Choose the correct phrase to complete the knight's thank-you card to his dragon.

"Dear Ignis, if it ____ for your excellent fire-breathing skills, we would still be freezing in that terribly drafty castle."

The correct answer is were not.

The phrase "if it were not for" is a fixed conditional idiom used to say that one thing changes the outcome of everything else (similar to "without"). Because it describes a hypothetical, contrary-to-fact present situation, strict formal grammar requires the subjunctive were instead of the indicative was.

"Had not been" is incorrect here because the result clause ("would still be freezing") is in the present/continuous conditional, not the past perfect conditional. "Would not be" is incorrect because we do not use would in the if-clause.