MTG Challenge - ProLev

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Happy Monday MTG Realm readers,

The recent Rise of the Eldrazi set gave Magic the Gathering players quite a smörgåsbord of options for your casual game. One mechanic that did set our imaginations off to brew some builds was the 'level up' keyword ability. Creatures with the this level up keyword are able to become larger or acquire new abilities with an investment of mana. The number of level counters on a creature indicates its current level, as well as its power, toughness, and extra abilities. We love level up as it is a sorcery-speed ability that can often take your opponent by surprise. What we did not really care for very much is how fragile and prone to spot removal some of the levellers were before we could put level counters on them.

Having stated our hesitation, we do appreciate the help that Time of Heroes (a pump of +2/+2) - the downside - one could only benefit from this if the creature already had a levlel counter on it. This could be partially addressed by using Venerated Teacher to place two level counters on each level up creature you control.


Unfortunately, timing the teacher was difficult - too often one had this in hand with only one or two levellers in play on your side of the game table, or the teacher was late for class and did not show until you were up to your elbows in goblins. Training Grounds was indeed a great card to have in a build such as this by reducing the sometimes expensive levelling cost (or any other activated creature ability by 2. We continually tweaked some of the casual brews we had and soon just abandoned any thought of a deck with a level up theme.

Fast forward to the release of Scars of Mirrodin and the sweet new tech - proliferate. Proliferate is a new keyword action that allows you to choose any number of players and / or permanents that each have at least one counter of any type. You would then place another counter on each player or permanent with one more of that type of counter. Poison counters are the only type of counters a player could accumulate, but the rest of the field was pretty much wide open. The popular choice for many casual standard players is proliferating poison counters on players and -1/-1 counters of creatures. The Trigon cycle (Trigon of Mending, Trigon of Thought, Trigon of Corruption, Trigon of Rage, Trigon of Infestation) also enjoyed attention with proliferate.

Soon after the Scars of Mirrodin spoiler was complete, we revisited the Zendikar Quest cycle with our new proliferate tech to determine whether we could abuse any of those cards. Quests are enchantments from Zendikar which counters are accumulated to trigger various abilities for specific events.

Quests came in different rarities - the Common Expedition cycle (Sunspring Expedition, Ior Ruin Expedition, Soul Stair Expedition, Zektar Shrine Expedition, and Khalni Heart Expedition), the Uncommon Quest cycle (Quest for the Holy Relic, Quest for Ancient Secrets, Quest for the Gravelord, Quest for Pure Flame and Quest for the Gemblades) and the Rare Ascension cycle (Luminarch Ascension, Archmage Ascension, Bloodchief Ascension Pyromancer Ascension, and Beastmaster Ascension). From these, only the rare Ascension cycle did not require the player to sacrifice the enchantment which meant one could possibly rinse and repeat. We are still looking at the Ascension cycle to proliferate but want to explore the levellers one last time before dismissing them for the time being.

Hence - your challenge this week -

Sorry - no cool prizes to hand out - just the notoriety we award you for your master home brew skills. Your homework - use these proliferate cards (Inexorable Tide, Steady Progress, Thrummingbird, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, and Throne of Geth) with a level up themed deck.


The levellers : Caravan Escort, Hedron-Field Purists, Ikiral Outrider, Kabira Vindicator, Knight of Cliffhaven, Student of Warfare, Transcendent Master, Coralhelm Commander, Echo Mage Enclave Cryptologist, Hada Spy Patrol, Halimar Wavewatch, Lighthouse Chronologist, Skywatcher Adept, Guul Draz Assassin, Nirkana Cutthroat, Null Champion, Zulaport Enforcer, Brimstone Mage, Kargan Dragonlord, Lord of Shatterskull Pass, Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, Joraga Treespeaker, Kazandu Tuskcaller
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A Time for Heroes

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We were toying with the idea of a casual level-up deck for the past few days. We had originally some serious concerns about levelling being too mana-expensive or just too slow - but - we like a challenge, more so if we can tweak out a (somewhat) budget deck out of it.

One challenge was that most of the levellers hit the battlefield as functional beaters for very little mana, but now present you with quite a few critical decisions during the following turns. Whether you play a new creature, or neutralise board threats (removal / spell counter), or invest your mana levelling up the critters you have out.

Some cards to consider is Time of Heroes. This card works well with other level up boosters such as Venerated Teacher and Training Grounds, which will enable you to dump level counters on your critters rapidly so they will grow up to be considerable board threats (you'll be such a proud father / mother). Another consideration for your mix is Champion's Drake which also does not level up but will certainly enjoy the synergy of your levelled creatures.

As for the expense part of it, Training Grounds is certainly a solid answer by giving you the Wal-Mart discount of 2 colourless mana off the price of all activated abilities of creatures you control. The only drawback here is that this will not reduce the mana cost to less than one. Not too bad at all.

The goal is to be able to play and keep alive cards such as Student of Warfare, Caravan Escort, Hedron-Field Purists, Kabira Vindicator, and even the defense oriented Ikiral Outrider to be able to put a dent in your opponent's life and hopefully win you the game.


One method of 'cheating' additional counters into play is using Kor Skyfisher of perhaps Narrow Escape to bounce Venerate Teacher back into your hand to play it again for its very lovely comes-into-play ability - rinse and repeat our friends.

You have a LOT of choices with regards to filling the ranks on your level-up deck.

Just ensure you have appropriate defenses in place to protect your leveller army. We are thinking along the lines of a blue / white deck : which way would you go ? > drop us a line or comment below.

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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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