Why Snow-Covered Basic Lands are Superior. 

They need to print "Back to real basics" : snow lands doesn't untap.

Global Warming: (R), Sorcery. Exile all snow lands. Each player then searches his or her library for a number of basic non-snow land cards equal to the number of snow lands that player controlled that were exiled with Global Warming and puts them onto the battlefield tapped. That player then shuffles their library. Draw a card.

They could make a "Blood Moon" esque card, like "The great Melt" all snow lands are Islands.

Don't lie Nikachu, if you played basic mountain turn 1 against me I would know I'm up against Merfolk...

Nikachu: “merfolk master” TCC Professor: please see me after class

Snow basics won't even give you 1% bonus, but still, adding ~0.5%~ to your win rate is too good to decline. It's almost free why not take it? The only real cost is having uglier lands.

Honestly, printing snow hate would be pretty easy. One of the simplest would be to add Snowwalk. Simple and effective. As long as it's on some decent creatures it would be a deterant. Maybe something that "melts" a snow land, turning it into a non-snow land. Imagine a sorcery that says "Destroy target snow land. It's controller may search their deck for a non-snow land of the same type as that land." So at a minimum you need to run basics as well as snow lands or that card would just straight up remove your mana. I think they would be foolish to not introduce hate, especially since they're expanding on the mechanic, but we'll just have to wait and see how good they are.

I've been on about this forever. Information is a huge reason to play snow, but another is that a ton of competitive Magic cards over the years let you play your opponent's cards. Oko's ult, Reanimate, Fractured Identity, Phantasmal Image, Entrancing Melody, Direfleet Daredevil, Claim the Firstborn, Agent of Treachery, Gonti, Hostage Taker, Commandeer, Expansion/Explosion, Fallen Shinobi, Thieving Skydiver, and both sides of the new Valki/Tibalt as some examples. With those cards you can gain control of snow-matters cards from your opponent, then lose the game for not playing snow basics. But you will never gain control of regular-basics-matter cards that punish you for playing snow basics, so it's just strictly better to play snow. And of all the shameful things to make strictly better, basic lands should be the LAST thing WotC obsoletes. Afterall, regular basics are the only card every brand new player has access to that's playable at the highest levels of competitive Magic.

I'm so old that I actually played as a teenager when Ice Age was released. In Ice Age there weren't dedicated snow hate cards, but there were cards like Icequake (that people did play, just as land removal) that made having snow lands cost something, even if the cost was very small. Then again, the payoffs for having snow lands in Ice Age were terrible, so it didn't matter much then, but still.

Wasn’t their whole reason for hating original duals that they were explicitly better than basics in every way?

I just wish they’d print snow lands with Unstable border treatment, even as a secret lair “Winter Underland” set or something along those lines.

I think that land cycle being at common is a positive signal at the least. These could have been mythics in a supplimemtal product and would have sold like hotcakes for 20-30$ a pop

just wait until Wizards releases "charred" lands to combat snow lands

Love how you ignore us pauper players, we’re actually excited

That basic island doesn't even look like a magic card. Your opponent might just think you're showing them a pretty picture.

In his latest "Good morning magic" Gavin Verhey announced that a snow hate card, not yet revealed, is included into the Kaldhein set. I hope it will be an artifact so that could be accommodate in every sideboard list.

They should just change the rules so that snow lands are affected by nonbasic hate like field of ruin, blood moon, etc (but are still basics in every other regard)

So, this seems like an extremely easy fix outside of snow hate; just print non-snow required cards. Cards that count non-snow permanents. Cards that have secondary effects if you don't control snow permanents. Make them alternative strategies and it's not nearly as toxic.

Bruh, I had almost quit Modern and mtg in general until I found this chanel, I don't think any drug dealer can provide me shit as good as this

I'm still waiting for the day someone plays Break the Ice against myself or other snow players in Commander.

I said this on your stream and I will say it again, I just use snow lands, because they look prettier than normal lands.

They likely had to bolster the mechanic before adding a counter. I know they've been waiting a while but adjusting the power of the meta can take time. Adding new snow cards gives more options and versatility to those decks but will also lean them towards more snow dependence. When they open up to the counter, they are probably hopping to create a few mechanisms or such to punish snow lands instead of creating just a handful of cards everyone runs in every deck to deal with the problem

Honestly I had the very same concern just for standard when snow was first revealed. At least it's fine there, since Reidane, the one snow hate card they printed, is actually played, giving snow basic a real cost. But even that is likely just temporary, because as soon as Monowhite falls out of the meta, Reidane remains without a deck and snow basic outclass basics again. The thing with Reidane is that she isn't even that good of a hate card. When her powerlevel isn't up to speed in eternal formats, it's indistinguishable from no hate cards, so all the problems described by you persist.

I'm hoping for a Snow Moon effect, turns all Snow Lands into Wastes.

Reidane, god of justice makes all snow lands come in tapped.

WotC needs to commission John Avon with a play set of Snow lands.

A) 2U - counter target spell. This spell costs 1 less to cast if snow mana was used to cast target spells B) 2R - destroy target land. This spell costs 1 less if targeting a snow land C) cycle of normally costed spells but has "if your opponent controls 3 or more snow permanents, draw a card" Edit: snow hate might also depower Field of the Dead in Modern. We should also apply the same logic to Escape cards. Like Enchantment - R - escape costs 3 more or 4 additional cards to Cast Or 1B - destroy target creature or planeswalker with casting cost 3 or less. If opponent has at least 1 card with escape in the graveyard, draw a card. I like specific, narrow hate for powerful mechanics rather than bans.

Eating Hay and Sniffing Butts.... That pretty much defines FNM at my LGS.

Just adding my experience with snow lands in pauper: I kinda agree with you. It's 100% something to think about when playing in a format with relevant snow decks. It's something to consider but it's not always without an upside. In pauper for example, after the astrolabe ban we got back to having only izzet skred as a 'snow' deck. So, if I was to play dimir faeries, which is a deck very close to izzet faeries, I wouldn't want to play snow lands, so that my opponents would consider the chance of my deck being just a control deck. On the other hand, I've played some games with jeskai familiars, which is a deck that runs islands, the full 'fetchland package' (ash barrens, evolving wilds) and preordain. I've had a few games where I tried to make it look like I was skred faeries (like, snow-covered island go, fetch island with ash barrens, preordain). And it was HUUUUUUUGE. As izzet faeries have spellstutter sprite, passing with 2 mana open makes people play a very different game, on their back foot instead of flooding the board to win ASAP, which is the correct thing against familiars, and until they realized I was familiars they had wasted 1 or 2 turns playing around spellstutter and counterspell. TL:DR; in some formats/metas it's really, really relevant, but it's not always the correct choice. It adds another layer of mind game at the cost of sometimes taking out a layer of pretty basic lands.

Enchantment: 2W Springtime All snow permanents enter the battlefield tapped.

Gavin confirmed 1 piece of snow hate is coming in kaldheim from yesterday’s Good Morning Magic episode. Is 1 piece enough? Probably not, but maybe. I’m hoping it’ll b like a boil for all snow-lands maybe? Something ponza could utilize? That might be a bit too hopeful on my part, lol

9:10 that comparison had a lot of details...

I remember getting in a small argument with my friend about snow-lands. He thought it was a throwaway gimmick but I insisted that the implications of your lands generating 2 different kinds of mana blew the lid off of usual deck limitations. I'm glad the snow mechanic is finally gaining some recognition.

Is it possible to put snow cards in a Modern Jund deck that utilizes Reclaimer Titan?

Before the reprinting of snow lands in modern horizons and khaldheim it was common for people to just consider all basics snow type. as there is no disadvantage to running them and not everyone had enough copies.

Now snow is in standard and pioneer, so yeah regular basics are completely obsolete

was going to buy some unhinged basic islands. will hold back and see what this 'snow hate' will be. it will probably be: artifact, 7 mana, pay 7, all players with at least one snow permanent loses 2 life. /s

Basic snow land, comes into play tapped. You may reveal a nonland snow spell from your hand, untap basic snow land and you may choose target creature, that creature connives.

How do you know when or if to put Snow mana into a deck?

Now we wait for the casual commander players to give an opinion on why it doesn't matter thinking their format is competitive

I built a mono blue deck that had multiple ways of getting 8/8 krakens into play. When Icebreaker Kraken showed up, I switched all my lands to snow covered just to play that one card.

You just need to play storm so you can play both! As for a way to punish it, I'd probably go for a Price of Progress style effect or maybe a Shock that turns into a Lightning Bolt if your opponent controls 3 or more Snow Permanents.

Wizards should bring back Artifact Lands and retcon them to be Basic Artifact Lands and then add Basic Enchantment Lands and Basic Elf Lands and Basic Sliver Lands, and so on.

Nice video! I agree with the use of snow-covered basics in Modern. The same example that you included in the video happened to me, I was using my Phoenix deck and it was really fun haha! But in the Legacy format there is interaction with snow-covered lands, such as: Icequake, Avalanche and Thermokarst. Of course, they aren't the best interactions out there, but Icequake has potential. Regards!

Mishra's Snowshoes: Tap to get target creature snow-walk until end of turn

If theres no functional difference and there are snow lands for all lands, you can just have a tournament rule state that all lands are considered snow lands if there exists a viable snow land equivalent to the card, so you can run your favorite version of the card and still have them used as snow lands for snow cards. Seems like an easy fix at the tournament organizer level.

I just discovered your channel, and am really enjoying your takes and commentary. I comepletely agree with this! Also, hello from NS!

What's next? Counterspell for a blue and a snow mana?

I feel like when they came to "Highland Forest" because the name "Taiga" was taken they should've just taken it as a sign and given up on the snow duels.

OMG thank you for explaining. I've been looking at deck list and have been so confused.

My argument against this is that yes it helps narrow down what cards you aren't playing. But the addition of those cards doesn't necessarily push out other decks, it adds to the pool of potential decks you're against so ruling them out puts you back to square one

I always kept my snow lands put aside and one day while on a roll making decks decided to hit that pile of snow. Lots of kaldheim and some mh1 stuff. Had a great manabase for black blue so went for black/blue snow. It's a pretty solid deck. Really average pace but it makes strong moves. It can wipe stuff with ease, play stuff from the graveyard with ease, and with a little proper setup can find yourself swinging with an 8/8 Trample. Dead of winter is my favorite. Beast snow card.

I remember when wizards didnt want to touch the snow mechanic ever again, I guess that old guard is gone from wizards =/

Thanks for making this I finally understand why modern decks have se snow lands all the time.

I got two card ideas: 1. End of winter. enchantment GG: all snow permanents lose their snow attribute. 2. Ground hogs day. instant R: flip a coin, if you call it right, create an End of winter token. If you don't create a "6 weeks of winter token" on your opponents side of the fiend vanish 6 ( colorless snow enchantment. does nothing. it is removed after six turns). 3. bonus: endless winter. UUUGGG: "only snow permeants untap. If this card loses it's snow attribute. destroy this card" (snow enchantment). 4. bonus bonus: Ground hogs day Requiem: RRRRRRR encahtment: flash. at the end step, restart the turn. if this leaves play. you lose the game. if this causes an endless loop. you lose the game.

You deserve way more attention as an Mtg youtuber. Been a fan of your channel and the og Merfolk vids for a super long time, love the effort you put into every vid

Not a pioneer player, but still curious : now that time has passed, has the snow hate in kaldheim proven to be enough to deter players from using snowlands ? Since the snow hate is limited to one white card only ever playable in white jail decks, I would assume not, correct ?

For casual play, I used to run a control deck with snow-covered islands. By the time this deck reached its final form, there were only two cards that used it; Rhymefeather Owl, and Extraplanar Lenz. The owl was obvious; a beat-stick that I had some combos with. Extraplana Lenz shocked people though. They expected it to either imprint a obscure non-basic land, or a basic land that they might be able to benefit from. By this point, Snow-Covered Islands were obscure, and no one had them. Snow-Covered lands aren't just snow versions of basic lands... they also have the benefit of being basic lands, and the benefit of having a different name.

What do you think about the snow hate god from kaldheim

Some solutions are an artifact or enchantment that "snow effects do not triggers or pay 1 mana for it", it's really strong because it don't just make some cards useless but the extra power that comes owning snow permanents is punished like the extra 1 dmg from Frost bite, scry from graven lore, blood on snow... they all still works but gets does not get the extra snow effect. There are less severe ways to deal with it like every time a snow effect triggers it's owner loses 2 life (instead of 1 since some decks sometimes runs just 1 powerful snow effect), good snow walk creatures etc etc

There is one card (that I know) that has snow hate. Arctic Foxes-- "Arctic Foxes can't be blocked by creatures with power 2 or greater as long as defending player controls a snow land." Could be a good way to sneak in some damage unless they have chumps, then you just use trample and pumps.

Extraplanar Lens is awesome to play with Snow Lands so that your opponent doesn't get the benefit. (Assuming they're not playing Snow)

Well, good news is "Break the Ice" is now a card that's legal in Modern.

It would be great in terms of flavor a sort of looping saga inspired to seasons like every two turns snow permanents aren’t snow anymore.

I’m surprised there wasn’t a snow affinity type mechanic That would’ve been nuts

I’m so happy I found your channel, your fucking hilarious 😂😂😂

Yep I was worried it would all just be snow lands maybe even in standard this set

Dude your analogy at ~7:30 was absolutely brilliant!! Hope more people soak that

Thanks for this information, i didnt know how important this land choice is.

Already pre-ordered mine! 4c snow control is 100% awesome!!!

In Modern there are so many nonbasics this becomes a non-issue for many decks. It's also such a fast format that your strategy gets revealed early on. Playing Humans, Burn, Dredge, Amulet - once the opponent has seen some cards they can pick that there's no snow synergy (unless it's a midrange list that can splash eg Dread of Winter in Grixis Control).

Best rant so far! And you know what? I totally get it

I've been out the game nearly 20 years. I have no idea what the advantage of a snow covered land is. Just now getting back into it for nostalgia. I'll figure this out.

It’s called Melting and Avalanche. They are expensive to cast. But they exist.

I play mono red in pioneer - just for the hell of it, should all my mountains be snow-covered, even if my deck has no use for them?

Man, the snow lands to get a extremely small edge is being a thing since 2004 at least, I remember playing heartbeat combo deck in GP Bilbao 2004 and my mana base was 6 white border basic collection forest, 6 snow covered forest, 5 white border basic collection Islands, and 5 snow covered islands, for two reasons. Reason one, in some weird corner case scenarios I would want to play Gift's ungiven to fetch 4 lands out of my deck in between Mind's Desire resolutions to raise the odds to get something good out of them, so I needed all four types of lands to be able to do that. Reason two, sometimes that deck just played "land go" for the first 2 o 3 turns, and cast your first spell in the EOT of your opponent third turn, and the basic white border lands and the fact that you didn't play anything in the first 2 o 3 turns was enough to make some opponent belive that you are a new player with a basic pre-made deck and they tap up instead of be patiend holding counter magic or whathever (this of course only worked the first 1-3 rounds of the tournament, there is now way to be 6-0 in a GP with a pre-made deck) but it was worth enough, to win 1 o 2 games more easily at the beggining. But to be honest I never ever cared about the art of the cards when I played, I usually just put in the first X basic land I found a be done, so if they need to be snow covered or not, I can't care less for the art, I would put them and move on.

There's a little bit of snow hate in Ice Age. A card called Cold Snap comes to mind.

Well Reidane, God of the Worthy is as close as it gets to "snow hate" i guess

So nikachu how do you feel about the new card spoiled today redaine god of justice that makes snow lands enter tapped and increases non creature spell costs by 2

8:52 best line

"Endless Winter - UG, Snow permanents do not untap during the untap step. Any player may discard their hand to destroy this card."

Such a 1st world problem, grown men cant use their favorite pictures on cardboard when roleplaying as wizards trying to defeat eachother in makebelief combat 😊

what Im hearing is we need more snow art

"Destroy target land if it's snow covered"

i think it would be fair if thosse snow lands would be non basic lands. than an snow type deck has even think about how many snow lands they wanna paly. and if this would be a too high disadvantage, maybe say they can just be targeted as though they were basic lands by landdestruction and stuff. but they can't be searched for as basic lands

Snow covered volcanic isle would be kinda lit.

Im going to ask this but are you saying that there are no answers in non snow cards that rival it. I've seen a snow deck get trounced by a non snow deck

Proxy pretty art on snow covered baddabing baddabopm

I like jim davis's idea of making some kind of small aggro creature that gets first strike or something if your opponent has a snow permanent

I wanna see a card that deals 1 damage to each player during their upkeep for each snow land (or permanent) they control.

So a few snow-related cards have a slight advantage if used by a Snow-land player. There will always be regular alternate cards that are superior. Any spell or ability that can destroy a non-Snow land can destroy a Snow-land. Ice Age and Coldsnap had a number of anti-Snow cards, notably Avalanche, Barbarian Guides, Cold Snap, Freyalise's Radiance and Melting. Also several creatures with Snow-Landwalk - Arctic Foxes, Rime Dryad, Legions of Lim-Dul and Zombie Musher. Now these creatures aren't great but they are anti-Snow. Also can always mix Snow-lands in with your regular basic lands in any deck, as they are functionally the same, except to specific anti-Snow spells and effects.

Man, this why u split ¼ ur land basic as a false hope. When i dropped basic lands the first 3 turns then drop snow lands my friends were kinda shocked. Then my snow mana helped out my spells etc.

This is so true! I have also felt this way! It’s honestly really stupid, why make a distinction if there is no downside to snow.

Artificial Sun (W) (R) (1) Artifact At the beginning of each player's upkeep they sacrifice a snow permanent. , then if there are no snow permanents on the battlefield, sacrifice Artificial Sun.

well, if you are playing against a White deck, opponent might have Reidane, God of the Worthy (snow lands enter tapped). They need to print more stuff like that, like, idk, a red card that says "when tapped, snow lands does not untap during its controller next untap phase" for example

we are far beyond the point that playing snow basics is niché. andrew day 2 dryden did this forever in his burn deck.

In my competitive 1v1 commander deck, I use secret lair snow covered lands.

9/10 rant, passionate and informative!

I have a friend who runs Snow Lands in his sheoldred Commander deck for the sole reason of not giving his opponents mana through Extra Planar Lens

Break the Ice, Reidane... Oh, that's it.