First printed in Eldritch Moon (2016)
All 5 prints
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Instant
Escalate 
(Pay this cost for each mode chosen beyond the first.)
Choose one or both —
• Target creature gets +3/+0 until end of turn.
• Target creature gains first strike until end of turn.
- Illustrated by
- Volkan Baǵa
Legality
- Legal in
- Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, Historic, Timeless, Penny Dreadful, Gladiator, Commander, Duel Commander, Pauper Commander, Tiny Leaders, Oathbreaker, Brawl, Competitive Brawl
- Not legal in
- Standard, Future Standard, Alchemy, Premodern, Old School 93/94, PreDH, Standard Brawl
Rulings (7)
- If two of the chosen modes of an escalate spell target a creature, you may choose the same creature for each mode’s target, or choose different creatures. The same is true if the chosen modes target a player (or opponent).
- If one target of an escalate spell becomes illegal, the other targets will still be affected. If all of the targets become illegal, the spell won’t resolve.
- Additional costs don’t affect a spell’s mana value.
- You choose all of your modes at once. You can’t wait to perform one mode’s actions and then decide to choose more modes.
- You can’t choose any one mode multiple times.
- Effects that reduce the cost of spells reduce the total cost, including any escalate costs added.
- If an effect allows you to cast a spell that has escalate without paying its mana cost, you pay escalate costs for that spell if you choose more than one mode.
Prices
MTGO price: 0.002 TIX, the cheapest non-foil print (average sell price on GoatBots, 31 Oct 2026).
In Limited on MTG Arena
Win rates in Arena drafts and sealed, retrieved from 17Lands (CC BY 4.0).
| Set | GIH WR | vs set | IWD | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadows over Innistrad Remastered (SIR), Premier Draft | 50.9% | -3.4 | -1.7 | 6336 |
| Shadows over Innistrad Remastered (SIR), Sealed | 55.2% | -1.7 | -1.9 | 616 |
- GIH WR
- win rate of the games in which the card was in the opening hand or drawn
- vs set
- points above or below the average win rate of all decks in the set
- IWD
- improvement when drawn: GIH WR minus the win rate when the card stayed in the library
- Games
- games in which the card was seen