How many cards are in New Capenna Commander (NCC)?

New Capenna Commander (NCC) contains 447 cards in total, spread across five preconstructed Commander decks released alongside Streets of New Capenna in April 2022.

What are the five New Capenna Commander decks?

The five decks are aligned to New Capenna's crime families: The Obscura (Esper — white/blue/black), The Maestros (Grixis — blue/black/red), The Riveteers (Jund — black/red/green), The Cabaretti (Naya — red/green/white), and The Brokers (Bant — green/white/blue).

Can you play NCC cards in Streets of New Capenna Draft or Sealed?

No. The New Capenna Commander precon decks are not part of the main Streets of New Capenna Draft or Sealed environment. They're designed for multiplayer Commander play, not Limited formats.

What new mechanics appear in the New Capenna Commander decks?

NCC shares mechanics with Streets of New Capenna, including blitz (an alternate play cost that grants haste and a draw trigger), connive (loot plus a +1/+1 counter), casualty (sacrifice a creature to copy a spell), shield counters (one-use protection from destruction), and alliance (triggers whenever another creature enters under your control).

Are the New Capenna Commander decks good for beginners?

Yes — they're explicitly designed as on-ramps to Commander. Each deck is complete and playable out of the box, with a clear mechanical theme tied to its crime family. They work well for new players while still containing new cards of interest to veterans looking to add individual cards to existing builds.

What is the setting of New Capenna Commander?

New Capenna is a tiered Art Deco city plane inspired by 1920s American cities — the lower Caldaia evokes Chicago, the Mezzio draws on Manhattan, and Park Heights channels Hollywood. Five crime families control the city, each commanding a different shard of the colour pie.

New Capenna Commander (NCC): Set Guide

Released alongside Streets of New Capenna in April 2022, the New Capenna Commander set (NCC) is a collection of five preconstructed Commander decks set against the backdrop of a glamorous, crime-family-ruled city dripping with Art Deco style and 1920s American atmosphere. If you've ever wanted to run a criminal syndicate from the comfort of your kitchen table, this is the set for you.

Like most Commander precon releases, NCC is designed as an on-ramp to the format - a way to hand a complete, playable deck to someone new to Commander while still giving experienced players a handful of genuinely interesting new cards to hunt down for their existing builds. The set contains 447 cards across all five decks combined.

What is New Capenna Commander?

NCC is the Commander precon product tied to Streets of New Capenna (SNC), the main set released in April 2022. Five decks were released simultaneously with SNC, each aligned to one of the five crime families that control the city of New Capenna - and crucially, each built around a different three-colour (shard) combination.

This is a notable structural choice. Streets of New Capenna is one of the rare sets built entirely around the five Shards of Alara colour combinations - Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, and Naya - rather than the more common two-colour guild or four-colour/wedge structures. Each Commander deck reflects that, leaning hard into the identity of its family and its shard.

The decks are primarily reprints with a selection of new cards added to give them flavour and power, and to give players reasons to crack them open even if they already own a pile of singles.

Themes and mechanics

Because NCC is directly tied to SNC, it shares the mechanical DNA of that set. The five crime families each have a distinct mechanical identity, and the Commander decks extend and amplify those themes.

The five family themes

Each deck maps to one of New Capenna's ruling families:

The Obscura (Esper - white/blue/black) - manipulation, card advantage, and conniving their way to victory
The Maestros (Grixis - blue/black/red) - sacrifice and reanimation with a theatrical, operatic flair
The Riveteers (Jund - black/red/green) - aggressive, trample-forward strategies with blitz mechanics
The Cabaretti (Naya - red/green/white) - token generation and wide creature strategies built around the party
The Brokers (Bant - green/white/blue) - counters, protection, and long-game inevitability

Key mechanics from Streets of New Capenna

Several mechanics introduced in SNC appear in or around NCC:

Blitz - an alternative cost that lets you play a creature for a different price, giving it haste and a draw trigger when it dies. Think of it as a "fast" mode for creatures: you spend them like a resource rather than investing in them long-term.
Connive - a loot-style effect (draw then discard) that puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature if you discarded a nonland card. It rewards playing creatures that want to grow over time.
Casualty - a cost mechanic that lets you sacrifice a creature to copy a spell. A sort of grim efficiency: spend a body, get double the effect.
Shield counters - a form of damage and destruction protection that sits on a permanent. The first time something would destroy or deal lethal damage to a permanent with a shield counter, the counter is removed instead. The Brokers lean into this heavily.
Alliance - a triggered ability that fires whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control. A natural fit for token-based or wide strategies.

Rules note: Shield counters are not the same as indestructible. They're a one-use protection layer - once that counter is gone, the permanent is vulnerable again. This distinction matters a lot when opponents have -X/-X effects or exile removal, which bypass shield counters entirely.

The setting: New Capenna

New Capenna is a city plane - a single vast Art Deco metropolis built across three vertical tiers, each evoking a different corner of 1920s urban America.

The Caldaia (the lowest, industrial underbelly) is inspired by Chicago
The Mezzio (the middle commercial district) draws on Manhattan
Park Heights (the glamorous upper city) channels Hollywood

The city was originally built by angels, but by the time the story begins, those angels are largely gone - and five powerful crime families have carved up the city between them. The whole place runs on Halo, a magical substance that functions as both a drug and a source of power. Control Halo, control New Capenna.

The name itself may derive from the Italian word capanna, meaning shelter - which feels fitting for a city that promises safety and luxury while concealing something much darker underneath.

Lore aside: New Capenna is one of Magic's more explicitly human-scale settings. There are no Eldrazi threats, no planar invasions (at the time of the set's story, at least), no world-ending catastrophe on the horizon. It's a noir city story about crime, power, and who really runs things. That intimacy is a big part of what makes the plane feel distinct.

Limited and Draft

NCC cards are not part of the main Streets of New Capenna Draft environment - these precon decks aren't opened in Draft or Sealed play in the conventional sense. If you're looking for Limited guidance, that's covered by the main SNC set. The Commander precons are designed to be played out of the box in a multiplayer Commander setting.

Notable cards and impact

The source material available doesn't detail specific notable individual cards from NCC, so I'd rather point you toward community resources like EDHREC or Scryfall's NCC card listing than speculate here. What I can say is that Commander precon releases from this era typically include:

A handful of new legendary creatures designed as alternative or supporting commanders
New spells tuned to the deck's specific strategy
A broad reprint package meant to fill out the 99 at a reasonable power level

If specific cards from NCC have shown up in your local meta or caught your eye, Scryfall's full NCC list is the cleanest place to browse the complete card pool.

Set legacy

New Capenna Commander sits comfortably in the lineage of Commander precons from the early 2020s - more focused and flavourful than older precon offerings, designed to feel like an extension of the main set's identity rather than a generic pile of value.

The five-shard structure gives NCC a pleasant symmetry. Every colour combination is represented, every family has a mechanical hook, and the decks tell a coherent story about the city they're set in. In my opinion, that flavour coherence is one of the things that makes this product feel more considered than some precon releases.

As an entry point to Commander, any of the five decks does exactly what it sets out to do: hand a new player something functional and flavorful on day one, with clear themes to build around as they grow into the format.