Jorn, God of Winter & Kaldring, the Rimestaff - JOrN SNOW..Winter is Coming

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago


This deck looks to use Jorn, God of Winter and Kaldring, the Rimestaff simultaneously with having both in play at the same time. Saaaaay whaaaaat!?
The trick is to cast as Kaldring, the Rimestaff and then copy it with certain cards in Copy Artifact, Phyrexian Metamorph, Mirrormade, Sculpting Steel, Clever Impersonator or Moritte of the Frost.
Because of the legendary rule you'll only be able to keep one and what you do is let the original copy go to the graveyard.
Now you have Jorn, God of Winter in your graveyard and you can use Kaldring, the Rimestaff ability to cast Jorn out.
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This gives you both cards in play at the same time. It makes it hard for opponents to remove your commander because with Kaldring you can keep casting Jorn, so it is a case that opponents need to remove both cards to stop Jorn.
The other neat thing with this setup is that you can cast creature sweepers (or opponents do) and recast Jorn always for 2g with Kaldring afterwards from the graveyard.

Of note Jorn can untap Kaldring therefore giving you two uses out of it in a turn potentially.

Entomb, Buried Alive, Intuition, Survival of the Fittest, Gravebreaker Lamia can all put cards directly into your graveyard.
If you have these in your early game then you can specifically put Moritte of the Frost into your graveyard with the idea of using Kaldring to cast it to copy Kaldring for the setup mentioned above putting Jorn into play as well.
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Snow permanents
The land base is mainly all Snow types, however there are a set of artifacts, enchantments and creatures that have Snow type as well.
This deck looks to gain medium advantages by casting some from your graveyard with Kaldring when opportunities arise.

Iceberg Cancrix can be used on yourself so that you have more graveyard targets to choose from.

Pilfering Hawk is another creature that can filter through cards. You can discard Snow permanents with the idea of getting value with Kaldring later.

Lots of additional mana producers with Boreal Druid, Rime Tender, Sculptor of Winter, Coldsteel Heart, Replicating Ring.
Rime Tender has the advantage that it can untap other Snow permanents so even Kaldring for another activation. With Jorn ability that means that you could potentially get 4 x activation's from Kaldring in a single turn!

Ice-Fang Coatl and Arcum's Astrolabe give you a draw and so you can look to keep recasting them potentially.
Ice-Fang Coatl makes it very difficult for opponents to attack into you as it'll have deathtouch as well as letting it get killed just means you can recast for value.
Phyrexian Tower can be used to sacrifice the Ice-Fang Coatl each turn if wanting to get the draw and Tower can also be used to protect against exile removal so that you can send to graveyard instead for Kaldring.

Draugr Necromancer is one of the most powerful effects that Snow creatures offer and in this deck it is particularly good. The creatures get an "ice" counter on them in exile which means that if Draugr Necromancer is removed and brought back later you can still use its ability to cast those creatures out. That means that Kaldring can keep bringing back Draugr Necromancer if it keeps getting removed and you can still get the value from it potentially.
A classic example would be to cast a creature sweeper like Toxic Deluge with Draugr Necromancer in play and then use Kaldring to recast Draugr Necromancer.

Ohran Frostfang is another great Snow creature that allows for draw.
There is some evasion in the deck because you want to be attacking with Jorn and a 3/3 isn't the most scary.
Thassa, God of the Sea and Whispersilk Cloak give you this.

Because you'd prefer to attack with Jorn and not have him killed Rime Transfusion is a Snow enchantment that can be used to make unblockable.

Priest of the Haunted Edge can be used as a constant creature kill source if you sacrifice it and bring it back with Kaldring.

Mouth of Ronom is a Snow land that you can sacrifice, therefore you can look to keep playing it with Kaldring each turn. Normally the 4s is too mana intensive to look to use that often, but with Jorn ability you can actually look to realistically use it because he unlocks your mana again.

Jorn untapping Snow
What is the game plan with such a powerful ability?
It is important to note that even though you get access to untapping lands, it doesn't allow for casting super high casting cost spells as your mana will be divided between the attack phase.
With this in mind really the deck is just looking to use the mana to cast more of its mid-range good stuff cards and/or allow you to hold up mana for disruption.
However this is such a boon that the deck can afford to play way less additional mana sources in order to do really great things.

Because Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur has flash you can actually tap your mana during the attack step and then tap them again with Jorn to actually be able to cast the big guy. This means that you only need 5 lands in play in order to do this.

There are a number of instants that give you draw of kinds with Fact or Fiction, Graven Lore, Mystic Confluence. The great thing with Jorn untap trigger is that if it is on the stack you can tap all your lands and then wait for it to resolve so that you have untapped lands to then cast these types of spells just so that you have your own interaction if opponents go to do something. Also you can just cast some spells and then untap and leave mana up to cast these types of spells in opponents turns, so I like this versatility.
Torrential Gearhulk is a flash creature that can make use these types of spells and just like I mentioned with Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur you can cast with half the mana sources so can be cast in even the early game if games lined up that way.

Setting up the graveyard
Survival of the Fittest is great to put as many of the Snow creatures into your graveyard as possible.
I already mentioned the Rime Tender with Jorn to get 4 x activation's with Kaldring each turn so you can imagine it is possible to cast out multiple creatures a turn.
Example sequence
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There are 13 Snow creatures in the deck. You could literally use Survival of the Fittest to filter for all these into your graveyard.
Cast Rime Tender and Centaur Omenreader say on the first turn after using Survival.
Remember Jorn gives you much more mana each turn, so with Centaur Omenreader you could easily cast out all these creatures in a couple of turns.
Buried Alive and Intuition are other great way to setup your graveyard.
I've already mentioned using Moritte of the Frost as a way to get the duel commander setup and so it is more than likely that it will be part of that line up if you don't already have a copy artifact spell.

Of note Gravebreaker Lamia does make spells cost 1 less with your targets for Kaldring.

Life from the Loam was actually cut from final version just because I couldn't actually see myself using it much as getting back lands from your graveyard isn't that appealing when Kaldring allows you to play one from your graveyard anyway.
So the dredge for 3 at the cost of getting Life from the Loam isn't what you really want. I play Loam in a lot of decks but they play cycling lands to get a draw engine going and this deck can't afford to play non-Snow lands.

Scrying Sheets at its absolute best in all of Magic
I think no other deck makes better use of this card..period in any format. Most people play Scrying Sheets for its ability to get Snow-Covered basic lands. However in this deck there are a mutilate of Snow permanents so just has more card advantage for you.
With Jorn you can untap the Scrying Sheets so it is possible to get multiple activation's each turn and thus becomes a good mana sink if you need more cards.
It is not entirely improbably that you Entomb for Scrying Sheets during the early game to get a land drop from your graveyard with Kaldring.
Into the North can search for it as well.
If opponents go for a Strip Mine type effects then you can replay it next turn with Kaldring so in this respect it makes it hard for opponents to take you off some kind of card drawing engine.

To make activation's even more likely you have Sensei's Divining Top and Sylvan Library to order cards.
There is Search for Azcanta or Thassa, God of the Sea that give you scry for perfect information if you put a card back on top.

Frost Augur is Scrying Sheets on legs, so look to get value with activation's.



Jorn, God of Winter & Kaldring, the Rimestaff

Snow enchantments

Approximate Total Cost:

Last edited by darrenhabib 3 years ago, edited 30 times in total.

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sweetwaterbob
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Post by sweetwaterbob » 3 years ago

Very interesting deck idea. Right now this looks like a pretty grindy-midrange/controlly sultai deck. I can see some soft locks with hullbreacher and gin-gitaxis.

How do you plan to take advantage of the soft locks?

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I can't help but think Jorn really wants some sac outlets to defend himself and the creatures he wants to reuse. It's a bit tedious that there're so many different types of cards so getting the sac outlet layout right is hard.

Fundamentally I think it's probably going to make the most sense to focus on either creature or artifact outlet since Marit Lage's Slumber sacs outself.

At the minimum having a Phyrexian Tower to sac Ice-Fang Coatl seems worthwhile I think.

I might be thinking about it wrong but there're so few of the things that sac'ing them and recurring them seems pretty important.

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Ardeyn
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Post by Ardeyn » 3 years ago

This is a really unique deck idea!

I have to agree with sweetwaterbob that it looks really grindy.
I'd definitely add Sunstone to fight against creature decks better. This will also give you plenty of lands to recast out of the grave.

Hope we'll see some more good snow stuff during the rest of Kaldheim spoilers...

Ardeyn
"A single spark of passion can change a man forever."

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

sweetwaterbob wrote:
3 years ago
Very interesting deck idea. Right now this looks like a pretty grindy-midrange/controlly sultai deck. I can see some soft locks with hullbreacher and gin-gitaxis.

How do you plan to take advantage of the soft locks?
You are right it is a grindy midrange control deck.

At this stage one of the main goals is to get Draugr Necromancer online and cast a board sweeper in Dead of Winter, Toxic Deluge, Damnation, Living Death so that get access to casting all opponents creatures as well.
I feel like this is going to be too much for opponents to overcome.
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I can't help but think Jorn really wants some sac outlets to defend himself and the creatures he wants to reuse. It's a bit tedious that there're so many different types of cards so getting the sac outlet layout right is hard.

Fundamentally I think it's probably going to make the most sense to focus on either creature or artifact outlet since Marit Lage's Slumber sacs outself.

At the minimum having a Phyrexian Tower to sac Ice-Fang Coatl seems worthwhile I think.

I might be thinking about it wrong but there're so few of the things that sac'ing them and recurring them seems pretty important.
Yes trust me I really tried hard to fit in sacrifice outlets for Ice-Fang Coatl and Arcum's Astrolabe.
I was contemplating Phyrexia's Core and Phyrexian Tower as land options. The ultimate problem is that I know not having them as Snow lands is really going to hurt you in a lot of games.
I had Infernal Tribute or Claws of Gix as options as well.
The problem is dedicating slots to what is only 2 cards in the deck and when I thought about Ice-Fang Coatl if your opponents can't actually attack into you anyway then it is doing a super good job. If they do attack you then it just plays into your card advantage more.

But when you mention defending your creatures, especially Jorn against exile removal then it does make it more worthwhile.
I'll play the Phyrexian Tower.
Ardeyn wrote:
3 years ago
This is a really unique deck idea!

I have to agree with sweetwaterbob that it looks really grindy.
I'd definitely add Sunstone to fight against creature decks better. This will also give you plenty of lands to recast out of the grave.

Hope we'll see some more good snow stuff during the rest of Kaldheim spoilers...

Ardeyn
Sacrificing lands is still a big downside as you'll be down a mana each turn from where you might have been.
Constant Mists does exactly the same thing at the cost of a land and is arguably better as opponents require a counterspell rather than artifact removal to stop you down the stretch.

Yeah I'm totally waiting for more Snow permanents to be spoiled so I imagine there will be some that make the deck...cross fingers.

sweetwaterbob
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Post by sweetwaterbob » 3 years ago

I feel like you could implement some more stax elements if we're going with some hullbreacher and jin-gitaxis soft locks. Also quasi-protection for Jorn attacks.

Orb of Dreams and company to play into the untap all snow permanents.

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

sweetwaterbob wrote:
3 years ago
I feel like you could implement some more stax elements if we're going with some hullbreacher and jin-gitaxis soft locks. Also quasi-protection for Jorn attacks.

Orb of Dreams and company to play into the untap all snow permanents.
I did think of Stax with the whole untap permanents thing, so Winter Orb, Static Orb, Stasis type effects which would be a really brutal type of deck for sure. Just not the flavor for me, I'm more into Melvin style deck building rather than Spike or Johnny at the moment.

I just really like the flash element with those creatures with untapping lands and I've even considered Torrential Gearhulk for value, but instants are limited.

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Post by sweetwaterbob » 3 years ago

Sultai creature flash sounds like a lot of fun. I do like this idea that they're slipping through some sort of slip stream in that moment when attackers are declared and your lands untap and then before damage you can flash in your creatures.

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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

I'm getting pretty excited about this deck actually. As the set winds down I've got a clearer picture of Snow cards.
I just made some tweaks with adding Graven Lore, Mystic Confluence and Torrential Gearhulk as further instants that you can look to use in your turn to get the draw or you can just use mana on other cards and pass with the mana open.

With Frost Augur being spoiled I wanted a little bit more focus on Snow targets. So even though fetchlands can shuffle your library to see more cards, I find that often you don't get the luxury of keeping them around and need to crack them on the turn you play them.
Therefore I cut all the off fetchlands with just more Snow-Covered basics.
Also this is why Graven Lore is more appealing because you can get it with Frost Augur and Scrying Sheets potentially.

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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Well this was the deck I was most looking forward to out of my brews for Kaldheim because I'm into more creative casual-er game play these days and this fits the bill nicely as very Melvin style in approach and power level is perfect for joining a variety of games levels.

I was lucky in my first few games because I had Iceberg Cancrix in my early turns so was able to create enough value from the graveyard to give Kaldring, the Rimestaff targets.
You do need at least one mill type engine in order to make it effective so I've added a few cantrip type cards that put a few cards into graveyard as a gap stop during those early turns before you might get one of the graveyard engine cards.

Because there are not that many Snow permanents that are not lands, I've found myself VERY consistently targeting lands for Kaldring, the Rimestaff and with Jorn untapping Kaldring I wanted to add Exploration to make better use of this interaction.

One thing that worried me was if I do the whole copy Kaldring sending Jorn to graveyard and have to wait a turn to cast out Jorn and somebody removes Kaldring. The problem is that your commander is now in your graveyard and you have no way of accessing it.
Volrath's Stronghold is a way to get it back and I have found with Scrying Sheets and Frost Augur that I do activate them each turn if able and so putting a Snow creature on top give you pure card advantage.
I was unimpressed with Phyrexian Tower during the games so just replaced this.

The play pattern so far has been to actually be patient with putting Jorn into play. The deck is not like a monster at card draw so often getting loads of mana early isn't that important.
I play Kaldring as soon as I can however, the neat thing is that it hasn't been a huge focus for opponents as it looks somehow less offensive when your commander is not a creature (or planeswalker).

Instead I've been finding myself waiting several turns to see how the game plays out before I do a big committal of putting Jorn into play off a copy Kaldring sequence and thus the "need" to have a copy artifact spell in the early game isn't quite as important as I initially thought.

Centaur Omenreader proved to be a bit weak. Jorn actually untaps Centaur Omenreader when attacks so you often will miss out on the cost reduction.

I took out Whispersilk Cloak as actually Jorn only needs to attack to get the trigger and even if killed the fact that it untaps Kaldring and your lands means that you can always just cast Jorn out again and you still get value as Jorn only cost 2g and you still get to use Kaldring on something else for the turn. So this is cool I never worry about Jorn being blocked and killed.

I took out Hullbreacher and Opposition Agent because I'm aiming at more casual games with the deck and Dead of Winter is one of the main goals to winning which does kill them.

Marit Lage's Slumber made it back into the deck because of Scrying Sheets and Frost Augur being so good if you have a Snow card on top. It sucks when you have ways to untap these with Jorn, Rime Tender, Sculptor of Winter and a non Snow card is on top and you just can't get value.

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy is more card advantage, and just being able to discard a land and then use Kaldring to play it from graveyard means that it just pure card advantage. Being able to cast key cards like Buried Alive, Intuition and Dead of Winter again during the game is important as well.


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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
3 years ago
Because there are not that many Snow permanents that are not lands, I've found myself VERY consistently targeting lands for Kaldring, the Rimestaff and with Jorn untapping Kaldring I wanted to add Exploration to make better use of this interaction.
This is one of the coolest things about Jorn imho, being able to use your commander as a bad Crucible of Worlds does a lot of work.

Probably see a lot of value off of Bazaar of Baghdad.

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Post by Batman67 » 2 years ago

Pokken, love the concept here. Are you still doing any further testing or changes on this?

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Artaud
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Post by Artaud » 2 years ago

How about Dark Depths? All you need is to free 2 land slots for this and Thespian's Stage and maybe another land to supplement deck with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth for DD and TS to make colored mana.

Also Amulet of Vigor.

UPDATE: It's interesting deck idea but I wonder how it wins? You don't play any meaningful threats nor infinite combo unless I'm blind. Marid Lage token beatdown?

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