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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Thawing Glaciers 
Alliances Rare


Reviewed June 28, 2004

Constructed: 4.1
Casual: 3.4
Limited: 3.8

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 


Chris
Gerhardt

* game store owner in CA, ShuffleAndCut

Thawing Glaciers is great because it gets you the land and color you need, plus it thins your deck.  For those of you that are unsure of why thinning your deck is a good thing, let me explain.  As you pull lands out of your deck with Glaciers, you are left with a higher percentage of quality (non-land) draws.  So each time you pull out a land, you have a greater chance that the next card you draw will be a spell you can use.  All of us have been in a critical situation where the next card we draw MUST be a creature or spell to save us, only to draw a useless land. Bleh.  So now ya know.

Glaciers was great back in the day, and it would be an amazing card today, especially considering the Sunburst factor.  You would find it in any limited deck I could put it into, and it's actually a great casual play too.
  
Constructed: 4
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 4

   Current Price:
Thawing Glaciers - Alliances - $7

   Combos Well With:
High Tide - Fallen Empires - $0.79

 


Judge Bill

*Level 2
MTG Judge

*game store employee

Thawing Glaciers
 
Welcome to land week. Today we start off with a land that has seen much play in its life. This was probably one of the inspirations for Wayfarer's Bauble.
 
Note the new Oracle wording (changed several years ago, due to the "new" Sixth Edition rules):
 
Thawing Glaciers
Land
Thawing Glaciers comes into play tapped.
{1}, {T}: Search your library for a basic land card and put that card into play tapped. Then shuffle your library. If it's the end phase, return Thawing Glaciers to its owner's hand. Otherwise, return Thawing Glaciers to its owner's hand at end of turn.
 
Before the wording was changed, you could activate it in your opponent's end step, and since the time for "at end of turn" effects had already passed, you could untap and use it again before you had to return it to your hand.
 
(The change was made right before an Extended PT [right before meaning within a week or two] [Extended at that time included everything from The Dark forward], and it made a lot of pros mad, as it completely changed their decks, since the loophole was no longer valid.)
 
Enough of the story time.
 
This card is still very good in type 1.5 control decks, as it helps thin your deck of lands, ensuring you draw spells instead (read: Counterspells).
 
Type 1 is probably too fast for this card.
 
It is banned in block constructed.
 
I'd love to have this in an ALIce (Ice Age/Alliances) sealed deck. It'd help me get to my spells faster, and lessen dead draws.
 
This probably isn't "flashy enough" for most casual players, but it would still go good in their decks, to accelerate to their big spells, and to provide color smoothing.
 
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 4
 
Jonathan
Pechon


2 Grand Prix Top 8's

Multiple Pro Tour appearances

Thawing Glaciers

 

Whether you were abusing this card with all the “Untap X land” cards from Saga-block or just using this to thin out your deck while you built an army up with Kjeldoran Outpost, this represents one of the most powerful cards in Magic that has simply fallen by the wayside due to the increased level of power of the game in general.  The two decks I listed above, High Tide and Counterpost, probably represent the peaks of power in which this card was best represented.

 

I’d really recommend this card to any casual gamers who wants to be able to make sure his five-color fun deck is going to have the right land at the right time.  While this isn’t playable in Mental, it’s still something that most people should have for their decks.

 

Alliances drafts seem so long ago…and yet, this is still a ridiculously powerful card in a format that doesn’t seem to have been terribly fast.  I’d probably have first-picked this both for the rare-value as well as for the playability.

 

Constructed:  4.0

Casual:  3.0

Limited:  4.5

 

Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer

Thawing Glaciers:

 

This is one of those long-term cards. If your deck is in it for the long game, this card is the card for you. If you plan on wining or losing by turn five, this card is not very useful. But over the course of many turns, this deck effectively draws you cards while simultaneously reducing the land count in your deck. While its true that every card you “draw” is a land, in a long game deck, this is great. You never want to miss a land drop, and with this card you won’t.

 

Constructed:                 4

Casual:                         3

Limited:                        3

 


DeQuan
Watson

* game store owner (The Game Closet - Waco,TX)

This is one of the all time greats that most of the new players don't get to here about.  Just being able to get land after land out of your deck was simply amazing.  You didn't miss land drops hardly ever.  Control decks loved this card.
 
I think that most casual players will stay away from this card, regardless of how good it is.  There are so many more cards for getting land into play, that this may prove too slow for most casual games.  However, it's still worth a look.  In limited play, I would imagine that it would still be useful.  However, I couldn't see myself wasting one of my top three picks on it. 
 
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 2.5
Limited: 2.5
 


Andy
 Van Zandt

Thawing Glaciers
A staple control card for a long time,  it thins the deck and fixes mana, is
cheap and virtually uncounterable...  very solid.  would probably still see
play today in extended/t2/block if it was legal.
constructed 4.5
casual 4
limited 4
 
Chase

Secret Squirrel on the Pojo.com
Message
Boards

Thawing Glaciers
    
This week must be lands that do strange things... errr... maybe just somethings you don’t see everyday.

You are no longer mana screwed.  An all around good card.  Accelerates your mana base eventually, a little slow at first, but it all adds up.  Enough to get banned I suppose.  Combos with anything else that can accelerate your mana for the turn, High Tide

I suppose good in limited too.. If you ever get the chance to play IA limited.

Constructed: 4
Casual: 4
Limited: 4

 

w00t
Thawing Glaciers -
 
Constructed - A sort of Onslaught Sac land, that can get you any color land you want. Plus it keeps coming back, for more opportunitys to get land. Combo this with Urzas free spells, and you can untap it, for multiple lands each turn. Think of the mana you can have! I wasn't around in the times of this, but I've heard the horror stories ;).
 
Casual - Lets see. In later/Mid game, you can combine this with Early Harvest to pull off a Mind's Desire kill. Or just use it to hardcast a Darksteel Collossus. Use it with Krosan Restorer to get twice the new mana, to finish off with later. Lots of uses of untapping, to make this land a beast.
 
Constructed - 4.0
Casual 3.5
Limited - N/A
 
 

 

 

 

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