If a 4/4 creature with protection from black were to block a 5/4 black creature with trample, would the defending player take 1 trample damage?
Asked by Abhinav7354 7 years ago
In my playgroup, I have a 4/4 creature with protection from black that I use but recently my friend bought a Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder commander deck and we got into a couple of arguements on whether I should take the one trample damage or not.
Epochalyptik says... #2
To expand, protection means (in part) that damage that would be dealt to the protected object from a source with the protected-against quality will be prevented.
Lethal damage is defined as damage equal to (or greater than) a creature's toughness or any damage from a source with deathtouch.
In practice, this means that your opponent has to assign what would be lethal damage to your creature. The damage will be prevented when it comes time to deal combat damage, but this doesn't affect how damage is assigned. Your protected creature will only block as much damage as is assigned to it; protection doesn't mean that the creature automatically soaks up all of the damage and none gets through.
April 18, 2017 12:03 p.m.
Abhinav7354 says... #3
Thanks. I was unsure and couldn't find any rulings on this.
April 18, 2017 8:04 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
Please select an answer to remove this question from the active queue.
BlueScope says... Accepted answer #1
The defending player will take up to 1 damage.
It's actually the attacking player's choice whether to assign leftover damage from a creature with Trample to the defending player - the only requirement is to assign lethal damage to all blocking creatures first, which is the amount of their toughness, or 1 if the creature also has Deathtouch.
While there's normally situations where you would want to assign damage to the creature and not the player, in this case, this doesn't yield any benefit, so there's nothing wrong with assuming you assign the 1 point of damage to your opponent by default.
April 18, 2017 11:27 a.m.