero, slayer of countless mythological beasts? - sounds about right - so... Why are we running away from 3 mobsters and an angry waiter? - ...forgot my spear in the other dress

Im so glad Im here too

As top down as the set claims to be, I do feel like a lot more was given to the mechanical synergy than we usually see from top downs. That could explain why the story probably had to go through an overhaul partway through, leaving a lot of glaring peculiarities. From a design standpoint, I can sort of understand this swing, as when you design a set where flavor comes first, you really want the set to push, so that all the work in stylizing the plane doesn't get dropped by the wayside. I do feel the mechanics hit solidly, both in how the cards fare in both constructed and limited play, but swinging things so hard is bound to have a reaction when you're also trying to present a story that also tries to push the world. The cohesion is bound to suffer, but I still like how the world and the cards themselves perform independently of one another. Heck, I'm already drafting up ideas for a New Capenna flavored one shot with my D&D group.

I am so disappointed that the Praetors have been having less and less impact over their respective story when they are supposed to be setting up a return to New Phyrexia

22:22 when the spoiler season begun for this set I also said to myself like "wow this set feels like an excuse for WotC to not return to Ravnica again"

When I saw the new ob nixilis, and the card didn't make any mechanical sense to me, I said "I can't wait for the magic arcanum video that will explain this to me the gods know I'm not reading through all these descriptions to answer my own questions". Cheers Ryan and Nicole.

It would be really cool if they did a sequel set to this one about the angels and the legendaries in it were the wedge colors instead of the shards.

this should be AT LEAST 2 sets

Thank you! I always enjoy drafting much more after watching your videos. I've been wondering. How do you learn to pronounce all the names? I'm still not sure if Esika is Eh-see-ka or Ess-ka

What's happened ? Urabrask is surprising us 👀

i really enjoyed to the story, and (for the most part) do feel like i understand what each character did and why. i wish it'd had more time to develop, and wish the plane outside the walls weren't just handwaved, but i felt the crime families were every bit as charming as ravnica, and a good deal more honest about how they fit together as a society.

Ob Nixilis always seemed to me like the kind of guy who would blow a perfectly good opportunity to execute his diabolical plan by monologuing it up. As Tuco says: When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.

I don't know I'm always more interested in the stories that center on the established planeswalkers (new capenna, zendikar rising)than I am the newer ones (ikora, neon dynasty)

This summary also summarized most of what I thought. There were LOTS of world-building related side stories and card, but the main story was a bit narrow and doesn't actually bring any new and interesting revelations to all the "secrets" teased throughout the story. Soul of Emancipation seems to be why the angels are back (and is actually the image shown on the main story instead a story spotlight card), but all that has to be inferred from existing cards. I think one issue could be because the story requires a lot of political interactions between factions and also building on the intrigue of "what happened to the angels," but unlike Ravnica that whole concept never got enough room to fully develop. Also, unlike last set Neon Dynasty, the story couldn't just be carried by a character driven story arc. One particular example of the interactions between families not having room to grow (both from side stories I assume you'll cover later) are Raffine and Falco Spara both working for some prophecies. Falco specifically is hording vast amounts of Halo for some reason. Yet the main story closed with Elspeth using Xander's personal Halo stash for some reason. Really felt like those story arcs were totally left hanging. Also, one last thought, I personally was expecting the Urabrask story to "go somewhere," I'm not sure if other people got that vibe. There was the whole side story with Vivien, but the story ended without following up on that. I don't even think we know how much Vivien told Elspeth. I don't think it's that bad ending on a cliffhanger for that arc, but I just totally wasn't expecting is. But part of this might also be Jin-Gitaxis taking such an active role on Kamigawa. Urabrask is this set seems more akin to Vorinclex in Kaldheim; shows up, interacts, ignored for rest of story lol. Love your videos!

Ajani: So how do we get strong enough to beat the Phyrexians? Elspeth: Drugs.

was looking forward to riveteers as i used to do boxing when i was younger and jaxis seemed like a perfect card for that but like ... are they just not in the story?

I just hate that they established Ob being a monster capable of fighting the full gatewatch without even being at his strongest, but he gets "power of friendshipped" again.

1st, no, I don't think they connected the stories just right, but I feel that from a few sets ago already... 2nd, yes, this effort to rename color combinations doesn't seem to be working... 3rd, I love the set lol, I like counters mechanic and never get tired of treasures... But I find it boring that red praetor didn't get any love... finally, I got a question: don't you think Hostile Takeover's art pictures Bolas horns on the sides? Great vid as always! Have a nice week, guys!

I wish we would go back to the ways of having at least a couple sets on the same setting to better expand out the story. I would have loved to see Ziatora and the Riveteers in full swing along with all the other families

Ive seen most of these. When its time for... The big fight? It would be nice to have a 20min recap of the major events of each plane, that lead us the the final confrontation. So we can recall why we visited Eldraine, Ikoria, Kaldheim, etc.

Your videos are great! Just another funny question... why the only Dragon and the only Sphinx existing are the leaders of two families? Is it a case? Where are all the sphinx and dragons of the plane? Where all completed by firexian? Trapped in decorative statues pilling whater over fountains? Abandonend by their parets planeswalker, traveled away to buy sigarets and never returned?... Who know...

Can’t wait for this to get its own dnd book.

This is why stories should be done in 3 block sets.

For the angel bit, the flavor text on paragon of modernity says "No true angels have been created since the founding of New Capenna, but artisans have learned to craft elegant facsimiles." So I assumed that all the clan aligned angel cards were similar facsimile angels and not the true angels

It's not just a poor man's Ravnica. It's a poor man's Amonkhet (a single settlement built on an otherwise decimated plane where nobody remembers what happened previously), and a poor man's Innistrad (angels go missing, monsters take control, everyone fighting the monsters copes with what's left of the angelic influence, and then the angels come back later). Besides the plane's aesthetic, everything about it has been done better elsewhere in Magic's past.

I feel the same as with every set from Eldraine onwards: Just 1 set isn't enough. Just 1 set gives me the impression that a plane is just a photograph, a lame parody of their source material with little original worldbuilding backing it up. Then we have our little boy Innistrad that has 2 sets and uses them to tell a compelling story in 2 acts with characters developing through it (see Katilda and her two legendary cards). WotC, please, use 2 or 3 sets per plane. Give us insights and true and compelling wordbuilding for the plane. Use intrigue in Strixhaven, have us wondering for a set what will happen when the Blood Avatar awakens and if the Defense against Black Magic professor will betray the school. Here I just see a lot of info/name dump in an unamusing story in a plane that we won't visit in +5 years just for the sake of dropping a McGuffin.