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Moxonomy

Hold the Line

Instant1 generic manaWhite manaWhite mana

The number is the whole gag: +7/+7 is large enough that any defender, however small, becomes lethal to and survives against nearly anything it meets. But the entire effect lives behind the word "blocking," which gates it on the opponent's choice to attack. You cannot ambush an idle creature, cannot pump your own swing, cannot use it on an empty board; the spell does nothing until bodies are in the red zone and blockers are declared. That timing window is the design. It rewards a defensive posture that bides time until an opponent overcommits to an alpha strike, then turns a single instant into a one-sided trade aimed at the attacking team: every blocking creature gets the boost, so spreading your defenders across an incoming swarm can leave a row of dead attackers and your blockers untouched. The cost is symmetric in its harshness. Sit on it across a board state where the opponent has no reason to attack, and it rots in hand; spend it on a lone attacker, and it is a wildly oversized combat trick doing the work a far cheaper spell would. This is a tempo swing for one specific turn rather than a value engine, the kind of mass defensive trick that lives or dies on reading aggression correctly and baiting the exact swing you want to punish.

Hold the Line (chk)
CHK · #13rare
Pricing
Normal: $0.56
Foil: $1.52
Oracle Text

Rules text

Blocking creatures get +7/+7 until end of turn.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
Legal
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
Legal
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
Legal
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

1 set
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