Level UP!

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Hello again MTG peeps,
We hope that all who made it out the Rise of the Eldrazi pre-release this weekend had a blast and hopefully pulled a good card pool. Unfortunately, we were unable to get out but did hear from a few of you already as how things went.

We were surprised to hear how many of you did well in the tournament with blue-white levelers. To that end, we did a quick re-examine and revisit on some of the cards mentioned. Indeed, some of them are rather good . . so good it moved us to construct a hypothetical casual standard deck featuring this new mechanic.

Blue-White Leveler
(click to enlarge)

First off, in order to save your bacon, it would be nice to move some of your critters out of bolt range. For that we have the uncommon Time of Heroes, which gives creatures you have already with a level counter on it a nice +2/+2.

Next, we need to ramp things up a bit to get those sweet leveler abilities on deck in double time. For that, we have Venerated Teacher which, when he comes into play will drop two level counters on each level up critter you have on the field.














Although Venerated Teacher is great, we're kinda greedy. To double-dip on his ability, we've though that either Narrow Escape or Kor Skyfisher will do nicely for a rinse and repeat effect to multiply those level counters (too bad Gilder Bairn isn't in standard anymore).

As for the remainder of choices, some damage prevention is always nice to help your little levelers grow into fatties - for that we went with Shieldmate's Blessing to keep a theme within the block. We've always loved the disruption we spread with Spreading Seas so this was an auto-include in this as well.

There are quite a few nice creatures with level up in this set which we are certain will win some games. As we are in blue and white, we went with creepy fish-guy, Skywatcher Adept, the island-walker, Hailmar Wavewatch, the sneaky Hada Spy Patrol, the flying Merfolk Lord, Coralhelm Commander and for finishing off, the lifelinking / indestructible Transcendent Master.

Have loads of fun experimenting with builds with this new set - drop back soon as we continue doing some casual construction.
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