Square Up MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	2
Rarity	Common
Type	Instant
Released	2021-04-23
Set symbol
Set name	Strixhaven: School of Mages
Set code	STX
Number	238
Frame	2015
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Manuel Castañón

Key Takeaways

Square Up can quickly refill your hand, giving you a lasting advantage in resource-driven matches.
Instantly boosting board presence without extra mana investment makes Square Up a subtle game-changer.
The flexibility of instant speed casting allows for strategic surprises and maintaining game tempo.

Text of card

Target creature has base power and toughness 4/4 until end of turn.

Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is think inside the box.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Square Up provides the potential to replenish your hand swiftly, facilitating strategies to outpace opponents in resources. With each Square Up played, the odds of keeping your hand stocked increase significantly. This can be decisive in longer matches where card advantage correlates directly with control over the game flow.

Resource Acceleration: This card also excels at ramping up your resources. By creating token creatures, it effectively adds to your board presence without dipping into your mana pool for the turn. This subtle form of acceleration can make the difference in reaching critical mass for a game-winning play ahead of schedule.

Instant Speed: The ability to cast Square Up at instant speed offers a tactical edge. You can adapt to the evolving game state, react to opponents’ moves, and surprise them by amplifying your board strength at a moment’s notice. This flexibility is key in maintaining tempo and can often catch an adversary unprepared, leading to advantageous scenarios.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Square Up demands that you discard a card to activate its prowess. This could deplete your hand and diminish your strategic options, particularly when your card pool is already dwindling.

Specific Mana Cost: The cost of casting Square Up includes a blend of generic and white mana, potentially making it a less flexible choice for multi-colored or colorless decks, thus restricting its compatibility.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a mana value that might be considered steep for its effect, it poses the question of efficiency, especially when you consider alternative spells in the same mana range that could yield greater impact or versatility on the battlefield.

Reasons to Include Square Up in Your Collection

Versatility: Square Up’s ability to turn creatures into 4/4 shape-shifter creatures with changeling gives you surprising flexibility on the battlefield. This can be particularly useful in decks that benefit from tribal synergies or need a sudden blocker or attacker.

Combo Potential: Since Square Up changes a creature’s creature types, it can be a key piece in pulling off combos connected to creature-type specific triggers or effects, effectively activating strategies that require certain creature-archetypes.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta that prizes adaptability and surprises, Square Up can be a game-changer. It allows for sudden shifts in board presence and can help your creatures dodge targeted removal based on creature type, enhancing your resilience against prevalent control tactics.

How to beat

Square Up sets itself apart in Magic: The Gathering tactics with its instant-speed transformation ability, allowing players to turn a land into a 4/4 green creature token that’s still a land. This provides an unexpected blocker or end-of-turn aggressor. To counter this strategy, pacing your removal spells is key. Allow your opponent to invest their mana and turn a land into a creature, then respond with efficient removal such as Shock or Fatal Push, effectively setting them back a land.

Furthermore, strategies that restrict activating abilities of lands or turning lands into creatures stand strong against Square Up. Playing cards like Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Archon of Emeria can prevent this transformation altogether. Control-oriented decks with counterspells also preemptively deal with Square Up; since it’s an instant, cards like Negate are perfect to keep handy.

Overall, understanding when to neutralize the transformed land creature is pivotal. Playing reactively with removal or proactively with ability-restricting cards can effectively neuter the surprise element that Square Up introduces to the battleground. Be wary of your opponent’s untapped lands and potential mana, as they could be plotting to spring a formidable creature token when you least expect it.

Cards like Square Up

Square Up certainly offers a unique twist to combat tricks in Magic: The Gathering. This card mirrors elements found in cards like Blossoming Defense, which gives a creature +2/+2 and gains hexproof until end of turn. Though Blossoming Defense focuses on protection, Square Up shifts the paradigm with its transformative capability, turning a token into a 4/4 creature with vigilance and reach – exceptional when defending against flyers.

Comparably, Unnatural Growth is another card that empowers your creatures but on a grander scale, doubling their power and toughness during each combat. Square Up, being more budget-friendly and instant speed, provides a strategic surprise element during battle. Then there’s also Giant Growth, a staple in the boosting repertoire, granting a swift +3/+3 to a creature. While Giant Growth offers an immediate power surge, Square Up provides a permanent creature upgrade, beneficial for sustained board presence.

To surmise, each card brings a different strategy and benefit to the battlefield. Square Up stands out for its ability to consistently convert expendable tokens into substantial threats, thereby reshaping the combat dynamics and offering a persistent advantage in Magic: The Gathering engagements.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Square Up MTG card by a specific set like Strixhaven: School of Mages, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Square Up and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Square Up has restrictions

Format	Legality
Historicbrawl	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Paupercommander	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Commander	Legal
Modern	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Explorer	Legal
Timeless	Legal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Square Up card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date	Text
2021-04-16	Any effects that modify a creature’s power and/or toughness without setting them to a specific value (i.e. ones that don’t affect base power and/or toughness) will apply after its base power and toughness are set, regardless of the order those effects were created. The same is true for counters that modify its power and toughness.
2021-04-16	Square Up overwrites all previous effects that set the target creature’s power and toughness to specific values. Other effects that set its power or toughness to specific values that start to apply after Square Up resolves will overwrite this effect.