Blocking with multiple creatures
Asked by S1ayerMonkey 6 years ago
I've been looking at Terastodon and realised that there's a rule I'm not 100% sure of despite years of playing.
Can creatures be blocked by multiple other creatures, or can they only block a single one unless the attacking creature has menace?
Example: I'm playing G/R against Voltron. I play Terastodon and destroy 3 enchantments, then let my opponent put three 3/3 elephants on the battlefield. Can they use all 3 to block and wipe out Terastodon next turn? Or could they only block with 2+ creatures if, say, Ripscale Predator or Deputized Protester were attacking?
As it stands, It seems like destroying my own permanents would be better with Terastodon
One small addition to that that is important - both the declaring of blockers and their arrangement in order by the attacking player happen as turn-based action in the beginning of the aptly named declare blockers step.
That means that there is a window (the whole declare blockers step), where you can influence how it will go. For example, if in the terastodon example, you attacked with the 9/9 and got blocked by 3 3/3 elephants, if no one cast anything, all 4 creatures will trade off.
If however, during the declare blockers step, you cast Righteousness on the first creature in the blocking order, it will be big enough to kill terrastodon and survive, while none of the others will be damaged.
Rule 509 describes in detail the declare blockers step, you can read it for some other cool stuff.
Boza says... Accepted answer #1
Any number of creatures from 0 to however many the defending player has, can block any one single attacker. If blocked by multiple creatures, the attacking player arranges the order of blockers. During the damage phase, the attacking creature must deal lethal damage to the first creature before any damage can be assigned to the second one.
in terrastodon example, your opponent may assign 0 to 3 elephants as blockers of the attacking terrastodon.
Menace puts a restriction on how creatures can block - a single creature cannot block a single attacker with menace. It must have at least 1 more buddy.
February 13, 2018 11:56 a.m. Edited.