New Capenna Preliminary Review Part V

 

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 

Grisly Sigil 2

Cool art. Interesting design too but likely not cutting it down to being sorcery speed. The lifegain is the thing that keeps the hopes of Sigil alive. Being able to gain 4 life on a capable one mana removal spell is a big deal for decks that are spending life as a resource consistently. The card is versatile too, it can just be a ping and a life, it can be a Forked Bolt or it can be a Lightning Helix if you pair it with another damage source. I like it but it is too narrow for cube. Removal is the thing than most wants to be clean and simple and reliable. That is not this. Even in a sac deck Bone Shards is the removal spell you are looking for. You typically need to pair this with something, be that another source of damage or a creature you sac and that just guts the convenience of it which in turn makes it fairly unappealing removal for the most part. 

Cut Your Losses 0

Overkill in cube, probably even in 60 card decks. Milling before using this just makes this worse so what are you doing as you get up to 6 mana with your mill deck? This just seems like a bad card. I can probably hit half your library in cube for 3 mana. This will just be a card people can dislike in EDH with an outside shot of being in a tedious standard deck too. 

Rob the Archives 6

Sadly this is a lot worse than Reckless Impulse. That extra turn in which you can play the cards is massive. It affords you substantially more mana making it more likely you get the full two cards return. It lets you sequence your cards more sensibly thanks to the bigger time window. It even increases the utility of instant and flash cards letting you use them in your opponents turn perhaps threatening a manland with removal or something. The casualty mode offered by Rob the Archives as compensation for this significant loss is pretty hard to use well. The odds on getting to use all the cards are low, it generally needs you to only hit the one land. You then need enough mana to play all three other cards and have them be useful things to do. All this on top of having something lying around you want to sac off. I like this but I doubt I would play it over Light up the Stage, let alone Reckless Impulse. It is fine, arguably good, but it isn't good enough given what is out there. 

Mage's Attendant 6

Very Blade Splicer looking but I fear worse. This is not only a lot less board presence than Splicer it is also a lot less impressive with flicker effects. I like the idea of the disruption and so I will give this a test but I am pretty sure it is going to do fairly little. It is just a bit fair to compete with the three drops in cube. The disruption this offers is hard to gain advantage with, it is on board and requires a mana to use while only taxing a mana. Yes, it does help punish decks relying on big spells but so does killing them quicker with better threats. Compare this to Thalia and it becomes more clear why this is probably not the disruption you are looking for.

Errant, Street Artist 1

Cool but super narrow and not even all that powerful. To be up on mana you need to Fork some Three drops. To be up on cards you need to Fork more than once. There is some blocking and disruption of Edict effects this can get up to nicely but I cannot think of any decks this would even be a consideration. 

Luxurious Libation 1

Only 1 token? No thanks. Combat tricks want to be cheap, this is not nor does it make up for that with raw power. 

Unlucky Witness 8

Love it. Two cards, either of which playable until your next turn ends makes it really really likely this is draw a card on death. More like Sleight of Hand on death. Any deck that wants cheap padding or sac fodder is going to be all over this. It isn't busted by any means but it is fine on-theme filler in most aggro decks and properly good in aristocrat ones. Any means you have to improve the value of the card, be that with equipment or perhaps just Torbran go a long way to improving this as well. The more threatening or you can make it the more rapidly you will reap the card quality delights in decks not intending to sacrifice him themselves. 

Evolving Door 1

It is like the two shit halves of Birthing Pod and Survival of the Fittest made inbred babies. Evolving Door is slow. Painfully slow. Four mana and a sacrificed dork for your first tutor. The cost comes down a bit per tutor after that but you have long since died so not to worry. Another fun but slow card consigned to the EDH only bucket. 

Witness Protection 8

Is this finally actually good? Seems like it is. For one mana you get to turn something into nothing. A 1/1 is not threatening really. Not without a lot more going on to improve said 1/1. If cards like Pongify, Beast Within, Journey to Nowhere, and On Thin Ice, can all get some love I have to imagine this is going to be good in more than just cube. This deals with those pesky protective abilities, it handles those juicy non-combat passive and activated abilities. It makes it very weak in combat and turns off any on death triggers that may have existed. All things considered I think blue now how a fairly high tier efficient removal spell. Early in the game I am usually going to want this over a Path to Exile for example. Lack of instant speed is a shame but given how little removal blue has I think we can forgive it! On Thin Ice, Boneshard, and Bloodchief's Thirst do not suffer being sorcery. They all get play despite competing with the best instant speed one mana removal spells in the game. Witness Protection is competing with Unsummon and little else. It will be quite a weird feeling if blue gets its own proper removal spell. Very promising for blue tempo decks but a little less important for control as that is rarely mono. Likely more exciting for Simic and Izzet builds than the Esper colours as they lack hard removal and struggle with larger or more resilient dorks. Despite this looking like it is good enough in all ways I can think to appraise it I do not quite trust it yet. I have been fooled by blue removal like this before and will approach it with some caution!

Raffine's Guidance 1

I like cards like this, it really helps to stop simple auras from being near unplayable. Sadly this is a little low on the power front offering nothing beyond a small stat boost. It isn't high tempo cast normally and so the recursion cost really isn't where you want to be in any sort of tempo game. 

Exotic Pets 4

A bit gold and in need of support but this has some impressive scaling and a reasonable baseline. 2/2 worth of flash unblockable is relevant and extra bodies tend to be a bonus. Get these fish a couple of good counters and your card is strong. Terrible flavour mind. This art is not threatening at all. This art shouldn't really even produce stats.