Pauper Commander - Svella, Ice Shaper
It's that time of year again, when colorful lights are twinkling in the night, trees are adorned with ornaments of every shape and size, and festive music rings through the halls. While the nights are cold, the food and the company is warm. There's so much to love about the holiday season, and the abundance of joy, life, celebration and merriment, but my favorite part of it has to be waking up to a pristine winter wonderland.
I WISH.
I love the snow so much, but I live in the dead center of Texas, and let me tell you, snow comes once every two years if we're lucky. This place is as much of a winter wonderland as Amonkhet would be. It's just cold and rainy as I'm writing this, and that's not festive at all. It's sad and miserable! So because I can't see the snow myself, I'll just manifest my frosty fantasy through a Pauper Commander deck. If I can't have real snow, at least I can have a blizzard of Magic cards with some cool art. (No pun intended.)
My first idea was to make a snow-themed deck, of course, with the snow cards that are actually a mechanic in Magic. The natural Pauper commander for a snow deck is Svella, Ice Shaper. She's a snow creature herself, and she makes more snow permanents. And of course, it's no small bonus that she's in green and red, typical Christmas colors. She's the perfect commander, but can we build the perfect deck around her? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Within Svella's color identity, there are 15 cards that mention snow in their text box. That's not nearly enough to build a deck around the snow mechanic, especially considering that nearly half of those cards are actually anti-snow tech, like Thermokarst. We're looking to play snow lands, not blow them up.
We could totally make a normal Svella deck without the snow theme, as there's more than enough Pauper support for a big mana deck that wants to take advantage of mana rock tokens. But that's not the theme for today, and this lack of snow cards is giving me the chance to make a deck I've wanted to for a long time: an art-themed deck!
My favorite part of Magic, and the main thing that got me to start playing in the first place, is the gorgeous art on each and every single card. There's so much of it! So many fantastic artists have contributed to this game, and I appreciate it very much. Across Magic's history, there's been an absolute load of snow-themed art. We've even gotten entire sets full of snow, like Kaldheim and Coldsnap. There are 108 red and green common cards with snow in their art, according to Scryfall's filters, so we're going to go through and find the best snow cards to fill up a Svella, Ice Shaper deck, and hopefully we'll get both a collection of masterpieces and a somewhat decent deck.
There's plenty of easy cards to choose. Some staples, like Command Tower, Farseek, and Three Visits, have art with snow in them, so of course we'll take those. There's a few nice dual lands, like Rugged Highlands and Wooded Ridgeline, that we'll grab, and of course, Highland Forest, which is also mechanically a snow land. Win-win. Strangely, not one but two rituals fit into our deck: Rite of Flame and Desperate Ritual. I suppose there's a theme of red rituals making heat out of nowhere. Makes sense, and they fit into the mana-hungry nature of the deck as well.
Some cards don't fit too well, but with extremely limited options, we're forced to run them if they do anything at all. Hordeling Outburst, for instance, has basically no synergy with the deck, but it's not a bad way to make blockers, so it'll be included. We'll take what we can get, and that includes playing Twin Bolt and Barrage of Boulders as removal spells, and Awaken the Bear as some sort of stab at a win condition.
Those aren't even the worst of the bunch, unfortunately. We don't have much of a choice but to play everything from Frostweb Spider, an overcosted blocker that will often never trigger its second ability, to Peerless Samurai, which does absolutely nothing if it can't find a window to attack. But give Peerless Samurai some credit, because there are creatures in this deck that actually do nothing. Summit Prowler, Feral Krushok, and Alpine Grizzly all do literally nothing. Not spectacular, but hey, their flavor text adds some story to the deck.
Not every card is bad, however. Some of them fit into the deck quite nicely. Rime Tender lets us untap either Svella, a land, or an Icy Manalith. We only have one card that lets us produce more than one mana with that, Glittering Frost, but hey, that's a synergy, and I'll take it. Fyndhorn Brownie is a much, much worse version, of Rime Tender, but it does let us use Svella more than once in a turn and ramp up the Monolith production. I'll pretend that's a hidden gem. Skred, however, may be a real hidden gem, because it's quite a strong removal spell late in the game. For one mana, we can knock out any creature with toughness less than or equal to the the number of lands we control. That's fantastic! Skred has been doing work in 60-card Pauper, and I think it can do work here as well.
Well, I've got my winter wonderland deck. Is it kind of terrible? Yes, it is, in every way. This deck is not playable, by any means, and I can't see the possibility of it winning a single game. But it is enjoyable. The mana base absolutely shines with that bright white snow, and the art is fantastic absolutely everywhere. Ones that stand out to me are Icefall, for that dramatic avalanche, Goblin Ski Patrol, for the hilarity of the subject matter, and Lynx, probably just because I like cats. This deck is so snowy, and I love it, regardless of how it performs. I'd be thrilled to play the deck in person if it wasn't for the $166 price tag on the one Command Tower art with snow! Quit it with the limited edition products, Wizards!
Anyways, thanks for letting me indulge on this frost-themed deck adventure. Happy Holidays!
