Looking for an {O} answer please…

During a competitive limited tournament, the following situation occurred and caused a debate after the ruling between all the judges working the event (and subsequent debates on two other forums).

Player A attacks with a 5/3 trample creature.

Player B blocks with 3 identical 3/3 creatures.

When assigning combat damage, Player A states “Kill the first” and makes no additional comments.

After combat, Player A overloads Electrickery, and wants a second 3/3 creature to die.

What happens and why?

Electrickery
Instant, R (1)

Electrickery deals 1 damage to target creature you don't control.

Overload {1}{R}

The Comp Rules actually lead us to our {O} answer: “If two or more creatures are blocking it, it assigns its combat damage to those creatures according to the damage assignment order announced for it. This may allow the blocked
creature to divide its combat damage. However, it can‘t assign combat damage to a creature that‘s blocking it unless, when combat damage assignments are complete, each creature that precedes that blocking creature in its order is assigned lethal damage.”

While it is legal to assign all 5 to the first blocker, even though its toughness is only 3, that's not the expected “normal” assignment; instead, you would normally assign lethal to each creature in assignment order, until you've assigned all damage.

So, the 2nd blocker dies - having had 2 damage assigned by the attacker, and 1 damage from Electrickery.

Both players should also be led to understanding of why it's important to be more clear about what's going on - for the attacker, to explain damage assignment; for the defending player, to ask questions when it's not clear.

Thanks! – Scott Marshall, DCIJUDGE-L NetRep, L5, Denver
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