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Coldsnap: Pre-Preview Review

By Chris Harrold (a.k.a
Dr Chunk)

It is
almost summer and boy, is it going to be getting
chilly around here!

The Coldsnap is almost upon us, with the Ice Age block finally
complete without the travesty that was Homelands.

*aside*

I
started playing Magic around the time that Ice Age was released. The times when
I bought 4th Edition because, surely it’s better than Revised
because it is newer. I was there when Homelands was released, and I have to
admit it was actually my favourite set at the time.

To
start the boosters were cheaper for me to buy with my limited pocket money.
Much to my parents dismay that I was spending all this
money on pieces of cardboard. There was always the hope of opening that Baron Sengir that my friend wanted so badly to go in her vampire
deck that she was already beating me with. There was this wonderful cycle of
lands that let you change any mana into one of 3
types of mana (see Wizards School et al). I liked it
and I bought it and I get a little upset when people berate it.

Though
I do see where they are coming from.

*end
aside*

Yes
indeed, Wizards has “discovered” the last Ice Age expansion and has
ordained us with it’s presence. Even better it
is going to be standard legal which means I will actually have to buy some too.
Even better than that we might get to draft it at high end tournaments –
now why didn’t we get to do that with Unhinged?

The
rumours are creeping in as the magazine previews start, so I thought we might
take a look at what is on offer so far. Remember that the Ice Age will return
to us the joys of Cumulative Upkeep (fresh with Age Counters), pitch spells and
snow covered things, like Snowmen and Dandruff.

By the
way all snow covered lands are now Snow
Land –
Forest/Mountain/Etc.. That seems a little lame and
presumably means they are not basic, as they do not have the basic supertype anymore. Allegedly any mana
from a snow land or mana producing snow creature (or MPSCs as I like to call them) is snow mana.
So now you know.

All
the below blatantly pilfered from www.mtgsalvation.com
- The best place for rumours!

Glacial
Plating  2WW

Snow
Enchantment - Aura

Enchant
creature

Cumulative upkeep: S (that’s snow mana)

Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 for each age counter on Glacial Plating.

On it’s own this does nothing for at least a turn. So you
are giving an initial investment of Wrath Of God mana for +0/+0 and the potential for card disadvantage that
comes with every aura. Turn 1 you will have +3/+3 for 5 mana
with this incrementing as the turns go on.

I am not sold on this idea, but part of me wants to put this
on something with evasion and chuckle. Purely in limited though, as this will
not see constructed play, as I would much rather Wrath than waste my mana.

Jötun Grunt  1W

Creature
- Giant Soldier

Cumulative
Upkeep - Put Two cards in a single graveyard on the bottom of their owner's
library ( At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age
counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for
each age counter on it.)

4/4

This
reminds me somewhat of Loxodon Peacekeeper. The stats
are impressive, the cost is aggressive and the ability is astoundingly
prohibitive. Not quite as bad as the peacekeeper this 2 drop is something that
will unlikely come down before turn 5 or 6 in order
for a graveyard to be available to support his upkeep. Even then he is going to
hang around for two or three turns until he runs out of stuff to eat. Of course
this is really the realm of limited I’m talking about.

On the
flip side he does do a good job of hosing decks that revolve around having lots
of cards in their graveyard:

Grunt
vs. Ichorid à Grunt wins

Grunt
vs. Madness/Threshold à Grunt Wins

Now
don’t misread me and think this guy is going to make an impact, but it is
a weapon that could be useful in the right circumstances, more for his ability
than his stats.

Jötun Owl-Keeper  2W

Creature
- Giant

Cumulative
Upkeep: W or U

When Jötun Owl-Keeper is put into a graveyard
from play, put a 1/1 white bird token with flying into play for each age
counter on Jötun Owl-Keeper. (At the beginning
of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then
sacrifice this permanent unless you pay W or U for each age counter on it.)

3/3

This,
however, is more like it. 3/3 for three mana
is a good start. 3/3 that makes a bunch of dudes when he dies is icing on the
cake. You even get to control when the men appear to some extent. The upkeep
cost also helps by, effectively, being guild mana and
hence being flexible enough that you might be able to afford him for a the few
turns he’s useful then trade him in for evasion creatures to do the last
few points.

Although
he seems solid I don’t anticipate him being particularly good in
constructed as I’m sure W or UW weenie would rather drop creatures than
pay upkeeps. What are the chances of WW playing this at the top of their curve
to only have mana to pay the upkeep for a couple of
turns?

Commandeer
5UU

Instant

You
may remove two blue cards in your hand from the game instead of playing Commandeer's mana cost.

Gain control of target non-creature spell. You may choose new targets for that
spell. (If that spell is an artefact or enchantment, the permanent comes into
play under your control.)

Before
we start jabbering on I would like to say this is NOT a limited card. Move
along.

Now,
in constructed, this is something I can (almost) get excited about. Some are
heralding this as the Neo-FoW and you can see where
they are coming from. A blue players hand should always be full of cards to
pitch to this as well as getting the opportunity to control the spell yourself. This is especially important in those counter wars
we see less often these days.

“Redirect
your counterspell back at your other counterspell…”

But….

And
it’s a big butt, and I like it, I cannot lie,

Seven
Mana!

Two
Cards!

Non-Creature!

It is
unlikely this would get played without the pitch as seven mana is a lot to pay, even in Tron.
Forget counter wars I’m just going to play Simic
Sky Swallower. Can you Commandeer
him? I think not. Some people almost played Overwhelming Intellect and that was
purely because of the potential card advantage.

So we
don’t like paying mana, then we shall just
discard a third or so of my hand to pitch this for free. In any self respecting
counter war I think Disrupting Shoal is always going to be better than this.

Finally
the non-creature clause just adds the injury to the insult. Keiga,
Meloku, Sky Swallower?
Sure, go ahead. Boros Signet – wait a second!

Chilling
Shade  2B

Snow
Creature – Shade

Flying

S: Chilling Shade gets +1/+1 until end of turn. (S can be paid with one mana from a Snow Permanent)

1/1

Our
first truly snowy creature – Isn’t he pretty. Just like many, many
shades before him this man will leap out at the hearts of all those shade
lovers everywhere (I was one once, but now I’m better).  The one playable shade that has existed
until now, from a competitive view, is of course Nantuko
Shade who starts as an efficient 2/1 for two and was the beats in Odyssey block
black decks.

This
new man is a step up from old faithful Looming Shade by having evasion, which
does tip him more into the playable limited creatures. Although 1/1 for three
with flying is not mana best spent, he can
conceivably be very be a very dangerous beater with
enough snow mana. Bear in mind you can use any colour
of snow mana for his pump, which makes him different
from the other shades as they only ever used black.

Constructed
– not going to happen, unless we get snow covered Urzatron
pieces.

Feast
of Flesh  B

Sorcery

Feast
of Flesh deals X damage to target creature, and you gain X life, where X equal
to 1 plus the number of cards called Feast of Flesh in all the graveyards.

"To
starve an army that feeds on its enemies is an excellent strategy"

Garza Zol, Plague Queen

For B
you get not at all a bad deal out of Feast. Dealing that point of damage is
always useful, either as a tag on post combat or to take out a pesky one toughness man. The second one of these is a Vicious
Hunger, which was playable removal in 888 draft, and
from then on it’s just gravy. With the draft format being 3 of a small
set we have to hope this is common to make the chances of getting more than one
reasonable. The only thing that really lets this down is the sorcery speed.

Again
I don’t really see this having an impact on constructed tournaments all
over the country, unless we get invaded by n00bs – and I would like to
welcome all of you new magic players to the game.

I left
the flavour text on this one because it made chuckle. Not guffaw, just chuckle.

Martyr
of Ashes  R

Creature
- Human Shaman

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

This
card reminds me a little of the scent and seer cycles from Urza’s
Destiny. I think I would find it hard not to include this 1 drop into any
sealed or draft when red is a main colour. It may well die quickly once it hits
the table, but that is a piece of removal wasted on a 1/1. If
not you get an instant speed mini-Earthquake for 2 mana.
The only downside is that any self respecting red deck will not have a very
full hand, unless you fill it with creatures to drop after you EoT board clearing.

In
constructed I don’t imagine myself main decking this unless aggro
dominates the metagame. In the realm of 2/3 and 2/2
creatures the standard for 1 mana I cannot see this
guy making the cut.

Surging
Flame  1R

Instant

Ripple
4 (When you play this spell, you may reveal the top four cards of your library.
You may play any revealed cards with the same name as this spell without paying
their mana costs. Put the rest on the bottom of your
library)

Surging Flame deals 2 damage to target creature or player

On it’s own this card is an over costed
Shock, but 2 mana is the standard for 2 damage with
any other tacked on ability (see splice and scry).
After all that though it is still cheap removal and should always be picked up.
I have heard removal is good in limited, but keep it to yourselves.

Ripple
looks like an interesting ability and I want to see more of the cards before I
make a final judgment. In draft, with a 40 card deck and a few turns in, with
maybe 3 copies of this spell in the deck, you have around a 1/3 chance of
hitting another for free. In a constructed deck probably less than 1/5 chance.
This is not much of a statistic to build a deck around but there is always a
chance you might get more than you bargained for at 2 mana. For this reason I doubt this will get much
constructed play.

2000
words and I have covered only 8 cards. They are all very interesting and
undoubtedly worth the discussion. Come back soon when we muse over the green,
gold and artefacts.

Just
remember, don’t eat the yellow snow covered lands.