This guide quotes both rules, explains every interaction that comes up in play, and compares fear, intimidate and menace side by side. It lists all 40 creatures printed with fear, all 23 cards with intimidate and the 52 cards that hand either ability out, with Scryfall prices and EDHREC deck counts. It ends with a $51.03 Vela the Night-Clad Commander deck that uses that 7.2% number: 34 of its creatures are colourless, so under Vela almost nothing your opponents play can block them.<\/p>\n\n
What is fear in MTG?<\/h2>\n\n
Fear is an evasion keyword: a creature with fear can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and\/or black creatures.<\/strong> It only matters when the creature attacks. It does nothing when the creature blocks, and it doesn’t stop the creature being targeted, dealt damage or destroyed.<\/p>\n\n Here is the whole rule, from the Comprehensive Rules (7 August 2026 text):<\/p>\n\n 702.36a<\/strong> Fear is an evasion ability.<\/p>\n 702.36b<\/strong> A creature with fear can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and\/or black creatures. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step.”)<\/p>\n 702.36c<\/strong> Multiple instances of fear on the same creature are redundant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n Three things follow from that wording, and each one settles a common argument:<\/p>\n The ability is older than the word. The Alpha card Fear<\/em> (1993) is an Aura whose rules text described the effect in full. The first creature<\/em> with the ability was Suq’Ata Assassin in Visions<\/em> (1997). Wizards turned it into a one-word keyword in Onslaught<\/em> (2002) and changed the Oracle text of every older card to say “Fear”.<\/p>\n\n Intimidate is fear’s replacement: a creature with intimidate can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and\/or creatures that share a colour with it.<\/strong> A red creature with intimidate can be blocked by red creatures and artifact creatures. A black one works exactly like fear.<\/p>\n\n 702.13a<\/strong> Intimidate is an evasion ability.<\/p>\n 702.13b<\/strong> A creature with intimidate can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and\/or creatures that share a color with it. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step.”)<\/p>\n 702.13c<\/strong> Multiple instances of intimidate on the same creature are redundant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n Intimidate was added to the rules with Magic 2010<\/em>, but no card in that set had it. The first intimidate cards were in Zendikar<\/em> (October 2009): Bladetusk Boar and Halo Hunter. The official Zendikar<\/em> rulings add the details that the rule text leaves open:<\/p>\n All three are evasion abilities that restrict who can block. Fear and intimidate restrict which<\/em> creatures can block. Menace restricts how many<\/em>. That difference is why menace is the one Wizards still prints.<\/p>\n\n A creature can have more than one of these at once. When it does, a legal block has to satisfy all of them (rule 509.1b: if any blocking restriction is disobeyed, the whole block declaration is illegal). A creature with fear and menace needs two or more blockers, and every one of them must be black or an artifact. A red creature with both fear and intimidate can only be blocked by artifact creatures or by creatures that are both black and red.<\/p>\n\n For a full breakdown of menace, including how it interacts with first strike, trample and “can’t block” effects, see our menace guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This is the number that makes fear and intimidate different from every other evasion ability, so we counted it. Scryfall lists 18,361 different creatures legal for paper play. Here is how many of them can block each version of the ability:<\/p>\n\n Three things stand out.<\/p>\n\n Fear and intimidate are almost exactly as strong as each other on average.<\/strong> Every colour has roughly the same number of creatures, so “black or artifact” and “shares my colour or artifact” both come out near 30%. The difference is not in the average but in the spread: fear is the same against every deck, while intimidate on a red creature is useless against a red deck and very strong against a deck with no red creatures.<\/p>\n\n The artifact exception is small.<\/strong> Only 1,314 of the 18,361 are artifact creatures (7.2%). That is why a colourless creature with intimidate, which only artifacts can block, is so much better than a coloured one.<\/p>\n\n In Commander the numbers barely move.<\/strong> Of the 17,920 creatures legal in Commander, 5,217 are black or artifact (29.1%), and only 1,245 are artifact creatures (6.9%). Commander decks aren’t random samples of creatures, and a black deck at the table blocks fear creatures all day. But in a four-player game, a creature with fear usually has at least one opponent it can attack freely.<\/p>\n\n Mark Rosewater explained both changes in his Making Magic column “Evergreen Eggs & Ham” (8 June 2015). The short version:<\/p>\n\n Rosewater has since rated intimidate a 10 on his Storm Scale, meaning Wizards doesn’t expect to bring it back. Fear came back exactly once, on Wire Surgeons, a new card in The Brothers’ War Commander<\/em> (2022) that also gives artifact creatures in your graveyard encore.<\/p>\n\n Yes. Any black creature can block it, whatever its other colours. A black-green creature can block a creature with fear, and so can a black creature with defender.<\/p>\n\n Yes, always, whatever the colours involved. Both rules say “artifact creatures and\/or”, so an artifact creature can block any creature with fear or intimidate. That includes artifact creature tokens such as Thopters, Servos and Constructs.<\/p>\n\n No. Only intimidate looks at the attacker’s colour. Of the 40 creatures printed with fear, 36 are black. The four exceptions are Squealing Devil (red), Dust Elemental (white), and two colourless artifact creatures from Darksteel<\/em>, Arcbound Fiend and Dross Golem. All four are still only blockable by black or artifact creatures.<\/p>\n\n Not with a text-changing effect. The old General Rulings Summary (January 2003) addressed this: cards like Magical Hack, which change colour words, can’t change fear. The reminder text on the card isn’t the ability. The ability is defined by rule 702.36b, and there is no colour word on the card for the Hack to change.<\/p>\n\n Yes. Dust Elemental and Phobian Phantasm have both flying and fear, so a blocker must satisfy both restrictions: it needs flying or reach, and<\/em> it must be black or an artifact creature. A black creature with reach works. A black creature without flying or reach doesn’t.<\/p>\n\n Nothing. The block restriction is only checked as blockers are declared. The Nuka-Nuke Launcher rulings state this for intimidate: once the equipped creature is blocked, changing its colour, the blocker’s colour, or whether the blocker is an artifact won’t make it unblocked. The same goes for losing fear or gaining it after the block.<\/p>\n\n Nim Deathmantle gives the equipped creature +2\/+2, intimidate, and makes it “a black Zombie”, replacing its old colours. A black creature with intimidate can only be blocked by black and artifact creatures, which is exactly fear. It is the sixth most-played card in the whole family on EDHREC (46,636 decks), though most decks play it as a recursion engine rather than for the evasion.<\/p>\n\n\n
What is intimidate in MTG?<\/h2>\n\n
\n
![\"Mikaeus,](\"https:\/\/cards.scryfall.io\/art_crop\/front\/b\/c\/bc1f42a2-fe11-45da-9552-069803b4068a.jpg?1783915670\")
Fear vs intimidate vs menace<\/h2>\n\n
\n
Keyword<\/th> Can’t be blocked except by<\/th> Rule<\/th> First card<\/th> Last new card<\/th> Cards in paper<\/th> Status<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>\n Fear<\/td> Artifact creatures and\/or black creatures<\/td> 702.36<\/td> Fear<\/em> (Alpha, 1993); keyworded in Onslaught<\/em> (2002)<\/td> Wire Surgeons (The Brothers’ War Commander<\/em>, November 2022)<\/td> 40 creatures + 36 cards that grant it<\/td> Retired in 2009<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate<\/td> Artifact creatures and\/or creatures that share a colour with it<\/td> 702.13<\/td> Bladetusk Boar, Halo Hunter (Zendikar<\/em>, October 2009)<\/td> Creature: Flesh Carver (Commander 2014<\/em>). Any card: Nuka-Nuke Launcher (Fallout<\/em>, March 2024)<\/td> 23 cards + 16 that grant it<\/td> Retired in 2015<\/td><\/tr>\n Menace<\/td> Two or more creatures<\/td> 702.111<\/td> As a keyword, Magic Origins<\/em> (July 2015); the effect dates back to Goblin War Drums (Fallen Empires<\/em>, 1994)<\/td> Still evergreen<\/td> 389 cards<\/td> Printed in almost every set<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n How many creatures can block a creature with fear?<\/h2>\n\n
\n
Ability<\/th> Who can block it<\/th> Creatures that can block (of 18,361 ever printed)<\/th> Share that can block<\/th> Share that cannot<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Fear (any colour of attacker)<\/td> Black creatures and artifact creatures<\/td> 5,373<\/td> 29.3%<\/td> 70.7%<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate on a white creature<\/td> White creatures and artifact creatures<\/td> 5,544<\/td> 30.2%<\/td> 69.8%<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate on a blue creature<\/td> Blue creatures and artifact creatures<\/td> 5,108<\/td> 27.8%<\/td> 72.2%<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate on a black creature<\/td> Black creatures and artifact creatures<\/td> 5,373<\/td> 29.3%<\/td> 70.7%<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate on a red creature<\/td> Red creatures and artifact creatures<\/td> 5,449<\/td> 29.7%<\/td> 70.3%<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate on a green creature<\/td> Green creatures and artifact creatures<\/td> 5,684<\/td> 31.0%<\/td> 69.0%<\/td><\/tr>\n Intimidate on a colourless creature<\/td> Artifact creatures only<\/td> 1,314<\/td> 7.2%<\/td> 92.8%<\/td><\/tr>\n Menace (for comparison)<\/td> Any two or more creatures together<\/td> 18,361<\/td> 100% (in pairs)<\/td> 0%<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/tbody><\/table>\n\n Why Wizards retired fear, then intimidate<\/h2>\n\n
\n
Fear and intimidate rules: the interactions that come up<\/h2>\n\n
Can a black creature block a creature with fear?<\/h3>\n
Can an artifact creature block fear and intimidate?<\/h3>\n
Does fear care what colour the attacker is?<\/h3>\n
Can you change what fear says?<\/h3>\n
Does a flying creature with fear need a black flier to block it?<\/h3>\n
What happens if fear or a colour is removed after blockers are declared?<\/h3>\n
Nim Deathmantle turns intimidate into fear<\/h3>\n
Shriekmaw kills exactly the creatures that can’t block it<\/h3>\n
![\"Dread](\"https:\/\/cards.scryfall.io\/art_crop\/front\/9\/b\/9b608658-9150-439b-b0a0-4a994722b95c.jpg?1783942892\")