Cabaretti Cacophony Review: Kitt Kanto Brings the Noise!

“Magictating” is defined as getting into the zone with your Magic the Gathering collection--thinking, planning, organizing, reminiscing about past games, and imagining future games. It is a combination of hard thinking about the game and calm meditation, reveling in the joy it brings you.

Cabaretti Cacophony is a really nice deal of deck. It is really well put together, provides great reprints, and establishes itself with fun new cards. Sure, the flavor and the vibes surrounding this are all very Gruul meets Xenogos revelers while partying with some civilized peeps. I find it a bit fun, but I can't even look at any of these art deco cards without wondering why there aren't any Batman the Animated Series skinned versions of these cards. I mean, can't you just see the animated series version of Catwoman skinned over Kit Kanto Mayhem Diva? Speaking of the face Commander herself, let's dive into what makes this particular Preconstructed deck so excellent.

Let's start with something that every one of these comes with: the sample collector booster. That's a sweet little pot sweetener. Every single deck gets those two bonus cards and a sad little ad card as well. I was excited to pop these open for all five of the decks. It made opening the product a little more exciting than normal. I remember they used to include a pack in some of the older non-Commander preconstructed decks to help you get started in your customizations. Those were nice little bonuses back then as well (though they didn't have any collector boosters back then).

Now, it's not just new shiny things that make this deck so pretty. Have you noticed the stacked pile of reprints this comes with? Seriously, mono green offers four particularly sweet and potent cards in Champion of Lambholt, Sandwurm Convergence, Beastmaster Ascension, and Thunderfoot Baloth. Champion allows you to brutally push through unblockable damage. That's a card that has homes in many a deck, and I personally can't see a world where I own too many of that card. Sandwurm Convergence is a fun little anti-flying trick that provides green with a rare bubble effect. Sure, there's Fog effects, but this is an ever-green Fog that doesn't even require buy back like that perennial all-star Constant Mists. Returning to the combat aspect of green we have Beastmaster Ascension and Thunderfoot Baloth offering ways to make our go-wide team a go-tall and go-wide team. Those cards are so powerful. I can honestly say I've won games off of all four of these cards multiple times. They all synergize extremely well with the deck at large as well. Perfect pairings all around.

Well, if green is so good, then we should probably have expected the other colors to offer weak and useless reprints, because past decks usually offered only so much strength and so much synergy. That's almost true when we look at what white has to offer, but I'm pretty certain the awesome new cards in white make up for that. Also, having a Martial Coup, Fell the Mighty, and Path to Exile seems like solid choices to me. Heck, those are about as close to being “white staples” as you can get. Granted these aren't super exciting, but they're solid choices, and Martial Coup was clearly the best possible board wipe for a deck like this.

Red offers up one of my newer favorites in Agitator Ant. It's a Grey Ogre on the surface, but the option of letting people Goad their creatures for more power is incredibly tempting for most. Heck, I always take the option when I can. This card is also something that I've really enjoyed having in my attacking matters decks. It's nice to see another deck out there utilizing Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs to get the most out of people actually attacking you (rather than falling victim to the Goad process). When we look at Outpost Siege we see an OK way to try and generate some card advantage, but I guess you can live dangerously and start throwing devils or citizens at people in a truly reckless manner by choosing the Dragons option instead of the card advantage Khans. This was just alright for red prints.

The multi-color reprints allowed are OK, and probably just fall under the umbrella of excellent utility cards—with my favorites being Aura Mutation and Artifact Mutation. I love those old Invasion cards. It just feels fun to cast cards like those that not only blow up problematic cards, but put tokens into play under your control as well. It's a satisfying feeling to get extra value from each of your cards.

Well, I guess that's enough chatting about the reprints. Oh, wait, what about all the lands? I will quickly touch on these. I predicted, and yes I really did, that these decks would have excellent mana bases. They are three color decks, and after years of criticism about the mana bases not being good enough in multi-color decks, well I just had a feeling Wizards was going to finally nail it. I guess it never gets old saying, “I told you so.” The land reprints were excellent. They definitely make this a purchase that is thrifty in comparison to the older decks with about 40 lands that weren't worthwhile.

Now, the new cards require a lot of attention. Kit Kanto, Mayhem Diva is an awesome way to build a tokens matter deck. This card makes all those token generators in the deck so much more exciting and potent. Forcing combat between your opponents is also a fantastic way to keep the flow of the game going. Add in some ways to activate or introduce Monarch (Archon of Coronation), and now you'll see a game that cooks right along and avoids those wretched stalled board states that all those control Commander players pray for. You know who you are. For the purposes of discussion, and not being overly long-winded on any of these individual decks, I'm going to discuss the multi-colored newbies in each article, and I have a separate article that's going to touch on the mono-colored pieces as well. I figure that the mono-colored pieces are the most likely to get parted out to other decks, and that the three-color ones are probably most likely to live in either these decks as they are or enhanced versions of them.

Phabine, Boss's Confidant is a powerful tool in this deck. Heck, any deck that's running tokens that like to attack is going to love this thing! I guess outside of Atla Palani, Nest Tender that's about every single token generating thing out there. Yes, yes, I know Breeding Pit is there too, but who wouldn't also be running Thrull Champion in a deck like that? Phabine is a great tool in group hug style strategies, but it also gives you the ability to protect and pump your team EVERY SINGLE COMBAT STEP! Also, it creates tokens nearly every turn, and that feeds incredibly well into cards that care about you making tokens each turn. It also helps you to crank out more value from your Mayhem Diva. This is truly an all-star card, and I think I'll be picking up several extra copies so that I can jam this card in other decks that love to put the game in overdrive. Amazing card, but thankfully still costs a solid six mana, so it doesn't break open the game or push Commander to be way faster than it needs to be.

Bess, Soul Nourisher is ridiculous. I mean running this with cards like Sacred Mesa is gross. There are so many cards that crank out 1/1's and when you are going wide you don't often get to go tall outside of a big Overrun effect. Bess, Soul Nourisher allows you to brutalize people again and again. You're going to need ways to keep Bess safe from removal, and I honestly think that about a million different green white Commander decks are going to want to run Bess. I also feel like Bess is going to many green white mages' choice for an efficient and fun new go-wide Commander. Rhys the Redeemed is great, but Bess, Soul Nourisher may actually provide enough of a boost to justify running her over Rys. At least I can see many people opting to go that route. What a powerful and potent 1/1 for three mana…something I didn't anticipate getting to say anytime soon.

Cabaretti Confluence is a more flexible Titanic Ultimatum? Sure, in a round about a way, I guess. It really is just a six mana sorcery that is parading around as being a great flexible option, but I'm going to go on record that it'll probably be more disappointing to cast most times than exciting. Using it as a mini-Titanic Ultimatum will be upsetting. Casting it to remove multiple “problem enchantments or artifacts” will likely also be a lack-luster turn. Meanwhile, copying your tokens for a hasty turn is likely to also leave you feeling empty at the end phase. It's flexibility allows you to choose three modes, but when you split them they are all a bit lackluster together as well. I feel that this spell is utility at its most boring, and I doubt I'll be making room for it. When I'm casting sorcery speed stuff I want to make a big impact at the six mana mark.

I'll end with Prosperous Partnership. This card is gross. I'm sure you've heard by now that treasures are good, but what self-respecting fan of pirates didn't know that already? Prosperous Partnership is grossly good. It doesn't have to be citizens you tap to make those treasures, so you can get up to all sorts of shenanigans with this card. I believe that this is going to become a solid staple for any deck running creatures and playing red and white. That's a decent number of decks, so I'll be picking up several extra copies of this ASAP, before people realize it's a $5+ card.

Well, in closing, know that I've got lots more to say about all of these decks and all of these cards: new ones and the reprints. This, like I said before, is an all-star collection of Commander decks, and I'm so happy to be leafing through them and building out my buy-list of cards to have multiples! May your gang and the cards be ever in your favor!