Winter wants a deck that fills the table with artifacts that make mana and draw cards. It also works in a deck built around Humans, Life Pay Engine or Warlocks.
Mana cost
Blue, Black ()
Power / toughness3 / 2
RarityRare
Ward—Pay 2 life.
Artifacts you control have "Ward—Pay 2 life."
Exhaust — , , Exile X artifact cards from your graveyard: Each other nonartifact creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. (Activate each exhaust ability only once.)
Picked for what they do in Winter's deck. When two cards do the same job, the one with the lower comes first. All of them fit Winter's color identity.Mana ValueThe total amount of mana a card costs, all added up. A card costing two generic and one green has a mana value of three. Wizards renamed this from "converted mana cost" in 2021, so older cards and articles may still use the old name.Open the full glossary
explain how Winter works in tricky situations. They come from Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic.RulingThe official answer to how a card works in a tricky situation. Most rulings are written by Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic, and a few are notes from Scryfall, the card database Magic players use. A ruling explains a card. It does not change what the card says.Open the full glossary
Wizards of the Coast7 Feb 2025
Exhaust abilities can be activated any time you could normally activate an ability.
Wizards of the Coast7 Feb 2025
If an ability triggers whenever you activate an exhaust ability, that ability resolves before the exhaust ability resolves.
Wizards of the Coast7 Feb 2025
If an effect causes Winter to become an artifact, its second ability will cause it to gain a second instance of ward.
Wizards of the Coast7 Feb 2025
If an exhaust ability of a permanent is activated, and then that permanent leaves the battlefield and returns to the battlefield, it becomes a new object so its exhaust ability can be activated again.
Wizards of the Coast7 Feb 2025
Multiple instances of ward each trigger separately.
Color identityEvery color of mana symbol on a card, in its cost and in its rules text. Your commander's color identity sets the limit for your whole deck: every other card has to fit inside it. A deck led by a green and white commander cannot play a card with any blue in its color identity.Open the full glossaryUBPlayers write colors as letters: U for blue, B for black. Blue is U because B was already taken by black.ArtifactsAn artifacts deck fills the battlefield with artifacts, cards like Sol Ring that stay in play and keep working turn after turn. Played together, they give you extra mana and extra cards. A handful of keywords turn up on artifacts again and again. Equip means you pay a cost to attach an Equipment such as Swiftfoot Boots to one of your creatures. If that creature dies, the Equipment does not go to your graveyard with it. It stays on the battlefield, and you can pay the cost again to attach it to another creature. Crew means you tap your own creatures with enough total power between them to turn a Vehicle such as Smuggler's Copter into a creature until the end of the turn. A Treasure is a token you can sacrifice (put into your graveyard on purpose) for one mana of any color. A token is a game piece that a card makes, not a card from your deck, and Pitiless Plunderer is one card that makes Treasures. Affinity makes a spell like Frogmite cheaper for each artifact you control. Unearth brings a card like Combat Courier back from your graveyard for one turn, and then it is exiled. Modular creatures like Arcbound Ravager enter with +1/+1 counters and pass them to another artifact creature when they die.Open the Artifacts pageArtifact PayoffRewards you for having artifacts: counting them, triggering off them, or getting cheaper as you play more. Urza's Saga, Mox OpalOpen the Artifact Payoff pageMana SinkGives you somewhere useful to spend spare mana, usually through an ability you can activate again and again. Rogue's Passage, Mind StoneOpen the Mana Sink pageCombat TrickAn instant you cast during a fight to change how it ends: making a creature bigger or smaller, or keeping your creatures from dying. Boros Charm, Flawless ManeuverOpen the Combat Trick pageLife Pay EngineCards that let you pay life instead of mana, or pay life for an extra effect, treating your life total as something to spend.Open the Life Pay Engine pageProtectionA creature with protection from something, like a color, is safe from anything with that quality. It cannot be damaged, enchanted or equipped, blocked, or targeted by it, and players remember the four with the word DEBT. It does not stop effects that neither target nor damage, like a board wipe that destroys every creature. ProgenitusOpen the Protection page
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, Exile X artifact cards from your graveyard: Each other nonartifact creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. (Activate each exhaust ability only once.)
Open the full glossary
