Deathtouch + Trample vs. Indestructable

Asked by Furielfriend 8 years ago

Scenario: a 5/5 Deathtouch Trample creature gets blocked by Boros Reckoner.

How much damage will Boros Reckoner trigger if...

• ... Boros Reckoner gets indestructable?

• ... Boros Reckoner gets indestructable + the 5/5 gets double strike?

HorridBEAST says... #1

Indestructible means that if an effect would destroy the card, it is not destroyed.

Deathtouch means that 1 damage is a lethal amount of damage.

Trample means that after assigning lethal damage, any remaining damage can be applied to the defending player.

Therefore the Indestructable Boros Reckoner will be assigned 1 damage and the other 4 damage can be dealt to the defending player. Boros Reckoner will not be destroyed because it is Indestructible and it will deal 1 damage because it was dealt 1 damage.

Normally, without Deathtouch, if the creature got double strike then on the First Strike damage step the attacking creature would deal damage equal to the defending creatures toughness (trampling the rest) and then on the regular damage step the defending creature would already have lethal damage and all of the damage would trample over, but with death touch I don't know if you would have to deal 1 damage again and trample the rest or if the 1 damage on First Strike would still be counted as lethal Deathtouch damage

September 8, 2016 9:06 a.m.

BlueScope says... Accepted answer #2

In either case, all requirements Trample has is to assign lethal damage to the blocker, which takes previously dealt damage into account. This means that Boros Reckoner will always be dealt only 1 damage in either scenario - provided the attacking player assigns only one damage to the creature, as you may assign more than lethal damage to a blocking creature if your creature has trample.

The key point in understanding this concept is that lethal damage means "damage that is high enough to destroy the creature", which is normally the amount of toughness, but in case of deathtouch any amount of damage (which means at least 1). Damage isn't removed from permanents until the cleanup step, meaning a single point of deathtouch damage is considered lethal damage until the end of turn, regardless whether the creature actually died or not.

September 8, 2016 9:20 a.m.