The Streets of New Capenna are lined with crafty rogues ready to swipe your goods and use them for their own nefarious games. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Riveteer Rampage Commander deck. We're diving into this murky world to find out exactly how you'll be swindling your opponents in one of the best card games on the market when the full Magic The Gathering Streets of New Capenna set lands on April 29.
The Riveteer Rampage deck relies on the blitz mechanic as its primary driver, allowing players to form powerful combos when creatures enter and leave the battlefield. Blitz is a new mechanic for the set, featured in the Riveteers family play style. It allows players to pay a slightly higher cost for their cards in order to bring them out with haste while also sacrificing them (and drawing a card when they hit the graveyard) at the start of your end step. It's an aggro strategy that allows quick, heavy combat scenarios but also manages to keep your hand topped up at the same time.
Running out of steam is the aggro-killer, which is why the second main strategy of Riveteer Rampage will be to keep your battlefield and hand topped up with not only your own gear but your opponents' as well. We're running through the full Magic The Gathering Streets of New Capenna Riveteer Rampage commander deck strategy, and all the new and returning cards in the box, just below.
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Magic the Gathering: Streets of New Capenna Riveteer's Rampage guide
Henzie "Toolbox Torre"
Our frontman is Henzie "The Toolbox" Torre, a Devil Rogue which gives all your big bad creatures blitz and makes the effect cheaper to boot. Combined with some powerful entry and exit effects, you're going to be using Henzie to facilitate early game effects that can easily sway the balance in your favor or string late-game combos together without running dry of mana.
The blitz assault
Wave of Rats is the only new card to really sink its teeth into that blitz mechanic, and while you've already got blitz built into this card (no need for Henzie's additional ability there), being able to bring this onslaught back time and time again is going to prove useful when you're running a sacrifice-heavy deck like Riveteer Rampage. If Henzie is in play, though, you're getting a slightly cheaper blitz cost even if you're on your first commander run.
It's the reprints that will really bring this blitz strategy to life, though. Inferno Titan can throw six damage wherever it likes just by entering the battlefield and attacking in the same turn, Giant Adephage can quickly get out of hand when combined with that reduced cost effect (as can Mitotic Slime), and Greenwarden of Murasa will help you keep your best creatures in rotation by bouncing cards from your graveyard to your hand with its death.
However, you're also getting creatures that will keep your hand topped up like Treeshaker Chimera and Solemn Simulacrum, and make sure that life counter is looking healthy as well (Thragtusk can land you 5 life when it enters and replaces itself with a 3/3 Beast creature token on death).
Meanwhile, you can also keep Kresh the Bloodbraided on the sidelines, juicing up with +1/+1 counters every time a creature hits the graveyard. Waterstorm Surge will quickly become a game-ending threat if the situation allows, having creatures dealing damage equal to their power to any target when they enter the battlefield. Woodfall Primus has a nice workaround to staying in the fight as well, heading straight back to the battlefield after death if without counters.
Pilfering resources
Shuffling cards in and out of your graveyard is all well and good, but how does Riveteer Rampage ensure you're not milling yourself out? By nicking all your opponents' goods, of course! Send your own footsoldiers to their deaths by pilfering the best of your opponents' libraries and digging deeper into your own as well.
Mezzio Mugger and Protection Racket are the two new cards that are going to give you this ability with the most efficiency. The former allows you to play cards from the top of your opponents' libraries when it attacks and the latter forces players to choose whether to take a life hit or simply hand over a card.
You're also making your own card pool work harder for you as well. Industrial Advancement may trade-off one creature for another, but at least you're getting a sacrifice effect in the majority of cards played here. However, Next of Kin and Enchantment can keep the goods coming over and over if you're looking short on bodies on the ground. Turf War will also come in handy if you need to tip mana advantage away from a player while bolstering your own reserves as well.
On top of these, Riveteers Confluence will also give you the means to dive for cards, but it's a little less efficient than these combo methods.
Reprints are also true to this form, with Etali Primal Storm offering up a similar effect to Mezzio Mugger without even needing to pay mana costs for the treasure you uncover and Victimize allowing you to graveyard hunt, trading two for one.
Beamtown Bullies on the defence
The Beamtown Bullies is the second Mythic card included in the Streets of New Capenna Riveteer Rampage commander deck, and it very much signals the deck's main source of defence. You won't have much removal at your disposal here, instead of relying on other players' moves to take out the biggest threats on the board. It's a hands-off approach to keeping control, but one that rings true with the other defensive plays in this strategy.
You'll also be keeping threats to a minimum (and circumnavigating invincible creatures) using Bellowing Mauler to have your opponents do your dirty work for you. Plus, Weathered Sentinels will keep you attack-free during the mid-game by working to actively discourage other players from nearing your borders.
Buffing the big guns
Of course, you won't be getting anywhere without some muscle on the ground. While buffing your big creatures isn't a major strategy in the Streets of New Capenna Riveteer Rampage commander deck, three new cards do signal a method of keeping your frontline strong in the late game.
Once she's got the song stuck in your head, Jolene can add to those blitz-critical mana reserves. She's not greedy, though, she shares the love. Each player creates a Treasure token whenever they attack an opponent - the clincher here, though, is that you create two. Sack off five of them and you can turn this little 2/2 that could into a mighty 7/7 with five +1/+1 counters.
First Responder is a little more in line with the deck's overall ethos, allowing you to return a creature to your hand (nifty if you've been pilfered yourself) to buff up this Ogre. Meanwhile, Grime Gorger has some nice evasion with that 3/3 menace and allows you to trim down some graveyards and add additional counters as well. Dodgy Jalopy can pull its weight on the battlefield but will provide the best value to you when in the graveyard, with a nice scavenge ability.
Full Streets of New Capenna Riveteer Rampage decklist
Commander
- Display Commander: Henzio "Toolbox" Torre
- Commander standard: Henzio "Toolbox" Torre
New cards
- The Beamtown Bullies
- Bellowing Mauler
- Protection Racket
- Wave of Rats
- Industrial Advancement
- Mezzio Mugger
- Rain of Riches
- Turf War
- Caldaia Guardian
- Dodgy Jalopy
- First Responder
- Next of Kin
- Grime Gorger
- Jolene, the Plunder Queen
- Riveteers Confluence
- Weathered Sentinels
- Glittering Stockpile (main set)
- Riveteers Charm (main set)
- Riveteers Outlook (main set)
Reprints
- Aether Snap
- Deathbringer Regent
- Disciple of Bolas
- Noxious Gearhulk
- Painful Truths
- Blasphemous Act
- Chaos Warp
- Etali, Primal Storm
- Inferno Titan
- Stalking Vengeance
- Warstorm Surge
- Avenger of Zendikar
- Evolutionary Leap
- Giant Adephage
- Greenwarden of Murasa
- Life's Legacy
- Mitotic Slime
- Thragtusk
- Treeshaker Chimera
- Woodfall Primus
- World Shaper
- Kresh the Bloodbraided
- Windgrace's Judgment
- Lifecrafter's Bestiary
- Solemn Simulacrum
- Artisan of Kozilek
- Victimize
- Explore
- Farseek
- Garruk's Uprising
- Indrik Stomphowler
- Kodama's Reach
- Migration Path
- Overgrown Battlement
- Rampant Growth
- Temur Sabertooth
- Deathreap Ritual
- Terminate
- Arcane Signet
- Commander's Sphere
- Fellwar Stone
- Sol Ring
Lands
- Cinder Glade
- Exotic Orchard
- Foreboding Ruins
- Game Trail
- Kessig Wolf Run
- Mossfire Valley
- Mosswort Bridge
- Shadowblood Ridge
- Smoldering Marsh
- Spinerock Knoll
- Temple of Malady
- Twilight Mire
- Ash Barrens
- Blighted Woodland
- Command Tower
- Jund Panorama
- Myriad Landscape
- Path of Ancestry
- Savage Lands
- Temple of the False God
- Thriving Bluff
- Thriving Grove
- Thriving Moor
- 4x Swamp
- 5x Mountain
- 6x Forest
Magic the Gathering: Streets of New Capenna will launch on April 29, 2022 and you can pre-order a booster box and the full Commander collection at Amazon.
In the meantime, we're rounding up all the best board games and the best tabletop RPGs on offer. You'll also find plenty of Dungeons and Dragons books to bide your time until release day as well.
