Last updated on October 22, 2025
Dark Depths | Illustration by Stephan Martiniere
I absolutely love Kaldheim. I love Vikings, metal, and Norse mythology in general and this set brought all of that into Magic. Yes, I’m perfectly aware of how cliché it is. But those aren’t the only reasons I love this set.
The foretell mechanic is fun and pretty well implemented. The double-sided god cards are a very interesting take on both the god creature type and the interpretation of the Norse gods. And we got more snow cards after their blasting appearance in the first Modern Horizons.
When I started playing Magic, there hadn’t been a proper snow-based set for about five years. Coldsnap was the last time snow cards had made an appearance, and at that point they’d become some kind of myth. They tended to require expensive basics and weren’t really played a lot.
But with snow-covered lands from Modern Horizons 3, Modern Horizons, and Kaldheim along with various cards that used them in their mechanics and strategies. Let's get into why snow-covered lands matter and how to get them.
What is a Snow Land?
Snow-Covered Forest | Illustration by Alayna Danner
Snow lands have snow as a supertype that first saw print in 1995 with the Ice Age expansion. Snow has no inherent mechanic or use other than being an identifying characteristic of different permanents and spells. Basic and non-basic snow lands have this supertype in addition to any other card types they might have.
Mechanically, they’re not very different from regular lands. All the snow basic lands add snow mana of their specified type. There are also snow dual lands and non-basic snow lands that add generic mana. All this mana can be used normally as if it were from regular sources.
One important note deals with cards that have mana costs that must paid for specifically with mana produced by snow lands. Let's take Icehide Troll as an example. This card asks you to pay two “snowflakes” to activate its ability. That symbol stands for generic mana, except that it needs to be produced by a snow permanent. So in this card’s case, it doesn’t matter which mana color you use to pay it as long as that mana comes from a snow land.
All About Snow Lands
Faceless Haven | Illustration by Titus Lunter
I think there are two main reasons to play snow lands, for the strategic advantage or aesthetic.
Strategically Speaking
The first reason to play with snow lands is to take advantage of cards that use snow mana for certain effects. I have at least two decks that play with snow lands, even though they’re not snow-centered decks.
Cards like Frost Bite and Boreal Outrider can be reason enough to turn all the lands in your deck into snow lands. Not to mention that Jorn, God of Winter can be a great excuse to build around the best snow commander.
There’s also the added bonus that there are certain cards that aren’t specifically snow-centered but still benefit from snow lands. Take a card like Extraplanar Lens; exiling a snow-covered land gives extra mana to snow lands and you’d be making sure you don’t give tons of mana to your opponents since not many players use snow lands.
For the Aesthetic
The other reason is way simpler, and that’s if you just like how they look. Since snow lands work the same as regular lands, you can technically add as many of them as you want into any constructed deck where they're legal. Maybe you’re playing a deck where they fit with the aesthetic even if it doesn’t really use any snow mechanics.
This is exactly why full art lands exist. Magic is a social game after all, and having other players talk about how cool your lands are is always a great feeling. It’s okay to indulge in it a little bit.
Let It Snow
There’s essentially no drawback to replacing all the basics in your deck with snow lands, except maybe the price. Plus there isn’t any real limit to how many basic snow lands you can play in a deck since they work just like regular basic lands. This isn’t the case with the non-basics.
The only reason to play many of the non-basic snow lands is to take advantage of the snow supertype. After all, most snow duals are essentially gates (a.k.a. the worst dual lands) so they’re only any good if you need to produce snow mana. But of course cards like Faceless Haven can add a whole new dimension to, say, your mono red aggro deck.
It could even be argued that you should be playing snow lands over regular basic lands. Since there are strategies in both Modern that use snow as a focus, not playing snow lands could give away some strengths and weaknesses of your deck right away.
Just make sure you don't run into the occasional hate card.
Snow Lands in Limited
Please be aware that this whole dynamic is completely different in draft. In both Modern Horizons and Kaldheim draft, you have to actually use your draft picks on the snow lands. This means that there are typically only 24 snow lands per draft, which makes them a scarce resource. Both sets have, in fact, a snow archetype that is centered around taking these lands early and often. So when you play these sets, please don't go expecting to get snow lands for free out out the basic lands box!
The History of Snow Lands
The history of snow as a supertype goes way back. Even though it reached its peak over the past few years thanks to Modern Horizons and Kaldheim, snow was introduced during Magic’s sixth expansion back in 1995.
The Original Set: Ice Age (1995)
- Snow-Covered Mountain
- Snow-Covered Plains
- Snow-Covered Island
- Snow-Covered Forest
- Snow-Covered Swamp
The 1995 Ice Age set was the first time snow-covered lands were introduced in the game. Given how the entire setting for the set is an ice age it'd be a safe guess to assume that snow lands were one of the first things planned for the set. But that is an entirely wrong assumption for you to make.
These lands, along with the entire snow mechanic, were among the last things to be added to the set. They came as a way to improve the set’s atmosphere and environment but ended up backfiring as a contrived mechanic.
A Slight Improvement: Coldsnap (2006)
WotC revisited the mechanic and brought updates to combat confusion and explored it better.
They added the snow supertype to non-land cards, there was a cycle of snow-covered, allied tap lands plus the infamous legendary snow land Dark Depths, which saw several reprints including Ultimate Masters, Double Masters, and Modern Horizons 3 Commander.
Becoming a Modern Staple: Modern Horizons (2019)
Modern Horizons was the set that established snow as a proper powerhouse decades after the mechanic’s first appearance. What better way to show that than full art snow-covered lands?
Snow was one of the central mechanics of this set. Cards like Marit Lage's Slumber and Abominable Treefolk elevated snow lands from simple basic lands with extra uses to powerful win conditions. This set’s focus on snow permanents also retroactively made a lot of the Coldsnap cards more powerful in Modern. Snow lands have become very dominant in the format since then, either because you’re using snow as a strategy or you want to confuse your opponent and have them questioning whether you actually are using snow or just using them for aesthetic.
Some players have pointed this out as more of a problem than a benefit since it makes playing a specific basic land more a necessity than a choice, but I’ll go into this later. This set also gave us another colorless snow land with Frostwalk Bastion.
Eldraine Wonderland: Secret Lair (2019)
- Snow-Covered Forest
- Snow-Covered Island
- Snow-Covered Mountain
- Snow-Covered Plains
- Snow-Covered Swamp
Following the success of snow lands in Modern Horizons and the release of Throne of Eldraine, WotC released a Secret Lair with five basic snow lands. Each of them represented an Eldraine locale covered in winter’s snow.
Kaldheim ended a 15-year drought of snow permanents' inclusion in the Standard rotation.
Standard Takeover: Kaldheim (2021)
Kaldheim brought a ton of support for the snow supertype plus several snow-covered lands. With cards like Narfi, Betrayer King and Jorn, God of Winter, snow became a viable central strategy to throw into your Commander decks.
Cards like Boreal Outrider and Priest of the Haunted Edge make snow lands strong in tribal decks which would otherwise have no use for them. Kaldheim also included two colorless snow lands and a cycle of allied- and enemy-colored dual snow lands.
A Flake in Modern Horizons 3 (2024)
Snow-Covered Wastes gave us a colorless mana that also counts as snow mana. None of the other MH3 cards mentioned snow, so this was a clear gift to Modern Eldrazi Tron players.
Why are Snow Lands Good?
Scrying Sheets | Illustration by Thomas M. Baxa
The snow lands offer a couple of unique advantages that make them an archetype or theme worth going into heavily or sprinkling in like a little flurry.
Snow Themes
Snow is a supertype that has real support and options to slide into a linear build. Meaning, snow cards work well with snow cards, and when that pulls from multiple sets it can be healthy and the strategies diverse.
The Names are Different
This is a subtle and simple one, snow lands provide mana just like a basic land, but have a unique name. cards like Omenpath Journey, Realms Uncharted, Field of the Dead care about cards with different names and offer you flexibility.
Should I Buy Snow Lands?
Shimmerdrift Vale | Illustration by Titus Lunter
Yes, buy snow lands if you want to incorporate a snow strategy. I’ve mentioned several times that there is a strategic advantage to replace all or half of your basic lands with snow basics. It’s easy in Arena where you’re given snow lands for free the same as any other basic land. Doing it in paper Magic can prove to be a little bit harder. Buying basic lands is still cheaper than buying snow lands. Prices for basic snow lands range from around $0.50 for Kaldheim prints to around $10 for the Secret Lair editions.
Older prints like the ones from Ice Age and Coldsnap tend to be around $1 to $1.50. If your main concern is having snow lands for gameplay rather than aesthetic, I’d personally go for Kaldheim. They’re not ugly and they’re the cheaper option. You can buy a budget snow deck with singles and do quite well, but if you'd rather crack packs, Kaldheim set boosters are great.
The same standard applies to the dual snow lands. The Kaldheim prints are about $0.50 or less.
The truth here is that, while most snow lands are a little bit more expensive than regular basics, they’re still very affordable. The main snow lands with cost considerations are Dark Depths and Scrying Sheets around $3-$5.
Given the history of the mechanic, I wouldn’t bet on snow being a major feature any time soon, so expect their prices to remain fairly stable.
- 30 Kaldheim (KHM) Set Booster Packs
- Best booster for opening packs just to see what you'll get
- 12 Magic: The Gathering cards per pack
- Every pack includes 1 snow land, 1 foil, and a chance at a reprint
- 1–4 rares per pack, incl. up to 3 mythics
Pros and Cons of the Snow Mechanic
Arctic Treeline | Illustration by Alayna Danner
It’s noteworthy that the mechanic took a whole 24 years to gain proper support and recognition. Snow cards failed at first and didn’t exactly become fan favorites when Coldsnap brought proper support and it took until Modern Horizons another 13 years afterward to really make the snow mechanic truly interesting.
Wizards learns from their history. Snow became a success in Modern. WotC took that success and gracefully translated it into Standard. Snow as a mechanic became more accessible and fun than ever.
I personally enjoy snow cards a lot. I think they can be extremely flavorful and set a great atmosphere for the set they’re in. They’re mechanically fun and add variety.
A Potential Problem
Sulfurous Mire | Illustration by Titus Lunter
There could be one problem with snow lands. They don’t have any drawbacks. At least not from an inherent mechanical perspective, if we don’t consider prices and hate cards. Playing snow lands in your deck will almost always be better. In Modern and Commander, you can add plenty of cards from Magic’s history that use snow lands to your advantage. They can make your opponent second guess your strategy even when you don’t have a single snow card other than basic lands in your deck. That takes some degree of choice away.
Snow cards run the risk of becoming stale and obvious. If every deck you cross paths with plays snow lands, the novelty begins to wear out. Whenever WotC decides to return to a snowy plane or bring back a bunch of snow cards, they sometimes overcorrect and make things much worse.
I’m a firm supporter of the idea that what lands you choose for your decks says something about you as player. Unless you just grab whatever lands you have lying around, you try to pick something you like or fits your deck’s theme.
If snow lands are objectively better than regular basics, you’re no longer choosing from Magic’s entire history, but rather a few sets. What’s keeping snow lands from taking over regular basic lands is probably a mix of a small number of cards that care about them and the limited prints.
Winter is Leaving
Snow-Covered Swamp | Illustration by Adam Paquette
Snow lands definitely have a bumpy history. I really like them from a design and flavor standpoint. I’m really happy they are good to play, have plenty of support.
Snow’s whole rollercoaster also gives me hope for some other failed mechanics that have great potential.
What do you guys think? Do you think snow lands taking over regular basic lands could become a real issue in the future? Do you use them in all your Arena decks or are you, ironically, a little more chill about it? Let us know in the comments, and speaking of Arena, don’t forget to check out Arena Tutor to help improve your draft game and track your collection.
That’s all from me this time. Best of luck with the Arena shuffler, and have a good one!
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