Interactions with Trample Thanks to @TheRealYapLord for suggesting this! Trample is one of the most deceptively complex mechanics. It's incredibly intuitive, and often one of the first mechanics beginners will see. Because of this, it's been granted Evergreen status, and is one of green's go-to keywords. Hiding beneath this soft exterior, however, is a mechanic that, frankly, barely functions as is and leads to lots of rules headaches, especially for less experienced players. In order to clarify what I'm saying, answer this: What happens when you attack with a 5/5 with Trample and your opponent blocks with a 2/2 that has indestructible? How much damage does your opponent take? A. 0 B. 3 C. 4 D. 5 The answer is, oddly enough, B. In order to understand why this is, you need to know one simple rule. First, damage must be assigned to blockers. damage is damage equal to their remaining toughness. Only then is excess damage dealt to the player. The same is true with Protection. Assign damage equal to the blocker's toughness, then excess is dealt to the commander. Simple, right? Okay, what about Destroytouch? If your 5/5 with Destroytouch and Trample is blocked by a 2/2, how much damage is dealt to the defending player? A: 0 B: 3 C: 4 D: 5 This time, it's actually C, and the reason why is a bit odd. The term assigning deadly damage is key here, as Destroytouch lets a creature deal deadly damage by assigning just one damage. This carves out an oddly specific exception for the rule that lets Destroytouch combine with Trample to negate the effects of blocking nearly completely, as intuitive as that is. The final mechanic to cover is Double Strike and Trample. If your creature defeats its blocker in the first damage phase, all damage from the second hits your opponent, even though there's no creature to Trample over. One final thing, did you know that there isn't a single creature that naturally has both Destroytouch and Trample. The closest things that exist are "build-your-own" creatures like Crystalline Giant. On the other hand, there are nearly 10 cards that naturally have it directly grant Trample and Double Strike. I guess WOTC has deemed it less complex of a pairing. With a game as deep and complex as Magic, it's natural that there would be a plethora of complex interactions that would be impossible to memorize ahead of time. However, these interactions with Trample are surprisingly common, so knowing them may help you in future games. Thanks for reading, and remember this article the next time your opponent tries to block your 15/15 Trampler with a 1/1 Indestructible Ooze (Extra credit question: Without looking it up, what creatures am I referencing?) Check the Studio for other articles:
I know it's not called Destroytouch but it won't let me say the real name :(
