Can I play a Lightning Strike on a blocking creature, and still have the damage go through?
Asked by Runlue 10 years ago
I was at my last FNM, and was running a fairly new deck of mine, with loads of burn. I went to swing with a creature of mine, and my opponent blocked it, and in response I used a Lightning Strike on it, but he said my damage still couldn't go through because he "declared a blocker" before I cast it. Since Lightning Strike is an instant, I thought it didn't matter, and I would still get to hit him, it's not like I can read his mind and know he's gonna block it. So why would that make sense? I REQUIRE ENLIGHTENMENT.
To your reference about not being able to read his mind, that's actually exactly the point. The game doesn't give you the option to wait until they commit to a full blocking assignment before you can just remove their creatures from combat and swing in anyway.
The strategy on your part is being able to deduce based on the board state and the stats of the creatures as compared to the game state, whether they're going to block and with what, to aim your removal accordingly to make them become forced into bad plays.
April 7, 2015 12:21 p.m.
Powerhouse64 says... #3
Unfortunately, without trample, as soon as a creature is blocked (i.e. the defending player declares their creature is blocking the attacking creature) the attacking creature's damage all goes to the blocking creature, regardless of if the blocking creature is on the battlefield at the time the damage is dealt.
506.4a Once a creature has been declared as an attacking or blocking creature, spells or abilities thatwould have kept that creature from attacking or blocking dont remove the creature fromcombat.
Devonin says... Accepted answer #1
Once a creature is blocked, (ie: Has a creature assigned to block it during the declare blockers step) it remains blocked and will deal no damage to the defending player unless it has trample, even if the blocking creature(s) are no longer in combat during the combat damage step.
Once you declare attackers, and go to the start of the declare blockers step, they assign their blocking creatures FIRST before anybody gets priority to play spells or activate abilities by which time it's too late for you to kill their creature to prevent it blocking. You need to do that in the declare attackers step, which would still give them the option of blocking with any other available creatures they have.
April 7, 2015 12:19 p.m.