The newest Magic: The Gathering expansion set, Kaldheim, is set on the frosty plane of the same name. On Kaldheim, legendary warriors and Gods do battle, and the December previews barely scratched the surface of the new set. Now that more spoilers have been revealed, it's clear the Snow theme is especially strong here.
Snow is a small but growing mechanical theme in Magic: The Gathering. Until Kaldheim, Snow only appeared in the Coldsnap and Modern Horizons sets, but now, Kaldheim is pushing Snow to 11, and the newest preview cards are ice-cold. Here's what they're capable of doing, and what players need to know.
Snow cards are found in all five colors of mana, but those in Kaldheim appear to be focused mainly in blue, red and green mana. This is the "Temur" color combination, and interestingly enough, the Temur Frontier faction of Tarkir is set in snowy, icy mountains on the plane of Tarkir. Mechanically, though, Kaldheim's Snow cards have nothing to do with the Khans of Tarkir block. Instead, these cards care about Snow mana, which comes from Snow lands. Legends like Svella are even more creative with the concept of Snow.
Svella is a legendary Snow creature, a Troll Warrior, with 2/4 stats and some nifty activated abilities. Curiously, this Gruul-colored Troll would be mediocre at best in this set's red-green aggro deck; instead, it focuses entirely on Snow. For a payment of {3} and tap, Svella will make a colorless Snow artifact token named Icy Manalith that can tap for one mana of any color. That's a slow but sure way to fix mana, and Svella can use all those Manaliths and more to pay {6}RG and tap to look at the library's top four cards. Then, the player can cast a spell from among them without paying its mana cost, and the remaining cards go to the graveyard's bottom.
A splashy card like this may find a home in Commander decks that can easily ramp mana, and play explosive or even game-winning spells with that ability. The possibilities are endless, with commanders like Maelstrom Wanderer and Omnath, Locus of Rage being just the start. Svella could easily slot into their decks.
Graven Lore is a Snow instant costing {3}UU, and the player will scry X, with X being the amount of Snow mana spent to cast Graven Lore. Then, regardless of X's value, the player will draw three cards. In a pinch, this card can be like a slightly weaker Tidings at instant speed without Snow mana, and if Snow mana is used, then the player will almost definitely draw just what they need with Graven Lore.
Blessings of Frost is similar: Paying with Snow mana helps, but this card is still useful without any Snow involved, which gives it much-needed flexibility. In a pinch, this four-drop sorcery will simply draw a card for each friendly creature with 4+ power, but adding in Snow mana means the player will distribute up to four +1/+1 counters among their creatures. That can swing the board state in the player's favor, and it also makes it easier to have creatures with 4+ power for the card draw effect.
Overall, it's not yet clear whether the Snow theme will be strong enough to build an entire Standard deck in this Magic: The Gathering set, but a Temur-colored Snow deck may be a possibility for games of booster draft Limited.
Rovinglights Valley, for example, is a Snow land that enters the battlefield tapped, and once a color is chosen, Rovinglights Valley will tap for that color. In a two-color deck, other lands are superior to this one for mana fixing, but in a three-colored deck, such as red-blue-green, Rovinglights Valley can choose the right color to not be redundant with other lands that are in the hand or on the battlefield. If the player already has the red-green dual land, then Rovinglights Valley can be dedicated to blue.
Frost Augur is a cheap blue Snow creature that can pay one Snow mana and tap to look at the library's top card. If it's a fellow Snow card, it goes to the hand, and in a dedicated Snow deck, this can generate some impressive card advantage, even when a Snow land is revealed.
Tundra Fumarole is a Snow sorcery costing {1}RR, and regardless of Snow mana, it deals 4 damage to target creature or planeswalker, a more costly Flame Slash that can finish off problematic planeswalkers. For each Snow mana spent to cast this, one colorless mana will be added to the mana pool, and that mana sticks around for the rest of the turn -- not just until the end of that phase. This makes it easier to pay for costly spells later in the turn.
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