Streets of New Capenna

The expansion set is set in a plane called New Capenna[2] controlled by five demonic organized crime families akin to the Five Families, with themes from Prohibition[3] and the Roaring Twenties.[1] The five demonic families each belong to a shard within the plane, a concept established in Shards of Alara in which cards in each shard have a principal color and two allied colors, as well as their own keyword mechanics or themes.[1] It enables this by "fixing" mana production with card cycles and Treasure tokens.[1] It includes a set of triomes, land cards that can be tapped to generate one of three colors of mana.[2]

The five families are:[2][4]

• the Brokers (green, white, and blue), a corrupt legal company with belief in the impending end of New Capenna acting as a protection racket[5]
• the Cabaretti (red, green, and white), a group of druids and monsters who party and attempt to sway public opinion
• the Maestros (blue, black, and red), an aristocratic group of elite assassins and thieves
• the Obscura (white, blue, and black), mystics who deceive and engage in blackmail
• the Riveteers (black, red, and green), a rowdy group of artisans and workers

The Brokers were initially intended as a law enforcement group, but transformed into the corrupted legal entity during development of the set.[4]

The set includes a number of keywords, including Hideaway, first used in Lorwyn, that enables a player to look at a number of cards at the top of their library.[5]

Printed cards have different artistic styles. The land triomes are printed with the typical card frame, a full-art frame, and the "skyscraper" style introduced for this set.[2] The "golden age" frame is applied to 45 tri-color cards in the set, and the foils have a distinct gilded, metallic sheen.[5]

Writing for Paste, Cameron Kunzelman states that the set is "weirdly experimental on the creative side".[1] In TheGamer, Joe Parlock states that the Art Deco setting is "vastly different from the high fantasy" typical of Magic.[4]

Stan Golovchuk states in a Polygon article that the set has aesthetics inspired by the 1927 film Metropolis.[2]