Duress

Public Decks Using This Card

No public decks are currently using this card.

Character Background

Duress is the quintessential one-mana black probe: thematically it plays like a cold, surgical theft of an opponent’s plans and mechanically it best supports tempo and control strategies as well as combo hate—use it early to strip removal, counters, or combo pieces so your threats can resolve. In practice it shines in low-curve black or UB tempo shells and as a sideboard staple against spell-heavy combo and control decks; it’s less useful against creature-heavy aggro. A concrete deckbuilding tip: pair Duress with other cheap disruption (Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek where legal) to form a disruption suite, or combine it with tempo elements like Snapcaster Mage or efficient threats so the card advantage from disrupting their hand turns into pressure. Play 2–4 copies depending on metagame density of noncreature threats; prioritize it in matchups where a single lost counterspell or burn spell changes the course of the game.

Generated using gpt-5-mini · Updated at 2026-05-16 17:40:45 UTC