Kicker in MTG: Rules, History, and Best Cards

Last updated on August 12, 2026

Chun-Li, Countless Kicks | Illustration by Martina Fackova

Cards in MTG have an essential problem tied to the mana system. If I fill my deck with cheap cards, I won’t have power in the late game. If my deck is all expensive cards, I risk not getting to the late game alive. Kicker aims to solve this problem.

It's become one of Magic’s most popular mechanics, having been revisited multiple times with variations and inspiring similar mechanics. Some even say that almost every mechanic is a take on kicker.

Today I'm taking a look at the famous kicker mechanic and the best cards that use it. Let's kick it!

How Does Kicker Work?

Spinning Wheel Kick | Illustration by Evyn Fong

Kicker is an additional cost you can pay while casting the spell to obtain a greater benefit. It’s a simple and elegant mechanic. You pay the mana cost of your card like normal, and have the option to pay extra costs to amplify your spell. The card then tells you what happens if the kicker cost is paid. The kicker cost can be anything, from paying extra mana to discarding a card, tapping a creature, or sacrificing lands.

Creatures usually enter the battlefield with a number of +1/+1 counters as you can see on Academy Drake and Baloth Gorger.

The History of Kicker in MTG

The first MTG set to feature kicker was Invasion back in 2000. As one of the main mechanics of the set, it appeared on 35 cards, all of which had mana as the kicker cost.

Some cards asked for generic mana, like Vodalian Serpent. Others allowed you to pay colored mana (Skizzik, Thicket Elemental), and even colored mana different from the spell’s cost (Vigorous Charge, Verduran Emissary). It made sense to have kicker with different mana costs since Invasion was a multicolor set with lots of gold cards.

Planeshift, the next set in the Invasion block, had 16 cards with kicker that introduced variations to the kicker cost, allowing you to pay life and sacrifice lands, and some spells like Nightscape Battlemage had multiple kicker costs. Apocalypse rounded out the block with 13 more kicker designs, focusing on enemy-colored costs.

Other sets that featured heavily kicker were the Time Spiral block, Zendikar and Worldwake, Dominaria, Zendikar Rising, and Dominaria United. Kicker is also used in supplemental sets like Conspiracy sets, Commander precons, and Modern Horizons sets when needed.

Kicker's appearance on Final Flourish from March of the Machine brought the mechanic into the fold as a deciduous mechanic, which means the designers were more willing to use the mechanic in Standard-legal sets without forcing it to be a fully-supported set mechanic. For example, it appeared on five main-set cards from Foundations but wasn't advertised as a set mechanic.

Is Kicker a Triggered Ability? An Activated Ability?

No, kicker itself isn’t a triggered ability or activated ability. It’s an additional cost. There’s no “kicker trigger” when you cast a spell, though a permanent may have a triggered ability that checks how many times a spell was kicked once it resolves.

Is Kicker an Additional Cost?

Bingo! Kicker is an optional additional cost to cast a spell. It can be cast for its normal cost, with or without the additional cost. That's in contrast with cards where the additional cost to play is mandatory, like Stitched Drake and Skaab Goliath.

The optional cost is paid at the same time as the normal cost. In other words, everyone knows if a spell was “kicked” while it's still on the stack.

Can You Reduce Kicker Costs?

Yes, most kicker costs can have their mana requirements reduced. When casting a kicker spell, you add the additional costs, then apply any cost reduction effects. In most cases that might reduce the total generic mana needed to cast the spell, though some cards can even reduce colored costs.

Note that not every kicker cost is paid with mana, and there are very few ways to circumvent extra costs like discarding cards, tapping creatures, etc.

Can You Pay for Kicker on a Free Spell?

Yes. Whenever the game allows you to cast a spell for free you can pay any additional costs, like the kicker effect. Keep in mind that the kicker cost isn’t free in this case.

What Is a “Kicked” Spell?

A “kicked” spell is a spell where the kicker cost was paid. There are a few cards like Roost of Drakes and Verazol, the Split Current that reference kicked cards. In these cases you get an extra benefit from casting kicked spells.

Does Kicker Increase Mana Value?

No, the mana value of a kicked spell is equal to the mana value of the printed card. Although you’ll spend more mana to cast the spell, kicker doesn't change the card's mana value.

Can You Copy Kicker?

You cannot copy the kicker ability itself since it doesn’t use the stack, but you can copy a kicked spell that’s currently on the stack. When you copy a kicked spell, the copy you create is also considered “kicked”, and it applies the same additional costs you paid for the original (you don’t have to pay those costs again).

What Is Multikicker?

Multikicker is a variation of kicker introduced in Worldwake that allows the player to pay the kicker cost as many times as they want. So you can cast a spell with multikicker without paying the kicker cost, or you can pay the kicker cost one or more times. The benefit scales with the number of times you paid the kicker cost.

For example, Apex Hawks can enter the battlefield with multiple +1/+1 counters as long as you pay the kicker cost multiple times.

What Are Sticker Kicker and Assist Kicker?

Sticker kicker is a one-off ability that appears on Wicker Picker from Unfinity that works with the ticket and sticker mechanics from that set.

Assist kicker only appears on All-Star Kicker, a playtest card that’s not legal to play in any format. It essentially combines the kicker ability with the assist ability from Battlebond, allowing a teammate to help pay for your additional kicker costs.

Why Do People Say Every Mechanic is Kicker?

So many mechanics in Magic let you pay extra mana for some additional effect, which is exactly what kicker does on a fundamental level. When people say “everything is just kicker,” they're joking about the fact that many Magic mechanics could just be rewritten as kicker instead.

For example, squad and replicate let you pay extra mana to copy creatures and spells multiple times, which is just multikicker with a more specific card type requirement.

Monstrosity is just “kicker on a permanent”, letting you pay the kicker cost later than upfront. Rooms from Duskmourn are very similar, letting you “kick” a room to unlock the other half later on.

Escalate and entwine are essentially kicker costs that have specific rules text for modal spells. The list goes on.

In an article about kicker written by Mark Rosewater in 2007, he writes: “It's too big of a mechanic… Almost any mechanic that requires paying extra mana (or extra anything) can get shoehorned into the kicker box.” That was 2007, imagine how many more kicker-like mechanics have been released since then!

Best Kicker Cards

#10. Everflowing Chalice

A staple in EDH decks, the more mana you pay, the merrier. You won't cast Everflowing Chalice for 0 mana since it’s almost useless, but for 2 mana you get a normal mana rock. For 4 mana you get a 2-mana mana rock like Hedron Archive, and so on.

There used to be some decks in Modern that transferred charge counters from one artifact to another in order to turn Everflowing Chalice into a mana-generating beast, but most of the time you’re happy paying 4 mana here.

#9. Tear Asunder

Kicker on Tear Asunder is a showcase in how this ability can produce what's essentially a split card. This is either 2 mana for an exiling Disenchant or 4 mana for Utter End, which is a fairly middling piece of creature removal that sometimes snipes different permanent types for half the cost.

#8. Burst Lightning

Burst Lightning is one of the consistently great Shock variants, most recently printed into Standard as part of Foundations. It’s good in Cube, great in Standard, and passable anywhere else, making it one of the better one-for-one removal spells with kicker.

#7. Goblin Bushwhacker

Goblin Bushwhacker is a finisher in red aggro and goblin decks that go wide. Adding a creature that's effectively a 2/1 haste for 2 mana and a goblin is okay, and giving +1/+0 to other creatures you control can lead to a very powerful attack.

#6. Mega Flare

Perhaps a little obscure because it was only printed in a Final Fantasy Scene Box, Mega Flare is an effective way to take down a creature from each opponent in multiplayer games. The kicker here isn’t necessary to play the card, but it guarantees you have the large threat needed to turn this into 3-way removal.

#5. Orim’s Chant

Orim's Chant’s ability to essentially skip over a player’s turn has earned it a spot in highly competitive decks, though usually in sideboards. Silence-style effects are a great way to make sure a combo of your resolves, or an opponent’s doesn't.

#4. Sowing Mycospawn

Sowing Mycospawn is the perfect middle-ground between the early ramp needed to make an Eldrazi deck tick, and the high-end battlecruisers it’s ramping into. It fetches any land, and with a little extra mana, takes one away from your opponent, too.

#3. Thieving Skydiver

Everybody has good artifacts to be stolen in EDH, from mana rocks to powerful equipment. Thieving Skydiver is here to do precisely that. Kicker X adds flexibility to what can be stolen too. A 2/1 that steals something useful is good in my books.

#2. Rite of Replication

Rite of Replication is a Commander staple in my mind. It costs a bunch of mana, but gives you five copies of a creature! It doesn't get much more explosive that than. Just picture getting something like five Craterhoof Behemoths onto the board! You'll be doing a bit of math, but that's the fun part.

#1. Galadriel's Dismissal

Phasing is the best form of protection in Magic, but can also be used offensively to get a blocker out of the way. The kicker on Galadriel's Dismissal either saves your entire board or removes all of an opponent's blockers for a turn, which is a great amount of flexibility on a 1-mana spell.

Best Kicker Payoffs

We’ve seen a couple cards printed that specifically incentivize playing with kicker cards. Most of these are from Zendikar Rising, one of the last sets to feature kicker as a fully-realized set mechanic.

That set included Roost of Drakes, Verazol, the Split Current, and Murasa Sproutling as some of the better payoffs, though Coralhelm Chronicler, Vine Gecko, and Throne of Makindi helped out a small “kicker archetype”, too.

2018’s Dominaria also featured kicker as a supported set mechanic, and gave us Hallar, the Firefletcher as a Gruul kicker commander. Elfhame Druid and Bloodstone Goblin were also present to support the theme.

Kicker can also help spells that care about the amount of mana spent to cast them. Things like Aberrant Manawurm, Manaform Hellkite, and Tellah, Great Sage all get better with kicker cards around.

Decklist: Simic Kicker in Pioneer

Roost of Drakes | Illustration by Bayard Wu

This was a former Standard deck that's since rotated and now fits into Pioneer, though not in a competitive sense. This deck shows a mix of kicker cards and payoffs, and you can see it in action here. The main payoff cards are Roost of Drakes and Verazol, the Split Current.

Roost of Drakes makes a 2/2 token each time a spell is kicked and even works with itself since you can play a cheap Roost for 1 mana and kick the second one for 4. Verazol allows you to copy a kicked spell, generating card advantage while being a win condition. Another payoff is Coralhelm Commander since it loots each time a kicked spell is cast.

You have some kicker removal in the form of Into the Roil and Bubble Snare. Vine Gecko is the glue that holds this deck together since it makes your kicked cards cheaper, and it grows with each kicked spell. Murasa Sproutling is card advantage and recursion like an Eternal Witness in this deck.

This is a fun budget deck, and it’s also easy to build on MTG Arena since it relies mainly on common and uncommon cards.

Wrap Up

Kick in the Door | Illustration by Justine Cruz

Kicker has proven its worth as a clean, elegant, and beloved mechanic that solves one of the game’s fundamental problems. And that's beside being a fun build-around mechanic with lots of design space. And it's now commonplace to see at least one or two kicker cards in most sets.

Have I missed your favorite kicker card? Let me know in the comments below or in the Draftsim Discord. And check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

Stay safe folks, and until next time!