Kicker

From MTG Salvation Wiki

Kicker is a keyword ability that allows the player to pay an optional cost when playing a spell to achieve an additional effect.

Most tournament-legal cards with kicker were printed during Invasion block. Kicker was brought back in Time Spiral and Zendikar.

For your reference [CR 409.1b,f-h] 409.1b If the spell or ability is modal (uses the phrase “Choose one —” or “[specified player] chooses one —”), the player announces the mode choice. If the player wishes to splice any cards onto the spell, he or she reveals those cards in his or her hand. If the spell or ability has a variable mana cost (indicated by ) or some other variable cost, the player announces the value of that variable at this time. If the spell or ability has alternative, additional, or other special costs (such as buyback, kicker, or convoke costs), the player announces his or her intentions to pay any or all of those costs (see rule 409.1f). You can’t apply two alternative methods of playing or two alternative costs to a single spell or ability. Previously made choices (such as choosing to play a spell with flashback from his or her graveyard or choosing to play a creature with morph face down) may restrict the player’s options when making these choices. 409.1f The player determines the total cost of the spell or ability. Usually this is just the mana cost (for spells) or activation cost (for abilities). Some cards list additional or alternative costs in their text, and some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost, activation cost, or alternative cost, plus all cost increases and minus all cost reductions. Once the total cost is determined, it becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect. 409.1g If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to play mana abilities (see rule 411, “Playing Mana Abilities”). Mana abilities must be played before costs are paid. 409.1h The player pays the total cost in any order. Partial payments are not allowed. Example You play Death Bomb, which costs and has an additional cost of sacrificing a creature. You sacrifice Thunderscape Familiar, whose effect makes your black spells cost less to play. Because a spell’s total cost is “locked in” before payments are actually made, you pay , not , even though you’re sacrificing the Familiar.

[edit] Rulings

• You kick a spell as you cast it. You declare whether you're going to pay a kicker cost at the same time you'd choose a spell's mode, and then you actually pay it at the same time you pay the spell's mana cost. Kicking a spell is always optional.
• You can pay any particular kicker cost only once. You can't pay it multiple times to "pump up" the effect.
• Some instant and sorcery spells have an additional effect if they were kicked. Other instant and sorcery spells have a different effect if they were kicked. Read these cards carefully: If they include the word "instead," the second effect replaces the first. If they don't include the word "instead," both the first and second effects occur.
• Some permanents with kicker enter the battlefield with counters on them if they were kicked. Other permanents with kicker have "enters the battlefield" triggered abilities that check whether they were kicked. These look at whether they were kicked when cast as a spell. If not, the ability doesn't trigger at all. If such a permanent is put onto the battlefield as the result of a spell or ability, there's no opportunity to kick them.
• If a permanent has a targeted "enters the battlefield" ability that triggers if it was kicked, the target isn't chosen until the permanent enters the battlefield and the ability triggers (as opposed to when that permanent was cast). That means that sometimes you may wind up targeting something you don't want to. For example, say you cast a kicked Heartstabber Mosquito, which has the ability "When Heartstabber Mosquito enters the battlefield, if it was kicked, destroy target creature." In response to the Heartstabber Mosquito spell, your opponent sacrifices his or her only creature. When the Mosquito enters the battlefield, its ability triggers, and you must choose a target for it. If no one else controls any creatures, you must target one of your own -- possibly Heartstabber Mosquito itself.
• Kicker costs don't change a spell's mana cost or converted mana cost.
• If a kicked spell is copied, the copy is also kicked.
• Older cards with kicker were printed with abilities that had the text "if you paid the kicker cost" or "if its kicker cost was paid." Cards that were printed with that text have received errata in the Oracle card reference so they now say "if it was kicked." The cards work the same way they always did; these abilities have their effects if the player decided to pay the kicker cost, not necessarily if the listed cost was actually paid.

[edit] External links

• A Planeswalker's Primer for Zendikar: Kicker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGY2R5k2Udo