There are a lot of snow matter cards that you can center a theme around for lower powered cubes to build an archetype around... to say otherwise, kind of suggests you are a cube owner not particularly a cube designer.
As for just changing your basics to snow basics, I don't have an issue with that. But even then, these cards don't cut the mustard for most average Cubes.
I don't know what you are meaning by the difference between cube owner and designer. I assume that everyone who has a cube, does modifications on their own which makes every cube owner a designer. I highly doubt that people copy a cube online and leave it like that forever.
Owning a Cube, evaluating a card, and making a cut - isn't the same as curating an entire environment for you Cube to provide players. My intention was not to sound condescending (I apologize if that is how it came across), but merely say that the two are different processes entirely.
The snow matters theme only works for low-low power, you are right. This is the reason why it is not interesting for standard nonpower vintage cube, which
is still the most popular cube. Of course, you can also include Snowbasics in your draft picks, but that is obviously no option for standard nonpower vintage cube. In addition, some Snow cards are way to powerful for midpower cube, like Icefang Coatl, Astrolabe, Dead of Winter, Skred, etc. even Blood on the Snow (of course unless you don't play Snowbasics instead of basics).
I don't really have anything to say on this bit, I think you and I are in agreement here.
It is pretty clear that you just play Snow basics if you want to play Snow cards in vintage cube and that you will have to do something more elaborate if you want a real snow theme which would imply drafting Snowlands because it is pointless otherwise.
You initially stated that "Snow is not really a theme". My counter argument is that, it is should you actually want to play snow cards and ultimately a lower powered Cube. The premise being that no snow card is individually good enough to be anything more than a fringe card in world where vintage cubes are the standard.
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Custom cards means cards you have designed yourself, or somehow altered the rules of. Most cubes don't play custom cards, but some do. A common reason for customizing cards are to play cards as they were before an errata, to simplify a rule or similar. A common example is cubes that play Chaos orb like an artifact that says: (1)(Tap): Destroy target permanent. Another common example are people who play Orcish Oriflamme or Oubliette misprints, these were both printed with the wrong mana cost, so you can get copies that lower CMC and thus more powerful.
If I play Snow basics instead of Basics, then that is just the way it is like in any other format. In addition, I really like that cards like Coatl, Dead of Winter, etc. exactly lead players to play more (Snow) Basics.
This is where I disagree, and this was my main point. Playing snow basics in a cube is not like any other format. In no official limited format ever have you been allowed to add snow basics to your draft pool. Not in draft, and not in sealed. Instead you have needed to draft snow basics. The design of snow-matters card for limited strongly reflects this, where the pay-off necessitates that you also draft snow-covered lands during the draft. Only in constructed format can one freely add as many snow basics as you want, but Cube is inherently a limited format, where to me, the draft experience is the main reason to play it.
I know a lot of people play snow-covered basics in their cube, and I totally understand why, it means you get to play some unique and powerful cards. But my point was that this is changing the fundamentals of how a limited format usually works. It's your cube and your format, of course you decide how you play. But to me this goes against what I want cube to be. Some people also let people add as many tapped dual lands as they want to their draft pool. One cube I saw mentioned on Reddit let all players add one of each fetch and one of each dual to their pool. These are more drastic examples of changing the "fundamental rules" of how draft works, but I think adding snow-covered basics is basically the same as these examples at the most fundamental level.
My point about snow-cards feeling like "custom cards" is this: Because adding snow-covered basics to your pool is traditionally not allowed, adding this house rule is functionally equivalent to taking a sharpie to snow-cards and changing "snow permanents" or "snow lands" to "basic lands". I won't criticize anyone for playing snow in their cube, nor would I criticize anyone for playing custom cards. I was just presenting my thoughts on why I, personally, don't.
Another example: Some people also play only snow-covered basics in their cubes, saying you can't play non-snow basics - and then they add Cold Snap as an incredibly powerful aggro card. I mean, at that point, you might as well just design your own white sulfuric vortex and play that.
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We've had snow cards in our paper cube since MH1, so these new ones look great but we won't be able to play them until covid ends since XMage doesn't support snow lands for custom drafts. Ascendant Spirit and Narfi, Betrayer King look incredible, and alongside Arcum's Astrolabe (and I guess on a technicality Coldsteel Heart) round out our snow section. We had to cut Icehide Golem, Frostwalk Bastion and Ice-Fang Coatl for space about a year ago but they're great too, and if our cube were any bigger we'd bring them back as well (specifically the Golem, might even replace Crawling Barrens with it because I miss it so much).
Reidane, God of the Worthy seems alright, but all decks that don't have snow cards in them would rather play regular basics in a format with this card, and although it looks alright even without the snow land effect, I don't think its good enough to justify a slot.
Owning a Cube, evaluating a card, and making a cut - isn't the same as curating an entire environment for you Cube to provide players. My intention was not to sound condescending (I apologize if that is how it came across), but merely say that the two are different processes entirely.
The snow matters theme only works for low-low power, you are right. This is the reason why it is not interesting for standard nonpower vintage cube, which
I don't really have anything to say on this bit, I think you and I are in agreement here.
You initially stated that "Snow is not really a theme". My counter argument is that, it is should you actually want to play snow cards and ultimately a lower powered Cube. The premise being that no snow card is individually good enough to be anything more than a fringe card in world where vintage cubes are the standard.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
Custom cards means cards you have designed yourself, or somehow altered the rules of. Most cubes don't play custom cards, but some do. A common reason for customizing cards are to play cards as they were before an errata, to simplify a rule or similar. A common example is cubes that play Chaos orb like an artifact that says: (1)(Tap): Destroy target permanent. Another common example are people who play Orcish Oriflamme or Oubliette misprints, these were both printed with the wrong mana cost, so you can get copies that lower CMC and thus more powerful.
This is where I disagree, and this was my main point. Playing snow basics in a cube is not like any other format. In no official limited format ever have you been allowed to add snow basics to your draft pool. Not in draft, and not in sealed. Instead you have needed to draft snow basics. The design of snow-matters card for limited strongly reflects this, where the pay-off necessitates that you also draft snow-covered lands during the draft. Only in constructed format can one freely add as many snow basics as you want, but Cube is inherently a limited format, where to me, the draft experience is the main reason to play it.
I know a lot of people play snow-covered basics in their cube, and I totally understand why, it means you get to play some unique and powerful cards. But my point was that this is changing the fundamentals of how a limited format usually works. It's your cube and your format, of course you decide how you play. But to me this goes against what I want cube to be. Some people also let people add as many tapped dual lands as they want to their draft pool. One cube I saw mentioned on Reddit let all players add one of each fetch and one of each dual to their pool. These are more drastic examples of changing the "fundamental rules" of how draft works, but I think adding snow-covered basics is basically the same as these examples at the most fundamental level.
My point about snow-cards feeling like "custom cards" is this: Because adding snow-covered basics to your pool is traditionally not allowed, adding this house rule is functionally equivalent to taking a sharpie to snow-cards and changing "snow permanents" or "snow lands" to "basic lands". I won't criticize anyone for playing snow in their cube, nor would I criticize anyone for playing custom cards. I was just presenting my thoughts on why I, personally, don't.
Another example: Some people also play only snow-covered basics in their cubes, saying you can't play non-snow basics - and then they add Cold Snap as an incredibly powerful aggro card. I mean, at that point, you might as well just design your own white sulfuric vortex and play that.
Reidane, God of the Worthy seems alright, but all decks that don't have snow cards in them would rather play regular basics in a format with this card, and although it looks alright even without the snow land effect, I don't think its good enough to justify a slot.