Pojo's Magic The Gathering news, tips, strategies and more!

Pojo's MTG
MTG Home
Message Board
News & Archives
Deck Garage
BMoor Dolf BeJoSe

Columnists
Paul's Perspective
Jeff Zandi
DeQuan Watson
Jordon Kronick
IQ
Aburame Shino
Rare Hunter
Tim Stoltzfus
WiCkEd
Judge Bill's Corner


Trading Card
Game

Card of the Day
Guide for Newbies
Decks to Beat
Featured Articles
Peasant Magic
Fan Tips
Tourney Reports


Other
Color Chart
Book Reviews
Online Play
MTG Links
Staff



120x90 Ad Space
For Rent!



BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Coldsnap GB Snow

August 22, 2006

There's been a lot of talk about the Snow mechanic since Coldsnap came out.  Most of it has been about blue decks with Heidar, or red decks with Skred.  But this deck is green and black snow.  Can it work?  Of course it can-- this is BMoor's Deck Garage!
Hi, ever since coldsnap's release i've liked the snow mechanic and thought i could abuse the snow with scrying sheets, but it wasn't enough. so i stumbled across Chilling Shade- flying shade for only 3 mana- but only with snow mana. so i figured, both these ideas worked well together- scrying sheets abuse with powerful flying guy- so i built this (Coldsnap only) g/b aggro deck. Sheets gets 42 cards out of the deck, and Shade is a beatstick. Aurochs are their own combat trick, especially when combined with the Ohran Vipers. Ironfoot is a beast turn 3. The spells are to prevent dead creatures (Resize) or regrowing dead ones (Harvest.) Into the north is acceleration for a missing color or tutor for a Sheets.
 
DECK (* is a snow permanent)
22 lands
4 Scrying Sheets *
9 Snow-Covered Forest *
9 Snow-Covered Swamp *
 
26 creatures
4 Boreal Centaur *
4 Ohran Viper *
4 Chilling Shade *
4 Phyrexian Ironfoot *
4 Brooding Saurian
4 Rimehorn Aurochs *
2 Allosaurus Rider
 
12 spells
4 Resize
4 Grim Harvest
4 Into the North
The deck looks solid as is-- with turn two Boreal Centaur, turn three Chilling Shade/Ohran Viper/Phyrexian Ironfoot and the Scrying Sheets engine for savage card advantage, but I do have a few qualms.  First of all, this deck is very mana hungry.  Scrying Sheets takes 1S plus tapping the land to get you a card.  The Ironfoot needs 1S to untap.  Chilling Shade and the Centaur both want S during combat (though the Centaur is satisfied with just one S while the Shade is a rampaging glutton for it.)  The Aurochs wants 2S to force bad blocks, maybe 4SS or even 6SSS to really mess things up.  And your recover spells encourage you to leave mana open in case a creature dies if you want it back.  I'm worried you're going to nickel and dime yourself to death here, trying to do too many things at once.  And second, I'd like to increase the number of snow cards in the deck to REALLY optimize the Sheets.
 
First of all, this deck is all about using the Sheets to gain card advantage.  Well, what is the purpose of the Recover mechanic?  To gain card advantage.  This is redundant.  Take out Resize and Grim Harvest.  Your Chilling Shades don't need to be Resized anyway.  In their place go some reactive cards to fill a similar role: Chill to the Bone and Feast of Flesh.  I know these don't protect/resurrect your own creatures, but they do help deal with your opponents', so they're just as good.  And they won't demand you leave mana open in case they suddenly need to be recovered or lost for the rest of the game.  Feast of Flesh actually encourages you to leave it in the graveyard.
 
Next, we can aid the mana base and increase the snow count in one fell swoop: take out Brooding Saurian (he's a sideboard card at best) and replace it with 2 Mouth of Ronom and 2 Coldsteel Heart.  The Mouth brings the land count to a respectable 24 while also providing some extra removal in a pinch, while the Heart can fix color troubles (a hand of Swamps and Green cards) while also providing more of that precious, precious snow mana.  Of course, all your mana is snow mana, so it's not really as precious to you as it usually is, but you still need mana.  We all do.  I notice you have 4 copies of almost every card in this deck, but I wouldn't worry about only having two of each of these, though-- you can find the Mouth with an Into the North if you need it, and most of the time a land is better than the Heart anyway unless you want the quick tempo start and need four mana on turn 3.
 
Finally, drop the Allosaurus Riders.  They're good, but they're also expensive (two other cards is expensive if not in terms of mana) and they're not snow.  Since you've got a lot of smaller creatures, I recommend replacing the Rider with two Rime Transfusion.  Rime Transfusion is probably the best enchantment to come out of Coldsnap, punishing your opponents who don't use snow and giving a power boost to the creature as well.  A Transfused Boreal Centaur is truly a threat to be dealt with, and a Transfused Viper can skate through nonsnow armies to draw you extra cards and deal extra damage.  And it's snow, which is just icing (pun intended) on the cake.
 
Once these changes are implemented, you should have no trouble coming down on your opponents like a blizzard.  Have fun!
 
~BMoor



 

Copyright© 1998-2006 pojo.com
This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site.