How does Trample affect damage assigned when blocker is removed by an instant?
Asked by xiao.wen 11 years ago
1) 7/7 Trample declared attacking, 3/3 declared as blocker
2) blocker is removed by an instant speed effect (divine verdict, bounce, etc) as a response to its 'blocking' status being declared.
does defending player take 4 damage, 7 damage or 0 damage?
if the attacking creature did not have trample, would this answer change?
After spending the time to phrase out the question, my gut starts to tell me the answers would be, '7 damage' and 'yes, without trample, it would be 0 damage', but my grasp of the subtleties between the combat phases is still not airtight. my gut tells me that allowing a chump blocker's removal to aid in its ability to block a trampler would be poor design, but the mechanics that would allow tramplers to uniquely deal damage in this kind of a damage assigning phase seems fuzzy. unless of course the semantics are such that everyone 'technically' still deals damage when their blocker has been removed, it just deals damage to 'nothing', whereas the trampler uniquely carries through?
kmcree says... Accepted answer #1
The defending player would take 7 damage. Trample damage means the attacking creature must deal lethal damage to the blocker, and then deal the rest to the defending player. Because the blocker was already removed, 0 damage is considered lethal and the attacking creature will deal all 7 damage to the defending player. If the attacking creature did not have trample and the blocking creature was removed, it would deal no damage to the defending player, as it would still be considered "blocked".
March 1, 2014 10:01 p.m.