Step By Step: Damage

Damage in Magic is more complicated than it may seem at first glance. In this article, I'm going to break it down into 6 simple steps to follow.

A brief note: This is a more advanced article intended for Magic players and judges who already have a strong grasp of the rules. If you don't yet know the basics of the combat phase and how to apply replacement effects, you'll probably find this article a bit confusing.

The steps of damage:

• Step 0.1: Choose combat damage assignment order
• Step 0.2: Assign combat damage
• Step 1: Calculate excess damage
• Step 2: Deal the damage
• Step 3: Process the damage into results
• Step 4: The damage event

The first two steps are a little different, as they only apply to combat damage. They're technically turn-based actions of the combat phase and aren't a part of processing damage itself at all, but I want to cover them too because they're often overlooked or misunderstood.

Step 0.1: Choose combat damage assignment order

This happens right after blockers have been declared in combat. If any attackers are being blocked by multiple creatures, the attacking player chooses an order for those creatures. Then the defending player does the same for any creatures that are blocking multiple creatures. This order is specific to the creature it's for, and doesn't affect other creatures.

For example, if Bear Cub and Glory Seeker are attacking and they're both blocked by a Hundred-Handed One and Coastline Chimera, the attacking player chooses an order for Bear Cub and an order for Glory Seeker. The order need not be the same for both creatures. You can think of it as each attacking creature looking at what's blocking it and writing down a list of them in a certain order.

Step 0.2: Assign combat damage

Once the combat damage step is entered, damage must be assigned. This is a distinct process from damage being dealt, which only happens later. Damage assignation is simply a way to say "ok, this amount of damage is going to be dealt to this creature, this amount to that creature, etc". Damage is assigned simultaniously for all attacking creatures first, and then for all blocking creatures. (In turn order if there are multiple blocking players.)

When announcing where a creature's damage is being dealt, it must obey that creature's damage assignment order. If a creature earlier in the order hasn't been assigned lethal damage, then the attacker's damage can't be assigned to a later creature. So if a 3/3 attacks and is blocked by a 4/4 and a 2/2, and the 3/3's damage assignment order was "the 4/4 first, then the 2/2", when it comes time to assign damage, all 3 damage must be assigned to the 4/4.

Deathtouch on a creature means that any amount of damage it's assigning is considered to be lethal. Trample on an attacking creature simply means that the player or planeswalker it's attacking is considered to be last in the damage assignment order.

Other damage being assigned at the same time is taken into account for this process. If a 1/1 with deathtouch and a 3/3 with trample are attacking and were both blocked by a 4/4, the 1/1 can assign its damage to the 4/4, and since that's lethal, the 3/3 can assign all of its damage to the defending player.

Now we get into handling the damage itself. These next four steps apply to any damage being dealt, regardless of whether it's combat damage or not. An attacking creature dealing damage functions the same way here as a Lightning Bolt. These steps are sequential in terms of how they're handled by the game, but they're simultaneous in time as the game progresses. Everything that happens as a result of one of these steps happens at the same time.

Step 1: Calculate excess damage

Some effects that deal damage say that "excess" damage is dealt to another object or player. This is basically "spell trample". In order to calculate excess damage, we look at the toughness of the creature in question, minus any damage that's marked on it and any other damage being dealt to it at the same time. If there is any excess damage, the damage event changes to deal that damage to a different object or player. This step is very similar to step 0.2, but it applies only to noncombat damage. Just like with trample, replacement effects that change the amount of damage being dealt are not taken into account here.

Step 2: Deal the damage

Once we know what the original damage event is, we need to handle any replacement and prevention effects that apply to it. Only effects that directly apply to "damage" are considered here. Other effects that apply to what the damage is doing to what it's being dealt to are considered in step 3. Replacement and prevention effects are handled in the normal method, where the controller of the affected object chooses in what order to apply them. Anything that triggers due to damage being dealt triggers at this point, once the amounts of damage being dealt have been "locked in".

Step 3: Process the damage into results

Once we know how much damage is being dealt and to what, it's time to figure out what result that damage is going to have. Damage can have one or more different results, depending on what is being dealt damage and what abilities or effects are applying to the damage. The full list of default results is as follows:

• Damage dealt to a player by a source without infect causes that player to lose that much life.
• Damage dealt to a player by a source with infect causes that source’s controller to give the player that many poison counters.
• Damage dealt to a planeswalker causes that many loyalty counters to be removed from that planeswalker.
• Damage dealt to a creature by a source with neither wither nor infect causes that much damage to be marked on that creature.
• Damage dealt to a creature by a source with wither and/or infect causes that source’s controller to put that many -1/-1 counters on that creature.
• Damage dealt by a source with lifelink causes that source’s controller to gain that much life.

Other cards can modify these results. In order to figure out what the final outcome is going to be, we first consider what the default results would be. Then we apply any effects that say damage is dealt "as though" a condition is true. Then we look at effects that say something can't happen. Lastly we apply any appropriate replacement effects that apply to the result of the damage. (Again, in the order of the affected player's choice.) Note that just like with all replacement effects, choosing an order for them is simply determining what the future event is going to be, it hasn't actually happened yet.

Step 4: The damage event

Now that we've figured out exactly what's going to happen, it's time to actually do it. All results of the damage, along with any events that replaced them, happen simultaniously.

Examples

Well that's great and all, but what does all that text actually mean? Let's look at some examples and walk through them step by step.

Question #1

Andy controls Furnace of Rath and attacks with a 3/3 with trample. Nancy blocks with a 2/2 that has protection from creatures. How much damage is dealt to Nancy?

Show answer

Question #2

Norman controls Phyrexian Unlife and has 0 life. Alex casts Lightning Bolt targeting Norman. In response, Norman casts Angel's Grace. What happens?

Show answer

Question #3

Amanda attacks with a 5/5 with trample and a 3/3 with no abilities. Nemo blocks the 3/3 with Dralnu, Lich Lord and blocks the 5/5 with Darien, King of Kjeldor. Nemo currently has 2 life and also controls Worship and Vilis, Broker of Blood. (And controls nothing else.) Assuming Amanda has as much damage as possible trample over to Nemo and that Nemo only wants to sacrifice creatures to Dralnu, what is Nemo's resulting life total, how many tokens does he create, and how many cards does he draw?

Show answer

And that's about it! Figuring out what happens as damage is dealt can be complicated sometimes, but if you walk though it step by step, you'll get to the right answer. If you want to test your skills with some more practice questions on damage, click here!

Outside the Asylum

Subscribe

RSS feed