Good afternoon Judges!

I have been getting a lot of questions from local judges lately about answering questions involving trample + protection, and/or trample and deathtouch. With the trample shortcut leaving the MTR, I have found it very awkward dancing around the explanations for these interactions, and not providing strategic advice. For example the following question is asked to you, the floor judge at a local PTQ:

Adam is playing the mono green elves deck, and controls a Kalonian Hydra with 4 counters on it. He attacks Nora, who controls a Cartel Aristocrat and a Lingering Souls made 1/1 spirit token. Adam attacks, resolves the Hydra's counter doubling ability, then Nora blocks the Hydra with the Aristocrat. Before damage, Nora activates the Aristocrat's ability and names green. Both players pass priority, and go to the combat damage step. Nora then says “take no damage, aristocrat has pro-green,” and not believing her, Adam calls for a judge.

At the table, Nora tells you that the Hydra can not do damage to the aristocrat, so none of the damages occurs due to protection. Adam then shakes his head, and states “how does trample and protection work?”

The typical response I will use is “you have to do lethal damage (damage equal to its toughness) to the creature, any additional damage can trample over. Adam then states ”so I can kill it, so it Nora takes no damage? This is the point where I do not know where to go to avoid strategic advice?

How would you finish this interaction, or handle the whole interaction?

Edited Amanda Swager (Sept. 20, 2013 12:08:55 AM)

I agree this can be very difficult for players to grasp. Once they understand the difference between assigning and dealing damage this becomes much easier to explain.

Protect prevents damage being dealt, it does not stop or affect in any way the actual assignment of damage. So when you go to assign your trample damage you would assign it as normal with lethal being 2 on the cartel and 6 trampling over. After you assign your damage the damage is then dealt at which point cartel prevents the damage to itself due to protection.

Deathtouch just makes lethal always equal to 1.

-Ariel Adamson

On Sep 19, 2013, at 2:29 PM, “Michael Swager” <forum-6048-7b25@apps.magicjudges.org> wrote:

I find it useful to state each rule in isolation. It provides them with the relevant knowledge, but its up to them to strategically string it together. So for instance, in your example, I'd walk through each step - first have them do damage assignment, and state the rules on trample damage, then do the actual damage, and state how the damage actually applies. Also your language here is important - saying you have to DO lethal damage to a creature isn't actually true, and your very example illustrates why. Using proper terminology from the get-go can help avoid misunderstandings, and help you convey the difference between ideas without spelling it out to the extent it constitutes strategic advice.

Right, I agree that the crux here is assign lethal vs do lethal damage. The bridge I am finding tough here is I tend to believe explaining the difference between assign and lethal damage oversteps the strategic advice boundary at competitive REL. If I say “you have to assign 2 to the aristocrat, the rest can trample over” I am now telling him to assign 2, and have the rest go over.

Colleen, this is a great idea in terms of terminology. How specifically would you state these sequence of interactions then?

Edited Amanda Swager (Sept. 19, 2013 10:50:41 PM)

First you must order the blockers. Once both players have passed priority you move to the combat damage step.

Now you must assign lethal damage to each creature in the order of blockers declared.

“What's ‘lethal damage’ mean?”

Good question. It means an amount greater than or equal to a creature's toughness. Unless it has deathtouch in which case it's 1.

After all damage is assigned, damage is dealt simultaneously. This is where prevention effects like Protection kick in and prevent the damage.

Now any triggers go on the stack, then state based actions are checked, destroying creatures with lethal damage on them.

Any questions?

–

Maybe a little overly verbose, but I don't think this is coaching the player in any way.

I've had this question come up before, and will usually state it as “Trample means that you only have to assign ‘lethal damage’ to the blocking creature, which usually equals its toughness. Then you can assign the rest to the player. Once you've assigned the damage, it all gets dealt simultaneously.”

If they ask about protection, I'll emphasize that protection only prevents damage actually dealt to the thing, and that assigning damage is not actually dealing damage.

Usually this makes it clear enough that they can proceed. If they ask me something like “How much damage can I assign to the player?” then it gets a little tougher; I reiterate that it's up to the attacking player to assign the damage legally, restating any particulars of the above rules if asked. If they just ask “So I can assign 2 to the Aristocrat and 8 to the player?” I'll just affirm that this is a correct statement.

Edited Rebecca Lawrence (Sept. 19, 2013 11:24:21 PM)

You can always ask the player to re-state their question if you feel that answering their original question would provide strategic advice.

“How does trample and protection work?”
“What specific part of that interaction are you asking me about?”

That question is simple enough that a player will usually reword their question so that they are asking a rules question rather than a question that could lead you to give strategic advice.

As far as the “How much damage can I assign to the player?” question goes, I would simply answer that after they have assigned lethal damage to all blocking creatures, the rest is allowed to trample over. If they don't understand that, the followup question they usually ask is “What is Lethal Damage?”, which is a perfectly fine question to answer.

The way I've answered the question, granted I haven't been asked it at Comp REL yet, is as:

“You must assign what would be lethal damage in order to trample through for the rest. ”

So far it seems to be working well. The addition of ‘would be’ seems to key people into how it works. I know it worked for me when I asked the same question as a new player.