Streets of New Capenna came out on the back of the incredible popularity of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and there was a decent amount of hype. What would a set inspired by 1920's New York City look like? Well, it came out and many players were left disappointed. The flavor seemed to be a bit of a miss to some, Limited was viewed as rough, and the cards seemed fairly underwhelming. Despite this, there were a ton of awesome mythics and we're going to go through and rank them!
Let's dive right in!
- 20. Meeting of the Five
- 19. Even the Score
- 18. All-Seeing Arbiter
- 17. Body Launderer
- 16. Ziatora, the Incinerator
- 15. Angel of Suffering
- 14. Falco Spara, Pactweaver
- 13. Luxior, Giada's Gift
- 12. Urabrask, Heretic Praetor
- 11. Vivien on the Hunt
10. Lord Xander, the Collector
Lord Xander's abilities are so heavy-handed, many players wanted to see him banned out of a variety of formats - particularly Commander. Now that the dust has settled, players have figured out ways to deal with the mighty vampire and he's not quite as intimidating as he may have first appeared. Today he rests on the lower half of this set's mythics in terms of EDHREC rankings, but I still think the card is worth including at the mid-level point thanks to the hysteria he created early on.
9. Jetmir, Nexus of Revels
Jetmir is about as straightforward of a commander as it gets, but sometimes straightforward is good. Players love creature-heavy decks, particularly ones that make lots of tokens, which is something a Commander deck like Jetmir, Nexus of Revels asks you to build. If you buy into what this legend wants you to do to build around it, it provides you with one hell of a powerful army of creatures to take over and dominate any game you show up to.
8. Sanctuary Warden
Sanctuary Warden is a solid little card that doesn't seem too great when you first read it. It's a little too expensive for most formats and doesn't provide too much power for the cost. In reality, the shield counters make it a little harder to remove, and when used in tandem with planeswalkers, it's easy to make a small army of tokens with it as well. This led to the card seeing minor play in Standard, thanks mainly to White-based Control lists.
7. Elspeth Resplendent
This set's Elspeth filled a similar role to Sanctuary Warden, providing small amounts of backup in control and midrange decks of the time. Many of these so-called control lists still played creatures, so she was great at making your creatures bigger, finding new ones from in your deck, and if all else fails holding out for an ultimate a few turns later to close the game. She only showed up in very small numbers, though, resulting in here being simply okay compared to other Standard powerhouses of the set.
6. Bootleggers' Stash
Without a doubt, Bootleggers' Stash wins the award for most overhyped card in the set. The card presold for $30-40 and had Commander players salivating. When it finally released, players realized quickly that it was kind of just fine. The card still made waves in casual settings and remains one of the more popular options to come out of this set, but isn't anywhere near where players expected it to be on day one.
5. Halo Fountain
Alternate win conditions are always fun to try and make work, and that's even more true when they get to do other things as well. Halo Fountain doesn't just win you the game if you go deep enough on it, but it makes more and more creatures and helps generate additional card advantage along the way. This card has proven a fun build around for casual players everywhere, and even has had some competitive players try making it work.
4. Arcane Bombardment
Arcane Bombardment is the definition of a casual card, but it's one hell of a fun casual card. Every turn you can cast an instant or sorcery and then exile another from your graveyard. When you do, you create a new copy of every spell exiled with it. That gets out of hand super fast and leads to some truly degenerate - yet fun - gameplay in any game of Commander it shows up in.
3. Titan of Industry
All manner of decks found a way to make use of Titan of Industry. Were you a ramp deck? This provided a great option to ramp into. Do you play some sort of Transmogrify effect? Sometimes this is a perfect card to include in your list. Heck, even certain reanimator decks made good use of this. Titan of Industry offers a big enough of a body and just enough flexibility to have been an outstanding Standard staple and persists today into other formats like Commander.
2. Ob Nixilis, the Adversary
Ob Nixilis, the Adversary isn't the card that is going to be the best thing in any format its in. Heck, most decks that play it don't even run a full playset and opt instead for only about two or three copies at most. Where the card excels, though, is in the way it's proved useful in a wide variety of formats. Naturally, it saw some Standard play, but it's also seen play in various Pioneer decks and even in Modern thanks to the interesting interaction between the casualty tokens and Ocelot Pride. That's made it a highly versatile option and one of the best mythics of the set.
1. Raffine, Scheming Seer
I'd argue that Ob Nixils has Raffine beat in greater format versatility, but what Ob doesn't beat Raffine in is sheer format dominance. Raffine, Scheming Seer was the backbone of the Esper Midrange and Esper Legends archetypes and quickly became the signature card of the best deck in Standard for quite some time. Raffine decks reigned supreme until roughly the last few months it was in the format when decks finally began to shift heavily and adjust to the powerful Midrange deck. An easy first place choice.
Paige Smith
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