Pointed Discussion

Shouldn't the Oracle for this read:

"Kicker 2R
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.
If Undergrowth was kicked, it doesn't affect combat damage that would be dealt by red creatures."

@Dr_Draco: I know, but it's from before kickers. That being said, they did go back and reword all of the domain cards...

Also, mad love for a strictly better fog.

With how heavy Zendikar is on kicker, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they avoided specifically giving it kicker because there'll be cards that get a nasty boost whenever you kick something. Possibly.

Cool kicker-class card, obviously strong in a Green/Red combo deck.

Rating system makes no sense. This is rated lower than Fog when it's strictly better. Same for Essence Filter vs. Tranquility. Seems like people just rate popular cards higher and rate cards lower just for being from crappy expansions.

Proto-kicker!

I think more importantly than the additional clause, this card means you can run 8x Fog in your deck.

I like this card. It's a very unusual design. Clearly seated in green, but with a red twist on it. But I would think that, if they had to redesign this card for a modern set, they would change "red creatures" to "creatures you control." You already had to spend red mana to activate the ability, it would make sense that you probably had red creatures or red/green creatures and so on in your deck.

But this card should not have kicker. It was not originally printed with kicker, and there are cards that interact with kicker. So giving it kicker would change the functionality of the spell.. then again, Wizards has changed other things, like creature types, in the past, and those changes altered the functionality of cards, so it's not impossible for them to do.

In addition to be a strictly better Fog, this is incredibly flavorful to me. You sly fox you, avoiding all that damage. Of course, a bit of fire might change that...

This is strictly better than Fog, but in practice... I have a red/green deck that has one of these in it (I only have one), and I've used it many times, but I've literally never once had an opportunity to make use of the "kicker". Invariably, either I don't have enough mana to do it, or I don't have red creatures to block with at that moment, or the red creatures I do have are all too small to kill anything they're blocking anyway.

Still, it makes no sense for it to be rated lower than Fog. It can't hurt to have the option, after all.

Alliances wasn't crappy. . .

Nah, Type 2 is waaaaay overpowered in comparison, I don't think they would have avoided making this a kicker just for game balance. I think this is just a classic case of Wizards forgetting the older cards.

Pretty much Kicker, minus being called Kicker, lol.

And for whoever called Alliances crappy: Yes, there's a LOT of stuff in it that's outclassed by cards nowadays and a few things that are just plain bad, but if you look at the expansion as a whole, you'll see there are a TON of sweet ideas in it that inspired modern cards- it is one of the footstools that modern Magic stands upon! Respect!

Since this both predated and inspired kicker as a mechanic, I think we can call this the prekick.

...the kicker kickoff?

... the kickstarter?

... ok fine. We'll stick with kickass. :)

Imaginary Oracle Text:

Undergrowth
Instant
Kicker (You may pay an additional as you cast this spell.)
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. If it was kicked, Undergrowth doesn't affect combat damage that would be dealt by red creatures.

Pre-kicker

And then the Ringwraith goes sniffing around the top of it for hobbitses.