Venerated Teacher

Creature — Human Wizard

When Venerated Teacher enters the battlefield, put two level counters on each creature you control with level up.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (29)

keizerbuns on Leveling Up like a Pro(liferate)

7 months ago

vinylghost, if you’re interested in an update, I’ve made some changes to the deck that I think really smooth out the gameplay.

I took out 2x Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, 2x Kazandu Tuskcaller, 1x Lighthouse Chronologist, 1x Venerated Teacher, 4x Experimental Augury, and 1x Drown in Ichor and in their place I added 2x Reject Imperfection, 4x Serum Snare, 4x Sheoldred's Edict, and 1x Training Grounds.

The deck feels a lot better to play now as I’m not always swamped with so many level up creatures that it becomes impossible to level them all up and I can usually control the board long enough to fully pump up a threat or two. It still needs some work and further play testing to smooth out more of the wrinkles, but I think what I have here is a good start.

How are you finding the deck with the changes you’ve made?

Andrew_Burger on Level up Heroes

4 years ago

Hi, I was interested in building a deck with the exact same tactic and I would recommend using some bounce mechanics on Venerated Teacher to speed up the leveling process. This could be done with cards like Ephemerate or Kor Skyfisher . It might also be beneficial to use Contentious Plan instead of Steady Progress because it has a lower CMC, the only downside being it is a sorcery.

RedmundR2 on Get on my Level!

5 years ago

I have a lot of experience in the level up mechanics (see my deck Magic: The RPG (Level Up/Proliferate) *Updated!*) and I think I can offer some good perspective on the mechanic and how (I think at least) to make it as strong as possible.

First off, lets address the concerns I have with your deck on a fundamental level as opposed to the mechanic of level up and how best to use it.

1- Curve

Modern is a very fast format and I feel like the average CMC in your deck is a bit high without any actual ramp effects. Not to mention your creatures don't just want you to slap them down on curve - you have to use your mana to develop level counters on them as well, which means you either need a way to gain a bunch of mana quickly, or you need to cheat level up costs. Considering the speed of decks in the format I think even with just adding a way to cheat level counters cheaply wouldn't be enough. Your curve isn't bad by any means, but i think it can use some tightening up.

2 - No removal at all

Your deck currently has probably way too many creatures and planeswalkers, and currently has absolutely no way to interact with your opponent. In modern having a way to clear your opponents early threats especially with a high curve feels essential to me. With 4 colors, you have tons of options (Path to Exile, Fatal Push, Remand, Mana Leak, etc) for cheap removal. Since our deck is mostly winning through creature damage, artifact removal might also be necessary (Fragmentize, Naturalize, etc) If your opponent plays something that disrupts our gameplan, or a big threat, we have no current way of dealing with them. The current collection of Planeswalkers are kind of unnecessary and feel forced, could be replaced with removal to lower the curve and allow the deck to interact with our opponent.

3 - 4 colors / Lands

Trying to run 4 colors especially with a specific and admittedly slow and weak mechanic like Level up feels like a bad idea to me. For one, our lands are mostly slow that give us more than 2 colors, we have no artifacts or creatures that produce mana or color fix, and the benefits from being 4 colors feels minor. I recommend U/W for level up far more than G or B.

Okay, onto the level-up mechanic:

Most of your creatures cost 3 mana to level up. Thats super expensive for something you have to do multiple times at sorcery speed, so many times you will find yourself spending mana on a level just to have your creature removed afterwards, wasting your turn and potentially losing you the game. One way around this is Training Grounds, which if you're planning on keeping the deck as it is with the creatures, is a 100% must have card for the deck. Venerated Teacher is good too, you already have that in the list. Time of Heroes could be useful as it's a pretty powerful effect for the mana cost.

Hope this helps!

Boza on Need removal pieces...help!

5 years ago

Vapor snag is decent, since you can bounce your own Venerated Teacher. The problem with level up are that the creatures are bad and venerated teacher does not help a lot, since it is the only enabler. Random proliferate things like Tezzeret's Gambit will help, but for example Knight of Cliffhaven is a Serra Angel for 14 mana. Even with venerated teacher, it still is a Serra Angel for 8 mana.

The only decent level up creature is Halimar Wavewatch that synergizes well with Convincing Mirage-type cards.

I would recommend limiting the level up theme to halimar wavewatch, but if you do get more than those, be aware that the payoff is not substantial.

Chino90 on Magic: The RPG (Level Up/Proliferate) *Updated!*

6 years ago

Consider the combo Venerated Teacher plus Naban, dean of iteration (lookup the card in mythicspoiler.com)

AKTriple5 on What!? Your deck is leveling up!?

6 years ago

I love the idea. The only thing I would change is I would swap out Venerated Teacher and replace him with Echo Mage. It's ultimately your call as it would burn up more mana in the process, but you wouldn't have to level him up very much to start copying spells which would, theoretically, cause all your creatures to level up much faster. Imagine playing Volt Charge with Inexorable Tide on the field. That alone would be two levels to everything with levels, but then use Echo Mage's level 4 ability to cause you to play Volt Charge two more times, meaning up to 4 levels on your entire line for 5 mana. This is an absolutely best case situation, but he can also be used for other utility like essentially using Cyclonic Rift with overload for 3 less mana. As I mentioned, up to you, as more mana would be needed for his levels and to keep his ability readily available.

BlueScope on More Mairsil, the Pretender questions!

6 years ago

Everything above is correct, but I'm going to add a bit of information:

1. While, as has been established, nothing happens on resolution, you are certainly free from activating those abilities, even sacrificing Mairsil to equip itself, which would never happen. The only kind of actual use for this would be to save it from a Song of the Dryads, or something of that sort, though.
2. If you're doing this in the Commander format, keep in mind that Figure of Destiny with its WR color identity isn't legal to include in a deck that has Mairsil as the Commander
3. "Level up" is an activated ability, so yes, Mairsil will have that ability and Venerated Teacher will put counters on it. And again, you wouldn't be able to play Kazandu Tuskcaller in this Commander deck due to its G color identity.
4. You can turn it face-down, but never face-up again until it leaves the battlefield (and is therefore turned face-up automatically) because Morph isn't an activated ability, therefore Mairsil won't have it, and you won't get to take the special action of unmorphing it

chosenone124 on More Mairsil, the Pretender questions!

6 years ago

1 I cast Mairsil, the Pretender exiling Demonmail Hauberk with a cage counter. It's my only creature. Can I sacrifice Mairsil to try to equip it to itself? Can I sacrifice another creature to try to equip him to himself?

Just a note: the Gatherer page seems to state that you can activate equip abilities, but Mairsil doesn't attach.

2 If Maersil exiles Figure of Destiny can it become the 8/8 Kithkin Spirit (eventually)?

3 If he exiles Kazandu Tuskcaller, can he tap to make 2 Elephants even though he has no level counters? Also, if I cast Venerated Teacher will Maersil gain level counters?

4 If he copies Mischievous Quanar can he facedown himself?

5 If Maersil exiles Myr Welder and Prototype Portal with Cage Counters. Can he use Prototype Portal to copy cards he exiled with Myr Welder's Imprint?