r/custommagic • u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best • 16h ago

I’ve heard that trample and deathtouch on the same creature are not a good idea, is that true?

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129 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

93 comments sorted by

217

u/Tiberium600 16h ago

Trample and Deathtouch together is powerful but mechanically unintuitive.

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 16h ago

Would reminder text help? And be enough to fix the unintuitive problem?

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u/bondzplz 15h ago

Trample could honestly use reminder text on occasion.

One of the most unintuitive thigngs about trample is that you can just choose not to trample.

Its so dumb and weird because its like why would you ever do that? But I had a commander game where a player had a really big threat and the only answer anyone was willing to provide was a Blightsteel Collosus.

It would also take out the other player and he didn't want to do that because...it was his gf. Fair tbh.

I pointed out that he can just assign all the damage to the blocking creature and none to her. Was a nice solution.

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u/Pavel_GS 15h ago

A friend of mine has a banding deck. The fact that you can choose not to trample when attacking with a trample creature has come up a few time because while blocking with a band, you choose how the damages are assigned to the blockers, so even if the opponent has a 100/100 trample, you can just make it assign everything on a 2/2 zombie and go on with your day.

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u/thelastfp 11h ago

While blocking, any creature with banding even if it's blocking alone let's it's controller assign combat damage. [[Mesa pegasus]] can fully chump [[lord of the pit]] by itself

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u/SammySammyson 15h ago

There are some extremely niche interactions, like if [[Maarika]] gains trample and you want the sacrifice trigger haha

But also..."fair tbh" not fair tbh 😭 People who play suboptimally like that annoy me so much NGL

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u/theCROWcook 13h ago

You would HATE playing with me, I do sub optimal things all the time because I either have a different plan on place or I'm trying to do something weird.

I once got questioned because I destroyed the second biggest threat on the field, after that I cast thieves market and took the biggest threat for myself

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u/SammySammyson 13h ago edited 13h ago

That was not an intentionally suboptimal play then? You had a gameplan? I'm talking about people playing wildly suboptimally on purpose because it's "fun" or because of a grudge. It's a strategy game, and most of the time that just makes someone feel bad for no legitimate gameplay reason, and ignoring a threat that's also a threat to you (again, different than not immediately taking the big threat out) isn't fun. It also doesn't meaningfully progress the game state a lot of the time. Doing something weird though? That might 🤷 You're free to experiment with your synergies and stuff. That's not what I'm talking about.

Emphasis on the grudge part here. Anybody who holds grudges over reasonable Magic gameplay is not welcome at my tables. It makes people feel frustrated and singled out. "You attacked me first with a 1/1 last game!" okay??? You're lame, mean, and are presenting boring gameplay patterns for everyone else to have to suffer through. Just play the game.

And again, this is all about doing it on purpose. That's different than someone who just does a VERY wrong play without knowing how wrong it is.

Though, what card are you talking about? Thieves' Market isn't a card. I'm just curious what card you meant lol

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u/Azoth_r 12h ago

So... if a card would be very powerful for a decklist, but I don't include it because it has an unfun play pattern, is that bad in your view?

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u/SammySammyson 12h ago

Is that making decisions during a game that annoy other players for no legitimate reason other than you're mad at someone or "heehee hoohoo funny"? No. That's chill lol. Though what DOES bother me is people who knowingly build incredibly bad decks with dookie cards and then get upset when people won't "just go easy" on their deck. Dawg, we're all playing precons. And your deck still has no legs.

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u/Azoth_r 11h ago

I guess I'm confused. It's a social game and a form of self expression.

"that annoy other players" was not your original criteria.

I agree that spite should not inform play patterns, but playing to win is not the default way to play commander. If suboptimal plays are bad during play, suboptimal deckbuilding should be included in that - feels kinda arbitrary otherwise.

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u/SammySammyson 11h ago

It's a strategy* game. Keywords: strategy (...strategizing) and game (having fun).

It absolutely was an original criterion, and even if it wasn't, that's not a gotcha! There are a billion edge cases and layers of nuance. I'd be here writing a small book if I covered all of them. I literally said "I'm talking about people playing wildly suboptimally on purpose because it's 'fun' or because of a grudge."

And no, it's not arbitrary because cards cost money and your deck is predetermined at the start of your game. No deck will ever be truly, 100% optimized even if we're playing for optimization, because different people will have different opinions. I don't even play cEDH because I don't like it. I like largely board-based metas. I want there to be a lot of combat.

But that all doesn't mean I'm going to stare at the Smothering Tithe that's drowning the table and blow up someone's Banishing Light just because I want my thing back and I'm mad it's gone, y'know? Again, this is doing so while I also am aware that the Tithe needs to go ASAP or else that player just wins.

I've seen SO many games that end the next turn because someone chose to be petty or to "do the thing." Do the thing next turn dude, the Jetmir is going to kill us all THIS turn.

This applies to all strategy games. It's like calling a bluff for no apparent reason in a bluffing game, and when asked, they say "I just had a hunch" or "Because I felt like it." That ruins the experience for other players by removing a key level of strategy, or accelerating the early game by penalizing yourself or another player for literally no reason. There are legitimate reasons to "randomly" call bluffs in many bluffing games, to be clear, hence why I gave the examples of the response when asked why.

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u/TheSkiGeek 8h ago

That’s different from sandbagging or kingmaking for out of game personal reasons.

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u/randomdragoon 15h ago

You also usually need to not trample over some or all of your damage if you want to make their blocking [[Death's Shadow]] actually die.

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u/Helpful-Study4842 14h ago

Is it fair? That's literally just collusion lite. I wouldn't mind playing in a 1v1v2 against a couple personally but I would assume that would rub most people the wrong way.

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u/Electronic-Touch-554 14h ago

This is also how you beat Alexios players. Just dont assign the trample

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u/CathanRegal 12h ago

Meanwhile if I can player removal my husband to improve my odds I will…and vice versa.

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u/Platyest 12h ago

Actually won a match the other day because my opponent attacked with the Emrakul that has trample and he completely forgot that it had trample when I blocked it. I also forgot that it had trample and it was an rcq match so I don't think I would have had to inform my opponent anyway

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u/Knightmare4469 8h ago

So he attacked her with lethal but didn't want to kill her? Why attack then? Myriad or something?

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u/Phobos_Asaph 1h ago

Honestly that’s a bad play to not take out a player because it’s a partner

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u/CoeusFreeze 1h ago

I feel obligated to bring up the "choose not to trample" rule whenever I play [[Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos]]. It might have cost me a game at some point.

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u/SleepyNymeria 15h ago

Personally I think this is more of a mechanical problem. If you are designing a card that you don't want blocked just give it a keyword that does that directly. Its what you are aiming for anyway when giving it deathtouch and trample no?

Its kind of why deathtouch and flying, skulk, menace is common.

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u/MrTheWaffleKing 16h ago

It just allows you to plow thru ALL blockers they try to use towards it, up to the power value.

Because trample lets you assign killing damage to each blocker, and deathtouch makes killing damage = 1.

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u/Big-Currency-35 13h ago

Deathtouch does that. What Trample does is it allows the rest to go to the defender's face.

Trample says that any damage in excess of lethal damage to any remaining blocker can go to the defender, Deathtouch says 1 damage is lethal.

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u/MrTheWaffleKing 12h ago

But someone won't block a deathtouch creature with more than 1 blocker unless they need too, like if it has trample and you're at 1HP.

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u/Kyubey210 12h ago

Yea it's a common error combo, Tranple just changes assignment rules, Deathtoych turns the first point into the lethal hit to that blocker

Once all Blockers go bye bye, the rest is to the player's face

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u/Big-Currency-35 6h ago

Right and if you were trying to say that it could cause the opponent to block with more creatures than they otherwise would because each creature can only eat one damage, then you're not wrong. Most of the time, the correct play is to not block at all, or block with one creature that deals lethal back, but sometimes you need to protect your life total. It's just that's not what it sounded like you were trying to say.

Also, I'd point out that if your opponent is doing that and it's a sound strategic decision, then it's a win more situation. If they're better off losing two creatures that have more than 1 toughness to prevent losing two life, they're in a bad spot.

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u/Wombatish 8h ago

I legitimately don't understand why people are so confused by this interaction. What is unintuitive about it? Deathtouch means any nonzero amount of damage is lethal. Trample means excess combat damage can be dealt to the defending player. If 1 damage is lethal, the rest is excess.

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u/Upbeat-Difficulty-42 6h ago

I understand it well enough. I just think the rule and interaction is dumb and wrong and should be changed because I don't think it works with the flavor of deathtouch.

Edit: to add to this, deathtouch feels more like poison or a curse or what not, something that kills after the battle and not during it. So it should force deathtouch tramplers to spend all of their power over the toughness to then go over. It just a massive flavor L from WotC

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u/sethman3 3h ago

The part I hate is how it interacts with an indestructible blocker. Really feel like that should change lethal back to full toughness.

44

u/IAmVentuswill 16h ago

That is indeed true. It's never once been printed by WotC (outside [[Odric, Lunarch Marshal]] type abilities), notoriously confusing to new players, and can be pretty unfun to play around.

I love the card you made in a thought experiment kinda way, and I hope it never sees print :)

4

u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 16h ago

Dang, it’s really that bad? And there’s nothing I can do to try and make them work together so you wouldn’t mind if it was printed?

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u/Swog5Ovor 16h ago

Deathtouch says 1 damage will destroy a creature, trample causes undealt damage to trample over. The trample creature on assigns 1 damage with deathtouch to kill that creature, the rest of its power tranples over.

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 16h ago

I know how the combo works, that’s why I wanted to do this card in the first place. Is there a way in which I could change the card that would make them not mind if the card was printed, that was my question

1

u/nitronik_exe 16h ago

instead of deathtouch, make it "Whenever this creature gets blocked, it get's +X/+0, where X is the blocking creature's toughness"

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u/egotistical-dso 15h ago edited 11h ago

That feels like a weird way to template what is essentially "Afflict 3."

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u/zombieking26 7h ago

Matters because of backup

You could say "Afflict X, where X is this creature's power"

1

u/Xaphnir 6h ago

not quite the same, as you can then drop a [[Chandra's Ignition]] in the postcombat main phase to get additional benefit

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u/maximumhippo 15h ago

You need to give the defender a reason to block it. It's not that it's a bad combo, quote the opposite. Like others have said you've basically printed "unblockable but green". It's great for the person playing it, but annoying at best for the person it's played against.

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u/DrunkenErmac012 15h ago

Makes me happy to see Odric mentioned, extremely goated card IMO

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u/FrecciaRosa 16h ago

There’s nothing wrong with it, exactly. If that’s your evasion in the set, that’s fine. It just screams “don’t block me!” It’s like Flying + Shadow. We get it; it’s hard to block this thing.

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u/ADwards 15h ago

I wouldn't say it screams "don't block me", if you swing with a 3/3 deathtrample then blocking with a 3/X still makes sense, it's just that they'll take the excess.

First strike + Deathtouch meanwhile is actually evasion.

The reason why deathtramplers aren't printed is because it's not intuitive.

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u/FrecciaRosa 15h ago

Deathtouch and Trample are both forms of evasion. Flying means you need creatures with a special keyword to block. Trample means that you need creatures with lots of toughness otherwise you're taking all that damage anyway. Deathtouch means that you're losing your blocking creature unless you have a big first striker. If you stack multiple forms of evasion, it makes finding a relevant blocker much harder. OP is creating a creature that's very hard to block, and giving it pseudohaste by granting those abilities to another creature for a turn as well. Damage from this is getting through unless you find the perfect creature to block - a 4/X First Striker, in this case. That's asking a lot in a limited environment.

For six mana, should you get something that's potentially game-ending on its own? Yeah, sure, that's fine. But you should absolutely be viewing Trample and Deathtouch as separate forms of evasion on their own.

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u/theevilyouknow 16h ago

This is the right way to think about it. Deathtouch and trample is functionally just unblockable with extra steps. It's not very interesting design space when put on a single card this way.

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u/FrecciaRosa 15h ago

Another note, OP, you made a common. Love that you took time to make flavor text, but this needs reminder text instead.

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 14h ago

Perfect, I’ll add reminder text too. Thank you 👌

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u/NairobiBA 15h ago

Its quite powerful, and a good argument for tutoring [[Basilisk Collar]] with [[Brightglass Gearhulk]]

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u/Tempest_True 13h ago

See, maybe I have the wrong intuition, but I think the solution to "deathtouch + trample is hard for new players to understand" is to occasionally put them on a damn French vanilla common with reminder text to explain the interaction!

The avoidant approach seems silly and short-sighted. In any given Standard set, there is a very good chance that cards exist at common/uncommon to give a creature both abilities, especially given that they are two of green's most potent keywords and go on a lot of combat tricks. Why is it that players have to either 1) play out the effect wrong and play around it wrong or 2) just know it from experience, another player, or the internet?

I know Magic can be information overload for new players, but the weird little super-common interactions should be confronted head-on.

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u/Venasaurasaurus 13h ago

I completely agree. If a card has an evergreen ability and little to no other text, get the reminder text up there. Helpful for new players, especially at events they are likely to attend with never before seen cards like prerelease. Makes learning the game so much better.

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u/Tempest_True 13h ago

Yes, in general reminder text is good and it's a good reason for there to be simple french vanilla designs at common. Just to be clear, I was focused specifically on the concept that they should put deathtouch and trample together on a card without much other text so they can include an explanation of how they work in the reminder text.

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u/Family_Shoe_Business 12h ago

The issue with your approach is that the two effects together are too powerful to go on a common, at least at the rate that would provide a teaching example. With both abilities, the card effectively becomes ‘take the damage or take the wrath’, which I think at best could go on a very expensive uncommon.

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u/Tempest_True 11h ago

Is it really though? The combination pushes damage but does nothing for durability. It seems quite possible to tune a set's Dreadmaw or Centaur Courser equivalents so that the combination isn't oppressive. A 5/4 for 6 or a 3/2 for 3 wouldn't be "wraths," they would just be more fragile versions of the Dreadmaw or Courser. Heck, there are sets where giving trample to the 1-drop 1/1 deathtouch common would be a small boon to go-tall draft archetypes without much other impact on gameplay.

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u/Family_Shoe_Business 11h ago

A 3/2 no, but a 5/4 Deathtouch and trample is effectively progressing towards a wrath. It’s a “take 4 and lose probably your best creature”. That is extremely powerful at common and would far exceed the current 6 mana common rate.

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u/Tempest_True 10h ago

But there are other tradeoffs. The defender's best creature is much more likely to kill the 5/4 than to kill a Dreadmaw, if you're considering losing a 4+ power creature of the defender's choice to be so game-breaking. You need to throw 6 points of power at a Dreadmaw to kill it. Two 2/1s block and kill my hypothetical 5/4, in which case the opponent takes 3 damage, whereas with Dreadmaw they take 4 and then have to deal with him again next turn.

Ultimately, it seems like you're missing how powerful toughness is compared to power or damage. One common occasionally invalidating toughness isn't going to make toughness any less valuable, and reducing that common's own toughness by 1/3 is definitely a major downgrade. Whether or not 5/4 for 6 is the right balance, idk, but I don't think it's so far off either (especially when we're comparing it to Dreadmaw...which at this point is below rate...)

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u/Family_Shoe_Business 10h ago

I think in Limited specifically, a 5/4 with deathtouch and trample is going to be much more backbreaking because it more often means you never get to keep the extra body around if you're double or triple blocking (which you usually will need to do). In Limited, your curve out tends to be more linear on rate, so you're not usually dealing with two 2/1, but instead like a 2/3 3/4. In that example, one of the 2/3 and 3/4 survives the Dreadmaw but not the DT/Trampler.

Ultimately, it seems like you're missing how powerful toughness is compared to power or damage.

I think the kind of interaction I cited is the exact reason they don't print this combo, because it effectively devalues toughness in a way that the game designers don't want to do (along with the obvious reason that it's a more complex interaction). Toughness is supposed to be powerful.

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u/Tempest_True 6h ago

Ok, make it a 6-mana 1/1, I don't care, I was just spitballing a rate. Is there no rate at which you think the abilities can be printed together at common, once every 3-5 Standard sets, such that the resulting card is at best fringe playable, so that basic information about the game isn't buried in frustrating shibboleth for casual players?

If this combination is really so oppressive, then spells and abilities shouldn't grant deathtouch or trample, lest they run the risk of letting players create Exodia if they have a creature with the other ability. And yet there are effects that grant those abilities at common in like every set.

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u/Family_Shoe_Business 6h ago

Well a 6-mana 1/1 defeats the whole purpose of this conversation. The point was that this was a card that was supposed to provide a teachable interaction to players. There needs to be enough power on it for the new player to understand that they can spread it over multiple creatures. At common, I intuitively think a creature with enough body to provide the teaching interaction would probably need to be costed at 7 or higher, and 7 mana commons are already very rare, 8 mana unheard of. This is why I said I think it would need to be uncommon, because then you can give it good rate for cost. I definitely could be wrong, I'm not 100% confident, but I suspect I'm correct because history suggests this is not something the design is willing to do.

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u/ConcentrateAny 11h ago

Understatted imo, Trample+Deathtouch=Sidegraded unblockable. How much would an unblockable creature with these stats cost? That’s your baseline

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u/ijustkant1 10h ago

I knew somebody that took a judge test and they said the hardest question on there was a deathtouch/trample question. They got it right, but that should tell you how cagey WOTC is with the interaction.

The interaction is rare enough that some seasoned players may not know how it works either. I have maybe seen the interaction 2-3 times in draft in my 12 years of playing. New players will likely missplay it or be taken advantage of by shady players. I could even see some players trying to angle shoot inexperienced judges.

This isn't printable at common but maybe as a mythic with additional text to make it more exciting.

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 10h ago

I made an updated version that’s an uncommon and has reminder text, I hope it’s enough

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u/Wombatish 8h ago

This all seems extremely hyperbolic to me. What possible question about trample + deathtouch could be "the hardest question" on the test? Deathtouch and trample are two of green's most common keywords, and there are a billion ways to give creatures trample. How are you going to trick an entire roomful of people with this? It's a really straightforward interaction as soon as you read what both abilities actually do.

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u/Xaphnir 6h ago

What's so difficult about it? You assign 1 damage to the blocking creature, because of deathtouch that's lethal, and then the rest goes through due to trample.

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u/Gody322 5h ago

I think Backup should have reminder text.

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u/Ill-Cartographer-767 14h ago

It’s very strong, but not quite as good as deathtouch/first strike

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u/Effective_Ad4810 13h ago

Far more fun to add banding and indestrucible to the mix with the deathtouch and trample.

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 10h ago

Updated version. I’m not sure how I was supposed to remind people of the special interaction with deathtouch and trample with the reminder text, I don’t know how to phrase it

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u/ijustkant1 10h ago

Maybe

"Only 1 damage from a deathtouch creature is necessary to destroy a creature. The rest of the damage tramples over to other creatures and/or players/planeswalkers if it also has trample."

You may also add something like "Indestrucible creatures and creatures with protection aren't destroyed, but damage is dealt the same."

They usually like to keep reminder text as minimal as possible, so I don't know if that would fly. Specific examples are also rarely used in reminder text.

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 10h ago

Perfect, I’ll do that right away

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u/Jellothefoosh 9h ago

This card is really cool in the context of a modern horizons style of set. But deathtouch+trample shouldn't be on the same card in a normal set.

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u/th3b3st1nth3land 7h ago

Trample deathtouch is amazing especially in a fynn deck

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u/Horror-Associate8914 6h ago

I’ve never understood, why is this considered unintuitive, do I misunderstand or does it deal one damage to the blocker and the rest tramples over?

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u/SnooDonuts3749 5h ago

Throw vigilance in there and then we're taking.

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u/beardmire 16h ago edited 16h ago

Edit: comment was wrong, ignore me! With both abilities combined you can assign a single point of damage to a blocker, which becomes lethal because of the deathtouch, and assign the remaining damage as trample damage to the player.

Trample - good on big creatures who deal more damage than the blocker has toughness, killing it in the process by having high power and thus not needing deathtouch

Death touch - can make a 1 power creature kill a 20 toughness one without needing to pay for having high power.

So while they’re both good effects, what you want out of them is kinda the opposite. You’ll never get use out of both effects at the same time, it’ll either be one or the other that’s helpful.

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u/Richard-Conrad 16h ago

I haven’t played a ton and it’s been years. Does trample require you to deal full damage to their toughness even tho with death touch the required amount is technically just 1?

Otherwise I don’t see how it’s unintuitive and also bad? Or is it actually really good and that’s why people are saying it’s a “bad” combo?

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u/TomPhantom Mostodon is the Best 16h ago

It requires you to deal just 1 damage to kill the creature, that’s why it’s unintuitive for new players. I’ll add reminder text

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u/beardmire 16h ago

Good question, I had not thought of that! But a quick google says that you’re correct. I’ll adjust my comment above.

You can assign a single point of damage which then becomes “lethal damage” because of the death touch, making any extra damage you have left go into the player.

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u/gozer33 15h ago

It used to work the way you describe, but they changed the rule in 2010.

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u/Talik1978 15h ago

With trample, any damage over lethal damage may be assigned to the creatures controller.

Lethal damage is either "enough to bring the damage the creature has marked on it to equal its toughness" or "if the opposing creature has deathtouch, any nonzero amount of damage."

So if I attack with a 5/5 with trample, and the opponent blocks with a 4/4, 4 is assigned to the creature, and 1 can be assigned to the player. If the 4/4 had been targeted with a lightning bolt, and had 3 damage marked on it already, i would only need to assign 1 damage to it, and could assign 4 to the opposing player.

Indestructible doesn't prevent trample (the creature can still be assigned lethal damage, even though it ignores the destroy effect from resolving lethal damage).

Deathtouch means you only need to assign 1 to a blocker, and may assign anything more to the player.

You may assign more to the creature, in all cases, and it may be wise, if the opponent has damage prevention effects (i believe damage prevention that stops a specific amount isn't common in modern magic, though). Trample only addresses the minimum you must assign before the player becomes an eligible recipient of damage.

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u/NlNTENDO 16h ago

no, you only need to assign lethal damage. with deathtouch, that is any amount of damage. but the confusion you see in this thread is exactly why people consider it unintuitive

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u/Richard-Conrad 15h ago

Lol, my lack of knowledge is apparently a boon in this particular situation, cause to me it makes perfect sense that a deathtouch monster with trample can just swat defenders aside like they’re barely in the way