There’s a lot of new, interesting cards in Streets of New Capenna, and some might just be strong enough to break into Historic. These are my top picks for New Capenna Historic cards that I believe will make the most impact in the format. 

5. Unlicensed Hearse

Historic is a format with many graveyard decks like Rakdos Arcanist or Grixis Phoenix, so cards like Rest in Peace already see some main deck play. Unlicensed Hearse doesn’t deal with a graveyard as well as Rest in Peace if you draw it very late in the game, but when cast early, it does the same job and slowly turns into a monstrous threat. Crew 2 shouldn’t be a big deal, even for control decks that often play a few creature lands and token makers like Shark Typhoon or The Wandering Emperor.

4. Giada, Font of Hope

If you are a fan of the Angel deck that was once a very strong player in the format, Giada should be a nice upgrade for it. Having all your future Angels enter the battlefield with additional counters works pretty well in a Collected Company deck capable of adding them to your board at instant speed. 

3. Ob Nixilis, the Adversary

Three mana planeswalkers should always be respected and Ob Nixilis looks like it has very strong potential. It’s easy to power it out on turn two with Llanowar Elves or use fodder like Cauldron Familiar, Scrapheap Scrounger or Skyclave Shade as a casualty. I think Ob Nixilis will be a lot stronger in Standard, which is naturally slower, while in Historic you have decks like Grixis Phoenix that might even thank you for using his ability on them, but it should still be a very powerful card capable of destroying control decks alone. 

2. Extraction Specialist

I’m not quite sure yet which decks will Extraction Specialist fit best into, but I can see a deck like the Heliod Company Combo happily picking it up. Returning your combo pieces from the graveyard for free seems like a great deal, especially considering that you don’t really need your Soul Warden, Prosperous Innkeeper or even Trelasarra to really be able to attack or block. Mana value three means that you will be able to pick it up with Collected Company or Inquisitor Captain as well. I can also see a deck like Mardu Midrange returning cards like Kroxa or Dreadhorde Arcanist with Extraction Specalist’s ability. 

1. Triomes

This one should be a safe bet. We have already seen a lot of successful Bant Ramp lists in the format which will now happily utilize Spara’s Headquarters, and Raffine’s Tower should make it easier to fix the mana in Esper Control. Personally, I’m most looking forward to using Xander’s Lounge in a Grixis Bolas deck that always struggled with the mana base a little bit, trying to cast 1UBR and UBBBR spells on curve. Another natural home for all these Triomes is Five-Color Niv.