Avalanche MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	4
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Sorcery
Released	1995-06-03
Set symbol
Set name	Ice Age
Set code	ICE
Number	171
Frame	1993
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Brian Snõddy

Key Takeaways

Avalanche provides significant card advantage by potentially clearing multiple enemy threats at once.
Its instant speed grants strategic flexibility, disrupting opponents during their turn.
However, the requirement to discard a land may negatively impact your resource pool.

Text of card

Destroy X target snow-covered lands.

"The pass was completely blocked by the avalanche; we're forced to turn back. Nevertheless, we've gone farther and seen more than any before us." —Disa the Restless, journal entry

Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Avalanche card can potentially clear multiple threats from your opponent’s board, which effectively translates into significant card advantage as you minimize their resources while maintaining your own.

Resource Acceleration: By dealing damage to creatures, this card helps you maintain a presence on the board, potentially leading to an accelerated game state where you can deploy your bigger threats or utilize more mana-intensive spells sooner than your opponent.

Instant Speed: Avalanche operates at instant speed, giving you the flexibility to disrupt your opponent’s strategies during their turn or at the end of their turn, ensuring that you can always make the most informed decisions with the maximum amount of available information.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Avalanche compels players to discard a land to activate its effect. In a game where each resource is pivotal, this could set you back, especially if your hand is already running thin on lands or necessary spells.

Specific Mana Cost: As a card with a color-specific cost, requiring red mana, Avalanche is not as flexible for deckbuilding. If you’re not running a deck with a red mana base, incorporating Avalanche can strain your mana resources or even be unplayable without the right support.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Sporting a heavier mana demand, Avalanche’s cost may impact your tempo. While the potential to disrupt your opponent is there, the four mana investment is considerable, and in a game where speed can be synonymous with victory, it might not be the most efficient use of your turn.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Avalanche is a card that can seamlessly adapt to a range of strategies and can be a game-changer in decks that prize land control or destruction.

Combo Potential: Within decks that revolve around land synergy, Avalanche holds the potential to combo with cards that benefit from land sacrifices or graveyard play, possibly leading to powerful board states.

Meta-Relevance: Given its nature to disrupt opponents’ mana bases, Avalanche remains relevant in metas where land-based strategies are prevalent, making it a tactical inclusion to outpace such setups.

How to beat

Avalanche is a potent force in the realm of MTG, impacting board states with its capacity to nullify an opponent’s land. To outmaneuver this card, savvy players will often turn to land regeneration or cards that grant land protection. Cards like Terra Eternal or Sacred Ground can serve as a formidable shield against Avalanche’s land destruction. Players may also optimize their deck’s resilience by including multicolored lands or land types that fall outside Avalanche’s reach.

On another strategic front, counterspells like Negate or Cancel prove to be reliable tools to stop Avalanche before it triggers disruption. Utilizing instant-speed spells allows players to act swiftly and preserve their mana base. Efficient mana management and keeping countermeasures in hand are crucial when facing a deck with land destruction capabilities.

Ultimately, incorporating these strategies into your gameplay equips you to maintain a solid foothold despite the tumultuous effects of Avalanche. By prioritizing land protection and interruption spells, you can effectively negate the impact of this formidable card and keep your MTG game plan on track.

Cards like Avalanche

The strategic depths of Magic: The Gathering offer various tools for players to control the battlefield. In this context, Avalanche stands as a staple for land destruction decks. It’s akin to cards like Stone Rain, with both having the primary function of destroying lands. However, Avalanche is distinctive as it allows targeting two lands at once, albeit at a higher mana cost.

Comparatively, we can look at Ice Storm, which not only destroys a land but also taps it, preventing its use for a turn—an advantage in delaying opponent strategies. Though similar to Avalanche, Ice Storm targets a single land. Molten Rain enters the fray, also destroying land while dealing damage to the opponent, a feature that Avalanche lacks but one that could swing a game.

Even with these considerations, Avalanche’s ability to raze multiple resources in a single stroke standardizes it among the top picks for land disruption, providing strategic breadth to a player’s arsenal in Magic: The Gathering.

Cards similar to Avalanche by color, type and mana cost

Draconic Intervention - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Avalanche MTG card by a specific set like Ice Age, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Avalanche and other MTG cards: