What does Menace do in Magic: The Gathering?

Menace is a keyword ability that means a creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures. A single blocker isn't enough — your opponent must assign at least two creatures to block it, or let it through unblocked.

Does having Menace twice make a creature require three blockers?

No. Multiple instances of menace on the same creature are redundant (CR 702.111c). A creature with menace twice still only requires two or more blockers, not three. The extra copy does nothing.

What is 'super menace' in MTG?

Super menace is an informal slang term for an evasion ability that requires three or more creatures to block, rather than the two required by regular menace. Cards like Pathrazer of Ulamog, Rampaging Ceratops, and Troll of Khazad-dûm have this effect. It isn't an official rules term.

What colors use Menace most in MTG?

Menace is primary in both black and red. It was historically primary in black and secondary in red, but current design philosophy places it as primary in both colours. There has been some design discussion about extending it to a third colour as a secondary or tertiary ability.

What is a menace counter in MTG?

A menace counter is a physical counter that can be placed on a creature to give it the menace ability. Introduced in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (2020), it works the same as having menace printed on the card — the creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.

Menace in MTG: Rules, Strategy & Notable Cards

Q: When was Menace introduced as a keyword?

Menace was officially keyworded in Magic Origins (2015), replacing Intimidate. The effect itself is older — Goblin War Drums from Fallen Empires (1994) was the first card to carry it, and some older cards with the same ability received errata to now use the menace keyword.

Three damage coming at you, and you only have two creatures. Block with both and lose them. Block with one and take damage anyway. Don't block and definitely take damage. That's the dilemma menace creates every single time it attacks - and it's why the ability has become a cornerstone of aggressive black and red strategies.

What is Menace in MTG?

Menace is an evergreen keyword ability that makes a creature harder to block. A creature with menace can't be blocked except by two or more creatures. A single blocker simply isn't enough - your opponent must commit at least two creatures to stop it.

That might sound like a small restriction, but in practice it forces a painful trade-off. Either your opponent throws two creatures in the way (trading both for your one, or burning combat tricks to come out ahead), or the creature gets through for free. In the mid-game, when boards are cluttered and every blocker matters, a menace creature is a constant drain on your opponent's resources just by being in play.

Rules note: Menace is officially classified as an evasion ability, putting it in the same category as flying and shadow - abilities that make creatures difficult or impossible to block under normal circumstances.

Menace rules

The comprehensive rules for menace are clean and short, which is part of what makes it such an elegant design.

"A creature with menace can't be blocked except by two or more creatures."

CR 702.111b (Comprehensive Rules, November 14, 2025 - Edge of Eternities)

Here are the key rules points to know:

CR 702.111a: Menace is an evasion ability.
CR 702.111b: A creature with menace can't be blocked except by two or more creatures. (See rule 509, "Declare Blockers Step.")
CR 702.111c: Multiple instances of menace on the same creature are redundant. Giving a creature menace twice doesn't change anything - it still just requires two blockers.

Common misunderstandings

"Two or more" means exactly two is fine. Your opponent can absolutely block with two creatures - menace doesn't require three, four, or more blockers. It just prevents the single-creature block.

Menace doesn't help after blockers are declared. If your opponent has already legally declared two blockers, menace has done its job (or failed to). Gaining menace after that point in combat doesn't change the block.

Menace counters are a thing. Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths introduced menace counters, a way to put the menace ability directly onto a creature as a counter rather than as a static ability. A creature with a menace counter has menace - functionally the same result, just a different delivery mechanism.

Super menace

A handful of cards take the concept further with an ability that stops them being blocked by fewer than three creatures - sometimes called "super menace" informally. This isn't an official rules term, just a useful shorthand for the effect. Notable examples include Gorilla Berserkers, Pathrazer of Ulamog, Rampaging Ceratops, Troll of Khazad-dûm, and Underworld Cerberus. Hexmark Destroyer takes it all the way to six.

Strategy

Playing with menace

Menace rewards you most when your opponent's board is small or their creatures are valuable. A 3/2 with menace attacking into two 2/2s is asking your opponent to trade both their creatures for your one - a deal most players won't take unless they're desperate.

The strongest line is usually to pair menace creatures with other forms of pressure. If your opponent is also worried about a different threat, they may not be able to spare two creatures to block. Menace and trample together are especially punishing: your opponent blocks with two creatures, you trample over for extra damage, and they still lose the creatures. Similarly, deathtouch and menace** is a combination that appears repeatedly in black for good reason - your opponent must block with two creatures, both of which will die.

Giving menace to your opponent's creature is an interesting application too. Lose Calm and Malevolent Whispers steal a creature and hand it back with haste (and sometimes menace), letting you crash in with something that's hard to block profitably. Demoralize goes even wider, giving all creatures menace until end of turn - which can turn a stalled board into a decisive alpha strike.

Tentative Connection takes the synergy angle directly: it costs {3} less to cast if you control a creature with menace, turning a four-mana steal effect into a one-mana blowout in the right deck.

Playing against menace

The honest answer is: menace is designed to cost you something, and there's no clean way around that.

Your best options are:

Removal before it attacks. A creature with menace that never gets to attack doesn't cost you two blockers.
Instant-speed tricks in combat. If you can kill one of the required blockers in response, your remaining blocker is now an illegal block and the creature is unblocked - but this is dangerous unless you're planning to let the damage through anyway.
Chump-blocking math. Sometimes you accept that you're spending two creatures to kill one, especially if the menace creature will snowball out of control otherwise. Know when the trade is worth it.
Evasion of your own. A board of flying creatures can attack back and ignore the ground stall that menace creates.

Deck-building considerations

Menace is most at home in aggressive and midrange strategies that want to push damage through consistently. In Commander, a menace-heavy deck can apply persistent pressure even at a four-player table, where opponents need to split blockers and can rarely afford to throw two creatures at every attacker. In Limited (draft and sealed), menace is a strong combat keyword that upgrades almost any creature - a 2/2 with menace attacks far more freely than a 2/2 without it.

Notable cards with Menace

Imposing Visage ({R}) is one of the most efficient ways to grant menace in the game - a one-mana Aura that slaps menace onto any creature. Cheap and effective in aggressive red builds.

Demoralize ({2}{R}) is worth singling out for its wide application: giving your whole team menace until end of turn can catch opponents completely off guard in combat. The threshold bonus - preventing all blocking - is a genuinely game-ending threat in the right graveyard deck.

Lose Calm ({3}{R}) combines creature theft with haste and menace, creating a stolen attacker that's annoying to block and giving you a temporary window to attack with it profitably before it returns.

Tentative Connection ({R}) is the card that most rewards building around menace rather than just including it. Reducing a four-mana steal spell to one mana is the kind of payoff that justifies running menace creatures specifically.

Boggart Brute - the example card printed on many official rule references - is a clean illustration of the mechanic at common rarity: a Goblin Warrior that punches above its weight class purely because of the blocking tax it imposes.

History of Menace

Menace as a named keyword was introduced in Magic Origins (2015), but the effect it describes is older than the name. Goblin War Drums from Fallen Empires (1994) was the first card to carry the ability, and several other cards used similar wording over the following decades. When menace was officially keyworded in Magic Origins, some of those older cards received errata to use the new terminology.

The keyword replaced intimidate, which had been retired because its power varied too wildly depending on the colors of your opponent's deck. Intimidate prevented blocking except by artifact creatures or creatures sharing a color with the attacker - elegant in concept, but a nightmare in practice when one matchup made your creatures nearly unblockable and another made intimidate a complete blank. Menace doesn't care about colors or card types, just numbers of blockers, which makes it far more consistent across different game states.

Historically, menace was primary in black and secondary in red. As of the current design philosophy, it's primary in both black and red. There's been informal discussion in the Magic design community about whether a third color should carry menace as a secondary or tertiary characteristic, though nothing has been officially codified yet.

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (2020) introduced menace counters, adding a new physical representation of the keyword that can be added to or removed from creatures independently of their printed rules text.