Intimidate in MTG – Rules, Best Cards + Decks!

Intimidate Example

Intimidate narrows the field of potential blockers for creatures with the ability. Let’s use an example to see how this works.

If Krenko’s Enforcer, a red creature with intimidate attacks you, you cannot block it unless you control a red creature yourself or an artifact creature such as Adaptive Automaton.

So, if you are playing a mono-colored blue deck without any artifact creatures, you could be in a lot of trouble facing a different colored deck utilizing intimidate!

Intimidate vs Colourless Creature (Non-Artifact)

In Magic: The Gathering, creatures generally belong to at least one of the five colors represented in the game. However, some creatures are colorless.

Suppose you attack your opponent with a Bladetusk Boar, a 3/2 red creature with intimidate. They only have a Barrage Tyrant, a 5/3 colorless creature. Because colorless creatures can’t block creatures with intimidate (unless they are also artifact creatures), your opponent’s Barrage Tyrant can’t block your Bladetusk Boar, and would take three damage.

Notice that Barrage Tyrant requires a red mana to cast it, but even though a player must use red mana to play the card, it is still a colorless creature. It cannot block a red creature with intimidate because they do not share a colour.

However, if Barrage Tyrant were somehow able to gain intimidate, the Bladetusk Boar would also be powerless to block it. This is because, again, the two cards do not share a color.

Intimidate vs Colourless Artifact Creature

Artifact creatures are colourless, but they can block creatures with intimidate. This makes artifact creatures valuable when facing decks that use intimidate.

For example, if you attack your opponent with your Bladetusk Boar, but they have a Steel Wall, an 0/4 artifact creature, the wall will block your boar. This is simply because the Steel Wall is an artifact creature.

Intimidate + Menace

If a creature you control has both menace and intimidate, then two creatures that share a colour with the attacking creature or are artifact creatures would be needed to block it.

For example, you play the black creature Alley Strangler, a 2/3 creature with menace. Then you enchant that creature with the aura spell Grisly Transformation; now you have a 2/3 creature with both intimidate and menace.

Menace requires that a creature be blocked with two or more creatures. Therefore, a player would have to have two creatures that either share a color with your Alley Strangler or are artifacts. Menace plus intimidate is a tough combination to beat!

Intimidate vs Fear

If a black creature has intimidate, it is basically the same thing as having a black creature with fear. But intimidate is dependent on your creature’s colors, and fear isn’t.

If you play casually and have access to an enchantment from the Masques Block called Intimidation, you can give fear to creatures that aren’t black. Obviously, you have to play black considering the enchantment requires three black lands, but if you are playing another color in combination with black, you can give a green, blue, white, or red creature fear.

If a red creature is given fear, it cannot be blocked except by artifacts or black creatures.

If a multicolored creature has fear, it still can only be blocked by artifact or black creatures.

In contrast, if a multicolored creature, like a black/green creature, has intimidate, then it can only be blocked by black, green, and artifact creatures.

Intimidate + Fear

What happens if a creature you control has intimidate and fear?

We enchant our Bladetusk Boar with Fear making it a creature with intimidate and fear. Then we attack with it. What can block it?

The blockers need to meet the requirements of both intimidate and fear.

To meet the requirements of intimidate, the blockers must share a color with Bladetusk Boar or be an artifact, and to meet the requirements of fear the blocker needs to be black or an artifact.

So, the blocker can either be a black/red creature like Acidic Sliver or an artifact like Adaptive Automaton.

Intimidate vs Protection

If a creature has ‘protection’ from a certain color, it can block creatures of that color without taking damage. However, intimidate negates that rule unless the creature with ‘protection’ shares a color with the attacking creature with intimidate.

Creatures with a protection ability can’t block a creature with intimidate, unless the two cards share a color. On the other hand, spells with protection can prevent damage from creatures with intimidate. See the example below.

Suppose you attack your opponent with your trusty Bladetusk Boar, and your opponent has fielded an Auriok Champion, a white 1/1 with protection from red. In that case, the Auriok Champion cannot block your red boar even though the card has protection from red. It cannot block the boar because it does not share a color with the boar.

‘Protection from’ means that Auriok Champion can’t be the target of red spells or abilities used by your opponent, not that it can ignore any ability on a red card.

On the other hand, if your opponent has a spell like Circle of Protection: Red, when your Bladetusk Boar attacks, your opponent can tap a land and prevent all damage from a red source, which would be your boar. That’s because intimidate only places restrictions on blockers used, it doesn’t place restrictions on what your opponent can use to stop damage in other ways.

Best MTG Intimidate Cards

Elbrus, the Binding Blade // Withengar Unbound (Legendary Intimidate Artifact // Legendary Creature)

On the surface, this card may not look like it is worth it, but it is one of the most powerful cards that showcases the intimidate ability. This is a double-sided card, and it is played as an Artifact Equipment called Elbrus, the Binding Blade. It is an expensive seven mana to cast and then costs an additional one mana to equip a creature.

Once it is equipped, the creature gets +1/+0; however, once that creature deals damage to an opposing player, you can transform Elbrus, the Binding Blade, to Withengar Unbound!

Withengar Unbound is a massive black 13/13 demon with flying, trample, and intimidate! Your opponents are in trouble if they don’t have a way to deal with your giant demon creature quickly! Intimidate, flying and trample all on the same creature makes it really difficult for your opponent to block all damage!

Executionar’s Hood (Intimidate Artifact)

The Executioner’s Hood card is also an artifact equipment card like Elbrus, the Binding Blade. But, this piece of equipment is much cheaper, costing only two mana and an additional two mana to equip a creature.

Any creature equipped with Executioner’s Hood has intimidate. This can be a very effective card in any deck that can create problems for your opponents. Even if your opponent somehow removes the creature it is equipped to, the equipment will stay on the battlefield.

Placing four Executioner’s Hoods into a deck can help ensure your most potent creatures can have the intimidate ability on the battlefield.

Vela the Night-Clad (Blue/Black Intimidate Creature)

Vela, the Night-Clad is a devastating card for your opponents. She is a blue/black 4/4 creature that costs six mana. She has intimidate, but more importantly, she gives all other creatures you control intimidate as well.

Even having the Vela on the battlefield for one turn can turn the game in your favor. Depending on which colors your opponent plays, you could have a bunch of creatures that your opponents won’t be able to block!

Bellowing Tanglewurm (Green Intimidate Creature)

The Bellowing Tanglewurm is a 4/4 green creature with intimidate. But, it also gives other green creatures you control intimidate as well. If you like to play with the large, powerful creatures of green, then the Bellowing Tanglewurm will fit right in and potentially make your massive monsters hard to block!

Heirs of Stormkirk (Red Intimidate Creature)

The Heirs of Stormkirk is a powerful red creature card. For four mana, this creature enters the battlefield as a 2/2 with intimidate. It is the second ability of the Heirs of Stormkirk that makes it incredibly potent. Each time they damage your opponent (which they can likely do regularly with intimidate), they get a +1/+1 counter.

So they start as a 2/2, but they grow more and more powerful every time they deal damage. Putting several of these in a red deck can provide worrisome pressure to opponents.

Hideous Visage (Black Intimidate Sorcery)

While the vast majority of cards that use Intimidate are creatures, using a card like Hideous Visage can be incredibly effective. This black sorcery only costs three mana and can win you the game when played at the right time!

Hideous Visage gives all your creatures intimidate until the end of turn. Save this spell until an opportune moment when you can get as many of your creatures through your opponent’s defence as possible!

How to Play Against Intimidate

Playing against intimidate can be difficult. However, remember that this mechanic is basically creature-dependent. Therefore, there are some strategies that you can take to beat an intimidate deck.

Perhaps the most straightforward strategy is to play a control deck that emphasizes removing your opponent’s creatures. This can be accomplished through red burn spells like Lightning Strike, black creature destruction spells like Befoul, or blue counters or bounces like Bone to Ash.

Another strategy that can be effective against intimidate is damage prevention. Generally, this is accomplished through white spells like Harmless Assault or green spells like Fog. But, negating your opponent’s offence through spells or enchantments is another way to combat decks utilizing intimidate.