Coldsnap

Mechanics Evaluation Recap

FYI you actually did your worst 10 mechanics once before in Drive to Work #693 and this was your list at the time:10. Haunt - Guildpact9. Radiance - Ravnica8. Ripple - Coldsnap7. Processors - Battle for Zendikar6. Annihilator - Rise of the Eldrazi5. Epic - Saviors of Kamigawa4. Rebel Mercenary - Mercadian Masques3. Gotcha - Unhinged2. Rhystic - Prophecy1. Bands with Others - Legends

FYI

Annihilator Battle for Zendikar Coldsnap Drive to Work Eldrazi Epic Guildpact Haunt Legendary Creatures Mechanics Mercadian Masques Mercenary Processor Prophecy Prophecy Radiance Rebel Ripple Rise of the Eldrazi Rise of the Eldrazi Saviors of Kamigawa Zendikar

Snow Supertype Origins

Hey Mark- I wish to invoke the ancient rite of Birthday Trivia! Given the season, I was wondering if you had any trivia about the Snow supertype? Thank you for sharing your wisdom!

The Snow supertype came about because we were looking for Ice Age block things to mechanically expand upon in the design of Coldsnap, and didn’t have a lot to work with. They had either become evergreen or weren’t things we particularly wanted to do more of. Happy Birthday!

Appreciation Birthday Coldsnap Evergreen Supertype

Art Trigger Conditions

Do nonland cards with arts like Dark Depths (Coldsnap) trigger Ignacio on "water". The "water" is implied to be under the ice, but I'm friends with a pedant who argues there is no water in the art from the perspective of the art. Help :(

There has to be actual water seen in the art, not implied to be behind or under something in the art.

Art Coldsnap Dark Depths

Color-Specific Snow Mana

Listening to Drive to Work #1052: Coldsnap, section on Snow, brings up an interesting question: Would you be willing to do color-specific Snow mana symbols? Like the Phyrexian mana symbols, but a snowflake instead of a Greek letter.

Phyrexian mana has a built in way to make it castable. A colored snow mana makes something harder to cast.

Coldsnap Drive to Work Mana Phyrexian

Pitch Mechanics Future

the printing of the pitch elementals in modern horizons 2 (fury, solitude, etc.) and the new forces (negation, vigor, etc) indicate that this alternate cost is not something relegated to magic's past. but while we've seen the specific restrictions change (X cost for shoals, 2 cards in coldsnap, etc.) the cards exiled always need to share a color. could we see pitch cards that need a card of a second color to be exiled? or a specific card type? or multicolored cards that can pitch either color?

The challenge is not breaking the color pie. If a card does a blue effect, for example, you have to have a payment that ensures you’re playing blue.

Blue Card Printing Card Types Coldsnap Color Pie Colors Elemental Fury Mechanics Modern Horizons 2 Solitude The Exile Zone Vigor

Positive Costs Challenge

"Positives are hard to do as a cost."
Afaik, you can have an opponent gain life as a cost. I guess you can instruct them to draw too?(a cumulative upkeep on a white uncommon from coldsnap)

Just because we once printed a card doing something doesn’t mean it necessarily works cleanly in the rules.

Card Printing Coldsnap Cumulative Upkeep Lifegain Rules Uncommons White

Coldsnap and The Dark

It's oft been said that Coldsnap was set 3 to the ice age block. What does that make The Dark which, according to the novels was set 1 of the block (somehow)?

The Dark is not considered part of the Ice Age block (anymore, assuming it ever was).

Coldsnap

Snow Mechanics Fact

Birthday trivia request: Do you have any fun facts about Snow cards? It’s one of my favorite mechanics.

Snow-covered basic lands were in Ice Age and Alliances. When we were designing Coldsnap, the “lost third Ice Age block set”, we decided to change Snow to a supertype to get more function out if it. Happy Birthday!

Birthday Coldsnap Lands Mechanics Supertype

More Aurochs Possibility

My first ever precon deck was Aurochs Stampede from Coldsnap, and my heart longs for more beefy boys. Will we ever see more Aurochs, or are they as extinct in magic as they are in real life?

More Aurochs aren’t off limits.

Aurochs Coldsnap Stampede

Snow Supertype Origin

If you could Time Walk back to Ice Age block and prevent the Snow supertype from seeing print, would you?

That’s not where the supertype started. (Ice Age had snow-covered basic lands, but it didn’t use a supertype.) It was started in Coldsnap design and I *was* there.

Card Printing Coldsnap Lands Supertype Time Walk

Dealing with Troublesome Planes

I think a lot of the questioning about other trouble planes stems from what I'm guessing is a false assumption that the powers that be smack down good ideas just for being associated with bad planes. It can be hard to remember that good execution and bad execution are almost entirely objective, and starting with bad roots is just bad. Even if NEO sells a million boxes we are probably still not going to see a "Redeemers of Kamigawa" 4th set in the past timeline block. See: Coldsnap ...

The real issue with troublesome planes isn’t that The Powers That Be won’t allow them. It’s that they start at a deficit and are harder to make to the quality level that we can get buyoff from The Powers That Be.

Coldsnap Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Planes

Snow's Success in Modern Horizons

Why do you think snow was successful in Modern Horizons and much less so in Coldsnap?

I assume execution.

Coldsnap Modern Horizons

Mono-Color Mini-Sets

How small could you make a fully-draftable set? I was thinking the other day "oh, I wonder if they could do a line of 5 mini-sets, each only being completely mono-color, and each being fully draftable". I feel like the design team is creative enough to make fully draftable sets that are each only one color, with different draft archetypes for different themes within the color, but I'm not sure how small you could make the set so you can fit all 5 together but each ALSO be draftable.

Coldsnap was our attempt to make a small set that could draft by itself, and we came to the conclusion that it was too small.I don’t think monocolor mini-sets would work well for drafting because you want different players to take different cards, and that’s hard to do when all the cards are the same color. There’s also no ability to read the color of people near you which is important in higher level draft.

Coldsnap Colors Draft Formats Monocolor

Coldsnap's Drafting Issue

What about its small size made Coldsnap a failure (for drafting)?

It just didn’t have enough cards to create a robust drafting environment over time. Things got too repetitive too quick.

Coldsnap

Minimum Draftable Set Size

What would the absolute least number of cards a set could be and still be draftable? That is, without too many duplicates, etc.

Coldsnap tried making a small set draftable by itself, and is considered a failure at that task. So, at least a bunch more than Coldsnap.

Coldsnap

Set Unifying The Dark

Has there ever been discussion on making a large set to unify The Dark and Fallen Empires into a block? Much like when Coldsnap was created to make Ice Age a more cohesive block. If so, would it focus more on the tribal, counter/tokens, or mood based theme?

There has not been any discussion. Other than releasing near each other, and I guess both technically being on Dominaria, they really have nothing to do with one another.

Coldsnap Dominaria Kindred / Typal Tokens

Details About White Snow Creatures

" If i remember correctly there are no white snow creatures." There are 3. (though they are all from Coldsnap)

FYI

Coldsnap Creatures White

Redesigning Old Sets

Would you ever seriously consider a new version (with new design philosophies in mind) of an old set? (The closest thing to this is coldsnap I believe.)

Essentially, that’s what returns are.

Coldsnap

Challenges of Ice Age Remastered

To add to the complications of an Ice Age remastered set, aren't most of the rares of the first two sets also on the Reserved List? You'd pretty much just be working with the rares of Coldsnap

Yes, the Reserved List would also greatly complicate things.

Coldsnap Complicate Rares The Reserved List

Difficulty of Ice Age Remaster

“The challenge of a Remastered product is you only have cards from the original block to work with. That makes something like the Ice Age block a real challenge to Remaster.” I don’t understand how that is any different than Time Spiral.

Neither Ice Age nor Alliances was designed for limited and Coldsnap was designed to be drafted by itself. Making a cohesive fun draft strategy only using cards printed in those three sets might be literally impossible.

Coldsnap Draft Formats Limited Time Spiral