Yes, and the combination is stronger than it first looks. Trample lets an attacker assign excess damage to the defending player after lethal...
Yes, and the combination is stronger than it first looks. Trample lets an attacker assign excess damage to the defending player after lethal damage is assigned to each blocker. Deathtouch changes what 'lethal' means: any amount of damage from a source with deathtouch — even one point — counts as lethal for assigning. Put them together and a trampling deathtouch creature can assign a single point to a huge blocker and send everything else through.
The example card, read exactly
Acidic Slime — Creature — Ooze (mana cost {3}{G}{G}):
Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.)
When this creature enters, destroy target artifact, enchantment, or land.
Rules answers live and die on exact wording, which is why every card named on this page can be checked in the MTGBrew card database before you rely on it at a table.
How it plays out, step by step
Assign it step by step. Your 5/5 with trample and deathtouch is blocked by a 6/6. You must assign at least lethal damage to the blocker before trampling over. With deathtouch, one damage is lethal, so you may assign one to the 6/6 — which will die from deathtouch — and the remaining four to the defending player. Without deathtouch you would have to assign all five to the blocker and trample for zero. Two cautions: you choose the assignment, so you may still assign more to the blocker if politics or a death trigger makes that better; and first strike changes the timing, not the maths — damage still assigns by the same lethal rule in whichever step it is dealt.
When you build around interactions like this, the MTGBrew AI deck builder keeps the list honest — and the MTGBrew Learn guides collect more of these plain-English rules walk-throughs in one place.
If this topic is on your bench, keep going with Saskia the Unyielding Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins — it covers the neighbouring decisions from a different angle, and the two pieces together give you a fuller picture than either one alone.
The short version
Assign it step by step. Everything else in this article is the working-out — and at a real table, the working-out is what settles the argument, so walk the steps in order and let the text of the cards involved make the final call.
Keep reading
Keep reading: Saskia the Unyielding Commander Guide: How the Deck Actually Wins and Burgeoning in Commander: What It Does and Which Decks Want It.
COMMENTS