Resolution of Trample with Deathtouch
Asked by SykeUnsent 9 years ago
I would like some clarification on how Trample and Death touch resolve. The scenario is a big creature say a 50/50 Elf for example with both Trample and Death touch is attacking a player. When blockers are asigned, do you have to resolve all the damage to the first creature on the stack before you can move on to the next creature on the blocking stack? (this is what i've seen done in Duel of the Planeswalkers 2013). Alternativly does the first asigned blocker die from the first point of damage allowing for a small army of creatures to be wiped out with 1 point being asigned to each, reguardless of size of the creatures blocking?
No-one is disputing that death touch kills, but a case of wether the "full" toughness of a blocking creature againt another creature with trample and deathtouch has to be accounted for before trample damage is done to the player being attacked?
Epochalyptik says... Accepted answer #2
Note that deathtouch and trample do not use the stack, nor to they "resolve." Damage in general does not use the stack. DotP may alter the representation of damage assignment in order to give players the opportunity to properly assign combat damage. What actually happens is that players announce a damage assignment order, then assign and deal combat damage as a turn-based action without using the stack.
Now, trample means that if you assign lethal damage to each creature blocking an attacking creature with trample, you may assign the remaining damage to the defending player. Deathtouch means that any amount of damage dealt by its source to a creature is lethal. Combined, these two mean that an attacking creature with both trample and deathtouch only needs to assign one damage to each creature blocking it; the rest can then be assigned to the defending player.
So let's say your 50/50 Elf with deathtouch and trample is blocked by a 1/1, a 2/2, and a 5/5. You announce that the damage assignment order (DAO) is the 1/1 first, then the 2/2, then the 5/5. This means that your creature will assign damage first to the 1/1, then to the 2/2, then to the 5/5. When damage assignments are complete, all combat damage is dealt immediately and simultaneously.
In order to assign damage to any creature in the DAO, you must first assign lethal damage to each creature before it in the DAO. In this case, your 50/50 with deathtouch can assign 1 damage to each creature in the DAO, then assign the remaining 47 damage to the defending player.
July 7, 2015 7:29 p.m.
SykeUnsent says... #3
The problem i have with that is the way i understand the rules, you have to resolve all the attack of the attaching creature againt the toughness of the blocking creatures in order of asigned blocking. Deathtouch has always been part of resolving damage not as damage itself.
Abilities in MtG have been at least in the past a case of "as part of this resolving, your creature dies" But the way your saying it works now is more along the lines of "I have declared touching you, therefore your are now a pile of ash". We're not talking about Vraska's Assain's here.
To me, that interpretation of deathtouch is insanly stupid.
July 7, 2015 7:30 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
Again, damage does not resolve. It's not placed onto the stack at all.
The process of assigning and dealing combat damage is a turn-based action. It doesn't use the stack; the steps are performed in order before players get priority in the combat damage step.
Also, trample doesn't care about toughness. It cares about lethal damage. It so happens that "lethal damage" normally means "total marked damage equal to or greater than a creature's toughness," but recall from the above answers that deathtouch changes this. When a source with deathtouch deals damage, any amount of damage it deals to a creature is lethal. That's why it's called deathtouch.
You still have to assign and deal the damage; the deathtoucher doesn't magically kill everything without giving up some of its damage to do that. But it only needs to assign and deal 1 damage per creature in order to kill them.
July 7, 2015 7:37 p.m.
Trample: any amount of damage assianed to blocking creature(s) that is above the amount of damage required to kill the creature(s) can be assigned to the player or the planeswalker the creature is attacking.
Deathtouch: any amount of damage can kill a creature.
This means that you only need to assign 1 damage to each defending creature before assigning damage to the opponent/planes walker that was being attacked.
The interesting thing is, this is true even if the creature is indestructable, the damage is prevented, or the defending creature has protection from that creature.
July 7, 2015 7:38 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
Comprehensive rules to back this all up:
702.2a. Deathtouch is a static ability.
702.2b. Any nonzero amount of combat damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal damage, regardless of that creature's toughness. See rules 510.1c-d.
702.19b The controller of an attacking creature with trample first assigns damage to the creature(s) blocking it. Once all those blocking creatures are assigned lethal damage, any remaining damage is assigned as its controller chooses among those blocking creatures and the player or planeswalker the creature is attacking. When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures thats being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that's actually dealt. The attacking creature's controller need not assign lethal damage to all those blocking creatures but in that case can't assign any damage to the player or planeswalker it's attacking.
July 7, 2015 7:39 p.m.
FancyTuesday says... #7
That is how damage works, and how it has worked since uh... 6th edition, I think? Damage once used the stack, it doesn't anymore.
There was once a time you could declare you're blocking Grizzly Bears with Mogg Fanatic, have it assign damage, and before it went to the graveyard from lethal damage sacrifice it and ping the bears to do 2 damage and kill it. That's not the case now. It is, as Epochalyptik explained, handled as a turn-based action basically as a calculation after you declare Damage Assignment Order and being destroyed by lethal damage is handled as a state based action before anyone gets a chance to respond.
The important thing to take away from what Epoc and Rhadamanthus said is that you must assign "lethal damage" before moving on to the next creature (or in trample's case, the player behind the creature(s)) and Deathtouch makes 1 damage "lethal damage," so that is all that is assigned.
July 7, 2015 7:43 p.m.
SykeUnsent says... #8
Epochalyptik when i wrote my reply to Rhadamanthus, it was before i had read your first comment, so my reply was not in fact aimed at you. Although having read your first comment it confirmed both Rhadamanthus's comment and my fear/concern. I had read some rules online before i asked my question but I was not fully convinced that they could be right so i wanted some confirmation from more knowledgable players such as yourself
pskinn01 that is an intereting observation, i shall have to remember that one.
I think i now need to have a bit of a think about wether it is worth continuing to play a game with such an insane rule.
p.s. FancyTuesday yes i did get that bit about "you must assign "lethal damage" before moving on to the next creature"
July 7, 2015 7:52 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #9
@FancyTuesday: Combat damage did use the stack until the M10 rules change, but it hasn't worked that way for a long time now.
@SykeUnsent: The rule really isn't game breaking or even that insane. Deathtouch is, for the most part, infrequently used. There are only a few cases where deathtouch and trample make it onto the same creature. And even then, the creature needs to survive and deal combat damage in order to accomplish anything. You only really "suffer" from it if you're forced to block a deathtouch trampler with a ton of creatures or if someone plays some combat tricks to give a creature both abilities at the last minute (this is pretty rare).
Magic is a very complex and nuanced game. I think it would be a shame if something like this was what ruined it for you.
July 7, 2015 7:56 p.m.
FancyTuesday says... #10
Ah yes, it was M10. That rules change hit when I wasn't active in Magic and it took some getting use to when I came back. My memory went back to 6th Edition because that's when they introduced the stack to replace the batch and I was there for the headache of getting everyone use to that.
July 7, 2015 9:26 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #11
@SykeUnsent: The process of combat damage assignment is based on the concept of "lethal damage". The game's normal definition of "lethal damage" is "an amount of damage greater than or equal to a creatures toughness", so yes, 99% of the time a legal combat damage assignment is based on the toughness of the blocking creatures. However, as the others have pointed out, deathtouch changes things. Because any nonzero amount of damage from a source with deathtouch is considered "lethal damage", you don't have to worry about the toughness of the blocking creatures. You only need to assign 1 damage to each.
The combination of deathtouch and trample is very powerful, but it's very rare to see in a game and isn't easy to do. No creature naturally has both abilities, and the effects that give either deathtouch or trample are less frequent than the effects that give other abilities. If a player is actually able to get both deathtouch and trample onto one of their creatures then I think they deserve the benefit of the work they put into doing it.
July 7, 2015 10:48 p.m.
Schuesseled says... #12
Deathtouch, trample and double strike. Now things get interesting.
July 8, 2015 5:58 a.m.
Sorry if I intrude with a question in the thread. I'm just so amazed. So am I getting this right?Would the casting of a Revenge of the Hunted on virtually any creature of mine (say a Gladecover Scout) while having Bow of Nylea on the battlefield actually create a scenario that fits this question?Am I right in thinking that this situation would result in a sort of "combat mass removal" capable of wiping out up to 7 enemy creatures and dealing damage to the opponent at the same time? While costing literally nothing provided i can pull the miracle option?
July 15, 2015 3:40 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #14
Yes. In your example the attacking creature would have both deathtouch and trample, and would therefore get the benefit of the interaction explained above.
July 15, 2015 3:55 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #16
It's worth noting that a trampler only deals damage to blockers assigned to it. You can't kill someone's entire field if they block your creature with only one of their own. It's generally unlikely that someone will multi-block a deathtoucher unless there's a chance to kill it or unless not doing so would lose them the game.
July 15, 2015 5:22 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #17
That's probably why Revenge of the Hunted was part of the scenario. ;)
July 15, 2015 5:24 p.m.
I guess no creature would want to block a >7/7 with trample & deathtouch unless Lured to do so.
July 16, 2015 1:47 a.m.
Anyway there's plenty of ways for my opponents to prevent their creatures from being able to block, like tapping them anytime before the blockers' declaration (right?)
July 16, 2015 1:50 a.m.
SykeUnsent says... #21
There are also kill spells and other bounce spells like Cyclonic Rift which would prevent your creature attacking. So there are ways to deal with it although that's also relying on the other player having those cards ready in hand as well as having the mana ready to use.
Rhadamanthus says... #1
Deathtouch means that any (nonzero) amount of damage counts as "lethal damage" for the purposes of assigning combat damage. Only 1 damage from an attacking creature with deathtouch and trample has to be assigned to each blocking creature, and the rest can be assigned to the defending player.
July 7, 2015 6:35 p.m.