Goodbye, Modern Horizons Part 2, U/G and U/W

 

Welcome back to the second part of this Modern Horizons send-off. We're continuing with the rest of the Blue color pairs, as it's always right to start with the best color in Magic.

U/G "Snow"

U/G Snow revolves around picking up snow basic lands and cards that care about them.  Your snow decks will either care about snow a little (to turn on Winter's Rest) or a lot (to make the biggest Abominable Treefolk).  Which side we're on will have a big influence on our draft, but as we're U/G in general we're going to be in the camp that wants to play every single snow land it can.  This deck wins by playing a bunch of efficient cards like Rime Tender as it's general filler, in order to enable very powerful cards like Abominable Treefolk or Conifer Wurm.  Snow decks are often mill decks, as Iceberg Cancrix can deck the opponent very quickly if you have a lot of snow permanents, especially more Cancrix.  Ideally you'll have a Plan A of milling the opponent quickly with Iceberg Cancrix, and a plan B of casting Conifer Wurm and killing the opponent in 1-2 hits.  This deck requires lots of snow lands; 7 minimum but 10 is the sweet spot.  Another subtheme of the deck is "5 color" as with cards we want anyways like Arcum's Astrolabe and Springbloom Druid, we can cast any powerful cards we see.

Key Commons: Iceberg Cancrix, Rime Tender, Springbloom Druid
Arcum's Astrolabe, Snow Lands but especially Forest/Island

Snow decks want a bunch of individual pieces in multiples, a bunch of snow lands and a bunch of each good common listed above as well.  Unlike in other sections of this series where I noted cards as pay-offs or enablers, in snow decks only the snow lands are strict "enablers" while everything else is some sort of pay-off/enabler hybrid.  While Rime Tender is much better when it has lands to untap, it'll also give Abominable Treefolk +1/+/1 and trigger an Iceberg Cancrix.  Ideally, stick to the theme and take as many snow cards as you can, as they all work well with each other in some way or another.  Generally you're a mill deck, a goodstuff deck, or something in between, so try to lean into your strengths.  If your deck is trying to mill the opponent as its primary gameplan, don't be shy about playing Stream of Thought, for example.

General Pick Order for Snow Decks: Hexdrinker, Dead of Winter, Powerful rares (Genesis, Future Sight, others), Abominable Treefolk, Conifer Wurm, Blizzard Strix, Arcum's Astrolabe, Springbloom Druid, Iceberg Cancrix, Good Splashable Removal (Magmatic Sinkhole, others), Snow Forest/Island, Savage Swipe, Winter's Rest, Rime Tender, Draw Spells, Mother Bear, Frostwalla

Notably absent from the above are Glacial Revelation, Icehide Golem, and Chillerpillar.  Chillerpillar just isn't powerful, you never want it but often play it to make other snow cards better.  Icehide Golem is in a similar boat, but once you have a lot of cards that care about snow and a lot of snow lands 1cmc snow cards can become quite strong.  Glacial Revelation is only a reasonable card once it has 14+ hits, and I aim for 18+ if I'm going to be happy playing it.  I generally try to leave it in packs as a future signal that snow is open, as you have to be very heavy on snow permanents in order to ever make use of it.  Forcing snow is easy but risky, as you can just take every snow land out of all of the packs, but if someone at the pod fights you or snow pay-off cards like Abominable Treefolk don't get opened, you'll be left with a pile of useless lands and nothing to cast.  I generally will speculate on early snow Forests/Islands, and always try to make a note of what snow lands are in each pack as I draft.  Good rares are often what make good snow decks, as any card without a heavy White, Red, or Black commitment can be cast easily.

This deck is relatively complicated to construct, and the only consistent advice I can give is to play 16 lands if you have 2-3 Astrolabe's but don't be shy on running a few extra lands if you can't get enough colored sources to cast your spells.  You don't need that 3rd snow Mountain at the expense of ever casting Iceberg Cancrix on turn two, as that defeats the whole purpose of playing cards like that in your deck.

Takeaways

I feel like I've suckered myself into another article on how to properly draft this deck, as I feel like I'm only scratching the surface here.  With that said, snow as a theme worked out well in this set, but similarly to Ninjas maybe a bit too well for its own good.  Good snow decks were often "Mill/Aggro/Control/5 Color/Ramp" with no discernible weaknesses.  They could grind with any other decks in the format, and had multiple angles of attack due to Iceberg Cancrixes and some enormous, under costed creatures.  The main issue I have with draft strategies like this, is that often the games played with these decks lack meaningful decision making.  Once you've finished drafting a snow deck, you should have a really good idea what your record will be, and you only have real agency during the other "not playing" time of sideboarding.  I've certainly milled myself to fuel Magmatic Sinkhole Delve, or strapped a Treefolk Umbra to an Iceberg Cancrix to catch an opponent off guard, but generally this deck is super complicated to draft but braindead to play, almost like you're constructing your own robot.  I don't have as much real life experience drafting this set as I'd like, but I know people really don't enjoy getting decked by Iceberg Cancrix or killed in one hit by a 20/20 Conifer Wurm from experience.

U/W "Blink"

U/W Blink is a deck based around creatures with enter the battlefield abilities and the ability to reuse them in the future.  These decks are built around cards like Ephemerate and Moonblade Shinobi, which are the most efficient way to abuse enter the battlefield effects at common.  Where this deck really shines is once Soulherder is in play, as if it survives you can expect to generate an advantage on it for as long as it survives, often with a good array of choices whether you blink Man-o-War, Pondering Mage, or a snow creature for Iceberg Cancrix.  This is one of the most poorly supported decks in the entire format, and I want to harp on that as if you don't have the first copy of Soulherder, you most likely shouldn't draft this strategy.  Soulherder is the best card in this strategy, so ways to find it, protect it, and combine with it should be high priorities.  As a result of this, cards like Vesperlark and Shelter gain a lot of value, as your gameplan often involves protecting Soulherder and riding it to victory.  There are other ways to build U/W that have some power, such as using 1 mana flying creatures to enable Moonblade Shinobi, or building around Future Sight and other draw spells to play longer games.

Key Commons: Man-O-War, Moonblade Shinobi, Irregular Cohort, Pondering Mage (Pay-offs)
Ephemerate, Settle Beyond Reality (Enablers)

Ideally, U/W Blink decks should have a few copies of Ephemerate and a few copies of Settle Beyond Reality, but both have major diminishing returns in multiples.  The more Man-o-Wars your deck has, the more time you'll have to enable your slower cards, especially in the absence of Soulherder.  Your aggressive draws get pretty obviously better, too, as you'll be able to generate a mana advantage over your opponent very easily by casting Man-o-War multiple times in sequence.   One of the common ways this deck suffers is a lack of good things to do on turn two, as Reprobation doesn't cut the mustard in just about any main decks.  As such, after Soulherder you're really looking for Watcher for Tomorrow, and you'll often want to build in support for Eyekite as well for lack of other effective 2 mana spells.  Good versions of this deck will often be either piles of Man-o-War, piles of good uncommons/rares, or something in between.

General Pick Order for Blink:  Serra the Benevolent, Winds of Abandon, Mist-Syndincate Naga, Soulherder, Bazaar Trader, Giver of Runes, Future Sight, Force of Virtue, Watcher for Tomorrow, Blizzard Strix, Battle Screech, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Man-o-War, Moonblade Shinobi, Faerier Seer, Fact of Fiction, Rain of Revelation, String of Dissapearences, Versperlark, Irregular Cohort/Settle Beyond Reality, Eyekite, Imposter of the Sixth Pride

Answered Prayers and Rhox Veteran can be pretty reasonable in these decks as well, but mainly if you're more aggressively slanted.  Segovian Angel and Smoke Shroud as well get much better if you have a bunch of Moonblade Shinobis, but that should be pretty clear.  Once you know you're this deck, only Serra and Winds take precedence over Soulherder, as without at least the first copy your deck really suffers.  Like in U/R in the previous article, you shouldn't plan on getting into this deck unless you start with good cards that happen to be Blue or White, which will mean always biasing toward the good rares, uncommons, and good generic commons like Man-o-War.

Keep the creature count high, as Ephemerate as a value spell wants plenty of creatures to work with it.  You're generally going to play 17 lands, base Blue with either Faerie Seers and draw spells, or base White as a concession to Irregular Cohorts 2WW casting cost.  This deck will often have mana problems, as the vast majority of White decks will in this format, so generally play 8/9 as you'll want multiple of each mana to function properly.

Takeaways

Along with W/B, which we'll go over on a later day, this deck represents a huge miss for this format.  As with every White deck in this format, you'll generally run into problems with heavy color commitments during most games, and that often represents a major lack of consistency to the archetype as a whole.  Like in BFZ/Oath where Wizards powered up Reflector Mage to compensate for an underperforming U/W, Soulherder is an incredibly powerful card and a good U/W deck with multiple copies feels incredibly powerful and oppressive.  Getting your creatures repeatedly bounced by Man-o-War quickly pressures the opponent to either have a removal spell that can kill Soulherder, or lose the game quickly.  A real lack of good 2 drops at common really hurts this strategy, as you don't want any of the White ones and Eyekite and Iceberg Cancrix are mopey at best in this deck.  Largely this deck lost out on all of the care that went to other archetypes, as you have a single powerful enabler spell in Ephemerate, Soulherder, and largely nothing else in terms of support.

Stayed Tuned for next time, where we cover two White pairs, W/B and W/R

Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
sealedawaymtg.podbean.com in podcast form.