Conspiracy: Take the Crown (CN2) — Set Guide

There's a particular kind of Magic that only happens when the game stops being one-on-one and turns into a room full of shifting alliances, whispered deals, and cards that literally change the rules of the draft itself. That's the space Conspiracy: Take the Crown was built for.

Released in August 2016, CN2 is the second set in the Conspiracy series - a line of booster-based sets designed specifically for Conspiracy Draft, a multiplayer format where the drafting process itself is part of the game. It was one of three supplemental sets Wizards released in the summer of 2016, and it builds directly on the foundation laid by the original Conspiracy (2014).

What is Conspiracy: Take the Crown?

Conspiracy: Take the Crown is a 210-card booster set built from the ground up for multiplayer drafting. It isn't a Standard-legal set, and it isn't intended for typical two-player Limited. Instead, it's designed for a pod of players who draft, then play a free-for-all multiplayer game - and where some cards affect the draft before the game even begins.

Format check: CN2 cards are not legal in Standard or Pioneer. Some individual cards appear in other formats by virtue of being reprints or being explicitly added to those formats' legality lists - but the set itself is a supplemental product, not a Standard release.

The set carries the Conspiracy card type, a unique type introduced in the original 2014 set. Conspiracy cards are placed face-down in the command zone at the start of the game (or during the draft), and many of them have effects that trigger during drafting - before a single land has been played.

Themes and mechanics

The Conspiracy card type

The defining mechanic of the set is the Conspiracy card type itself. These cards don't go in your deck in any traditional sense - they sit in your command zone, and their effects shape your game or your draft in unusual ways. Some reward you for drafting certain cards. Some grant your creatures persistent abilities. Some do something the moment you reveal them.

This is Magic doing something genuinely strange: a card that affects the game by influencing what you drafted. It's a layer of design that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Will of the council and melee

Conspiracy: Take the Crown leans hard into the multiplayer experience with mechanics built for tables of three or more players.

Will of the council asks each player at the table to vote on an outcome, then something happens based on which option got more votes. It's a social mechanic as much as a rules mechanic - you can lobby, bargain, and mislead your way to the vote you want.

Melee rewards attacking multiple opponents. A creature with melee gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each opponent you attacked this combat. In a four-player game, swinging at everyone suddenly becomes a real incentive.

Monarch

One of CN2's most significant contributions to Magic is the monarch mechanic, introduced in this set. One player is designated the monarch - they draw an extra card at the end of their turn. If a creature deals combat damage to the monarch, that player becomes the new monarch instead.

This creates a constant, organic tension at the table. Holding the crown makes you a target. Giving it up costs you card advantage. It's an elegant push-and-pull that rewards aggression and punishes passivity, and it does all of that without a single triggered ability stack to manage.

Lore aside: The "crown" in the set's title is literal - there's a throne in contention, and the monarch mechanic plays that out mechanically in every game.

Dethrone

Dethrone is a returning mechanic from the original Conspiracy set. Creatures with dethrone get a +1/+1 counter whenever they attack the player with the most life. In a multiplayer game, that player is usually the de facto leader - the archenemy, the one everyone's quietly afraid of. Dethrone gives you a mechanical reason to go after them.

Limited and Draft

Conspiracy Draft works differently from a normal booster draft. Players open packs and draft as usual, but some cards - primarily Conspiracy cards - are revealed immediately when drafted and placed into the command zone rather than the pack. Their effects can change what information is public, what rules apply to the draft, and how the eventual game plays out.

The games themselves are free-for-all multiplayer, which means the usual Limited calculus shifts considerably. Removal that hits one player is less impactful than politics and cards that affect everyone. Card advantage matters enormously because games go long. And the monarch mechanic provides a recurring engine that rewards any deck capable of swinging into the crown and holding it.

I think the most interesting thing about CN2 Limited is that your draft decisions are genuinely public in ways that normal drafts aren't - some Conspiracy cards reveal themselves when taken, which means the table knows what you're building toward. That social layer makes it unlike any other Limited format in the game.

Lore and setting

Conspiracy: Take the Crown is set on Fiora, the plane introduced in the original Conspiracy set - a world defined by political intrigue, noble backstabbing, and a city called Paliano where power is seized rather than inherited. The set's story revolves around a power struggle for the throne of Paliano, with multiple factions vying for control.

Fiora is one of Magic's more grounded planes - no Eldrazi, no Phyrexian oil, just mortal scheming in corridors of power. The mechanical identity of the set mirrors that worldbuilding directly: every mechanic is about gaining advantage over the other players at the table, and the monarch mechanic literalises the central conflict of the story.

Set legacy

Conspiracy: Take the Crown's most lasting contribution to Magic isn't the Conspiracy card type - it's the monarch mechanic. Since CN2's release in 2016, monarch has appeared in numerous other sets and is now a staple of Commander design. The mechanic is simple to explain, immediately creates political tension, and scales naturally with player count. It's one of those designs that feels obvious in retrospect.

The set also demonstrates something important about what Magic can be: a product designed entirely around a specific social experience, where the game begins during the draft and the cards themselves are aware of their multiplayer context. For players who haven't tried Conspiracy Draft, CN2 remains one of the most distinctive Limited experiences Wizards has ever produced.