As usual with new sets, MTGSalvation brings out a "cycle" of articles that review the new set and try to predict their influence in certain formats, and this one is no exception. Welcome to the Coldsnap Extended Review.

A quick note on the format of this article: I will not try to line up decks and look what cards could fit into them, like in my last article regarding a similar topic: Extend Your Reach: Ravnica. Although the article won me Article of the Month, I found it a bit less informative and I wasn’t satisfied with the format. I will rather try to focus on the different mechanics Coldsnap brings us or specific cards that don't belong to such mechanics and see what they can do in Extended.


To the Grave and Back Again

One major factor that defines Extended at the moment is the use of the graveyard. Thanks to the interaction between Ravnica's dredge mechanic and Odyssey's graveyard theme including Flashback and other graveyard usable spells, the graveyard has gone from a mere waste dump to a full-fledged resource.

Coldsnap is the inheritor of Ice Age. Like Odyssey, Ice Age has a graveyard theme, although it is not as prominent or exploited. Coldsnap goes a bit in deeper with the recover mechanic and a Kindle-like cycle (coincidently, a similar cycle was in Odyssey).

From the five cards that make up that cycle (Kjeldoran War Cry, Rune Snag, Feast of Flesh, Rite of Flame and Sound the Call), only Rune Snag stands out for tournament play. Mana Leak was always a good counter to back up the original and this does pretty much the same job in the early game most of the time, but normally does a better one in the late game. The main benefit is that you don't really care, or even appreciate it, if you dump a copy of Rune Snag in the yard via dredge or Gifts Ungiven. Of the rest, only Rite of Flame could possibly see play in very fast combo decks, but I can't imagine what deck would want to use it. Overall a mox normally does a better job.

From the recover cards only Resize and Krovikan Rot are noteworthy. However, Swat never saw much tournament play as there are either too large creatures out there or the smaller ones aren't a threat big enough to take care of them with a card (rather hold them off with other creatures or Wrath 'em) or just pump to put the Rot into any competition on the already very filled market of Extended removal spells. Resize on the other hand could possibly walk right into green aggressive decks for possible late game advantage. The key to remember with recover is that you don't necessarily need to regrow the card. It normally changes the game enough when you first play it.

I think Coldsnap has a remarkable large number of graveyard removal cards for a small set, possibly a sign of R&D's awareness of the Friggorid deck in Extended, but the solutions from this set seem rather suboptimal. Martyr of Bones' possibility to take a chunk of the graveyard of an opponent is limited and also requires you to reveal a major part of your future strategy and Void Maw can stop streams of Ichorids, but is useless against anything else and also too clunky at six mana.

Only Jötun Grunt is really anywhere near tournament play as a sideboard card against Friggorid as he has a sizeable body to keep the namesake card at bay and is capable of reverting the graveyard exploitation the deck does. But this is only reverting. Restocking the library of the opponent is not as helpful as removing the cards entirely from the game but hopefully it will buy you enough time to find other solutions. Be careful when you play the giant. The Friggorid player can also just refuse to further dredge and fill his yard, and sooner or later you will be incapable of paying the upkeep. Yet this card could prove quite useful.


Pitch Black
The next cycle to tackle would be the double pitch cycle. For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, it consists of the cards Sunscour, Commandeer, Soul Spike, Fury of the Horde and Allosaurus Rider. These cards are all quite powerful, but all cost seven mana or additional two cards and therefore being quite pricey.

But for their price, they are essentially quite powerful. In Extended, those cards are always capable to either kill the opponent or dig up card advantage on themselves. The thing to keep in mind is that you should have some option to generate major card advantage to fuel these cards. Only Bob Maher is a bad idea to use, since you never ever want to reveal these cards.

Commandeer could easily find its way into the sideboards of Scepter Chant for the mirror match. Just snatch the second turn Scepter of your opponent. Imprint your own Orim's Chant or Counterspell and lock out your opponent.

The Rider on the other hand packs quite some punch, can't be killed by Smother and grows quite easily out of decent burn range. However, he won't make Stompy or similar green decks playable on its own, and there aren't many decks that really want to use them. Scour, Spike and Fury seem to have a similar fate, as there aren't many decks that want to use them, and if they want to, there are just better options. What hurts these cards the most is that they remove the pitched cards from the game rather than just discarding them, but that is essential to all the pitch cards and was just the right decision considering the format.


Mostly Harmless
The cards that are mostly anticipated by the community from the entire set are Ohran Viper and Adarkar Valkyrie, but their impact on the tournament scene are yet to be seen and for me it just doesn't look that good in Extended for them.

The Valkyrie has so much competition, with the toughest being Exalted Angel and Eternal Dragon. The Valkyrie does useful things, but doesn't pack as much a punch and/or is easier to take out. Also the circumstance that the Valkyrie works best in a deck that uses multiple creatures and can't be used on itself really hurts it. Due to the existence of Counterspell in the format, six mana is still a lot and your win condition, which the angel's role essentially will be, should have a bit more to it.

The Viper on the other hand had to compare to Finkel a lot as both share stats, Ophidian-ability and to a certain degree a pseudo-evasion ability. But the color requirements are what makes the math. Shadowmage Infiltrator always requires you to be in a certain color requirements, which is mainly occupied by Psychatog. The Viper on the other hand seems to have a decent chance; if there should be another deck like Trinity, this could easily go in it. Against control decks, you can often outrun the opponent in resources. Against aggro, this card can often fend off a horde for a long time, or just take out the biggest threat when it attacks. These are all stats that really look like they will help the Viper into the format, but there isn't really any green deck that wants this card around, for most green decks are paired with another colors and sometimes have problems to cough up the double green (although this is less and less of a problem thanks to Fetchland/Dualland mana bases) or are to packed with other stuff to do at three mana like casting Equipment. For a mono green deck, this is a sure signup.

Snow Business
The thing about Extended is that there is often a deck base around a major block mechanic. Slide is base around Onslaught’s cycling. Goblins incoporates creature-type matters. Friggorid is all about dredge. Affinity and Madness, go figure.

For Coldsnap, this role would be for the snow theme. A deck fueled by Scrying Sheets is easily imaginable. With all basic lands being snow covered and and multiple other snow cards in it or an effect like Sensei's Divining Top there is easy card advantage to use. Also, Into the North can fetch the Sheets, Mouth of Ronom for removal, or just fix your mana.

What's tough is to find other snow permanents to incorporate into the deck, but time will tell if this will be necessary. This could also be a point where the Viper could come in and form a nice beatdown base with Boreal Druid and Boreal Centaur.


Knights and Hosers
Other cards to talk about are the so called Jumpkights, Stromgald Crusader and White Shield Crusader. Both cards can pack a nice punch for being pseudo-evasion creatures with easy potential for weenie decks in either color and pumpable. Unfortunately for the two cards, one point of toughness is far from optimal in a format where Lava Dart and Darkblast are on the loose. The White Shield is protected from the later, but if that is much of an advantage has to be seen, and overall the cards will have a tough time in Extended.

After that we have the balanced hoser cycle. These cards aren't as powerful as some other that would fall into that category and are still available in Extended, but still may possibly get played. A card that should be marked is Luminesce. It is capable of turning games around in the last possible moment by thwarting a final deadly attack by a horde of goblins, Ichorids or a Psychatog for the very low price of a single white mana. Nothing to sneeze at.


Miscellaneous
Last but not least there are a few cards to look out for but can't realy be put into any category together.

Ronom Unicorn is a fancy new variant of Kami of Ancient Law that will keep a card with that effect in Standard for another two years and a few months, but in Extended there is next to no difference, unless you realy want to use eight of them.

Lightning Serpent is a mixture of Blaze and Blistering Firecat that could find itself in a few decks, as it has a base power of 2 and a lesser color requirement than the cat, but the disadvantage of being a creature (again with 1 toughness) and also you need to spend six mana on it to bring it to Firecat statistics is a major bump.

There is also a lot of talk going on about Mishra's Bauble for essentially making decks only 56 cards and therefore making combo pieces more accessible. The only combo deck I can actually see this card in is Krark-Clan Ironworks with the added potential to fuel Myr Incubator. Other than that, people want to use their slots on cards that actually do something but keep it at 60 cards.

This leaves Perilous Research. There has been a lot of talk about it to combo it with Hatching Plans and I think that card could possibly find its way into Friggorid as the deck has often disposable permanents - the question is, what do you cut for it?


Crunch
So in the end, there are a few cards from Coldsnap that could find their way into the Extended format. The real problem is where they could find their space. Most of the cards I mentioned don't realy tie in with the only mechanic that would have potential to form a deck in itself, and the rest have a tough time to stand up to the competition. But there is potential, and the results will have to be seen.