The other night we had a question on a ruling given by a judge regarding this. My opponent attacked with a 7/4 death touch trampler, and I blocked with a 4/7 indestructible creature. The judge said since 1 pt was all the death touch creature would normally need to kill the creature and it had trample, that I should take 6 pts of trample damage. Since it was just a casual game I didn't argue (much) but did say this seemed odd since indestructible creatures don't die from pt damage. Does this sound right?
I'm not 100% sure on this but I believe the judge is correct and this is why:
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.
Any amount of damage done is considered lethal damage. Even 1.
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...
You assign them "lethal damage" and in this case lethal damage is at least 1 no matter what because of death touch.
702.12b A permanent with indestructible can’t be destroyed. Such permanents aren’t destroyed by lethal damage, and they ignore the state-based action that checks for lethal damage (see rule 704.5g).
With the ruling
Damage accumulates on indestructible creatures, and that damage is removed during the cleanup step.
The permanent is still assigned damage. It just isn't destroyed because of "lethal damage" so anything above 1 would go to you.
I'll confirm; Kuryme has it correct. When assigning damage, you don't take things like protection and indestructible into account; you just assign damage based on the game rules for doing so. So you only need to assign 1 point of damage.
There are many creatures in magic for which lethal damage would not actually be "lethal" but the game considers lethal damage as damage >= the toughness of the creature or damage in the form of deathtouch which is defined as "lethal damage" as described here:
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.
Therefore, even though it doesn't kill the creature, it is still lethal damage.
for reference on trample:
Exceprt from 702.19b ... 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...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Any amount of damage done is considered lethal damage. Even 1.
You assign them "lethal damage" and in this case lethal damage is at least 1 no matter what because of death touch.
With the ruling
The permanent is still assigned damage. It just isn't destroyed because of "lethal damage" so anything above 1 would go to you.
When in doubt, call a judge.
Objectivist here. Hit me up to talk philosophy.
Therefore, even though it doesn't kill the creature, it is still lethal damage.
for reference on trample: