FROST HAMMER!

I had originally thought about titling all of my updates to Frost Hammer with the above title but...in the end, common sense won out and I decided not to be so confusing.

I tested the deck with Theft of Dreams and with Dungeon Geist against a few of Noah's decks. It was pretty clear the Dungeon Geist was the better choice, even when I was losing (which against the R/w burn deck, I was).  But those wins came at greater strain to Noah's deck when I had the Geist in.

There was, however, a very interesting moment of revelation. We were talking while he was playing a Standard RUW control deck with Outpost Siege. He'd been getting free cards and ended up using a Valorous Stance revealed via Outpost Siege on my Frost Titan-tapping out to do so- when it hit me; the blue siege.

Monastery Siege. I am surprised it took me this long to come up with that. I've even said that blue got the best Siege! I was initially thinking Monastery Siege would just be for card drawing purposes-something I needed to enhance so I could keep the pressure on when my Frost Titan dies-but then I looked it up.

Three mana. AND it can give me and all my permanents the Frost Titan's tax-on-spells ability.

Well holy crap. That fits in mechanically with what I'm doing and as a bonus thematically, too, because of the ice breathing dragon in the picture!

So now I'm excited.

-4 Twitch
+4 Monastery Siege

Monastery Siege forces me to play the deck a little differently and I spent a series of games with Fuz, testing out the Khans mode instead of just naming Dragons every time. Against a straightforward aggro deck, I did pretty well, the Early Frost buying me turns against a deck that was lean on mana, the Dragons mode of Siege making removal nearly impossible for him.

But against his zombies deck, I failed to find removal and found myself mana pinched. I hope that was the problem because his zombies deck is aggressive like the RW one but I was swept in that match.

Ditto against a BW aggro deck, although in that matchup I made a critical mistake in game two. With a Siege out set to Khans so I could draw extra cards, I played the last card in my hand.

I learned through flawed play that I shouldn't do that. I thought that without any cards in hand, Monastery Siege reads: At the beginning of your draw step, mill one, because you can't keep this card that you drew.

Except that it doesn't. The Khans ability triggers after you've drawn your normal draw, so I would have always had an option as to what to discard. Because I didn't understand that, I lost access to cards that might have saved me.

Another problem was against Fuz's quirky Darkest Hour/Elephant Grass deck. Because I don't have any actual removal in Frost Hammer, there was nothing I could do once his combo was set up. You can see in the picture how I was stymied by the soft lock. I had more than enough creatures do kill Fuz but no way to get past the Elephant Grass/Darkest Hour lock. You can see in the picture: I'm ready to sweep in and kill him...if only Elephant Grass is gone.

I feel as though I have to accept this, because Frost Hammer is a theme deck and since I managed to equip a Hammer to a Frost thing on multiple occasions, that is a success. I don't know of a thematic way to handle troublesome non-creature permanents that don't tap (Frost Titan can tap any permanent) which puts enchantments, especially, as being very difficult to handle. I'll have to keep my eyes open but I'm not extremely hopeful for now.

Still, the Icefall Regent and the Monastery Siege have been really good so far so I'm really happy with the way these changes have helped the deck. It's a solid place to rest.

From The Icy Sky

Gap where Icefall Regent OUGHT to be.....

I haven't had an opportunity to test Frost Hammer in any meaningful way but, I did a search (after a few refinements) on creatures that want to do something that Frost Hammer wants to do.There were a few creatures but clearly Icefall Reagent is the one that fits best both mechanically and thematically.

So the only thing to do is go to the mighty binder of awesome and...I don't have any Icefall Reagents.

When that happened I did a tiny doubletake, thinking maybe I was in the wrong section of the binder, looking at Fate Reforged just to make sure. I thought about looking at Khans of Tarkir but then I remembered how silly that would be. I'll have to order a few but in the meantime I still want to test this deck out.

So, it's back to the list and the list includes hits like Somnophore (which is insanely good and I think I'm running in another deck), Dungeon Geists, who are the most likely option, and Frost Lynx, which is even more thematically appropriate than Icefall Reagent and amuses me greatly to run.

But I won't do that because it's the Glory of Cool Things. I already have Martyr of Frost; there's no point in making a martyr of myself while I play this deck.

I still want to test Theft of Dreams but increasing my threat density seems like a good choice too.

Sons of the North Abide

The advice I got from the reddit thread I posted this deck at was pretty simple: I was going to have to cut away the weaker cards with, at best, semi-flavorful ones while focusing on the major theme.

Wall of Frost, you gotta go.

The other card that had to be cut was Rimefeather Owl. In a matchup against Fuz, I had the seven mana to cast it and only three snow-covered lands. The stats just don't hold up. They could, sure, but decks like these really can't dick about. So: out with those and in with...I don't know what.

Because my matchups against Fuz went well, probably better than they should have. He ran an WUB/artifact deck against me that he hadn't updated in awhile and I was able to hold off against the tiny creatures and win before he could assemble any kind of combo. After the match, we agreed that his deck needed Trinket Mage, because the ability to dial up some of his utility creatures and cheap blockers would've put a crimp in my plans.

There was a match against a U/Artifact deck too and similarly, Fuz couldn't quite get it going. Even so, I made a few changes:

-2 Rimefeather Owl
-1 Wall of Frost
+1 Frost Breath (total 3)
+2 Theft of Dreams

There are very, very few creatures in the deck now and I'm starting to worry. Ten creatures isn't many and two of those are potential control cards to be sacrificed.

I ended up running Frost Hammer against a mono-B build; I was playing a stranger and for awhile I thought her deck would do me in. There was a nice balance of removal and some creatures and I was juuuust able to keep up with it.

Still; in the end I had enough Snow-Covered Islands to keep a Frost Raptor alive and the Hammers go a long way towards accelerating the end of a game. I don't think I can keep the deck in this configuration for long-the cracks will show-but it's a start.

There is a "tap permanents" theme running in this deck and it's likely that some creatures will be included to buttress that theme.