Snow-Covered Forest | art by Alayna Danner

Readers,

Maybe where you are, it doesn't snow. First of all, don't be smug, that will be everywhere soon. Secondly, you're missing out. It's not all sleigh rides and cocoa, as anyone who has ever spent an hour clearing their driveway to get out and go to work only for the plow to come by and dump a hard-packed, foot-tall berm at the end the driveway can attest.

Snow is coarse, irritating and it gets everywhere. Might I also suggest, however, that snow is very useful in Magic: The Gathering? Snow-covering was just one of many wild innovations in a set that featured not one but two cycles of lands that tap for two colors at rare, Gravebind at rare and Brainstorm at common, and a 10-foot, mechanized Dr. Wily pod with a giant buzz saw capable of clearing an entire forest that was a 1/1 for .

Snow has been revisited a few times in Magic's history and by now there are more than enough Snow cards to build your entire deck around cards that benefit from a light dusting of powder. I probably wrote an article (I probably called it "Let it Snow") where I jammed 99 of them in a deck with like a Coldsnap commander and called it a day.

There is more to snow than just building a snow deck, however, and today I'm making the case for putting snow-covered lands into lots of different decks.

Snow lands don't just look pretty, they have different names! Also, there is a snow-covered plains! Furthermore, there is also a snow-covered mountain! Swamp-lover? You're not going to believe this, there is a snow-covered swamp. Sometimes snow lands are both! And that's why you should run snow lands.

You don't seem convinced. I promise, those are all solid arguments, but I understand that some of you are nerds and you're going to make me show my work like you're my AP Calculus teacher. Fine, I will show my work, but you have to accept that the comb over isn't fooling anyone. I'm not saying you'll look better bald, you won't. Some people do.

You won't.

They Have Different Names!

The "H" in "EDH" stands for "Highlander" which is a fantastic film about an immortal man who meets an Egyptian guy from Spain with a Scottish accent who teaches him how to use a katana and, unfortunately, it has no sequels. The name of the format was later changed to "Commander" because Hasbro decided that it would be better to be sued by a football team than by a movie studio.

Like in that studio's movie, "There can be only one!" meaning that unless it's a basic land, you are only allowed to play one copy of the card (unless it says so on the card, like on the dozens of copies of Hare Apparent that my opponent put into play literally just this turn, wow, super cool and original deck idea, Kevin). You can jam as many basics lands as you can fit, but some cards punish you for running too many.

If you have seven lands out but five of them are basic forests, you're going to have a really tough time getting the copy of Field of the Dead you're somehow allowed to have in your command zone to do anything. A simple solution is to use a trick I learned from Japanese players who began including a snow-covered island into Gifts Ungiven decks in Eternal formats twenty years ago.

Snow-covered island plays a lot like island a lot of the time, but if the card specifically references different names, you can suddenly diversify your land base an awful lot by sprinkling in about half snow basics. This isn't going to be a big winner in every scenario - Gifts Ungiven is banned and Realms Uncharted doesn't require nor even encourage you to grab basics.

However, if you're playing cards like Eerie Ultimatum, you'll appreciate getting more value from your spells and landfall triggers. Anyone who has ever used a Field of the Dead in Commander and struggled to get even a paltry 2/2 rotter from a board lousy with basics will tell you that this quick, easy diversification makes your deck play a lot smoother and making your deck a real Monument to Perfection. 

Still not convinced because it sounds a lot like I'm describing cards just for like one deck? Fine, I'll move on.

There is a Snow-Covered Plains!

Search for Glory is a superlative tutor, costing about a dollar in dollars, which is the smallest number of dollars there are. I don't tend to suggest cards just because they are budget-friendly, but I build a lot of decks and I use a lot of cards and being able to upgrade the utility of a cheaper tutor rather than shelling out for a more expensive (and boringer) card by, and this is barely an exaggeration, changing some of our basics to lands with different art, appeals to me.

I get that this is an article about all of the times that it matters that something is a snow permanent, but I think it's worth pointing out all the times where a snow basic isn't any different than a snowless basic. Changing to all snow basics, or half, can give you more tutoring options with a card like Search For Glory, a card in 30,000 decks and counting.

Search for Glory being able to snag a card like On Thin Ice can reward you for the minor inconvenience of playing a clunky tutor with a clunky Oblivion Ring by giving you a tutor that can now also get your Oblivion Ring. The more snow cards you add, the better the other ones get, and if there is no real downside to mixing up your basics and playing slightly novel removal spells, the upside becomes pretty clear.

Did you know Dark Depths is a snow permanent? You do now. You don't have to play Gelid Shackles to have it be worth it, literally just sprinkling in some snow basics and maybe a card that replaces one Search for Glory can't ordinarily snag and I submit to you that it was worth it. They even have full-art snow basics so you aren't necessarily sacrificing style for substance.

I'm not done.

There is a Snow-Covered Mountain!

Ice Age felt like they were trying to A:B test different mechanics and never intended for the entire Ice Age card pool to be united. Sometimes the cards are worlds apart in design, like Sulfurous Springs and the, I swear this is true, RARE Lava Tubes. Other times, though, you get the same effect in two different colors.

Well, one different color. It's two cards, they're not the same color, but one of them has a color. I don't know why I'm explaining, you can already see the card art below this paragraph, you already know I'm talking about Glacial Crevasses and Sunstone.

While red isn't the number one color you think of when someone says "What's your favorite Fog?" red does have a second Sunstone. When I am playing red, I am doing shenanigans. Shenanigans involve cards that are kind of slow and clunky and you can sometimes struggle to keep up. The only decks I had with Mana Crypt and Dockside were, ironically, my fun, goofy decks that really couldn't keep up any other way.

When only your "worst" decks take a hit, you need to do something about it, and the something that I have found that works is using Sunstone and Crevasses to keep from getting murdered on the swing-back by a table of people you have just scared by using Blim, Comedic Genius to give someone an Oath of Lim-Dûl.

Ice Age really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? You don't HAVE to be playing red to use Sunstone - in fact I use it in some non-red-having decks of my own, but if you are in red and you're in need of some Fog effects people have likely never had to play around before, adding a few snow basics is a small price to pay for peace of mind during combat.

There is a Snow-Covered Swamp!

If I have a one or two color deck with black in it, my basics will all be snow-covered. Why? This guy.

Is this one card worth changing all of your basics? Yes. More people are playing Dauthi Voidwalker, but if you will reread Draugr Necromancer, you are obliged to pay the mana for Draugr Necromancer because you get to keep the Necromancer. You can cast the spells whenever provided you use mana from snow sources.

If you are using Draugr Necromancer partially as a Leyline of the Void, keeping him alive is better, and getting to play their spells all game rather than once is an upgrade. If all you need to do to make your Voidwalker spammable is change up your mana sources, do that. I do. Notice I said sources, because...

Sometimes Snow Lands Are Both!

There are also snow nonbasics and while they do enter tapped, some also have both basic land types making them easier to search for. A mana rock like Coldsteel Heart are so far down on the depth chart these days that people who weren't playing five years ago will be surprised it used to be worth money, but it was actually playable outside of decks that cared about snow because there was such a dearth of two mana rocks.

My point is that we are only a few years removed from this rock seeing play, it's not a downgrade to a deck. Slightly obsolete rocks and comes-into-play-tapped duals aren't a huge price to pay for some of the upside that trifling with snow gives you.

You can add quite a bit of snow mana to a deck that wasn't running a ton of basics by adding a few other cards that tap for snow mana. Arcum's Astrolabe terrorized Legacy players and those people face down a turn one Emrakul, the Aeons Torn on the regular.

Look, I'm done with the hard sell, I'd just like to thank you for reading. I have had a lot more fun since I started adding snow cards to my decks, and isn't that what it's all about? Now if you'll excuse me, a pickup truck just skidded 90 feet down my street and took out my mailbox.

Jason Alt

Jason is one of the hardest working writers in the game; he has a weekly column on Coolstuff Inc. and MTGPrice and is a cast member of the Brainstorm Brewery and Film Hooligans podcasts. All that and he still finds time to manage content on EDHREC and struggle as a comedian. No wonder he's been called the Ryan Seacrest of EDH.