Summary
With Foundations,Magic: The Gatheringis making a major change to its rules surrounding combat that could make blocking a lot scarier.
This is one of the biggest changes in Magic’s rules for years, and even veteran players will need to keep on top of it, less they be surprised and lose some of their best creatures.
On paper, the change is simple: the damage assignment order part of the combat damage step has been removed. In simpler terms, you no longer put your opponent’s blockers in an order when more than one block your creature.
Previously, when you blocked an attacker with multiple creatures, your opponent would then order them up and deal lethal damage to one before moving on to the next.
That has been completely removed. Instead, the attacking player now simply designates how much damage is being dealt to each blocker, regardless of if it’s a lethal amount or not. You don’t have to kill one creature to move on to then next.
You still have to assign all of your damage. If a creature has trample, you need to assign enough to kill each creature before you trample over and deal damage to your opponent.
This change is because blockers traditionally have had all the power in combat, because they’d know the order damage would be applied. This gave them time tobuff the creaturesthey needed to, and could nullify an attack pretty easily.
With this change, attackers can play mind-games with a blocking opponent, by not making it clear which way the damage would be going. For example, a Gigantosaurus being blocked by ten 2/2s could choose exactly which of those 2/2s to spare and which to save, either killing five of them or spreading it out and dealing one damage to each.
Be More Careful With Your Blockers
This way, the attacker can either take out key creatures the opponent was hoping to protect by throwing other creatures in to block first, or you can avoid nasty death triggers by spreading the damage out more and not killing something.
Though this is a rules change for a very specific scenario in Magic – an attacker being blocked by multiple creatures – it massively changes the flow of combat. You’re now going to have to be more careful when blocking, as your opponent could designate damage around your plays and still mess you up.
Cards with menace will run into this new rule a lot more frequently, as they have to be blocked by multiple creatures.
Foundations will be teaching this rule to new players as part of its Beginner Box tutorials, meaning players who start from Foundations onward will likely be familiar with the new rules already. It’s veteran players who will need to brush up on their combat rules ahead of the set’s launch on November 15, lest they be caught out with a rules infraction.
Magic: The Gathering
Created by Richard Garfield in 1993, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) has become one of the biggest tabletop collectible card games in the world. Taking on the role of a Planeswalker, players build decks of cards and do battle with other players. In excess of 100 additional sets have added new cards to the library, while the brand has expanded into video games, comics, and more.
