Magic: The Gathering – What Is Kicker?
One of Magic: The Gathering’s most popular mechanics ever is kicker. Lauded for being simply to understand and highly flexible, kicker is often held up as the golden standard for Magic design, and very few mechanics have ever managed to come close to its popularity.
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There have been numerous variants of it over the years, but regardless of whether you’re kicking in Dominaria or Zendikar, or even helping Chun-Li with multikicker, there’s a lot to learn about this deceptively simply keyword.
Kicker is a keyword that grants the card it is on an additional casting cost. When you cast a spell with kicker, you have the choice of either paying its basic mana cost for one effect, or paying both the mana and kicker costs for another, often larger effect.
For example, if you have the Gnarlid Colony in your hand, when you cast it, you could pay two different costs. You could just pay the base mana cost of one generic and one green for a 2/2 beast. However, if you instead pay the one generic and one green, and also the kicker cost of two generic and one green, you will have kicked Gnarlid Colony, and its additional ability of entering with four +1/+1 counters comes into effect.
Keep in mind that kicker costs must be paid while the spell is being cast, at the same time as you pay the rest of your mana. You cannot kick a permanent that is already on the battlefield.
While you could easily hop into a game of Magic with just this knowledge and do absolutely fine, kicker has been presented in many different ways over its long history. Gnarlid Colony is an example of kicker at its most basic, but there are numerous different costs cards may as you to pay. Everything from
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