Trample vs Unbreathing Horde
Asked by ThePhantomOfTheOrzhov 6 years ago
So here's the situation. My opponent has a creature with trample, probably Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar, and I block it with Unbreathing Horde, which is smaller than the Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar. Do I take damage?
So given the rule cdkime quoted, if I'm reading things correct....
Assuming Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar is a 10/10 and Unbreathing Horde is an 8/8, when it comes time for Multani to assign damage, it would have to assign 8 damage to the Horde, because that would be lethal. The second effect on the Horde doesn't happen until it's actually time to deal that damage (at which point the 8 damage would be prevented and the Horde would lose a counter, going down to a 7/7). You would still take 2 damage from Multani due to trample, but your Horde would survive to block again (with diminishing effectiveness).
September 9, 2018 8:51 p.m.
ThePhantomOfTheOrzhov says... #4
@cdkime thx. i'm kinda sad that it interacts like that, tho
Caerwyn says... Accepted answer #1
You will take damage. Here's the rule, with the relevant emphasis added:
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 that’s 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.
I'm not sure what format you are in, but if you are in an eternal format and need a way to completely stop a creature with Trample, Banding provides a hard counter to trample. Since the defending player assign's the attacking creature's combat damage, they can assign all damage to the creature with Banding. So, a 7/7 with trample might assign 7 damage to a Benalish Hero, meaning there is no excess damage to spill over.
September 9, 2018 11:49 a.m.