Incremental Growth MTG Card
2007-10-12 - Number 221
2013-06-07 - Number 149
2014-09-26 - Number 138
2016-04-08 - Number 14
2021-08-26 - Number 588
| Card sets | Released in 5 setsSee all |
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 5 |
| Rarity | Uncommon |
| Type | Sorcery |
Key Takeaways
- Boosts strategic depth by spreading power across creatures, complicating opponents’ defense plans.
- Its fixed effect ensures a balanced power distribution, compared to flexible counterparts.
- Adept at sustaining relevance in various metas, supporting a broad spectrum of deck types.
Text of card
Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature, two +1/+1 counters on another target creature, and three +1/+1 counters on a third target creature.
"Tie a mouse under a bridge, and your cabbages will triple in size." —Kithkin superstition
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Incremental Growth not only increases the power and toughness of a single creature but enhances multiple creatures across your battlefield. This allows you to scale up your board presence and potential card value over turns, making it harder for opponents to deal with a diversified threat.
Resource Acceleration: By allocating +1/+1 counters to creatures of varying sizes, Incremental Growth can drastically speed up your offensive strategy. It turns smaller, less impactful creatures into significant threats, accelerating your resource effectiveness in terms of creature quality and combat potential.
Instant Speed: Although Incremental Growth is a sorcery, its lasting impact on the board can be seen as a form of instant value. By cleverly navigating your main phase and the sorcery’s inherent power to enhance multiple creatures, you wield a form of indirect, immediate influence over the board state that persists beyond just a single turn.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: The Incremental Growth card calls for a strategy where you sometimes need to give up other potential plays. Having to discard can set you back, particularly when you’re trying to maintain card advantage over your opponent.
Specific Mana Cost: Incremental Growth has a stringent mana requirement, necessitating both green mana sources and a total of five mana. This specificity can challenge deck versatility and tempo, especially in multi-colored environments where mana fixing is key.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: The cost to bring Incremental Growth into play is substantial, considering the pace of the game. In many scenarios, there are other cards available at a lower mana cost that provide a similar gradual enhancement to your creatures without such a steep initial investment.
Reasons to Include Incremental Growth in Your Collection
Versatility: Incremental Growth is a dynamic card that can be slotted into various deck builds. Its ability to distribute +1/+1 counters among creatures means it plays well in counter-centric strategies as well as in decks that capitalize on creature synergy.
Combo Potential: This card thrives in an environment where it can amplify the effectiveness of other interactions. It can escalate the power of creatures with evolve, bolster your army in token decks, or feed into the strategy of +1/+1 counter manipulation for powerful swings in the game.
Meta-Relevance: With every changing MTG landscape, Incremental Growth maintains relevance as it can often tip the scales in mid-game by uplifting your board state. Its ability to turn small creatures into significant threats makes it a worthy component against various deck archetypes that dominate the meta.
How to beat
Incremental Growth is a card that layers counters across your creatures, building a powerful board presence. To outmaneuver this strategy, identifying and removing the key creatures before the counters distribute is essential. Playing control decks with efficient removal spells can effectively neutralize the threat before it expands. Using sweepers like Wrath of God will clear the board regardless of the counter distribution, leveling the playing field.
It’s also prudent to mitigate the power of Incremental Growth by including versatile spells that can bounce, exile, or otherwise neutralize multiple creatures at once. Cards like Cyclonic Rift provide an answer to a wide board, and targeted removal like Path to Exile can take care of individual threats post-growth. Moreover, keep pressure on your opponent to force them to deploy the card at suboptimal times, or when you have a counter ready like Negate or Dovin’s Veto.
Altogether, understanding the dynamics of counter distribution and having a reactive game plan in place are key to conquering Incremental Growth’s progressive advantage on the battlefield.
Cards like Incremental Growth
Incremental Growth is an intriguing card that knits a unique spot in buffing creatures across the board in Magic: The Gathering. When scanned alongside counterparts such as Strength of the Tajuru, Incremental Growth stands out due to its fixed distribution of +1/+1 counters among three creatures. Unlike Strength of the Tajuru, which allows flexibility in the number of counters based on the amount of mana spent, Incremental Growth offers a structured boost that can affect the board state more evenly.
Comparing it to Courage in Crisis, another spell that distributes +1/+1 counters, Incremental Growth’s immediate impact on multiple creatures clearly sets it apart. Courage in Crisis adds counters at a more conservative pace with its proliferate mechanism. Additionally, Incremental Growth shares synergies with hard-hitting cards like Overrun. While Overrun provides a one-time significant boost and trample to your creatures, Incremental Growth lessens the dependency on a single alpha strike by enhancing creatures over time, reinforcing your army for successive turns.
Ultimately, Incremental Growth carves its niche within MTG by offering a balanced distribution of power that can strategically enhance various creatures, making it a reliable choice for decks focused on bolstering an entire squad of creatures incrementally.
Cards similar to Incremental Growth by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Incremental Growth MTG card by a specific set like Lorwyn and Modern Masters, 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 Incremental Growth and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Printings
The Incremental Growth Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 2007-10-12 and 2021-08-26. Illustrated by 2 different artists.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2007-10-12 | Lorwyn | LRW | 221 | 2003 | Normal | Black | Chuck Lukacs | |
| 2 | 2013-06-07 | Modern Masters | MMA | 149 | 2003 | Normal | Black | Chuck Lukacs | |
| 3 | 2014-09-26 | Khans of Tarkir | KTK | 138 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Clint Cearley | |
| 4 | 2016-04-08 | Welcome Deck 2016 | W16 | 14 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Chuck Lukacs | |
| 5 | 2021-08-26 | Jumpstart: Historic Horizons | J21 | 588 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Clint Cearley |
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Incremental Growth has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Historicbrawl | Legal |
| Historic | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Gladiator | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Commander | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Explorer | Legal |
| Predh | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
| Timeless | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Incremental Growth card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2014-09-20 | If some of the creatures are illegal targets as Incremental Growth tries to resolve, the remaining legal targets still get the appropriate number of +1/+1 counters. If all targets are illegal, Incremental Growth doesn’t resolve. |
| 2014-09-20 | You must choose three different targets in order to cast Incremental Growth. You decide how many +1/+1 counters each creature will get as part of casting the spell. |
