Magic: The Gathering’s next set takes players to New Capenna, a city controlled by five very different but very deadly crime families led by demons. Each one has a particular flavor, which you can learn about in our preview of the set from last week. For our exclusive preview card provided by Wizards of the Coast, this Cabaretti reveler is handing out poisonous snakes to everyone at the party. Everyone has one of those friends; you know the one.
Art by Marta Nael
Venom Connoisseur is a 2/2 Human Druid for 1G at Uncommon that uses the ability word “Alliance.” The rules text on the card reads, “Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, Venom Connoisseur gains deathtouch until end of turn. If this is the second time this ability has resolved this turn, all creatures you control gain deathtouch until end of turn.” In the card’s wonderful illustration, artist Marta Nael brings this snake charmer to life.
In limited decks, if you’re going with the full Cabaretti plan of going wide, triggering Venom Connoisseur’s ability twice to make the whole team gain deathtouch won’t be difficult to achieve and will make for some spicy swings at your opponent. If there are easy ways to drop creatures on the battlefield on your opponent’s turn, you can make for some surprising, devastating blocks as well. As the saying goes: “It only takes two for everyone to tango with deathtouch” or something like that…
Zooming out to 60-card constructed formats, my mind immediately goes to my pet card from Kaldheim, Fynn, the Fangbearer. His ability lets your deathtouch creatures give the opponent two poison counters if their damage gets through to them, and if someone has 10 or more poison counters, they lose the game. The problem with building a deck around Fynn is that you need an abundance of deathtouching creatures in the deck to pull off the ever-satisfying Infect win. With Venom Connoisseur, the barrier to entry to the deck just lowered considerably and opens up the deck to more colors to play and utility. Utilizing cards that consistently and repeatedly create creatures like Scute Swarm, Join the Dance, Clarion Spirit, or the variety of cards that churn out Decayed Zombie tokens from Midnight Hunt will keep your side of the battlefield full and, more importantly, threatening lethal Infect damage at all times from your fleet of deathtouchers if Fynn is on the board.
That’s just scratching the surface of what Venom Coinnesseur can do, and we’ll be able to see it in action in just a few short weeks. Streets of New Capenna Prerelease starts on April 22, with the full set releasing on April 29. It will be available digitally on Magic: The Gathering Arena and Magic Online on April 28. Thanks to Wizards of the Coast for including Game Informer in preview season once again.
Which cards do you think will work well with this impressive new card from Streets of New Capenna? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Game Informer
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