Coldsnap in Hindsight

So I know I promised a review of some of the new Coldsnap cards based on how they played. Mark Rosewater said they tried to flatten the power curve a little higher than usual in this set so that there were more playable commons, and it definitely looks that way. I was impressed with a lot of new cards in all colors, in fact.

The problem with a lot of Coldsnap cards as I see it is that they work really well only with other Coldsnap cards. That is, unless you decide to run all snow-covered lands in your deck for example, you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities. Likewise, the Ripple effect likes having other Ripplers in the same deck. Basically, a lot of Coldsnap might be best in a Coldsnap-only limited format.

Anyway, I’ll start with my pick for the most-used card from the set:

Rune Snag
1U
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2 plus 2 more for each card named Rune Snag in each graveyard.

This card compares favorably to Mana Leak in any deck that runs or would run four Mana Leaks. Think about it—the difference between 2 and 3 is negligible in the early game when everyone wants to tap out anyway. Then, where Leak starts losing power in the late game and players have extra mana, Rune Snag just gets more powerful for each one played before it!

I have eight more packs of Coldsnap to open, and I hope I get three more of this common. Plus, no snow mana involved so it’s usable in all formats, no questions asked.

Of course if some big or scary creature does get through:

Gelid Shackles
W
Enchantment – Aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature can’t block, and its activated abilities can’t be played.
S: Enchanted creature gains defender until end of turn. (S can be paid with one mana from a snow permanent.)

I thought this was a great card. It’s sorcery speed removal for blockers and utility creatures, and if you’re willing to invest in a little bit of snow mana it takes out attackers too. I realize Faith’s Fetters already sees play and that most people will think this is worse, but I think it’s totally situational.

The best part about Fetters is that it shuts down any permanent that doesn’t have a mana producing ability. The lifegain is gravy. If creatures are your problem, though, the Shackles are just as good. It’s so much cheaper! In an aggressive deck running white, this knocks out a blocker of any size. Plus, for up to three turns, the Shackles are just as good as the Fetters at taking out an attacker too.

Even my girlfriend was impressed, once she saw that our opponents’ biggest creatures were neither attacking nor blocking and I showed her how the Shackles worked. Either way it was great in Coldsnap limited.

Tresserhorn Skyknight, was different, though. After a couple of games with that guy, nobody was impressed.

Tresserhorn Skyknight
Creature – Zombie Knight
5BB
Flying
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to Tresserhorn Skyknight by creatures with first strike.
5/3

I put this into my girlfriends BRG aggro deck thinking it would be a decent 5/3 thumper with evasion. What I didn’t realize, though, was that Coldsnap’s flying creatures and creatures that block flying creatures are all huge, and very few of them have first strike. This meant that, at best, the Skyknight would trade with some creature that cost half as much. It was very frustrating to invest all this mana in a creature and then have it sit around waiting to die, let me tell you.

When she first saw it, she said she liked the word Tresserhorn because it reminded her of the name of a house from an eighteenth century novel. Then even she, a novice player, recognized that the Skyknight was a seven-mana flying, dying machine.

Next time they should just give it first strike.

The more useful end of the spectrum was made up by the cycle of Martyrs:

Martyr of Ashes
Creature – Human Shaman
R
2, reveal X red cards from your hand, sacrifice Martyr of Ashes: Martyr of Ashes deals X damage to each creature without flying.
1/1

The blue one (Martyr of Frost) does a similar thing but counterspells; the green one (Spores) pumps a creature; the black one (Bones) removes cards in a graveyard; and the white one (Sands) gains three-times life. I think the only one that’s really unplayable outside the Coldsnap block is the black one. It just doesn’t do enough. Red and white can both be hugely swingy (evidenced by our team gaining fifteen life off of a Martyr of Sands), blue draws removal away from other creatures at worst, and green is a playable one-drop that has the ability to finish games or save creatures.

My girlfriend really liked Martyr of Sands after it saved us the first game—she kept wanting me to use it early; I kept hoping to draw more white cards. I was more impressed with the blue Martyr of Frost. It’s just as good as, if not better than, Voidmage Prodigy, and I look forward to disguising Ninjas as it in Vintage and then using them to counter spells later in the game.

We opened only one of the new pitch-two spells, an Allosaurus Rider (better than Snakes on a Plane, it’s a frickin’ Elf on a FRICKIN’ DINOSAUR!), and we saw only one other all day: Fury of the Horde.

Fury of the Horde
Sorcery
5RR
You may remove two red cards in your hand from the game rather than pay Fury of the Horde’s mana cost.
Untap all creatures that attacked this turn. After this main phase, there is an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase.

This was the card that really hurt us in the first game, especially since our opponents sprung it on us with a Lightning Serpent in play that had survived the first combat phase. Sigh. If only I’d thrown the Martyr of Sands in front of that beast instead of assuming it would die before it attacked again anyway. I think in both attack phases they dealt something like 28 damage to us, and we were only kept alive by the Martyr of Sands.

It’s hard for me to say what the best of the pitch-two spells is. Any of them can completely turn a game around, but they’re so expensive whether you hardcast them or not. Allosaurus Rider you don’t even want to pitch cards for because having seven lands in play to play it means that it comes in as an 8/8. Same with Fury of the Horde; when you have a full hand and can pay the pitch cost, you won’t have any threats on the board to take advantage of it. Sunscour is probably the best since you can pay the pitch cost to wipe the board, then cast your threat from hand to take control.

Either way, none of them is Force of Will. Heck, they’re not even Contagion.

Snow-covered lands could be making an actual comeback in Standard, though. There’s some positives for running them, and unless they get really popular, I doubt anyone will play hate specific to them.

First, the snow duals (Tresserhorn Sinks, Highland Weald, Arctic Flats, Boreal Shelf, and Frost Marsh) are all really good with Into the North. It’s like playing Rampant Growth, only their drawback of coming into play tapped doesn’t matter. It was late in the first game when I realized that, but it was great once I did.

Into the North
Sorcery
1G
Search your library for a snow land and put it into play tapped. Then shuffle your libryar.

Boreal Shelf
Snow Land
Boreal Shelf comes into play tapped.
T: Add W or U to your mana pool.

Second, if you’re running a couple of playsets of snow cards, you can throw Scrying Sheets and some snow-covered lands into your deck to use them. If you play all snow-covered lands, that’s a one-in-three chance of drawing an extra card every turn for two mana. Plus, there’s really no drawback to not revealing a snow card, because you only reveal the card if you’re going to put it in your hand.

Scrying Sheets
Snow Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
1S, T: Look at the top card of your library. If it is a snow card you may reveal it and put it into your hand. (S can be paid with one mana from any snow permanent).

Let’s see, what else did we see.

Oh, Rite of Flames is the new, less playable Dark Ritual. It does increase your mana, especially in multiples, but it will normally be the wrong colors outside of standard. Vintage and Legacy usually want black or blue accelerators, not red ones. Still, I’ll probably take a look at it in Vintage 2-Land Belcher.

Rite of Flames
Sorcery
R
Add RR to your mana pool. Then add R to your mana pool for each card named Rite of Flames in each graveyard.

We didn’t use Thrumming Stone in either of our decks, but I imagine that card’s got “break me” written all over it in just about every constructed format and some limited ones. The only thing that will save it is legendary status and a high casting cost. Can you imagine a deck with a lot of four-ofs dropping the Stone early and then going to town playing everything in sight? Plus, it only works for you!

Thrumming Stone
Legendary Artifact
5
Spells you control have Ripple 4. (Whenever you play a spell, you may reveal the top four cards of your library. You may play any revealed cards with the same name as the spell without paying their mana costs. Put the rest on the bottom of your library.)

I’m not sure how to cheat it into play early, but once you do, I’m pretty sure you can just sit back and watch the fireworks. Just one thrummed Dark Ritual could be huge off of this, but it gets even more insane when permanents are involved. Imagine something like Stax playing this with a Mishra’s Workshop first turn, then Rippling two Goblin Welders and two Smokestacks into play on turn two. Also, I’m pretty sure this is just insane with Brainstorm.

When I asked her about it, my girlfriend said that her favorite card, aside from the Zombie Mushers that won us games, were the Auroch Herds. Not only do they have trample on a solid body, but one 4/4 trampler begets more 4/4 tramplers. I also would have liked more of the Aurochs, especially the Bull Aurochs which are a very aggressive start, especially in combination with, you know, aurochs. Either way, we got Aurochs in all three games, and the worst thing they did was draw a counterspell and leave the other one in the deck.

She also really liked the land-destruction card, Icefall, which had Recover. I completely missed the potential power of that card, but she picked up on it. Strangely enough, that was one of the cards that helped beat us in our first game, taking away our (my) Plains like an FAA regulation. Icefall has some potential.

In fact, all of the Recover cards are pretty good, as long as you remember to use them. Coldsnap has a lot of remembering that goes along with it: Recover, Upkeep, and all of that attacking, tapping, and playing stuff. You have to be on your toes because there aren’t a lot of hints about those Recover cards either. Oh, and apparently you’re supposed to put counters on cards with Cumulative Upkeep, so don’t forget those.

Whew.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that was most of what really impressed me about Coldsnap. There are a lot of playables in there.

Resize seems good, but we only had it played against us.

Ronom is an anagram of moron, which is kind of funny and was pointed out to me by Tim Aten back when Feldon’s Cane (found in the Ronom glacier) was playable in standard.

A lot of the legends and big creatures seem fun and would normally make me want to build a deck around them. Especially ones like Lovisa Coldeyes and Sek’Kuar.

Sek’Kuar, the Deathkeeper
Legendary Creature – Orc Shaman
2BRG
Whenever another nontoken creature you control is put into a graveyard from play, put a 3/1 black and red Graveborn creature token with haste into play.
4/3

I recommend avoiding spells with cumulative upkeep that means spending mana. We had a lot of success when we let our few Cumulative Upkeep cards go early while our opponents got busy dealing with cumulative upkeep and didn’t play additional threats.

More than with other sets, though, look to commons and uncommons to see a lot of play out of Colsnap. A lot of them are really solid, if not amazingly good.

Until then, stay cool. And don't forget to check out that Vintage tournament this Sunday at the Soldiery in Columbus. You can get more information in my previous blog or at www.themanadrain.com under Tournaments.

Heh.