Pointed Discussion

WTF, why can all merfolk fly now... i mean lore wise and all didnt they have tails a few blocks ago?

Not a bad 1-drop at all. I like how Levelers remain relevant at later stages in the game and provide good mana-sinks. I don't think any one Leveler is worse than a similar vanilla creature in terms of CMC vs. Power/Toughness.

Turn 1 this, Turn 2 Time of Heroes, Turn 3 4 in the air. Needless to say it won me the game single-handedly.

@Druasdf
I believe some creatures types differ from plane to plane. Take vampires as another example. Sengir Vampire looks different from Pulse Tracker.

I know it says "Merfolk", but this thing is actually a Faerie.

I personally like it. It's pretty cool to whip out a card that looks a bit like a younger Michael Jackson.

A monster in the right deck.

Won't be used in constructed. Decent one drop though. 1.5/5

Training Grounds.

@DonRoyale: Turn 1 this, Turn 2 Training Grounds and level him up for 2 in the air, Turn 3 Time of Heroes to swing 4 in the air with 1 mana leftover for whatever.

This guy WILL break faces in a dedicated Level Up deck.

AWESOME ART.

"my friend used to have a merfolk deck, only way you could beat it was with flyers"-my friend
"Dude in the new set merfolk fly"-me
(my friend has a look of shock on his face for a second or 2)
"NO STUPID MERFOLK STAY ON THE GROUND AND IN THE WATER WHERE YOU BELONG, STAY OUT OF THE AIR"

The merfolk may have had tails a few blocks ago, but each block represents a completely different world. All races (usually) have completely different characteristics from plane to plane. The merfolk on Rath are feral, monstrous creatures, whereas the merfolk from Mercadia are a noble aristocratic society whose tails turn into legs when they come up on land.

Same goes for a lot of other races in many other blocks.

how is he breathing?!?!?! merfolk = fish?

The art on this card rocks.

Trine! This is so Trine! The Wizard from Trine!

This is an underrated, (casual) beat-face creature.
In the deck that would feature this guy (W/U Leveler) with Training Grounds, on a fairly typical draw, he does 2 FLYING damage turn 2, and 6 by turn 3 - with no klutzy mana requirements.

Oh hey, a 4/2 flyer! I hear those are unusual.

I would never play this card without other support cards.

Wait a second, isn't Magic all ABOUT combining cards with each other to become greater than the sum of their parts?

Well, yes, but you see....in the 12,000+ cards that exist, even in the 350+(?) RoE set cards, there are some cards that do not REQUIRE other cards to be pretty decent on their own.

To have a deck that meets the requirements of being 'competitive', NOT in a Pro-Tour sense, but even in an FNM sense (and unless all your friends just started playing, chances are your deck has to be able to beat at least FNM decks or better or you will lose all the time), EACH card in your deck needs to serve a positive purpose on its own merits. This maximizes the quality and efficiency of FURTHER adding cards like 'Time of Heroes' or 'Training Grounds'.

Wait a second, doesn't Wizards have to design with Limited in mind too?

Yes but even though this card is pickable in Limited without too many bad feelings, there are plenty of common Level up cards that aren't. The ones that start out over costed for their level 0 stats? Yeah, those are junk and I wish they'd been AT LEAST as good as this card. This is the weakest I ever want to see a Level up creature.

*Sighs*

So, this is just a hunch, but if I was to search for 'merfolk' in the Zendikar block, would all the comments contain a couple people saying something like:

"ZOMG! A Merfolk! Why it have legs!?"

As to flying, even outside of Zendikar and not on Mercadia, which was the other plane with amphibious merfolk, there have been flying merfolk or merfolk that can gain it temporarily.