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.
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).
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.
Snow is not really a real theme, you just decide that you run Snow basics and you can then play these cards with maximal upside.
That being said, if you like particular cards that are snow-related, just errata your basics to snow. I went snow just for four cards because these fit well into my cube. In Kaldheim, there are a few that are also playable and I will include them.
I don't really understand this bad sentiment towards snow and whether or not to "support" it. It is trivial to support and there is a small payoff to it. It is just about whether you like it or not, because there is not question to snow offering very powerful tools.
I've never liked doing snow in cubes and honestly think it just looks quite messy design wise. Snow cards are designed to be in limited environments where you are supposed to need to draft the snow lands, and it really shows. It's a "critical mass" kind of design. I think it worked really well in Modern Horizons for example, which I personally found to be a great limited format. When people play things like Ice-Fang Coatl in cube it's basically like you replace every instance of "Snow" on the card with "Basic". Feels like using custom cards to me.
If I wanted to build a snow theme it would probably be in a Desert-style cube where all lands needs to be drafted, where some lands could be normal basics, some non-basics and some snow-basics perhaps.
With that said, I don't think any of these cards are terribly exciting to begin with. Also, calling Boreal Outrider a "mono-green Good-Fortune Unicorn" is a big exaggeration. You briefly mention it not working in persist combo, which is the main reason the unicorn is played, but it also doesn't work with tokens, which is another major downside.
I don't understand what you mean by "custom"? 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.
That idea with the Desert Cube sounds awesome. We were also thinking about that, as one could add Wasted too. With the few cards that generate Snow and Waste mana, it could become interesting.
That being said, the Snow cards spoiled so far are disappointing. But that was ptedictable as they can't make cards like in MH1, because they would break standard. The black 6 mana board wipe sounds like the most promising card but we already have Dead of Winter.
This really only seems good in aggro against control (you'd basically always counter their wrath cause they have a decent chance to hit something lower impact like draw or a counterspell), and in combo to protect your combo from opposing counterspells (the chances they hit a 2nd counterspell are very low).
All in all, way too narrow where it's good, and there's so many spells you just CAN'T counter with this (are you ever countering a 2-3 mana spell? Ever countering the ramp deck's ramp spell?).
I mean, you would never want to counter a ramp deck's ramp spell. You would always wait for the ramp payoff, so something with high CMC. In addition, I would definitely like to counter everything above 4 CMC with this which would ruin my day in Rx decks. From Wraths, Baneslayers, Mulldrifters, Avengers of Zendikar, Omnath, Oko etc.
I think that this gives Red the option to not surely lose against the cards it usually loses too. If I play an aggressive Red deck (not even Mono R, could also be Gruul or Rakdos), I am usually ahead until some 4+CMC (or even 3) card turns the corner. It is usually a very specific card for which the opponent mulliganed for or kept the hand for. Mostly Wraths, but also others which I already mentioned. We get more and more Baneslayerdrifters and my Red decks can't answer them anyway with Bomts because they already go their value from the ETB or Endstep trigger. So, this is the only card in Red that can answer a threat for sure (of course at a huge cost of them getting something random for free).
However, getting a random card from your deck while being behind is awful. We play powerful cards in cube, but the average "bare powerlevel" of cards in cube is very low because we play a lot of cheap cards that don't have a high impact in a vacuum, like Preordains, Manadorks, Manarocks, Counterspell and generally low CMC cards. Hitting some of these is terrible when your opponent is ahead. Of course, this card can and will be really bad for you sometimes, but on average, this card is a 2 mana counterspell (not even for RR) which lets your opponent cascade into something of 1-3 CMC most of the time that won't help them in that situation. I think that having the option for such a counterspell in Red is huge and could potentially lead to us to question our play everytime if your opponent has RX mana up.
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.
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).
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.
That being said, if you like particular cards that are snow-related, just errata your basics to snow. I went snow just for four cards because these fit well into my cube. In Kaldheim, there are a few that are also playable and I will include them.
I don't really understand this bad sentiment towards snow and whether or not to "support" it. It is trivial to support and there is a small payoff to it. It is just about whether you like it or not, because there is not question to snow offering very powerful tools.
I don't understand what you mean by "custom"? 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.
That idea with the Desert Cube sounds awesome. We were also thinking about that, as one could add Wasted too. With the few cards that generate Snow and Waste mana, it could become interesting.
That being said, the Snow cards spoiled so far are disappointing. But that was ptedictable as they can't make cards like in MH1, because they would break standard. The black 6 mana board wipe sounds like the most promising card but we already have Dead of Winter.
I mean, you would never want to counter a ramp deck's ramp spell. You would always wait for the ramp payoff, so something with high CMC. In addition, I would definitely like to counter everything above 4 CMC with this which would ruin my day in Rx decks. From Wraths, Baneslayers, Mulldrifters, Avengers of Zendikar, Omnath, Oko etc.
I think that this gives Red the option to not surely lose against the cards it usually loses too. If I play an aggressive Red deck (not even Mono R, could also be Gruul or Rakdos), I am usually ahead until some 4+CMC (or even 3) card turns the corner. It is usually a very specific card for which the opponent mulliganed for or kept the hand for. Mostly Wraths, but also others which I already mentioned. We get more and more Baneslayerdrifters and my Red decks can't answer them anyway with Bomts because they already go their value from the ETB or Endstep trigger. So, this is the only card in Red that can answer a threat for sure (of course at a huge cost of them getting something random for free).
However, getting a random card from your deck while being behind is awful. We play powerful cards in cube, but the average "bare powerlevel" of cards in cube is very low because we play a lot of cheap cards that don't have a high impact in a vacuum, like Preordains, Manadorks, Manarocks, Counterspell and generally low CMC cards. Hitting some of these is terrible when your opponent is ahead. Of course, this card can and will be really bad for you sometimes, but on average, this card is a 2 mana counterspell (not even for RR) which lets your opponent cascade into something of 1-3 CMC most of the time that won't help them in that situation. I think that having the option for such a counterspell in Red is huge and could potentially lead to us to question our play everytime if your opponent has RX mana up.