Now, if you're anything like me, you've probably been running the same assortment of cards throughout all your MTG brews for years. You know all the basics. You've flicked out your Sol Ring on turn one, cast your Trinispheres off Mishra's Workshop, and maybe even looked your playgroup dead in the eye as you combo'd off with Thassa's Oracle. But let me ask you this:

Are you ready to Level Up?

No, not like "getting better" at the game. I mean quite literally. You don't get it?

Well, either way! Level Up, the long-lost keyword from Rise of the Eldrazi (2010), is just begging for your attention. And in today's Mechanics Overview Segment, I'm here to tell you more about what Level Up is, how it works, and why it might just be your next mechanic to build around. Or maybe it's yet another clunky keyword from a bygone era. Who knows? That's for you to decide.

What Is Level Up?

• Level Up [cost] ([Cost]: Put a level counter on this. Level Up only as a sorcery.)

Level Up is a keyword ability that allows you to pay mana (at sorcery speed) to put level counters on a creature. These counters, in turn, unlock new levels with better stats and/or abilities.

So, let's say you've got yourself a Hexdrinker. You drop it on the board for a Green and bam, you've got yourself an aggressive 2/1 for one mana. Great value but nothing flashy. But upon closer inspection...

At the top of the textbox lies this little ability:

• Level Up {1} (Put a level counter on this. Level Up only as a sorcery.)

And if you pay the one, you get a Level Counter. And with enough counters, the creature gets new stats and abilities, noted in those little "LEVEL 3-7", "LEVEL 8+" boxes on the card (in the case of Hexdrinker, with the top end granting you the legendary Progenitus effect of Protection from Everything!).

The History of Level Up

To truly understand the rise and subsequent retirement of the Level Up mechanic, let's take a quick trip back to a magical time: 2010.

The iPhone 4 was about to drop. Inception was about to melt our brains. And Wizards of the Coast was deep into the third act of the Zendikar block (2009 - 2010), culminating in the set Rise of the Eldrazi, a Lovecraftian horror show filled with massive mana costs, Colorless spaghetti monsters, and mechanics that, quite frankly, slowed the game down to an Eldrazi's crawl.

But before Level Up was ever even keyworded, we actually got a sneak peek of it through Figure of Destiny from Eventide (2008), a fan-favorite 1-drop that could grow bigger and badder as you dumped mana into it. It had three modes, three forms, and three chances to completely wreck your opponent's tempo. It was powerful, flexible, and most importantly: fun.

And thus, with the help of Brian Tinsman, the lead designer for Rise of the Eldrazi, who wanted to capture the spirit of leveling up like that of Dungeons & Dragons, the Level Up mechanic was formally conceived.

Why Level Up Didn't Catch On

Now, Level Up cards certainly sounded great on paper, but they stumbled in execution. Here are some reasons as to why:

• The New Card Frame Confused Players

  While veteran players could eventually parse the new striated text boxes and power/toughness zones, casual players reportedly found it hard to quickly evaluate what a Level Up card actually did. This was especially the case since Level Up creatures started at level 0, not 1 (something that still throws people off to this day).

• Sorcery-Speed Only

  Level Up could only be activated at sorcery speed. While this made the mechanic safer, it also made it feel sluggish, especially in formats where holding up mana for interaction is basically required 100% of the time.

• Clunky in Limited, Awkward in Constructed

  Level Up cards ate up a lot of mana. Investing three or four turns into one creature, only to watch it get Doom Bladed, felt downright terrible. Granted, in Limited, Level Up was fine if you built around it. In Constructed? Good luck, friend.

• Lack of Support and Synergy

  Beyond a few cards like Venerated Teacher or the, at the time, hard-to-come-by Proliferate synergy package, Level Up had no overarching theme. It existed in a vacuum. And that's rough in Magic, where tribal synergies, archetypes, and overlapping mechanics are often king.

Because of all this, the community reaction was mixed overall. Some players loved the slow-building investment and RPG flavor. Others hated the card frames, the lack of instant-speed flexibility, and the seemingly weak return on investment.

Level Up 2.0

While Level Up itself never came back as a keyword in Standard sets, its spiritual successors are alive and well:

Even the Class Enchantments from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (2021) directly referenced the Dungeons & Dragons inspiration behind Level Up. These cards allow players to invest mana to reach new "levels" of enchantment power, albeit using a cleaner, Saga-style frame and starting at level 1 instead of 0.

Congrats! You've Leveled Up!

Level Up is one of those mechanics that feels like it should have been a smash hit. On paper, it's dripping with flavor. I mean, who doesn't want their 1-drop to go full Super Saiyan by turn six? You get to build your own boss monster! So, what's not to love?! Well, as it turns out, a few things.

Level Up is fun, but it's also SO slow. It's the opposite of flashy, insta-win mechanics like Cascade or Storm. It demands patience, board presence, and a relatively decent understanding of sequencing.

And then there's the card frame (Oh, the dreadful card frame). "Wait, what level is it now? Does it have Flying yet?" For a mechanic that's supposed to be intuitive and flavorful, it was weirdly nonintuitive on first glance.

But even with all that said, here's the thing:

Level Up can be awesome for the right kind of player.

It's for the deck tinkerer. The rogue brewer. The bulk rares collector. The player who plays Commander not to win fast but to build a slow-and-steady value engine and see it pur. Level Up ultimately rewards incremental progress, synergy stacking, and clever use of resources. Or just vast amounts of mana ramping. But who am I to say?

Anyways, I believe we've hit the level cap on this segment. As always, happy brewing, and may your creatures inevitably ascend beyond their humble beginnings into unstoppable legends. Until next time, and always remember: greatness seldom comes all at once but rather one level at a time.