The 39 Best Threaten Effects in Magic Ranked

Last updated on July 11, 2025

Zealous Conscripts | Illustration by Steve Prescott

One of the fun aspects about MTG is the fact that you can rely on strategies that catch people off-guard. One of them has to do with using your opponents' creatures to your advantage in key moments, and that’s what we call threaten effects. It’s a trump card that red mages have up their sleeves, so when one’s defenses are too strong, there’s nothing wrong in shifting the defender’s loyalty to favor you – even if that’s just for a few phases.

Threatening your opponent’s creatures to do your bidding can be very powerful, and I’ve got the best ways to do it right here.

What Are Threaten Effects in MTG?

Insurrection | Illustration by Mark Zug

Threaten effects get their name from the classic Threaten, though Act of Treason‘s another popular nickname. You gain control of a creature (your opponent's, presumably) until the end of your turn. Not only that, but you untap the creature and give it haste, so you can threaten a tapped creature your opponent just used on their last turn. This is useful not only to clear up blockers for a big attack but also to use their creatures in your favor. Many MTG games end after a well-timed threaten effect, and these are very hard to play around: If you’re losing, you’ll want to cast your best creatures, only to see them turn against you.

There are many card types that threaten, so you can have a creature that threatens on ETB, or an enchantment that can threaten if you sink enough mana into it. There are also powerful ways to threaten each creature on the board at once.

The base for a threaten effect is usually on a sorcery, so this is the standard threaten to which other cards from this list are compared.

#39. Bloody Betrayal

Bloody Betrayal is your typical threaten effect that also gives you a Blood token. This red sorcery has synergies with some vampire cards, or just offers a free rummage effect.

#38. Hijack

Hijack adds artifacts to the possible mix of stealable things, and that can be really good depending on the board state. You’ll be able to get powerful equipment or vehicles for a turn, or even mana rocks that can be cashed in for cards.

#37. Grab the Reins

Grab the Reins offers you a mix of a fling effect and the threaten effect, all rolled into a red instant. And both if you pay a whopping 7 mana for it. It has a high ceiling, of course.

#36. Slave of Bolas

Slave of Bolas is a multicolor spell that adds the sacrifice to the threaten effect, so it doubles as a removal spell. It even gets around indestructible. It’s 5 mana, so it’s not the best version, but it gets the job done.

#35. Unwilling Recruit

Here we have a weird X spell in Unwilling Recruit. It’s a baseline hard-to-cast threaten, but you can spend your extra mana and produce a big threat. It’s still limited to one creature, though. This card shines when you steal a big trampler, lifelinker, or double-strike creature since those benefit from the extra power the most.

#34. Harness by Force

Harness by Force is multiple threatens in a single card and a hell of a mana sink. But it's very inefficient too, as you’ll have to spend 6 mana to steal two creatures or 9 mana to steal 3, and so on.

#33. Besmirch

Besmirch is a strong tempo play, as you’ll get a good attack on a turn, and the creature's goaded on the next turn. This is a card that synergizes with goad effects, but you won’t want to apply the steal and sac tactic here.

#32. Skyfire Kirin

Skyfire Kirin is an okay red creature as a 3/3 for 4 mana, and if you keep playing spirit or arcane spells you’ll get to threaten your opponents' creatures. There’s sadly a limitation on mana value that keeps this card from being a threaten machine gun, unless your opponents have many tokens or 1-drops.

#31. Turn Against

Here we’re getting an expensive effect at 5 mana, but it’s instant speed. The big advantage of Turn Against is that you can get a two-for-one, making a stolen creature from your opponent block another creature that's attacking you.

#30. Word of Seizing

Word of Seizing is a slightly better Turn Against that can’t be countered, so it gets around blue countermagic.

#29. Act of Aggression

We’re still in the instant camp, but here we can get a huge cost reduction by paying 2 or 4 life thanks to Phyrexian mana. Act of Aggression can be a big surprise during combat because your opponents won’t expect this effect at only 3 mana.

#28. Take for a Ride

Take for a Ride is in the same camp as Act of Aggression, but you need to have committed a crime before. Fortunately, a deck built around crimes can achieve this easily, even on the opponent’s turn.

#27. Unexpected Request

Unexpected Request is pretty much the default Act of Treason, except you get a free equip cost. Depending on your board, this can be a savings of mana or more.

#26. Conquering Manticore

Conquering Manticore adds the threaten effect to a big body, as it’s hard to ignore a 5/5 flying creature. It’s very effective if you get to blink it during combat.

#25. Might Makes Right

Might Makes Right coerces your opponents' creatures to fight for you, so to speak. If you have the biggest baddie on the battlefield, you’ll steal something for free each turn.

#24. Spreading Insurrection

Being able to storm Spreading Insurrection is a big deal, as you can achieve a big turn by playing some cantrips and rituals first. It gets better if you have a spellslinger deck with prowess creatures or things like Monastery Mentor around.

#23. Wrangle

Wrangle is simple, but it gets so high on the list for being a 2-mana spell. It has limitations, but 2 mana is so much better than 3, the same way Counterspell is significantly better than Cancel.

#22. Eriette's Tempting Apple

Eriette's Tempting Apple is our first threaten effect on a colorless card. It’s also a food, and also a card that can burn face. This legendary artifact is good to include in blink decks, and it can slot into any deck, too.

#21. Ray of Command

Ray of Command is from a time when blue could do everything, including threaten at instant speed. Ray of Command is higher than it should be simply because blue doesn’t have this kind of effect. And this blue instant is 1 mana cheaper than Turn Against.

#20. Zidane, Tantalus Thief

Zidane, Tantalus Thief is an intriguing one because you improve the creature you steal with lifelink and often give lifegain to a creature that was never intended to have lifelink. It's costed eerily close to Zealous Conscripts you just need a way to grant haste. Then there's the donation aspect of giving your opponent permanents and getting a treasure in return. Not worth the skipping the steal and sac strategy, but a nice perk if you do need to give things back.

#19. Coercive Recruiter

Coercive Recruiter is a hell of a card if you’re doing pirate typal stuff. Getting to add a pirate and another creature to your ranks at the same time is solid. It’s also a 4/3 creature with haste since it can target itself with the ability if there’s nothing to steal.

#18. Insurrection

Insurrection is threaten on steroids. It’s a hell of a finisher if you have 8 mana, but with all the drawbacks an 8-mana sorcery has. Definitely not good after a board wipe.

#17. Mob Rule

Mob Rule is a smaller, modal, and more castable version of Insurrection. Still, paying 6 mana to get all the big creatures from the battlefield is very good. This card thrives if you have a free sacrifice outlet.

#16. Captivating Crew

You’ll need to activate Captivating Crew at least once to get value, but when you’re at that level, this red pirate is gold. 8 mana gives you two activations a turn and a solid attack, so this card is very strong as a late-game finisher.

#15. Sarkhan Vol

Sarkhan Vol was one of the first planeswalkers ever printed, with a threaten effect as its -2. You’ll probably want to play Sarkhan in a go-wide deck to make better use of the +1 ability, and alternating between abilities is good value, too.

#14. Geyadrone Dihada

Geyadrone Dihada is a weird Grixis () planeswalker, although a card that gets a little better because we have rewards for committing crimes now. It also gets better if you have benefits from steadily gaining life. The best thing from Dihada’s threaten is that it won’t be attacked by the stolen creature again.

#13. Angrath, the Flame-Chained

Angrath, the Flame-Chained is also a threaten planeswalker, one that saw a little Standard and Pioneer play. Making opponents discard a card every turn on an empty board is a good value proposition. It’s also removal for 3MV or less creatures in a pinch.

#12. Yasova Dragonclaw

Yasova Dragonclaw already has a good rate to see play and to be a good Temur commander. The fact that it’s a green card means that you can associate its threaten affect with a Birthing Pod effect to get rid of the stolen creature and get something nice for you. And you can do that every turn with a strong rate.

#11. Mutinous Massacre

Mutinous Massacre is equal parts board wipe and Insurrection, and both parts are game altering cards whenever they're cast. Since you get the choice, this Edge of Eternities card gets close to the territory of one-sided board wipes and I love it.

#10. Swooping Pteranodon

Swooping Pteranodon combines a 3/3 flying and haste body with a steal effect, and you’ll get to add flying and haste, too. Not to mention the damage on a later turn. Plus, you can keep doing this if you have flying dinosaurs (or changelings).

#9. Flayer of Loyalties

Flayer of Loyalties is expensive at 10 mana, but it has the best threaten effect on an ETB. Getting to turn the stolen creature into a 10/10 trample and Annihilator 2 is strong, and you’ll play this card in eldrazi decks that are built to cast these cards – we’re talking decks with good cost reduction.

#8. Song-Mad Treachery / Song-Mad Ruins

Song-Mad Treachery has versatility as its best attribute because the other side, Song-Mad Ruins, is still a tapped red land. The 5-mana threaten is bad, but that's the second function of this card.

#7. Hideous Taskmaster

Hideous Taskmaster is like the eldrazi version of Ball Lightning, a hyper attacker that just looks to deal as much carnage in one combat as possible. The bit that gets me is “each” meaning the more players at your table, the better this gets. The point is at minimum, you get multiple annihilator cards attacking at once and this comes late enough to see the best creatures available from most decks.

#6. Claim the Firstborn

Threaten effects aren’t getting cheaper than 1 mana, and the restriction isn’t even big. Most 1v1 Constructed formats have their best cards in the 1-3 mana range anyway. You’ll play this red sorcery alongside cards like Witch's Oven that can sacrifice the stolen creature, or Korvold, Fae-Cursed King.

#5. Kari Zev's Expertise

On the surface, Kari Zev's Expertise is just a bad threaten, one that can get vehicles, too. The thing is, when you add the “cast a 2 mana or less spell without paying a mana cost,” it enters broken territory. That means you're getting 4-5 mana's worth by just spending 3.

#4. Eldrazi Obligator

Eldrazi Obligator saw lots of play in Modern Eldrazi decks due to the cost-reducing synergies with cards like Eye of Ugin. Getting a 3/1 haste for only 1 mana is strong, and 5 mana for the creature and the threaten effect is very similar to Zealous Conscript efficiency.

#3. Sauron, the Lidless Eye

Sauron, the Lidless Eye is a Rakdos commander that comes into play with a free threaten effect, not unlike Conquering Manticore. You also have a buff effect on your commander, so you’ll buff your creatures and the stolen creatures as well.

#2. The Beast, Deathless Prince

The Beast, Deathless Prince is an awesome demon commander, actually giving you a reason to attack your enemies with their own creatures. Having black around means that you can cast their spells from their library and use them against their owner in a more reliable way.

#1. Zealous Conscripts

It doesn’t look like much, but haste is essential for creating infinite combos, and that’s why Zealous Conscripts is the best of the threaten effects. This red human warrior can be used either as an aggressive deck’s top-end, hitting for 3 plus damage from whatever you steal, but it can also be combined with cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker for the win.

Best Threaten Payoffs

So, now that we’re set on stealing our opponents' creatures, here are a few things we can do to enhance this strategy!

When you steal a creature until the end of the turn with a Threaten effect, you have to give it back. Unless… there isn’t a creature to return anymore. Thus the “Steal and Sac” archetype was born. The idea is to combine threaten effects with sacrifice effects, so you steal a creature, attack and sacrifice it at the end of the turn to get more benefits. It's the perfect combination of damage dealing and creature removal. For that, you’ll need sacrifice outlets: Viscera Seer, Village Rites, Ashnod's Altar, Dargo, the Shipwrecker, the list goes on to the exploit mechanic. One more note about free sacrifice outlets, these are the counter to threaten effects since the creature can be sacrificed before it is stolen. Ghostly Flicker is here because you can turn your threaten, into a permanent Mind Control. When your opponent's creature is flickered, it returns to play under your control indefinitely thanks to Ghostly Flicker.

There are some commanders printed that incentivize you to attack players either with their own stolen creatures or with creatures you control but don’t own. Some examples are Don Andres, the Renegade and The Beast, Deathless Prince. Both commanders have red in their color identity, so here’s your big incentive to run threaten effects.

Brion Stoutarm is another classic Boros commander that helps you go down this route, so you steal the creature and fling it at your opponents afterwards. The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride can use big creatures you’ve stolen to saddle and then sacrifice them to great benefit. Steal a big dude, draw cards, and so on.

Threaten vs. Mind Control

With a Threaten effect, you’ll gain control of the creature for a single turn only, and you’ll also untap it and give it haste to be able to use the creature, whether to attack or to tap for something else. These are usually sorceries, instants, or triggered abilities.

Cards like Mind Control, on the other hand, are auras that enchant a creature, and you maintain control of it as long as it remains enchanted. Mind Control is permanent, while Threaten is temporary.

Threaten vs. Control Magic

Control Magic has the same effect as Mind Control for 1 less to cast. You gain control of the enchanted creature for as long as the creature is enchanted with Control Magic.

Threaten, on the other hand, only works until the end of the turn, so you have to return the creature to its legitimate owner after that. Control Magic effects are part of blue’s slice of Magic's color pie, while Threaten is firmly in red’s slice.

Threaten vs. Annex

With Annex you’ll enchant a land and gain control of it for as long as that land is enchanted with Annex. Threaten only works with creatures, and just until the end of the turn. Some can take artifacts as well, but there isn’t a way to threaten lands.

Wrap Up

The Beast, Deathless Prince | Illustration by Pavel Kolomeyets

Threaten effects are very common in MTG nowadays, and they’re an important part of what red can do, both in Limited and Constructed. Sets usually have a red at common or uncommon rarity that threatens and has something related to their MTG set, like a mechanic or some sort of mana reduction based on synergies. The rare/mythic slot can support Standard or Commander with more powerful effects, too. And if your favorite format has playable threaten effects, you know that sometimes you’ll need to play around it.

What are your favorite threaten effects or variants? Have I covered the best ones? Let me know in the comments section, or in our Draftsim Discord.

Thank you for reading, and make sure you own and control your creatures.