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Mechanics of Magic Overview: Fear

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Are you scared yet?

Not a lot has survived since Alpha in Magic: the Gathering. Fear is an example of a card which showed up at the beginning and has since... disappeared.

Fear

This started as an Aura, then became a keyword in Onslaught in 2002. The text of the Aura is the text of the ability: "Fear (This creature can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and or/black creatures.)"

Doesn't Seem That Frightening

It's also fairly simple. If you have a Black Creature or an Artifact Creature, you may use it to block a Creature with Fear. If you don't, you can't block the Creature with Fear. There are a few more things to know, though.

First, you can't change the text of Fear with something like Alter Reality. The colors are simply reminder text which don't count as part of the card, and therefore don't change the actual ability. Even if you change the color of the card with Fear, it still can't be blocked by anything other than Black and/or Artifact Creatures.

Second, Fear is now obsolete, only appearing on cards printed before Magic 2010. In M10, Fear was replaced with Intimidate.

I ain't 'fraid of no keyword

For most of us, Fear is just focused Intimidate - or Intimidate is Fear for every color. It can, however, be useful in Commander where people are color-locked; a Creature with Fear can't be blocked by a colorless Eldrazi Creature, for example, and people only run so many Solemn Simulacrums.

Ultimately, Fear was deemed too limited. While certainly flavorful (the idea of a Zombie shambling relentlessly towards you is enough to strike fear into the hearts of many blockers), there are plenty of Creatures (Bladetusk Boar) which can be just as frightening, despite being not-Black-aligned. Intimidate allowed for more flexibility.

On the other hand, throw down a Shriekmaw at your next Commander game and watch how many times that little terrorizing Elemental gets through unblocked.

Thanks for reading.

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