Because I can't resist a self-imposed challenge, here's how to draft Snow.
Despite my best efforts, I knew I couldn't end my series on Modern Horizons without explaining how to draft Snow. There's a pile of different strategies to assert yourself into this deck, from taking every snow basic you see starting on pick one, to watching certain cards in packs move around the table.
Drafting Snow, with Good Draft Strategy.
Be observant. Without good observational skills, this deck will never be available to you unless everyone at the table is actively avoiding it. You're going to take a step-by-step approach each and every pick until things get to 3 cards or less, in order to determine if Snow is draftable in you seat. Some important rules.Rule #1: Always predict what will come back.
While this is a good strategy for drafting in general, looking at packs and evaluating what you'll get after a trip around the table has never been as important as it is here. At pack one, things are easy, as you'll almost always be looking to draft snow after taking a strong snow affiliated card first, so you can try to plan on the basic land coming back for you eight picks later. Things already get complicated here, as you need to have a rough idea on where every card in the pack will get taken, which means having a good amount of experience drafting the format. In a weak pack for example, you might take Abominable Treefolk first, hoping to get the snow Island back, but in the absence of standout uncommons or commons, it's likely someone else will speculate on the land before it makes it back. Can we hope to get a Frostwalla or Icehide Golem back around the table here? If not, taking the Treefolk gets complicated, as we might not be able to get something back if we do. Remember, in this strategy you'll need to use 30-33 of your picks on average for cards in your deck, as you're going to be spending numerous picks on basic lands, and you need 22-23 spells just like everyone else. Abominable Treefolk, as an example, is a strong enough card that I'm not going too worry to much about getting something back. Replace it with Winter's Rest or Rime Tender, and it becomes a lot more pivotal to see something out of that same pack later.Rule #2: Account for other drafter's opinions.
Assuming a pod of strangers, the only thing you can really expect out of a given draft pod is that people will make decisions based off of some reasoning; especially at a GP day 2 people are rarely taking cards at random or rare drafting. Especially if you're really experienced at a format, you're going to see consistent faulty reasoning take shape among other drafters. For an example on this format, I often see The First Sliver go 8th and later, and while I don't think it is the best rare in the set by any stretch, there is no pack strong enough that no one should have speculated on it in the previous seven picks. Despite this observation, I have no incentive to break this trend. If other people consistently undervalue certain cards, my goal is to very slightly value them over where other people do. If for example, The First Sliver is generally taken 4th-6th pick, we can start taking it 3rd-5th. We'll end up with the powerful overvalued card more often than other people, but we don't have to make a big sacrifice to get into that position. As this is more general draft strategy than specific strategy for snow, we look to exploit that knowledge here by asking ourselves a few small questions. For example, we ask ourselves, "What is the best deck?" if we answer "Snow", then that means that we should value cards that are good in the snow strategy. Applying this rule, we should aim to take snow cards slightly higher than other people are willing, in order to end up in this deck more often and increase our win percentage.Rule #3: Keep track of incentives, and have an exit strategy.
Continuing our theme of "draft good", drafting snow is never going to be a simple as just reading the signals and calling it a day. As snow decks can take a large variety of shapes, watching for patterns among cards is much more important that what colors of spells you're seeing. If you see lots of mana fixing, you can take it and draft any powerful cards you see, and despite Snow's U/G basis you're only tied to Green in the absence of Arcum's Astrolabe. Pay attention to cards like Icehide Golem and Winter's Rest, as both are the opposite ends of the snow spectrum. Icehide Golem asks you to play a lot of snow lands, and shines when you have lots of cards that care about snow permanents. Winter's Rest really only needs a few snow lands. If you're not seeing cards like Icehide Golem and Glacial Revelation relatively late, but you saw them initially in packs, snow as a strategy is unlikely to be open for you, and you should look elsewhere as soon as possible so that you can still end up with a good deck. Color signaling matters a lot more when you've decided snow is no longer an option. You can assume that Blue and Green are open if you're seeing lots of snow cards, even if you're not seeing lots of good cards of either color.The best way to have an exit strategy is to not commit to early. It's always an option to take every snow land you see, but if snow ends up not open enough you're going to end up a pile of useless basic lands and nothing to cast with them. Cards like Rime Tender, Winter's Rest, and Frostwalla can function effectively when you don't have many snow lands, but Iceberg Cancrix and friends will not, making it a much bigger commitment.
Types of Snow Decks
In general, every snow deck will equal out to one or a combination of the following subtypes. Keep these end points in mind when you're drafting.5C Snow
If you can get multiple copies of Springbloom Druid or Arcum's Astrolabe, as well as powerful cards worth splashing, this is an ideal place to end up. The First Sliver is your absolute best card here for the amount of work it takes, although sometimes the Abominable Treefolks and Conifer Wurms of the world will be stronger.Mill
Once you have your 2nd copy of Iceberg Cancrix this is the deck to work towards. Unlike your multicolor cousins you're going to be splashing less and prioritizing cheap snow cards and snow lands. Stream of Thought is great in this deck, sometimes in multiples, but this deck will only be as good as your Crabs.Snow Aggro
Snow is open but you are mainly seeing Icehide Golems, Rime Tenders, Frostwallas, and Savage Swipes. Curving out and attacking is generally a plan C or D for this deck, but if you can back up early aggression with an enormous Abominable Treefolk to end the game, this strategy can be quite appealing. Smoke Shroud gets massively better here, as casting it on turn 2 on Icehide Golem is very difficult to stop, but more so that this deck will almost always have Moonblade Shinobi or Mist-Syndicate Naga.Snow Control
Most likely the "I have Future Sight" deck, you're going to want a low curve of cheap interaction, and multiple copies of Stream of Thought as Elixir of Immortalitys that enable a combo finish. Snow control decks are almost always going to splash as well as win by milling the opponent, and as such are more of a combination of the above types than it's own individual deck type.Closing
The last thing I can say about drafting snow in Modern Horizons is to check Twitter, specifically current trophy leader AlphaFrog's twitter, linked here.Feel free to ask me any questions you might have, as this is a complicated subject that I feel like I could write 10 more articles about but lack the time.
Until next time,
Kevin
@sealedawaymtg on Twitter
Podcast here.
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