Disclaimer: This article is about a popular meme that “every mechanic is kicker.” Take it with a grain of salt. If you paid its kicker cost, take it with five grains of salt instead.
Is every mechanic kicker? Let’s find out.
What is Kicker?
702.33a. Kicker is a static ability that functions while the spell with kicker is on the stack. "Kicker [cost]" means "You may pay an additional [cost] as you cast this spell." Paying a spell's kicker cost(s) follows the rules for paying additional costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2f-h. (Ruling thanks to Yawgatog)
If you’re not a rules junkie, Kicker is a mechanic that lets you pay an additional cost as you cast a spell to get an extra effect. That extra effect is the kicker ( a la “and here’s the kicker.” )
This is an example of a card with kicker. Basically, this card has two “modes.”
Mode 1: Pay [2UU]. Create a token that’s a copy of target creature.
Mode 2: Pay [7UU]. Create five tokens that are a copy of target creature.
Kicker allows you to add a little bit of modality to how you use your cards. Sure having five tokens is virtually always better than having one token… but there will be times you will get more out of getting a token earlier than waiting to be able to get five, or simply cannot afford to wait. The essence of kicker, therefore, is modality, allowing you to use a card one of two ways rather than being locked into one effect. But there’s also a second type of kicker called multikicker.
702.33c. Multikicker is a variant of the kicker ability. "Multikicker [cost]" means "You may pay an additional [cost] any number of times as you cast this spell." A multikicker cost is a kicker cost. (Ruling thanks to Yawgatog)
Basically… kicker, but you can kick something more than once.
Multikicker is like kicker but instead of having just two modes, we have as many modes as you could have mana.
Mode 1: Pay [0]. Tap for nothing.
Mode 2: Pay [2]. Tap for 1.
Mode 3: Pay [4]. Tap for 2.
And so on, and so forth, and so on, and so forth, and so on….
Mode ∞: Pay [∞]. Tap for (∞ · ½).
So what’s the premise here? Kicker was Magic’s early foray into creating modal spells, it was a big hit that we have seen reprinted in several sets… and in some way, every MTG mechanic harkens back into kicker.
Mechanics that are Kicker
Let’s play a game… which one of these is the real card?
If you guessed the one without kicker you’re right, you’ve found Wash Away. (Wait that’s the running theme of this article, maybe this isn’t much of a game). At any rate, some people thought cleave was convoluted, but it’s really just a cle[a]ver way to re-skin kicker under the guise of wordplay.
Again, if you thought the multi-kicker card was the real version, you’d be wrong… despite it being very similar to Comet Storm. The real card in question here was Silence the Believers.
Alright, you get the point. For what it’s worth, I think that overload (along with other kicker variants) really adds to kicker here, by making the spell look more uniform and simple. It takes more words to explain the functionally identical kicker version here… plus, when you see a spell with overload, you ALWAYS know it’s increasing the number of targets. Kicker can be used anything, but that means it offers less immediate explanatory power - when you see kicker, you don’t know what the kicker is doing until you read more of it. The card, of course, was Cyclonic Rift.
If I tricked you with this one, you are legally obligated to like, comment, and subscribe. In this case, the real card IS the card with multikicker, called Flametongue Yearling. Despite the [XX] cost being relatively supported with the likes of Hangarback Walker and Neverwinter Hydra, there is also support for the multikicker variation (though most require colored mana for their kickers, such as Skitter of Lizards).
I actually like the kicker wording for this card, but the cycling wording gives a bit more flexibility. After all, Decree of Savagery is the only instant in this cycle. If I were to port over Decree of Pain I’d have to squeeze “you may cast this spell as if it had flash if you don’t kick it” onto it. Certainly not ideal.
The Power of Freedom
With some stretch of the imagination, any spell that adds modality to how we use a card when we’re casting/playing it could be replaced by some version of kicker. For many of them, however, we have to lose some aspect of what makes those mechanics unique. Cycling and channel, for example, stop being activated abilities that you have to Stifle and return to being spells that you can Counterspell. Ninjutsu is technically possible but would use so much text it’d be hard to fit an actual card alongside it. You can technically word phyrexian mana as “Kicker - pay 2 life. This spell costs {B} less to cast if it was kicked.” (Since you announce choices like if you’re kicking it in 601.2b, but don’t actually pay any costs until 601.2h, this wording could work.) Delve could have a kicker of exiling cards from your graveyard. Evoke, Convoke, and many more mechanics could be considered kicker.
If the point of Kicker is having multiple modes, then Boseiju fits the spirit of kicker quite easily:
By this logic, the channel mechanic and many many many other mechanics are “kicker in spirit” if though the “functional rewording” of them would never fit in a text box and be a rules nightmare to play with. A lot of “kicker variants” that are hard to word as kicker are difficult to apply because they attempt to Mode 2 behind some sort of wall. Mechanics like Aftermath, Flashback, and City’s Blessing (at least when it affects spells) are definitely “kicker in spirit”… it’s just that the second mode is locked behind some other condition.
Ferocious is definitely kicker… but the “kicker cost” is having a creature with power 4 or greater instead of a mana cost. Mode two is locked behind something other than mana.
Are MDFCs the new Kicker?
If we consider kicker as Wizards’s early attempt at adding modality and flexibility, perhaps it is a simple foregone conclusion that MDFC cards have been so popular both in design and among the player base. Almost like the spiritual successor to kicker, MDFCs give us a way to represent modality that is flexible enough to be applied to a lot of different cards across a variety of sets that are doing a lot of different things. Powerful, flexible, and with an easy-to-read way for players to quickly understand what Mode 1 and Mode 2 are (it’s so easy to read that it doesn’t even require reminder text or additional explanation - even if the different modes are different card types, like land and instant). This ease of use allows them to make the most of their real estate, both in terms of card size and mental capacity for readers to understand the card…. and because the cards have two faces, they have double the physical real estate to work with compared to normal cards.
Wizards has acknowledged that this can be playing with fire in some cases, and they have to be careful about the power of these cards. Still, I believe we can expect to see a lot of these cards going forward because it’s pretty much the most flexible possible version of what they were trying to do with kicker all along.
It would be tough to try to word Malakir Rebirth, for example, as a kicker spell… but because of the flexibility to have a spell on one side and land on the other, MDFC cards are kind of the ultimate conclusion of the kicker mechanic.
Mechanics that Just Aren’t Kicker
So what we’ve learned is that many mechanics can be functionally reworded as kicker spells. Some of these functional rewordings are less practical than others. We’ve also discussed some mechanics which basically can’t be reworded as kicker, but function in the same way. But let’s talk about some mechanics that just… aren’t kicker.
Any sort of ability that exists on the battlefield (static or triggered abilities of permanents) can’t be kicker. Vigilance can’t be kicker. Royal Assassin’s ability can’t be kicker. (If you have arguments that Royal Assassin’s tap ability embodies the modality of kicker because you can attack with it or tap… feel free to put it in the comments, but I will not read it.)
Any Static Ability that simply defines what’s true about a game object can’t be kicker. Split second, for example.
Finally
It may be fun and fair to compare to kicker, with many mechanics. It’s a popular comparison that YouTubers and WotC developers alike have made comments about. Maybe sometimes it’s even when talking about when considering the cards for our decks because it might allow us to compare the flexibility of some cards to other cards which offer similar flexibility with different mechanics.
But mostly, it’s just a meme. A sort of fun meme.