It's a snow day here, so for my Extreme Theme, I'll be building a snow deck. This one will be centered around the Frozen North. I have written dozens of Extreme Theme brews over the years, so, let's have some fun with this Extreme Theme take on snow.

This was originally going to be around Tundra and Taiga, built around Tundra Wolves in their shared color. Oddly enough, even though they share Snow and the same region, they don't have the same colors. But they come in everything but Black; so, ideally, I'd run a Black commander in those colors or go for all five.

My Extreme Themes are all built with a specific goal in mind: every card from the name to the art, and even the flavor text should fit my theme. For example, I recently had a Kenrith brew set in Eldraine, that was built around a castle theme.

For this chilly day, I'm going all in all my snow theme, taking us to The Frozen North. Let's dive in.

So, who's my Commander here?

We only have seven Legendary leaders to choose from in Snow. I like Isu the Abominable in Bant or Jorn, God of Winter, which is solid in name, but is Sultai . Yasova Dragonclaw has great art for the theme, too.

All of these Commanders I'm considering have Green and Blue as their base colors, but then add something extra. Unfortunately, though, there aren't any good four-color Commanders without Black that fit the snow theme with either their name or art.

Esika, God of the Tree could be a good fit because she comes from the snowy plane of Kaldheim. On her front side, she's Legendary Creature with Vigilance that costs ; she's cool because she lets all our legendaries tap for any color of mana. Her back side, The Prismatic Bridge, costs one of each color and puts a creature or planeswalker from your library directly onto the battlefield every upkeep. She's a bit expensive because she's very popular for five-color decks.

I like Esika because I often build five-color theme decks, but I'll set that aside and compare three-color options instead to switch it up.

I eliminate Yasova because she's from Tarkir and doesn't fit the snow theme. Jorn is interesting because he works well with snow cards like Blood on the Snow and can untap all your snow permanents when he attacks. However, Isu is literally a yeti and has strong snow synergy.

He lets you play Snow permanents from the top of your library like Future Sight and can grow larger when snow permanents enter the battlefield. Jorn fits the winter flavor well too, but Bant it is for color reasons.

Mana and Such

First, we will need to set up a strong mana base along with some ways to untap at will. I'm starting with two, two-drop Snow Creatures: Rime Tender and Sculptor of Winter.

Sculptor is a great choice because it can be tapped to untap one of our Snow lands, so we can tap it again for mana. Rime Tender is even more flexible because we can tap her to untap any Snow permanent, which covers everything from a land, a mana rock, or something like Boreal Druid.

Then, I picked Iceberg, with a perfectly thematic name. We pay along with whatever we want to put X ice counters here; we can pull them off for colorless mana when we need to. This is also a great mana sink for later in the game, because we can pay to put counters back, too.

Spirit of the Aldergard is a 0/4 Snow Creature that costs . When it Enters the Battlefield (ETB), we can search for a Snow land, put it in our hand, then shuffle. It also gets a +1/+0 pump for all our other Snow permanents on the board.

Staying on theme, I've picked these Snowy things.

First is Frostwalk Bastion, which has a great name and lets us tap for colorless Snow mana. We can also tap it for one and a Snow to turn it into a 2/3 colorless, Construct Artifact creature until the end of our turn.

If we deal damage this way, we can tap the creature we damaged and it can't untap during the next untap step, keeping it frozen for an extra turn.

Then, Glittering Frost, an Enchantment we can use to turn any land into Snow, and it doubles up the mana (in any color).

For my theme, I had to include these two older and pricier Lands

Thawing Glaciers was one of the first iterations of a fetch land in the game, printed back in 1996. It arrives tapped but later on, we can use it to put a second land into play and then return it to our hand at the end of our turn.

Then that Glacial Chasm has the name and some utility. As it arrives, we have to pay two life and sacrifice a land, and it keeps us from attacking, but all damage dealt to us is reduced to zero.

Synergies and Win-Cons

Next up are synergies and win-cons. I chose Iceberg Cancrix and Heidar, Rimewind Master.

The Crab with the good name comes in for . He's only a 0/4 but fine for blocking, and whenever another Snow enters, we can have any player mill two.

Heidar is a 5-drop, 3/3 Legendary Wizard. As long as we have at least four snow permanents, we can pay two and tap him to bounce a permanent back to someone's hand.

These two Snow Enchantments have perfectly thematic names. Glacial Plating is an Enchantment Aura that drops for and has a cumulative upkeep of one. Every turn that its in play, the Creature its attached to gets +3/+3 for every age counter we've added.

Cover of Winter is a regular Snow Enchantment that costs to get out, and one Snow mana cumulative upkeep per turn. This card racks up age counters as well, preventing one damage to us for each one. If needed, we can spend Snow to add an extra counter on our turn.

Next up are three cards inspired by Ojutai, Soul of Winter.

Ojutai himself is a 5/6 Legendary Dragon with Flying and Vigilance. The mana cost is a bit high at but worth it. When Ojutai or another Dragon we control takes a swing, we can tap any nonland permanent belonging to our foes and freeze it for a whole turn.

Icefall Regent is another Dragon, this time a 4/3 that also has Flying. The Enter the Battlefield effect is a good one, tapping one of our opponents dorks until this icy dragon leaves. Also, any spells cast against him cost two extra.

The frosty dragon, Deceptive Frostkite is a 1/1 for two Blue mana. We can have him enter normally, or as a copy of any creature we control with a power of 4 or higher. It gains Dragon as an additional creature type.

These cards, I included because they fit the flavor of the theme perfectly.

Hibernation's Endis a five-drop Enchantment in Green. Again, the cumulative upkeep we pay each turn allows us to put age counters on our polar bear. Now, we can search for a creature with a converted mana cost equal to the number of counters. It also doesn't get summoning sickness, which os strong and great.

Use this to grab Boreal Druid first, then a mana dork, and then whatever else is needed.

Moritte of the Frost is a five-mana Simic legend with changeling that can copy any permanent you control. Whatever it copies also becomes Snow and Legendary, and if it copies a creature, it even comes in a little bigger with +2/+2.

Now, I have this small Hylda package built around Hylda of the Icy Crown. She's a Legendary Creature that will cost us . We get an extra reward whenever we tap an opponent's creatures, which I have a good bit of already.

When we tap a foe, we can pay an extra mana to generate a 4/4 token, add a counter to one of our creatures, or scry and draw. Cards like Squall Drifter and Icy Manipulator help us use those triggers.

Hylda's Crown of Winter fits nicely here as well, offering another way to tap creatures and later cashing in for cards based on how many creatures are tapped. Icebind Pillar does something similar, using Snow mana to tap down Creatures or Artifacts.

Time of Ice is Enchantment Saga card with a brilliant name for my needs here. Sagas gain lore counters, and come with special abilities. This one allows me to "freeze" a creature my opponent controls on the first two turns that it's in play. They can't be untapped, and eventually Time of Ice bounces all tapped creatures back to their owner's hand.

Ride the Avalanche is a neat Simic Instant. We can use this to create a great combat trick as we cast our next spell as an Instant, and put its converted mana cost in +1/+1 counters on one of our guys.

I think that's a pretty solid pair of options.

The deck also includes a few bigger Snow payoffs. Abominable Treefolk shares the name of our Commander. This guy is a four-mana trampler whose power and toughness scale with the number of Snow permanents you control, and it taps down an opposing creature when it enters.

Rimefeather Owl can get even bigger, since its power and toughness count all Snow permanents on the battlefield, and its flash lets it show up as a surprise blocker.

Finally, Diamond Faerie gives the deck a simple way to pump your Snow creatures, turning extra mana into a team-wide boost.

Winter's Chill is a Blue X spell that can only target up to the number of Snow lands we control, but that's never really an issue in a deck like this. During combat, we can cast it and it makes our attacker pay one extra mana to keep it alive and deal no damage, or pay two to deal the damage but kill their own dork too. Nice for twice.

Auroral Procession showed up while I was digging for aurora-themed cards, and immediately, I loved the art and concept. It turned out to be great utility too. We can Instantly Regrowth anything, bouncing it right from the graveyard to our hand.

Last up in this group are these two strong cards. Thing in the Ice // Awoken Horror comes in as a 0/4 Horror with Defender and starts with four ice counters.

Every time we cast an Instant or Sorcery, we take one counter off until we can transform. Then, it's a 7/8 that bounces every non-Horror creature on the board.

Icebreaker Kraken is also a heavy hitter, and even though he's supposed to be a 12-drop, we avoid for every Snow land we control. Icebreaker freezes our opponents tapped cards in place for an extra turn. He also lets us return three Snow lands to bring him back to trigger his ETB again. Nice!

Answers

Starting off with the deck's answers, I picked these two one-drop spells.

The first one, in White, is On Thin Ice. This is an Enchantment Aura that we can put on any Snow land to exile one of our opponent's creatures as long as it stays on our board.

Then, in Green, Blizzard Brawl forces any two Creatures we choose to fight, and if we have at least three Snow permanents, our Creature gains indestructible and a +1 power bump this turn.

Obviously, I had to throw in some flavorful removal options. My first choice was a Green Stone Rain. All Winter's Grasp can do is destroy a land at Sorcery speed. You would only want to use it when absolutely needed, like for problem nonbasic lands like Cradle or Coffers.

Frozen Solid is a perfect Enchantment here. It's an Aura we can put on one of our opponent's dorks to keep it from untapping. If it gets hit while tapped, it's destroyed. This is a really helpful addition.

I did want to throw in some of these for removal, too, like Winter Blast. For , we get a bit of mass removal since we can tap X creatures and deal two damage to any creature with Flying that we tapped this way.

Then, later in the game when we have enough Snows, Rimewind Cryomancer gets her time to shine. For , we can play this 2/3 Human. Her activated ability lets us counter targeted activities aimed at us if we pay a mana and tap her too.

Ice Out is an Instant that I love here. If we bargain when casting, we only have to pay to counter any spell.

Last up for my answers, I had to settle for great art but a weird-ish name for my theme with Force Spike. For just one Blue, we can increase the cost of a foe's spell.

Whiteout is a cheap-ish () Instant that takes Flying away from all creatures for the rest of a turn. This could end up being a great combat trick depending on the situation. If we have one to spare, we can sacrifice a Snow land to bring it back, too.

Card Draw

I had to add some card draw to this chilly Commander deck, so I started with Blessing of Frost.

Then, Frost Augur. He's a 1/2 Human but we won't be using him to fight. By paying a Snow mana and tapping, we can look at the top card of our library and draw if it's a Snow.

Graven Lore was a great pick, too. It's a Snow Instant that costs us . We get to scry cards equal to the Snows we spent playing the card, and then we can draw three. Not a bad base.

Then there's Glacial Revelation; that three-mana Green sorcery that reveals the top six cards of our library, puts all Snow permanents into our hand, and dumps the rest into the graveyard.

To round out the deck, I've got these three fun things. The five-cost Snow Snake Ohran Frostfang gives our attacking dorks Deathtouch. Even better, whenever one of them gets through and deals combat damage to a player, we get to draw a card.

Winternight Stories is a Sorcery for that lets us pick up our next three cards. We will have to discard one creature, or two of the cards we pull, though. Thanks to Harmonize, we can use it once from the graveyard too, if we're willing to pay the five.

Finally, Bewildering Blizzard, a six-drop Instant that draws us three cards while also dropping all of our foe's dorks by -3 power for the turn. That makes it a pretty nice combat trick or defensive play, letting you blunt an attack while still getting an Ancestral-style burst of card draw.

So, how did the deck turn out?

Let's take a look at the deck as a whole and see how snowy and abominable it really looks.

[cardlist]

The Frozen North with Isu | Commander | By Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Isu the Abominable

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Abominable Treefolk
• 1 Arctic Aven
• 1 Arctic Wolves
• 1 Avalanche Caller
• 1 Blizzard Elemental
• 1 Boreal Druid
• 1 Diamond Faerie
• 1 Deceptive Frostkite
• 1 Frost Augur
• 1 Frost Titan
• 1 Heidar, Rimewind Master
• 1 Hylda of the Icy Crown
• 1 Iceberg Cancrix
• 1 Icebreaker Kraken
• 1 Ice-Fang Coatl
• 1 Icefall Regent
• 1 Moritte of the Frost
• 1 Northern Paladin
• 1 Ohran Frostfang
• 1 Ohran Viper
• 1 Ojutai, Soul of Winter
• 1 Rime Tender
• 1 Rimefeather Owl
• 1 Rimewind Cryomancer
• 1 Rimewind Taskmage
• 1 Sculptor of Winter
• 1 Spirit of the Aldergard
• 1 Squall Drifter
• 1 Thing in the Ice
• 1 Tundra Wolves
• 1 Wall of Frost

• Instants (11)
• 1 Auroral Procession
• 1 Bewildering Blizzard
• 1 Force Spike
• 1 Flashfreeze
• 1 Graven Lore
• 1 Ice Out
• 1 Plunge into Winter
• 1 Ride the Avalanche
• 1 Succumb to the Cold
• 1 Whiteout
• 1 Winter's Chill

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Blessing of Frost
• 1 Blizzard Brawl
• 1 Glacial Revelation
• 1 Into the North
• 1 Winter Blast
• 1 Winter's Grasp
• 1 Winternight Stories

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Cover of Winter
• 1 Frozen Solid
• 1 Glacial Plating
• 1 Glittering Frost
• 1 Hibernation's End
• 1 Iceberg
• 1 On Thin Ice
• 1 Time of Ice

• Artifacts (4)
• 1 Coldsteel Heart
• 1 Hylda's Crown of Winter
• 1 Icebind Pillar
• 1 Icy Manipulator

• Lands (38)
• 8 Snow-Covered Forest
• 8 Snow-Covered IsLand
• 7 Snow-Covered Plains
• 1 Arctic Flats
• 1 Arctic Treeline
• 1 Boreal Shelf
• 1 Faceless Haven
• 1 Frostwalk Bastion
• 1 Glacial Chasm
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Glacial Floodplain
• 1 Ice Floe
• 1 Mouth of Ronom
• 1 Rimewood Falls
• 1 Scrying Sheets
• 1 Shimmerdrift Dale
• 1 Thawing Glaciers
• 1 Wintermoon Mesa

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So, here it is.

We have some wolves, glaciers, and even a Blizzard Elemental. I didn't toss in Winter Orb, Search for Glory, or other similar cards, since they didn't suit what I wanted thematically here.

I hope you have a great time building or playing in the Frozen North.