While I appreciate that Modern Horizons brought some new life into the snow supertype and respect that it was only introduced as a minor archetype, there's a lot that I wish was done with the return of the Snow. Below are some of the things I wish I had seen.
Frozen Aurora
Snow Enchantment (R)
: Add one mana of any color.
Players can’t untap more than two nonbasic lands during their untap steps. A sky of vibrant colors distracts from the featureless wasteland below
Rimebound Horror
Snow Creature- Horror (R)
: Exile target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost X from your graveyard and put a +1/+1 counter on Rimebound Horror. You may cast a copy of that card without paying its mana cost. Spend only on .
0/4
Pristine Glaciers
Snow Land (R)
Frozen Glaciers Enters the battlefield tapped.
Add .
, : Search your library for up to one snow land and put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library. Return Frozen Glaciers to its owner's hand.
Rimebound Adept
Snow Creature- Elf Druid (U)
Whenever a snow permanent enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
1/1
Freeze
Instant (U)
Freeze costs less to cast for each snow permanent you control.
Counter target non-snow spell.
Arctic Expedition
Instant (R)
Search your library for a snow card and reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it.
Caribou Range
Snow Enchantment (U)
Whenever Caribou Range or another nontoken snow permanent enters the battlefield under your control, you may create a 0/1 white caribou snow creature token and gain 1 life.
Frozen Fortress
Snow Artifact Creature- Wall (R)
Defender
Whenever an opponent casts a non-snow spell, create a 1/1 colorless construct snow artifact token.
: Frozen Fortress loses all abilities until end of turn. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
Cold Betrayal
Sorcery (R)
As an additional cost to casting Cold Betrayal, you may sacrifice any number of snow permanents.
For each permanent sacrificed as part of casting Cold Betrayal, draw a card, gain 1 life, and add . You can’t spell ‘price’ without ‘ice’
Winterchill Reveler
Snow Creature- Skeleton (U)
Whenever Winterchill Reveler dies, exile it. When you do, you may return any number of snow permanents from your graveyard to the top of your library, then draw a card
1/1 For some, the long nights never end
Frozen Flurry
Sorcery (U)
Non-snow lands don’t untap during their controllers’ next untap step.
Rimescale Hellkite
Snow Creature- Dragon (M)
Rimescale Hellkite costs less to cast for each snow permanent you control.
Flying, Haste
When Rimescale Hellkite enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to each nonsnow creature.
5/5
Arctic Scrabbler
Snow Artifact Creature- Construct (U) “It stomped on the tent, packed up the campfire, and promptly waddled into a crevasse. A good first test, if I do say so myself.”
0/2
Frozen Heart
Legendary Snow Artifact (M)
You do not lose the game for having 0 or less life.
Whenever you lose life, put that many fracture counters on Frozen Heart (Damage causes loss of life).
At the beginning of each end step, if the number of Fracture counters of Frozen hearts is greater than the number of snow permanents you control, sacrifice Frozen Heart.
Frozen Aurora and Frozen Flurry are blue, not green or red.
Yes, Rimebound Horror's tied to instants/sorceries. But, horrors tend to be black.
Glaciers are inherently frozen, making that a useless modifier.
It's Elf, not Elven or Elvish. Elven's used for weapons, such as Elven Curve Blade, and Elvish is used to the people or language, such as Elvish Visionary.
Frozen Fortress, Cold Betrayal, and Thaw may not be fixable.
Winterchill Reveler either rare or mythic as is because most people will always trigger the ability, which is a more convoluted way of saying "return another target snow permanent from your graveyard to your hand, then put any number of other snow permanents from your graveyard on top of your library in random order. Changes made so one copy can't recur itself, and WotC doesn't like players making that kind of decision.
Frozen Aurora, this isn't green. There are reasonable arguments to be made for White, Red or Blue due to the fact that this ability is rarely used anymore. It is also at a power level that might be too high even for modern.
Rimebound Horror, "you may cast a copy" doesn't function the way you want it to. You need to create a copy and then cast it.
Frozen Glaciers, too good at what it does, and what it does it trick inexperienced players into losing the game.
Rimebound Adept, ELF
Freeze, because even in a snow world this can counter every instant or sorcery I would cost it at 4UU so it's basically cancel if you play all snow lands but can be better.
Arctic Expedition, why is this blue? Because "SNOW"? then the whole set should be blue so why is this blue? This can't even find instants or sorceries, the stuff blue would tutor for. I'm not sure what colors would get this but I know this is at too strong a level.
Caribou Range, undercosted by at least W, Snowfall is more easily enabled than landfall so needs to be at least as expensive.
Frozen Fortress, too cheap
Winterchill Reveler, add a self-exile and this is good.
Frozen Flurry, the argument for Frozen Aruara being Red. The experiment is ongoing.
Rimescale Hellkite, good old affinity. Being a big splashy dragon is the perfect mythic slot.
Arctic Scrabbler, poor Phyrexian Walker, the cold has not been kind to you.
Frozen Heart, this is way too strong. Turning any amount of damage into a single sacrifice and then being able to insulate yourself against the sacrifice clause by making it only snow means even if it gets too big you just lose your snow stuff. It needs "When ~ leaves play lose life equal to the number of fracture counters on it."
Thaw, not red and 2CMC too cheap. Either GB or WB; maybe WG
Frozen Heart should behave more like a proper Lich effect and just straight-up lose you the game when it leaves the battlefield, with indestructible or hexproof to counterbalance it. The flavor, to me, appears to be like an icy version of Mishra's endoskeleton that replaces the user's actual heart with a durable magical artifact that goes haywire as it receives damage. In that case, something serious should befall its user if it breaks, especially since you're going to play around the sacrifice clause anyways.
Frozen Aurora: Was intended to be a Joiner Adept / Prismatic Omen effect for snow (which certainly seemed green to me) in addition to being a weaker winter orb call-back. I am making it Gruul for now and made the stax effect a bit less restrictive. Let's see if that works.
Rimebound Horror: Was intended as a Thing in the Ice callback. While horrors are typically black, I feel that a specific callback to a cold-related card may justify this sort of light color bend.
Frozen Glaciers: Made it into a snow Thawing Glaciers (a callback that I hope kinda-sorta explains what I was going for with that name. Alternatives are welcome), which was the intent to begin with. Has a higher activation cost but can potentially call out more copies of itself.
Rimebound Adept: Oh dear lord... how did I make such an amateur error? Fixed and thoroughly embarrassed.
Freeze: Cost increased.
Caribou Range: Cost increased
Frozen Fortress: Increased it to a 5/5 for 4 (at which point generating free 1/1s is a lot less impactful in anything outside of limited).
Winterchill Reveler: Exiles self.
Arctic Scrabbler: Was honestly weak on purpose. Just wanted a free frozen artifact.
Thaw: Now costs ... which seems to be the right colors for a card called thaw. It seems pretty appropriately powered for a situational 2-color kill spell. May also consider a modal spell (either snow disenchant or 3 damage to snow creature) with instant speed.
Frozen Heart: Is now a more expensive and functions more like phyrexian unlife. While there are some significant upgrades (only losing the game at EoT), the significantly higher cost should hopefully off-set.
Arctic Expedition: Honestly, it seemed like there should be some sort of snow tutor in existence. As U/G was the primary snow color combination in MH1, it seemed like the appropriate colors at this time. Other designs that I considered were putting it 3 cards from the top (requiring some digging to reach your treasure) a la Long term plans or making it an uncommon CMC 3 enchantment that sacs after gaining 4 quest counters (gained for "snow-fall").
Cold Betrayal: Was an abject error in judgment. I wanted to see what it would theoretically require for snow to break out in modern and I ran way too far with the idea. Crossing it out.
Frozen Aurora - I understand what you want to say but snow mana doesn't work that way. The wording would probably be something like this: "Whenever a snow permanents's ability causes you to add one or more mana, add that much mana of any color combination instead."
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For Frozen Aurora... why doesn't that wording work? I'm not quite sure what the problem there is. Would turning it into an activated ability (AKA : add one mana of any color.) work?
Winterchill Reveler was meant to be a Footbottom Feast for snow permanents. Letting you order those cards is kind of the point. Now that I'm looking at the original card, though, I see that the feast doesn't mention any order at all. Let me copy that formatting real fast. If the cost needs to be pumped up to , let me know.
Actually an activated ability will work much better. The reason your wording doesn't work is that S is not a type of mana, but a specific mana cost.
S means this cost can be payed by any mana that was produced by a snow permanent. So there is never any S in your mana pool so the ability like it was originally worded does nothing.
Making it an activated ability is good because it put S in the function of a cost, which is the only context it actually works. So yeah that is a good change.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Drop your knees to the floor
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Frozen Aurora
Snow Enchantment (R)
: Add one mana of any color.
Players can’t untap more than two nonbasic lands during their untap steps.
A sky of vibrant colors distracts from the featureless wasteland below
Rimebound Horror
Snow Creature- Horror (R)
: Exile target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost X from your graveyard and put a +1/+1 counter on Rimebound Horror. You may cast a copy of that card without paying its mana cost. Spend only on .
0/4
Pristine Glaciers
Snow Land (R)
Frozen Glaciers Enters the battlefield tapped.
Add .
, : Search your library for up to one snow land and put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library. Return Frozen Glaciers to its owner's hand.
Rimebound Adept
Snow Creature- Elf Druid (U)
Whenever a snow permanent enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
1/1
Freeze
Instant (U)
Freeze costs less to cast for each snow permanent you control.
Counter target non-snow spell.
Arctic Expedition
Instant (R)
Search your library for a snow card and reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it.
Caribou Range
Snow Enchantment (U)
Whenever Caribou Range or another nontoken snow permanent enters the battlefield under your control, you may create a 0/1 white caribou snow creature token and gain 1 life.
Frozen Fortress
Snow Artifact Creature- Wall (R)
Defender
Whenever an opponent casts a non-snow spell, create a 1/1 colorless construct snow artifact token.
: Frozen Fortress loses all abilities until end of turn. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
Cold BetrayalSorcery (R)
As an additional cost to casting Cold Betrayal, you may sacrifice any number of snow permanents.
For each permanent sacrificed as part of casting Cold Betrayal, draw a card, gain 1 life, and add .
You can’t spell ‘price’ without ‘ice’
Winterchill Reveler
Snow Creature- Skeleton (U)
Whenever Winterchill Reveler dies, exile it. When you do, you may return any number of snow permanents from your graveyard to the top of your library, then draw a card
1/1
For some, the long nights never end
Frozen Flurry
Sorcery (U)
Non-snow lands don’t untap during their controllers’ next untap step.
Rimescale Hellkite
Snow Creature- Dragon (M)
Rimescale Hellkite costs less to cast for each snow permanent you control.
Flying, Haste
When Rimescale Hellkite enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to each nonsnow creature.
5/5
Arctic Scrabbler
Snow Artifact Creature- Construct (U)
“It stomped on the tent, packed up the campfire, and promptly waddled into a crevasse. A good first test, if I do say so myself.”
0/2
Frozen Heart
Legendary Snow Artifact (M)
You do not lose the game for having 0 or less life.
Whenever you lose life, put that many fracture counters on Frozen Heart (Damage causes loss of life).
At the beginning of each end step, if the number of Fracture counters of Frozen hearts is greater than the number of snow permanents you control, sacrifice Frozen Heart.
Thaw
Sorcery (U)
Destroy target snow permanent.
Yes, Rimebound Horror's tied to instants/sorceries. But, horrors tend to be black.
Glaciers are inherently frozen, making that a useless modifier.
It's Elf, not Elven or Elvish. Elven's used for weapons, such as Elven Curve Blade, and Elvish is used to the people or language, such as Elvish Visionary.
Frozen Fortress, Cold Betrayal, and Thaw may not be fixable.
Winterchill Reveler either rare or mythic as is because most people will always trigger the ability, which is a more convoluted way of saying "return another target snow permanent from your graveyard to your hand, then put any number of other snow permanents from your graveyard on top of your library in random order. Changes made so one copy can't recur itself, and WotC doesn't like players making that kind of decision.
The Hellkite might be mythic.
Rimebound Horror, "you may cast a copy" doesn't function the way you want it to. You need to create a copy and then cast it.
Frozen Glaciers, too good at what it does, and what it does it trick inexperienced players into losing the game.
Rimebound Adept, ELF
Freeze, because even in a snow world this can counter every instant or sorcery I would cost it at 4UU so it's basically cancel if you play all snow lands but can be better.
Arctic Expedition, why is this blue? Because "SNOW"? then the whole set should be blue so why is this blue? This can't even find instants or sorceries, the stuff blue would tutor for. I'm not sure what colors would get this but I know this is at too strong a level.
Caribou Range, undercosted by at least W, Snowfall is more easily enabled than landfall so needs to be at least as expensive.
Frozen Fortress, too cheap
Winterchill Reveler, add a self-exile and this is good.
Frozen Flurry, the argument for Frozen Aruara being Red. The experiment is ongoing.
Rimescale Hellkite, good old affinity. Being a big splashy dragon is the perfect mythic slot.
Arctic Scrabbler, poor Phyrexian Walker, the cold has not been kind to you.
Frozen Heart, this is way too strong. Turning any amount of damage into a single sacrifice and then being able to insulate yourself against the sacrifice clause by making it only snow means even if it gets too big you just lose your snow stuff. It needs "When ~ leaves play lose life equal to the number of fracture counters on it."
Thaw, not red and 2CMC too cheap. Either GB or WB; maybe WG
Frozen Aurora: Was intended to be a Joiner Adept / Prismatic Omen effect for snow (which certainly seemed green to me) in addition to being a weaker winter orb call-back. I am making it Gruul for now and made the stax effect a bit less restrictive. Let's see if that works.
Rimebound Horror: Was intended as a Thing in the Ice callback. While horrors are typically black, I feel that a specific callback to a cold-related card may justify this sort of light color bend.
Frozen Glaciers: Made it into a snow Thawing Glaciers (a callback that I hope kinda-sorta explains what I was going for with that name. Alternatives are welcome), which was the intent to begin with. Has a higher activation cost but can potentially call out more copies of itself.
Rimebound Adept: Oh dear lord... how did I make such an amateur error? Fixed and thoroughly embarrassed.
Freeze: Cost increased.
Caribou Range: Cost increased
Frozen Fortress: Increased it to a 5/5 for 4 (at which point generating free 1/1s is a lot less impactful in anything outside of limited).
Winterchill Reveler: Exiles self.
Arctic Scrabbler: Was honestly weak on purpose. Just wanted a free frozen artifact.
Thaw: Now costs ... which seems to be the right colors for a card called thaw. It seems pretty appropriately powered for a situational 2-color kill spell. May also consider a modal spell (either snow disenchant or 3 damage to snow creature) with instant speed.
Frozen Heart: Is now a more expensive and functions more like phyrexian unlife. While there are some significant upgrades (only losing the game at EoT), the significantly higher cost should hopefully off-set.
Arctic Expedition: Honestly, it seemed like there should be some sort of snow tutor in existence. As U/G was the primary snow color combination in MH1, it seemed like the appropriate colors at this time. Other designs that I considered were putting it 3 cards from the top (requiring some digging to reach your treasure) a la Long term plans or making it an uncommon CMC 3 enchantment that sacs after gaining 4 quest counters (gained for "snow-fall").
Cold Betrayal: Was an abject error in judgment. I wanted to see what it would theoretically require for snow to break out in modern and I ran way too far with the idea. Crossing it out.
Rimescale Hellkite: Now mythic
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Winterchill Reveler was meant to be a Footbottom Feast for snow permanents. Letting you order those cards is kind of the point. Now that I'm looking at the original card, though, I see that the feast doesn't mention any order at all. Let me copy that formatting real fast. If the cost needs to be pumped up to , let me know.
S means this cost can be payed by any mana that was produced by a snow permanent. So there is never any S in your mana pool so the ability like it was originally worded does nothing.
Making it an activated ability is good because it put S in the function of a cost, which is the only context it actually works. So yeah that is a good change.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!