Pattern Recognition #131 - Let it Snow!

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

14 November 2019

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition! This is TappedOut.net's longest running article series. In it, I aim to bring to you each week a new article about some piece of Magic, be it a card, a mechanic, a deck, or something more fundamental or abstract. I am something of an Old Fogey and part-time Smart Ass, so I sometimes talk out my ass. Feel free to dissent or just plain old correct me! I also have a Patreon if you feel like helping out.

I'm Canadian. I'm therefore honestly surprised that it's taken me over three years to finally address this particular topic and it's place in Magic history. And why it's on us old time players who keep wanting it back to prove it.

Let's talk about Snow!

No. Seriously. It's -4 outside as I write this. We had a half-foot over the weekend, and more is on the way. I'm about to be covered in the stuff for the next 4-6 months, so I'm going to share the joy with you all.

Mechanically, Snow is a Supertype for cards, one that has no inherent function or value save as an enabler for other cards and effects. It is one of three Supertypes that still exist in regular Magic, sharing this distinction with Basic and Legendary. When writing it onto the card type line, it comes after the other Supertypes, and before the Types. So it would be Legendary Snow Enchantment or Basic Snow Land.

Snow, is, as I said, a supertype for any type of permanent from Land to Enchantment, from Artifact to Creature. It is not yet attached to any Instants or Sorceries, but there is nothing in the rules that prevents it. They just won't count when spells or abilities look the number of Snow Permanents on the battlefield.

Introduced in Ice Age, the concept of "Snow" was intended to show those things that were affected by the Dominarian Ice Age, those so affected by the resulting fallout of Urza's Ruinous Blast that their very nature was changed.

Snow was an experiment. Because Ice Age was the first real 'Block' as we knew them for twenty years, it needed something to help tie it together, and Snow was one aspect of that experiment.

I need to step back here and explain something a little deeper about this. You see, this was still when Magic was in its infancy. The game was a mere two years old by the time this set was released, and in the few sets leading up to this point - Arabian Nights was the set that made them realize that they couldn't just copy real world mythology wholesale, Antiquities and Legends were their first forays into their own world building, followed by The Dark and Fallen Empires both of which elaborated on the history they were building.

But Ice Age, and it's followup Alliances (we don't talk about Homelands here. That's for a different day) were an actual, concerted effort to tell a story and to do so through the cards. To move Magic from the past into a living story of the now.

And Snow helped give Ice Age it's own unique feel. A feel that we Old Fogeys pine for - as long as the new cards don't suck.

But the experiment was something that Wizards didn't know what to do with, the relative newness and inexperience of the game's designer's showing, and Snow was relegated to just another aspect of the game that we moved past.

But we never really moved past it. We remembered. And so did Wizards.

Coldsnap is a set I talked about in the past about how it was a throwback to Ice Age and Alliances, representing a throwback to older card design with more mature sensibilities. Coldsnap was awesome, and you are all poorer for never having played it. If you did, forgive me. You're awesome!

Curiously enough though - though actually not - Time Spiral did not include any Snow cards because Coldsnap was released in the lead up to this block. Well, not quite true, as we got Centaur Omenreader from Future Sight.

Hrm... Weird. There's no ruling on how this guy works with the Convoke Mechanic. If I tap him to pay for a Convoke cost, does he retroactively reduce the cost of the creature?

JUDGE!

Anyway, Snow came back, it was loved, then left on the wayside of the game again.

Then Wizards announced Modern Horizons. And behind the adoration I put upon Serra the Benevolent, there was a slight announcement that there would only be five reprinted cards in the set - the lands. But the phrasing involved meant that while everyone new that they were the Basic Lands, Wizard's didn't actually confirm that.

Then they revealed the Full Art Snow Lands for the Basics. Those gorgeous and glorious and beautiful lands. Seriously. If I wasn't on a budget, I would have bought cards for those lands.

And with that, the revelation that Snow was going to be a subtheme in the set. Something "Draftable" in the set if you went . Snow came back, and Wizards knew that it was something that could drive sales.

Snow has also showed up in Commander products on the rare occasion, but it's not a thing. Yet. No Snow Commander. Yet.

Mechanically, Snow is more than just a super type. But it still is. It's a super type!

No? Bad joke?

OK, let me lay out the real brilliance of Snow. The reason why it's something Wizards is hesitant to reprint it in serious measure, why we old players love it and something that so many people miss even as they use it!

Snow is a Tribe.

You read that right. And for so many of you, the lights just went on over your heads as you just now put all the pieces together for a puzzle you didn't even know you had.

Snow is a Tribe that crosses all colours. It crosses into space that Bound in Silence or All is Dust would later look into.

As a Tribe, Snow does nothing that other tribes do. You can't find a stable source of +1/+1 for all your creatures (Diamond Faerie not with standing). You don't find static abilities that make all your Snow stuff more reliable. Rather, Snow is an enabler. You get cards like Skred that make you stop and look at it and realize that it's counting all the Snow Mountains your opponent has.

And it's an enabler for non-Super Tribal as well, what with Extraplanar Lens having Snow-Covered Basic lands as its target of choice as most people don't run Snow Lands in expectation of this card hitting the table.

If you think of normal tribal as a Vertical thing, where each piece supports another to attain greater heights, then Snow becomes a horizontal tribe. They all interact, but it's to support each other. It's harder to build up - but not impossible.

And this is one of the reasons why Snow is not a favourite of Wizards. Because of its Tribal flavour, building up on it means that they can't really limit the tribe to a single colour - Modern Horizons again not really with standing. Nor can the usual methods of crafting a Tribe work with it, nor can the methods of dealing with a Tribe work against it. It exists as a synergistic mechanic, but there's little anyone can do about the underlying issue.

This is why the experiment failed. It caused interaction without being interacted with. There was no key component that could be targeted.

I vaguely recall the concept of "Dust" as another supertype along the lines of "Snow" being bandied about at some point in the late 90's, but I can find no actual reference to it, so I might be confusing that with something else.

But Snow exists. It's something that Wizards recognizes that the players want in some small measure. And will want again. So where? It's the sort of mechanic that, much like Slivers, will come to dominate the whole set its involved in. Snow, because it crosses all normal boundaries, takes up design space that is inherently unlimited in nature. You can slap Snow onto anything, much like you can add Scry 1 to the effect of any card.

Of course, this leads to the eternal rumors of Kaldheim. This name associated with the desires of the players for a Norse Themed set would be the perfect spot to test the waters for Snow in Standard again. I mean, when Led Zeppelin says you're from the Land of the Ice and Snow you kind of have a theme to maintain.

Which is probably why we're not getting it at this point. That and trying to figure out how all the colours would work because they simply don't want to publish Coldsnap 2.0. And I'm willing to wait for them to do it right. Though not until 2021 at this rate.

Snow will come back. Eventually. But it is a mechanic that requires a lot of careful consideration and balance before it can be implemented as more than a dash in Commander or as an aside in a Supplemental set.

But if you haven't played with Snow before, I can only say one thing:

Get dressed, and play outside! Don't sit at the kitchen table playing Magic all the time!

Join me next week when I talk either about Vehicles, or about Flavour and Story. Because by Urza, one is being handled a lot better than the other.

AND ROSEWATER REPLIED TO ME! Woo! Happy Dance!

In fact, I'm so happy, have a deck that's all about Snow!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Commander / EDH berryjon

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