Hold the Line
Instant
Blocking creatures get +7/+7 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning
- Price
- $0.29
- EDHREC rank
- #18014
Hold the Line turns a single blocked combat into a one-sided board wipe — every attacking creature your opponents control that gets blocked gets +0/−6 until end of turn, which kills most things outright while your blockers survive. At three mana at instant speed, the cost is low enough that this earns its slot in any white deck that wants to punish aggression.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Commander is where Hold the Line does its best work — multiplayer tables run wide boards, and a single alpha strike into your defenses becomes a catastrophic misplay for the attacker when you flash this in. In Legacy and Vintage it's a curiosity at best; those formats move too fast and combat tricks lose out to counterspells and faster win conditions. Oathbreaker follows the same logic as Commander, so it's playable there in a defensive white shell. Hold the Line sees essentially zero competitive play outside EDH, but inside it, it fills a real role as a budget combat trap.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.29 bulk tier
At $0.29, Hold the Line is deep bulk — you're picking this out of a commons box, not tracking it down. Demand is niche enough that the price is unlikely to climb, but at this tier you're not buying it for value; you're buying it because it's a 29-cent instant-speed sweeper for combat.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.