How does intimidate work?
Intimidate makes creatures harder to block. If a creature has the intimidate keyword, they cannot be blocked unless the blocker shares a color with it or is an artifact. Notably, intimidate does not impact what the creature can block—just who can block them. Intimidate’s reminder text reads, “this creature can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it.” Intimidate is an evasion ability (like flying, fear, or shadow). The intimidate keyword has appeared in every color, but it’s primarily a black ability. Intimidate is a static ability, not a triggered or activated ability. In other words, it is always true. The intimidate ability is meant to replicate the fear of the unknown. The creature is too scary to fight unless you share something in common with them (color) or you can’t be scared in the first place (artifacts).
How does intimidate work with multicolored creatures?
So long as there’s one color in common, the block works. Let’s say you’re being attacked by a Lifebane Zombie. If you had a Thief of Sanity or a Sliver Queen, you could block it! So long as the color is represented somewhere in a card’s mana cost, it can block an intimidate creature with the same color.
What if a creature changes colors?
The intimidate color changes if the creature’s color changes. Let’s say you have a Lifebane Zombie on the board and your opponent plays a Painter’s Servant, naming green. Now, all of the creatures are green—including the Lifebane Zombie. Now, it can’t be blocked by black creatures, even though it was originally black! It can be blocked by green creatures, though.
Changing colors mid-blockers won’t prevent blocking. Let’s say you attack with your red Academy Raider, which has intimidate. Your opponent blocks with a Bonecrusher Giant. You go to the damage step and activate Distorting Lens to make the Giant green, thinking that it will make it unable to block the raider. Unfortunately, it’s already blocked and the damage goes through. In our example, you’d have to activate the Distorting Lens before the Academy Raider attacked. Intimidate cares about the declare blockers step—once a creature has been legally blocked, the ability does nothing.
Can colored artifacts block intimidate creatures?
Yes, the color is irrelevant if the blocker is an artifact. Intimidate explicitly says, “This creature can’t be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it.” The “or” there is key. If a creature is an artifact, it can block any creature with intimidate, regardless of color. This means colored artifacts, like Porcelain Legionnaire, can block intimidate creatures even if they don’t share a color with them.
Can devoid creatures block intimidate creatures?
No, devoid creatures are colorless, but they aren’t artifacts. There are about 100 creatures with devoid, an ability that makes the creature colorless, even if there are colored mana pips in the converted mana cost. So, even though Bearer of Silence has a black mana in its mana cost, it couldn’t block an attacking Lifebane Zombie.
Why did WOTC stop using intimidate?
Intimidate has been swapped out for menace going forward. Intimidate is a rare 10/10 on the storm scale—the scale game designer Mark Rosewater uses to determine whether a mechanic will ever return. The original version of this mechanic was fear, which made a creature unblockable unless the other creature was black or an artifact. This was too restrictive, so Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) developed intimidate to replace it. Intimidate ended up being too restrictive as well. It punishes opponents for not playing creatures that are the same color as you, which is a bit arbitrary. Menace makes creatures unblockable unless you block them with two or more creatures. This proved to be a good middle ground so far as combat evasion goes.
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