Menace as a key word was added to Magic: The Gathering with the release of Origins in 2015. The relevant rules text is nicely concise: "A creature with menace can't be blocked except by two or more creatures."

It's a very neat bit of text that opens up a whole host of interesting options, but what does it actually do?

Simply put, if a Creature with Menace is attacking, an opponent must have at least two others to block it. If your opponent doesn't have two Creatures, the Menace Creature cannot be blocked, end of story.

A Brief History of Scary Creatures

Menace has been around for over a decade now, but it has a complicated past. Before being introduced as an evergreen ability in Magic Origins, Menace had been on a spattering of cards over previous years. About 20 cards had their oracle text change to Menace when Origins came out, including Goblin War Drums from 1994's Fallen Empires.

The original printing had multiple lines of text which were simplified to simply read "Creatures you control have menace."

That mostly sounds like up-side, and it was, but there were a couple of less successful attempts in the meantime.

Nowadays, Menace appears on both Red and Black Creatures, but it was invented as a solution to a problem Black had.

See, Black has a difficult history with evasion. It gets some Flying Creatures, but nowhere near as many as White or Blue. It used to have an ability called Fear. Fear said that "this creature cannot be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or black creatures."

It was flavourful, in the same way as Terror, but the game play was pretty awful. Fear was either just "unblockable" with more words or completely meaningless. Intimidate was the next attempt at a similar ability, debuting in 2010. It was primarily in Red and Black, but had a few cards in other colors, too.

Unfortunately, it didn't help much. The rules text said, "a creature with intimidate can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it."

That really just moved the problem around to the other colors. It did nothing to help the original problem. Intimidate didn't last long, and only appeared on 40 cards, total.

Function and Flavor

One of the reasons Menace has been such a lasting success is how how it manages to be both flavourful and fun. Fear and Intimidate only ticked the first of these boxes, while Menace manages to be both evocative and interesting at the same time.

It's easy to imagine a menacing Creature, and it makes sense that you would want to bring a buddy along to deal with it.

Best Menace Creatures

While Menace the ability is typically better in low-powered formats, there are still plenty of powerful Creatures with Menace that do break out. From Standard to Commander, from Pro Tours to kitchen tables, Menace appears on excellent cards across the entire spectrum. Here are six of the best.

6. Massacre Girl, Known Killer

Massacre Girl, Known Killer is a fairly popular Commander that showcases one of many sweet interactions between Menace and other keywords. What if your blockers get smaller after combat, even if you did manage to find a profitable block?

The cherry on the cake of drawing a card encourages the player with Massacre Girl to do what they already ought to be doing. This one also gets bonus points for being a Limited bomb in Murders at Karlov Manor.

5. Iroas, God of Victory

This is a Commander classic.

Iroas, God of Victory doesn't have much of a competitive resume, but for a long time it was one of the best tools a casual Boros (/)

) player had access to.

Making your Creatures hard to block and preventing damage dealt by those blockers is a juicy combination. This one is is more straightforward than Massacre Girl but is also better at just getting your opponents dead.

4. Burnout Bashtronaut

Burnout Bashtronaut is easily the best Menace Creature in current Standard.

It's a one-card synergy machine, getting the ball rolling as a hard-to-block one-drop. Eventually, with a little help, it turns into a Double Strike monster that pumps itself and hits for incredible amounts of damage. This is arguably the card on the list where Menace is most important to what the card is trying to achieve.

Left alone, this little 1/1 can end games very quickly.

3. Rampaging Ferocidon

There are a couple of cards on this list that were a bit too good and Rampaging Ferocidon is one of them. This card was banned in Standard a few months after its release.

Granted, Menace was a small part of the bigger puzzle, but it was relevant. Attacking for three with a Menace Creature does synergize nicely with the rest of the text box.

That might just mean "getting 'em dead" synergizes with getting 'em dead even faster, but it still counts.

2. Labyrinth Raptor

This Creature maybe doesn't have the best competitive repertoire on this list, but it's one of the best payoffs for having other Menace Creatures. That might be damning with faint praise, but it's true.

Labyrinth Raptor also might be the best Menace Creature in Limited, where evasive abilities are at their best. Menace Creatures are tricky to block at the best of times, and this made it an absolute nightmare.

With this in play, opponents realistically need three blockers per Creature with Menace, or one big Creature and one disposable one.

1. Grief

Banned in Legacy. Banned in Modern. A staple in Timeless and Vintage.

When you're not allowed into some of Magic's most powerful formats, you must be pretty good. Admittedly, Grief isn't banned because of Menace, but it still might be the best Creature with Menace.

You're rarely casting this for full price, but if it does stay in play, a 3/2 Menace is no joke.

Can you build a Menace deck?

Technically, you can, but you probably shouldn't. You might have noticed that the cards in the list above don't really do anything synergistic together. The only pay-off for having two Menace Creatures in play is that your opponent now needs four Creatures to block them. That's not nothing, but it's not much either.

Some other keywords do get more direct, blatant synergy. Look at Empyrean Eagle, for example. Not Menace, though. The line of text "other creatures you control with menace get +1/+1" doesn't currently exist. Maybe one day.

The nearest thing to a competitive "Menace Tribal" deck that ever existed was, you guessed it, in Limited. Back in Ikoria, when Labyrinth Raptor was first printed, it had back-up from Sonorous Howlbonder and Frillscare Mentor.

The trouble is, outside of Limited, blocking isn't all that common. An Azorious () control player doesn't really care about Menace when they're casting Wrath of God. A mono-Red player doesn't really care about opposing Menace Creatures when they just want to attack every single turn, regardless.

It matters a bit more in Commander, especially for aggressive decks. Even there, though, it's not really an archetype in its own right. You put good Menace Creatures in your Krenko, Mob Boss deck because they're good at attacking or because they're goblins You don't play them because of Menace-Menace synergy.

Wrapping Up

Menace is a fascinating mechanic. It's strong in the right environment, but borderline irrelevant in others. It's simple enough to understand, but leads to some complicated, crunchy game play - at least in limited. It's been around for a decade, but has never really led to a Real Deck™.

As an evasion ability, it's not the most powerful but it might be the most interesting. Forcing an opponent to double block opens up a smorgasbord of different options for both players.

Many different things can happen when two or more Creatures block the same Creature. Pump spells become exponentially better with Menace. Instant-speed removal gets even better than it already was, especially if your opponent was hoping to use their own pump spell on a blocker.

Menace interactions in low-powered formats sounds like a whole other article, though. Suffice it to say, Menace was an elegant answer to a long-term problem. It's no surprise that it has lasted this long, and it will continue to enrich the game for years to come.

FAQs: Menace Mechanic in Magic

Can you block with more than two Creatures?

Absolutely. You can throw as many bodies as you want in the way of a Menace Creature. Two is the minimum, but there is no maximum.

How does Menace damage work?

It's up to the attacking player to decide. They can assign the damage however they choose. For example, if the attacking Creature has two power, then its controller can assign one damage to each blocker, or two damage to one blocker and zero to the other.

What if a blocker is destroyed before damage?

The attacking Creature is still considered to be blocked. It still won't assign damage to the defending player, but it is more likely to survive combat with the remaining Creature.

How does Menace work with Creatures like Michaelangelo, Mutant BFF?

In this case, Michaelangelo would become completely unblockable. "Can't be blocked by more than one creature" and "can't be blocked except by two or more creatures" work very nicely together.

Is Menace strong?

Menace is an ability that is at its best in formats that care about Creature combat. In Constructed tournament formats like Standard or Modern, it is often irrelevant or merely a bonus. The best Menace Creatures in these formats are often the ones that would still be good even without it.

In Limited, where the card pool is inherently less powerful, Menace shines much brighter. The reasons for this are numerous and intricate, but the main thrust is that Creature combat matters a lot more in Limited.

Since Menace is all about combat, it makes sense that it would be at its best there.