It's the winter time, and with it comes the cold. With the cold comes ice and snow. Magic has been no stranger to either of these things in its long life, with sets like Ice Age and Coldsnap representing snowy lands and those who inhabit them. In recent years, we've had even more added into the game with the likes of Modern Horizons and especially Kaldheim. There's been tons of love for the snowy mechanic lately, and it's given birth to all kinds of sweet cards. Few excited me more when I first saw them than Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff from Kaldheim.

Ah yes, stupid sexy Jorn. I love him. It's no secret that I'm big on Norse myth, and seeing Jorn was such an awesome joy for me, along with many of the gods of the set. What surprised me, though, was not just how awesome he looked or his origins in myth (at first appearing to be a gender-swapped version of the winter goddess Skadi). No, it was just how powerful his ability was with snow cards, both on the front and the back. It felt like there was a ton of potential to run with those abilities and I was very interested in building a deck around him. Now, in the depths of winter, it seemed like the perfect time to do so, and revisit Kaldheim a little in the process.

Let's look at a list!

Snowy Jorn | Commander | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Abominable Treefolk
• 1 Ascendant Spirit
• 1 Avalanche Caller
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Boreal Druid
• 1 Boreal Outrider
• 1 Centaur Omenreader
• 1 Chilling Shade
• 1 Conifer Wurm
• 1 Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1 Draugr Necromancer
• 1 Elves of Deep Shadows
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Frost Augur
• 1 Gretchen Titchwillow
• 1 Hailstorm Valkyrie
• 1 Heidar, Rimewind Master
• 1 Icebreaker Kraken
• 1 Ice-Fang Coatl
• 1 Kruphix, God of Horizons
• 1 Moritte of the Frost
• 1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
• 1 Narfi, Betrayer King
• 1 Ohran Frostfang
• 1 Ohran Viper
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Rime Tender
• 1 Rimefeather Owl
• 1 Rimewind Cryomancer
• 1 Sculptor of Winter
• 1 Spirit of the Aldergard

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1 Oko, Thief of Crowns

• Instants (6)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Krosan Grip

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Blizzard Brawl
• 1 Blood on the Snow
• 1 Culling Ritual
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Dead of Winter
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Into the North
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Ponder
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Villainous Wealth

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Marit Lage's Slumber
• 1 Wilderness Reclamation

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Arcum's Astrolabe
• 1 Coldsteel Heart
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Horizon Stone
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Replicating Ring
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak

• Lands (37)
• 3 Snow-Covered Swamp
• 5 Snow-Covered Forest
• 5 Snow-Covered Island
• 1 Alchemist's Refuge
• 1 Barkchannel Pathway // Tidechannel Pathway
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Clearwater Pathway // Murkwater Pathway
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dark Depths
• 1 Darkbore Pathway // Slitherbore Pathway
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 1 Dreamroot Cascade
• 1 Faceless Haven
• 1 Frost March
• 1 Ice Tunnel
• 1 Mouth of Romon
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Rimewood Falls
• 1 Scrying Sheets
• 1 Shipwreck Marsh
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Woodland Chasm
• 1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

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The biggest problem I had in putting this deck together was the overall poor quality of snow permanents. There simply isn't a high quality of depth and variety compared to other strategies. This stems from a couple of factors. The first is, frankly, the original sets featuring snow as a mechanic only did so with the lands, and many of the cards weren't great - as is normal for many older sets in the modern age. Coldsnap was the first foray into actual snow permanents, was also a bit lower on power level, and also was made for Limited, so it just didn't have a lot of exciting things going on.

We did see a lot more exciting cards in Modern Horizons with the likes of Ice-Fang Coatl, Dead of Winter, and Arcum's Astrolabe. The problem, however, is these were as good as they were because you could run them in normal 60-card Constructed decks. There you could run up to four copies of each, whereas here, it's just singleton in 100 cards. With less access to copies of these cards, there's far less available options. Even Kaldheim, the recent set to showcase snow as a major mechanic, was a notably powered down set and didn't have a lot of great cards. In fact, many options were Limited oriented, bland, and not great for Commander.

As a result of this, I had to look to other ways to make Jorn work well. The best way that I could find was to make use of Jorn's front ability to untap all your lands whenever he attacks. Darksteel Plate and Whispersilk Cloak help make sure you can do this as much as you want, by keeping him alive as you get your attacks in. With so much mana, you can utilize two critical cards: Kruphix, God of Horizons and Horizon Stone.

With these cards, you can store a ton of mana with your several untap abilities. By stockpiling this much mana, we get a ton of ways to utilize them. You get the usual finishers of Exsanguinate and Torment of Hailfire, but that's not all. If you get enough mana together, you can use a Blue Sun's Zenith to start forcing players to overdraw their deck if you want some style points. There's also the fantastic Villainous Wealth that works incredibly well here, and is very much worth using here since most decks don't get the opportunity. If all else fails, you can even use pumpable creatures like Chilling Shade, Conifer Wurm, and Hailstorm Valkyrie thanks to the mana staying snow even when it converts to colorless.

All told, this makes Jorn end up being a fairly chill experience of a deck. It's not super powerful, but sometimes that's for the best. What's more, there's no doubt in my mind that we'll see snow again in the future, so the deck only has more opportunities to grow in the future. It's been acknowledged that we should've had more time with Kaldheim, so maybe it won't even be that long. However you spend these darker, colder days of the year, give this deck a try at your next Commander pod - maybe warming up a little by a fireplace with a nice blanket and cup of hot cocoa as you do.

Paige Smith

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