Hello again readers, today’s blog post is about the two-card previews from the upcoming Magic: the Gathering set Streets of New Capenna Card and these are the Brokers Charm & Riveteers Charm. We will check its application on the current Standard metagame if it will become a relevant component in the future. This will also be compared with the percentage of usage of the charms back in Shards of Alara Standard. 

Brokers Charm

Brokers Charm or the previously known Bant Charm in Shards of Alara and it is nice to see some new card effects in comparison to the nature of the family it is color-aligned to. Brokers Charm in my rating has two-out-of-three good effects. The “Destroy Enchantment” effect is efficient today in the Standard metagame of Enchantment Creatures and Auras while Draw Two Cards makes it still relevant in the late game for drawing more gas from the deck. The semi-pump and damage of your creature’s power are somewhat leaning to your deck build to have a huge late-game creature threat. Sure you can try to curve out well with the three colors but the early turns are usually composed of casting mana dudes and land ramps in this scenario. 

We can expect the likes of Rhox War Monk creatures that can be cast as early as turn three, and then use the charm to kill off the opponent’s creature. Just as what we have practiced on the deck building of the Bant decks in Shards of Alara Standard, we have the usual turn-one mana creatures into more mana ramp or the War Monk. In the Broker’s version, it might be the same as I am not hoping for a new version of a one-mana Green mana producer and maybe just a two-drop with more options rather than producing mana. We shall see in the coming weeks. 

Riveteers Charm

Jund or the Riveteers has this newest version of their Charm spell in the three modal effects of the card. In comparison to the old school Jund Charm, the importance of these effects is applied by the level of need. The old version is more of a mass removal by its usage at that time, killing off random X/1s and X/2s whereas the current is a spot removal where an opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker with the highest converted mana cost.

The second ability is sort of a delayed draw 3 cards and more of a late-game gas as you would need more mana to cast the exiled cards. That is also depending on the deck builds, if it is leaning toward a lower mana curve than that of a midrange deck with big threats in the late game. The exile graveyard effect is a utility effect and is rarely used unless the metagame will lean more on the graveside strategy. 

Its quantity of inclusion in a Riveteers deck is probably between two-three, based on the discussion of the card effects mentioned above. A max of three if the deck’s average mana cost is around two to three if assuming the use of the card draw effect in the late game will be optimized. 

Overall, the impact of the Charms in the three-color deck built in Capenna Standard will be relevant as to how it was utilized in the Shards of Alara Standard days. Comparing the two, I’d go with the Riveteers Charm as a personal bias because Jund colors are my favorite. That is a wrap for now, until the next blog post on Capenna card previews.