Whispers of the Muse: Wolfgang’s Snowscape
Welcome to the next installment of Whispers of the Muse, our occasional series where a reader submits a list they’ve come up with based upon a precon deck, then it is put before the community for suggestions and advice.
Submitted towards the end of our Coldsnap reviews, Wolfgang had this to say:
As we are back in winter’s realms, I thought it might be appropriate to ask for help with my somewhat inertial version of the Snowscape deck.
The list of cards as shipped can be found here.
My current layout is given as follows:
3 Rimefeather Owl
3 Chilling Shade
2 Frost Raptor
2 Blizzard Specter
4 Rimewind Taskmage
2 Heidar, Rimewind Master
4 Rimebound Dead
2 Drift of the Dead
2 Balduvian Frostwaker
1 Gangrenous Zombies1 Doom Blade
2 Snow Devil
1 Preordain
1 Iceberg
2 Chill to the Bone1 Magewright’s Stone
2 Coldsteel HeartThe intention of my meddlings are to keep in all in line with the original deck’s plan as well as the central flavor element of the expansion itself, namely Snow. This is to be achieved by:
* using the commodities of snow mana
* chilling down the situation by gaining board control
* pressing the defense until the fliers pop up and help me attack by evasion.My experiences so far are as follows:
* The defensive plan works out quite well. However, it does not contribute to winning the game but only to protract my defeat.
* The Owl along with Heidar ar the deck’s stars. But, indeed, they take their sweet time to show up
* Drift of the Dead enchanted with Snow Devil keeps off almost anything.
* I find myself more often than not waiting for my attackers, handing over the initiative to the opponent in the meantime.Cards I’m quite in doubt with:
* Iceberg: Acceleration for more expensive spells (Heidard, Rimefeather Owl)
* Chill to the Bone: absolutely flavorful, however somewhat expensive for removal
* Rimebound Dead: nice blockers but absolutely worthless when hitting late game
* Snow Devil: unsatisfactory when desperately waiting for offensive forcesWhat I ask the community for are ways to either speed up the deck or to tighten the grip of icy control. Card pools in consideration:
* Coldsnap … of course
* M10 and M11
* a red splash, giving me access to the set’s top removal: SkredThank you all in advance, and – in contrary to the plan pursued here – may spring lighten up your days.
Ertai's Lament 
Sounds like you need more card draw if you’re waiting for your attackers. Stuff like Foresee would go a long way to help fix that.
Scrying Sheets, yo! Also, Mouth of Ronom.
I like Ruin Snag for cheap countermagic. Phyrexian Ironfoot is a very solid beater from that set with a minuscule drawback. Add more Doom Blades – Chill to the Bone is expensive. Frozen Marsh is also a good land to try out.
I think that you need to increase the amount of Pre-Ordains to a full playset for deck manipulation and card draw. You have a lot of cards that cost 4 or more cmc so I might take out one of the Rimfeather Owls and the Gangrenous Zombies. With deck manipulation and stalling tactics you should end up with sufficient time to draw the Owl when you need it while I don’t see the Zombies getting much play. With that in mind, you might want to increase your removal abilities with more Doom Blades or Dark Banishings. Back when I played Ice Age, Alliances, etc. Dark Banishing was great because it did what Doom Blade did although for 3 cmc (Doom Blade hadn’t been invented yet). Still, the flavor is there if you can find them. I’m also not sure how useful singletons of Magewright’s Stone and Iceberg are. Iceberg certainly is flavorful though so it all depends on how much you want to stick to your theme. I have a Phyrexian deck where I only have cards that have flavor text so I understand wanting to stick with a theme. Have fun!
Thank you all for the very constructive input. You are right, indeed, more blue card draw and card quality improvement respectively would not hurt in any way …
I had a few test matches yesterday and can add some more experience with specific cards:
* Rimebound Dead: not that bad as they block the ground with trample being the only way to get past.
* Rimefeather Owl: speaking of trample, that’s what this creature lacks. However, after clearing the skies, that 12/12 bird won the game for me. Yes!
* Iceberg: a dead card in my hand of which the only use was keeping the opponent in doubt whether I was holding back a removal spell … Of course it’s extremely flavorful, but it’s not even a snow permanent …
* Magewright Stone: out of line flavorwise, but extremely useful as it enable multiple uses of Heidar’s ability on the same turn.
* Blizzard Specter: removal magnet aka life insurance for my Frost Raptor who was able to sneak through. When the opponent had not removal ready, this guy’s discard ability saved the day.
I plan to consider your suggestions and keep you informed of how they fit into the deck’s strategy. Meanwhile enjoy the “darling buds of May” …