Last updated on May 24, 2025
Queen Marchesa | Illustration by Peter Diamond
As a wise man once said: “You come at the Queen, you best not miss.”
Or, as they say in Paliano: “Stab my back, and I'll stab yours.” Which, if we're being honest, isn’t too accurate: Those that play the game of thrones in the High City are happy to sneak a blade in your neck without prior provocation.
In fact, not even ghosts are safe from this fate!
Readers beware! We're about the planeswalk to a Magic set where conspiracies abound, there's a foe behind every smile, and taking the crown and becoming the monarch may be the last mistake you make.
Conspiracy: Take the Crown Basic Information
Natural Unity | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast
Conspiracy: Take the Crown (CN2) released in August 2016, and it’s the follow-up to the original Conspiracy. To date, they’re the only two Magic sets to be designed for “Conspiracy draft,” a casual Limited format designed for multiplayer Drafts.
As a casual format, players can decide exactly how they wish to play a Conspiracy draft, but WotC's recommendation is to do an eight-player draft that then breaks into two separate 4-player games.
Like its predecessor, CN2 includes 12 cards with the conspiracy card type, like Sovereign's Realm or Hymn of the Wilds, which are only legal in Conspiracy drafts. It also has several cards like Custodi Peacekeeper or Illusionary Informant that have effects during a draft.
Except for conspiracies, Conspiracy: Take the Crown is legal in Vintage, Legacy, Commander, and Pauper. The set isn’t legal in Modern, Pioneer, or Standard.
Set Details
| Set Symbol |  |
| Set Code | CN2 |
| Hashtag | #MTGCN2 |
| Number of Cards | 221 |
| Rarities | 90 common, 67 uncommon, 50 rare, and 14 mythic rare. |
| Mechanics | Conspiracy cards, draft abilities, the monarch, goad, melee. |
Important Dates
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Set Release | August 2016 |
| Available on Draftsim's Draft Simulator | No |
About the Set: The Story
The Conspiracy sets take place in the High City of Paliano on the Fiora plane, where backstabbing and intrigue abound. The storyline of Conspiracy: Take the Crown starts after the assassination of King Brago – which was a most mystifying murder, considering that the King was already dead and ruling as a spirit.
The murderer was none other than renowned Kaya, Ghost Assassin, hired for the task by Marchesa d'Amati, aka Marchesa, the Black Rose, aka Queen Marchesa, current ruler of Paliano.
WotC pulled a couple of fun tricks when promoting the set in February 2016, weaving the story into the set's marketing.
For starters, CN2 was initially announced as “Conspiracy: The Reign of Brago.”
But it was renamed the next day to “The Empty Throne,” given that the King didn't live that long….
And it was finally (and 100% seriously!) announced as Conspiracy: Take the Crown, with Queen Marchesa as one of the set's faces.
During its release in August 2016, WotC published six short stories covering the events around Marchesa's ascension to Paliano's throne:
- Laid to Rest
- Tyrants
- Proclamation by Queen Marchesa
- Proclamation by Adriana, Captain of the Guard
- Bloody Instructions
- Leovold's Dossier
Conspiracy: Take the Crown Mechanics
Conspiracy: Take the Crown is a set designed with a multiplayer draft in mind. Although some of its cards have become staples in Constructed formats – Queen Marchesa is one of the most popular commanders nowadays – CN2 is, at the core, a set aimed at multiplayer matches, so it has several tricks up its sleeve.
Draft Abilities
Like in the original Conspiracy, many of CN2's cards have abilities that affect the draft portion of the game, or may have different effects depending on what you pick in your draft, and when.
Illusionary Informant, for example, is drafted face up and gives you some advantage for turning it face down while drafting – in this case, you get to take a peek of what somebody else has drafted.
Other cards, like Custodi Peacekeeper, have an in-game ability that depends on how many cards you've drafted thus far.
Here's the full list of cards with Draft abilities:
- Custodi Peacekeeper
- Illusionary Informant
- Regicide
- Garbage Fire
- Leovold's Operative
- Noble Banneret
- Spire Phantasm
- Smuggler Captain
- Pyretic Hunter
- Animus of Predation
- Paliano Vanguard
- Arcane Savant
- Archdemon of Paliano
- Volatile Chimera
- Caller of the Untamed
Conspiracy Card Type
As you may imagine by the card type‘s name, conspiracies debuted in Conspiracy and made a return in Conspiracy: Take the Crown.
Conspiracies are one of the most niche card types in all of Magic. A bit like plane cards in the Planechase format and scheme cards in Archenemy, conspiracies only work (and are only legal in) the specific format they were designed for. They’re so niche that, in hindsight, Magic's Head Designer Mark Rosewater would have preferred conspiracies to have been silver-bordered cards.
Conspiracies start the game directly in the command zone (you don't have to cast them in any way; they’re already there before the game begins), and broadly speaking, work similarly to the emblems you get when you ultimate a planeswalker like Elspeth, Sun's Champion or Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Conspiracies don't count as a card in your deck when considering deck sizes, they’re not permanents, they’re colorless, they have no mana cost, they can't be cast as spells, and they remain in the command zone even if they’d leave the command zone.
Some conspiracies have the hidden agenda keyword, and you can place them face down in the command zone when the game starts. Then during the game, you can turn it face up whenever you have priority, revealing its abilities.
- Adriana's Valor
- Assemble the Rank and Vile
- Echoing Boon
- Emissary's Ploy
- Hired Heist
- Hold the Perimeter
- Hymn of the Wilds
- Incendiary Dissent
- Natural Unity
- Sovereign's Realm
- Summoner's Bond
- Weight Advantage
The Monarch
Heavy is the head that wears the crown!
“Monarch” is a designation a player can have during the game. There are a handful of cards that make you the monarch when played, and past that point the monarch can only be transferred by another monarch-granting card or via combat damage to the current monarch. If the monarch leaves the game, the active player becomes the monarch. If the leaving monarch is the active player, the next player in turn order becomes the monarch.
Lastly, the monarch is a Highlander-ish title: There can only be one.
And why would you want to be King or Queen? First, because the monarch draws a card during their end step. And secondly, several cards get better if you’re the monarch.
As a great multiplayer mechanic, the monarch reappeared in several sets after CN2, like in Commander products for Lords of the Ring and Wilds of Eldraine.
- Canal Courier
- Crown-Hunter Hireling
- Custodi Lich
- Entourage of Trest
- Garrulous Sycophant
- Keeper of Keys
- Knights of the Black Rose
- Marchesa's Decree
- Palace Jailer
- Palace Sentinels
- Protector of the Crown
- Queen Marchesa
- Regal Behemoth
- Skyline Despot
- Thorn of the Black Rose
- Throne of the High City
- Throne Warden
Goad
Another successful mechanic from CN2 is goad, a keyword action that forces opposing creatures to attack during their next turn.
Goad technically works in 1-vs-1 settings, but it shines in multiplayer matches. Goad's most interesting caveat is that, if possible, a goaded creature must attack a player other than you (assuming it's you who goaded the creature).
The goaded creature must be able to attack (goading a creature with defender won't be too useful), and it attacks you if there are no other players. But at a multiplayer table, it's a great way to get things moving and have your foes kill each other while you hatch your plans.
There are only five goad cards in Conspiracy: Take the Crown (including one of the best goad commanders, Grenzo, Havoc Raiser), but goad proved quite successful among players and was often revisited in later sets. Goad is actually considered an “evergreen Commander ability,” so it's not rare to see goad effects in Commander products like Doctor Who, the Murders at Karlov Manor EDH precons, or Fallout.
Council's dilemma
Council's dilemma iterates on the will of the council mechanic from the original Conspiracy. In both cases, players vote between two effects, with a major difference. With will of the council, only one effect takes place (the one with the most votes), while every vote counts with council's dilemma, and the resulting effect(s) takes into consideration how many votes each option got.
Players vote in turn order, and votes are public (which means that the last player to vote knows how all previous votes went). Players vote when the spell resolves, and no actions can be taken during voting. In other words: You can counter a voting spell while it's on the stack, but once it resolves, you can't cast a counterspell in the middle of the voting process.
- Selvala's Stampede
- Orchard Elemental
- Capital Punishment
- Messenger Jays
- Expropriate
- Lieutenants of the Guard
There are just two cards outside CN2 with the council's dilemma ability, but one of them happens to be one of the strongest, most popular commanders in the whole format: Tivit, Seller of Secrets
Melee
Melee is a pretty straightforward triggered ability: When a creature with melee attacks, it gets +1/+1 for each opponent you're attacking in this combat phase.
- Adriana, Captain of the Guard
- Menagerie Liberator
- Fang of the Pack
- Grenzo's Ruffians
- Deputized Protester
- Wings of the Guard
- Custodi Soulcaller
Like goad, melee works perfectly well in 1-vs-1 games, but it’s much more fun in multiplayer. It doesn't matter how many creatures you used to attack each player; melee triggers once per foe against whom you declare at least one attacking creature.
There’s one small caveat (that’s usually a headache for new players, and sometimes even vets!): Creatures that enter the battlefield attacking were never declared as attackers, so they won't count toward melee's effect.
Monstrosity
Monstrosity, first seen in Theros, is an activated ability some creatures have that puts a number of +1/+1 counters on it and turns it monstrous – monstrosity has no further effect on monstrous creatures, and usually there's another effect (besides the +1/+1 counters) for becoming monstrous.
Splitting Slime, for example, gets three counters and also creates a token copy (without counters). There are just four monstrous creatures in CN2, and none too memorable.
Conspiracy: Take the Crown Card Gallery
White
Blue
Black
Red
Green
Multicolor
Colorless
Lands
Notable Cards
Kaya, Ghost Assassin
Kaya, Ghost Assassin was the first appearance of this very popular planeswalker. Kaya's first version is neither too strong nor crazily popular, but its alternate art foil version (with collector number #222/221) is by far the most expensive card from Conspiracy: Take the Crown.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
Leovold, Emissary of Trest showcases the grim fate of too much success: While it was one of the best card-draw engines in Magic and a staple in both Vintage and Legacy, it was so strong in the command zone that it got itself banned in Commander.
Queen Marchesa
All hail Queen Marchesa! As you can see in her picture, she's sneering with disdain at Leovold's lack of tact and finesse. Getting banned is for hopefuls and wannabes; the Queen not only rules Paliano but has successfully become an excellent monarch commander, and one of the most popular commanders overall.
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Nowhere near as popular as a commander, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is still a solid option as leader of mono-green decks, and it sees top-tier play in the 99 of some cEDH decks, usually under Sisay, Weatherlight Captain’s banner.
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser is CN2's strongest representative of the goad mechanic, and specifically a very good goad commander.
Thorn of the Black Rose + Palace Sentinels
Although not legal in Modern or Pioneer, cards from Conspiracy: Take the Crown are playable in Pauper. Compared with other options in the format, Thorn of the Black Rose and Palace Sentinels provide very solid card advantage.
Expropriate
One of the best mind control effects in Magic, Expropriate rolls extra turns with “what's yours is mine, actually,” into one card. A great way to avoid having too many friends!
Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast
Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast is a completely reasonable midrange planeswalker, and specifically a great artifact-matters planeswalker.
Available Products
Conspiracy: Take the Crown introduced the Draft Packs, with each Draft Pack containing three booster packs.
Booster boxes are fairly easy to find on Amazon, and there's really no substitute if you want the full Conspiracy Draft experience.
If you're after CN2 cards for Constructed formats, you may want to buy the specific singles you're after either from online stores or trade directly with other players.
- PREORDER! Will Not Ship Until August 26th!
- WILL SHIP ONLY TO USA, US MILITARY, AND US TERRITORIES! NO EXCEPTIONS
Wrap Up
Ballot Broker | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve
Commander is undeniably the most popular Magic format, by a wide margin. And WotC has fully embraced it, releasing Commander-focused sets every year, and hardly a product these days that doesn't have something clearly aimed at (and loudly labeled…) as EDH.
But they clearly know that the multiplayer design space is much wider than EDH, and formats like Conspiracy Draft or Archenemy show they’re eager to experiment and expand the boundaries.
As you may imagine for those of us who write for a site called Draftsim, I can't wait for WotC to try their new trick in this space!
I hope you've enjoyed this set overview, and if you have comments or suggestions on which sets, new or old, you'd like us to tackle next, do stop by for a chat at the Draftsim Discord.
And good luck out there!
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