Among all the weird new confirmation there's also this:

"Trailing after our trip to Kamigawa like a detective with gumption, the following Standard release takes us to the Streets of New Capenna—a city with special significance to Elspeth, built by angels now run by three-color demon crime families.

We'll race through the Streets of New Capenna in the second quarter of 2022."

Maybe I'm a basic bitch but I'm intrigued.

There is something weirdly amusing about a demon in a pinstripe zoot suit. Not seeing as much potential as Neon Dynasty, though.

Betting wedges because then every 3-color would have either Red (in & ), Black (in & ) or both (in ). They could surprise us, though.

On the one hand, what we're taking about I'm willing to give a shot.
On the other hand, mentioning Elspeth is as sure fire a way for me to find my interest deader than she should have stayed.

I groan at another new plane introduced and getting one expansion. I just feel that a new plane introduced in just one expansion makes it feel hollow and cramped. This is Kaldheim and Strixhaven for me all over again.

ps. Only hope I have for this is for angels to not be like some sort of "thing of the past"... that some of them are still there in some capacity.

I'm a fan of Ob and I'm a fan of Elspeth so I looking forward to it and I'm always down for more non-traditional fantasy settings. I like the pun of this set being LA. This set is also support to be have a large range of non-humans so I'm always down to see planes with a large race* diversity.

I think we can maybe rule out it being Elspeth birth place unless the phyrexians have somehow been wiped out.

To be fair it could also be the "bad" shards (, and ). Or maybe even the three combinations (, and )

It seems likely they would do arcs because they recently revisited the wedges. A crime family could easily be a traditional mafia-style organization that is more about protecting family and community interests with an appeal to traditions. Think any ethnic organized crime in the US, like Chinese tongs or Sicilian mafia, which began as a way for immigrants to protect themselves and create economic opportunity for new immigrants.

I am interested in seeing how the crime families distinguish themselves from the thief/heist/spy themes of Dimir, mafia themes of Orzhov, and drug/excess themes of Rakdos.

A possible connection to Elspeth is that this was Capenna, a city of angels...that was invaded and destroyed by Phyrexians. And when Phyrexia collapsed, demons cleared them out and took over, rebuilding the city as New Capenna.

Has the bits hinting to Elspeth's past clearly shown that she experienced Phyrexia? The way I remember it, the forces are sinister indeed (deffo black aligned)....

Because we know Phyrexia, they do not die off easy unless you frickin' peel the whole place up down to layers. And they said "built by angels" so therefore, the place remained not super changed but is just now more Demon led.

Elspeth was a therapy animal for insane Phyrexians in an asylum. She was essentially a pet they kept around to keep the inmates in line.

And it was unquestionably Phyrexian.

Is that a thing? Where is that. The only bit of Elspeth's Phyrexian experience I know is from the Path Of The Planeswalker comics.

Flavorfully you'd expect wedges, but to keep it mechanically fresh you'd expect arcs. Hmm,,,
I'm hoping that the crime family's twist is that they're actually the angels that sold out the city to the demons. Do a real lucifer vibe.

I believe that was covered in Quest for Karn

I didn't think this was not a well-established fact that Elspeth dealt with Phyrexians. That's why Elspeth's Nightmare depicts a Phyrexian Obliterator. That's what inspired Ashiok to go looking for the Phyrexians. I thought Elspeth talked about it with Koth when he found her fighting in those arenas or whatever.

To be fair Ashiok's nightmares could be about New Phyrexia (since it's unlikely she met an obliterator or negator as a prisoner) but its a moot point. Both the webcomics, QFK, Godsend and the godawful Beyond Death "flavor" make it clear Elspeth was born on a compleated world and has a personal beef with the things.

Assuming Capenna is this world, they were extremely lucky, probably thanks to the "insane" phyrexians.

Maybe I'm a Negative Nancy, but I'm annoyed.

I mean, seriously, wtf is this? That's just another new setting that's going where Magic wasn't supposed to go. This looks more at home on Eberron than in Dominia. Demons as mobsters in pinstripe suits? Is this another Un-set? They've reached the bottom of the barrel, and the scraping noises are getting louder and louder.

Apart from that, this announcement made me realise how incredibly tired I am of faction sets. I really don't know how this is supposed to connect to Elspeth either, I wish they'd just stop shoehorning stuff into her past. Theros was a stretch I was willing to accept at the time, but it's getting really annoying. They'd better not make this her homeplane when the one defining feature of said plane was that it had fallen to Phyrexia. 'Cause what would be the point of visiting that plane and doing away with the one thing we knew about it and that was a crucial part of Elspeth's character?

Maybe it gives her inspiration on how to kill New Phyrexia?

Yeah! She'll get them on tax evasion!

Thread necromancy yahoo.

We were supposed to get something today. Did we? The official WOTC site is evil, it can never get the articles to show up on time.

It will be on the weeklymtg stream first, in general anything they announce on a Thursday will be there.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2022-03-03

Well, here it is.

Defnitely fits well with Neon Dynasty with the futiristic art deco architecture, though it's clearly more film noire.

Also dapper cat.