Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Isu the Abominable!

Isu is a five mana 5/5 that allows you to look at the top card of your library and allows you to play snow lands and snow spells from the top of your library and whenever another snow permanent enters the battlefield you can pay green, white or blue to put a +1/+1 counter on Isu.

As the season gets colder, its fitting that we take a look at a Commander that evokes that coldness.

To be frank, snow as a mechanic in Magic has always struck me as odd and somewhat arbitrary, but it does have some interesting sub mechanics tied to it which helps make this deck a little more interesting.

So of course we need a preponderance of snow spells, mostly permanents.

Taking a look at all of the snow creatures, there are a variety of strategies to take a look at, though with us wanting to play snow permanents I think that should be something that we lean towards.

Anything that has some form of interaction with playing more snow permanents should be the focus. Iceberg Cancrix is a good example because it mills an opponent whenever a snow permanent enters the battlefield, which should be often.

There are also plenty of snow artifacts that are mana rocks, such as Coldsteel Heart and Replicating Ring, the latter of which makes even more snow permanents after it gets enough night counters.

This helps our ramp and ability to pay for Isu’s ability as well as paying for other snow spells.

While there aren’t as many snow spells as there are snow permanents, there are still a few really good ones.

Search for Glory is a tutor that let’s you look for your snow permanents, legendary cards, or Sagas and puts the card in your hand while also gaining 1 life for each snow mana paid to cast the spell.

An archetypal tutor is huge, and not only that this tutor is under a dollar, meaning that it is a flexible card to have in a lot of other decks.

There is also a snow fight spell in Blizzard Brawl that gives the creature you control to fight indestructible if you control three or more snow permanents, a banishing removal enchantment in On Thin Ice, and an evasive big creature whose power and toughness is based on the number of snow permanents you control in Rimefeather Owl.

So does snow have a way to win?

While it may not be a definite way to win, it is definitely a way to put a ton of pressure on to your opponents.

With it’s low cost, both in mana and in price, Marit Lage’s Slumber is a way to get the biggest benefit from having a massive number of snow permanents.

Not only that, but with the aforementioned tutor in Search for Glory, you can get to Marit Lage’s Slumber into play faster, and even smooth out your draws with the scry ability as you reach the ten snow permanents onto your battlefield.

While I am still be iffy on snow as a mechanic in general, Isu does have a neat amount of synergy with the archetype. While Isu’s ability isn’t that flashy, being able to synergize with a mechanic that has been around since 2006 is really neat.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow on the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual