EVERYTHING you need to know about the NEW Foundations Combat Rule change - MTG Rules

casually pumps up the jam

Why ? Why change it ?
This is a HUGE nerf, not a minor one. This makes pump spells unplayable.

I'm still having trouble understanding, what happens if someone is attacking me with 1 creature and I declare 1000 blockers, does the attacking creature only take damage from the creatures that it assigns damage to?

Or does it take damage from every single blocker?

If those thousand creatures were all 1/1 and the attacker was a 5/5, would it have to evenly assign 1 damage per creature across 5 defenders and take 5 back?

Or Could it assign all 5 damage to a single creature and only take 1 damage?

I really have not seen any clear explanation of this, before it was very clear, attackers took damage from each creature blocking it, now I can't tell. I get how the damage defending creatures take is determined, but not the attacking creatures.

Also how does trample work in this situation now? If someone was attacking me with a 5/5 with trample, and I declared a 1/1 defender a 5/5 defender, could they assign 1 damage to the 1/1 and 4 to me? Or would they have to kill both defenders before assigning any damage to me? And in this situation, if they chose to assign all 5 damage to my 5/5 defender, would my 1/1 defender still deal damage back to the attacker?
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The other thing I'm not clear on is if let's say someone is attacking with 2 creatures and I have 1 defender.

Could they choose to assign damage from both attackers to my defender?

If so does my defender deal damage equal to its power to each attacker? Does it deal damage equal to its power split up among the attackers as I choose?

Can they even choose to have both attackers assign damage to one creature? I know one attacker can split its damage among multiple defenders, but how does it work with multiple attackers against one defender?
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And now if someone is attacking me with five 1/1 creatures and a single 10/10 creature and I have a single defender up. In the past, I could declare my defender will block the 10/10, how does that work now? If my defender is a 1/1 as well, can they just say one of their own 1/1's dies to the blocker and the rest hits me for 14? Or do I as the defender still get to pick which attackers are being blocked, and the attacker just gets to distribute the damage however they want?

I member when damage used the stack. Worst rule ever lol

So if there is no attacking order how does first strike work with two blockers

This rule change seems to make a lot of sense to me and feels fair

But the Attacker would die too or not? When he attack both Monsters from the Defender, he would also get both damage from the Defender and die or not ?

I thought the attacker assigned damage? SO now everyone gets quasi-banding? Why?
How does this work with Trample? does the blocker now get to assign the trample damage to themselves?

Cool, but it doesn't matter, I'll keep playing "wrong" with my friends.

We've been playing with the new ruling for 10 years

Ape escape music

So if I’m attacking with 2 creatures, and my opponent picks 2 to defend? Could I then assign both of my attackers to one of his blockers to kill it? And just ignore the other blocker?

I don't like this, attackers already have a lot of advantages anyway and it just makes aggressive creatures even better. On top of the fact that creatures are vastly more effective than most card types since they have a body on top of any effects instants, sorceries, enchantments and artifacts can posses and most creatures nowadays do have those effects, vanilla bodies are almost nonexistant.

This is such a bad change. The defender should always know which order or decide in what order especially since attacker gets first priority. Go big eldrazi or Dino decks are gonna become a lot more played now. No need for a finesse deck when you control the blockers and don’t have to let them know the order they will block in until after priority

As someone who is new to Magic, this is much more intuitive and less confusing. Should have been like this from the start.

This is how i always played it, its also how it was played on the old magic online version. Is this new this set ?

I'm going to stick with the rules that make combat actually interesting

Thats not new thats just the way it used to be lol. They are just scrapping the BS block rules pre 2010.

it's a fine change but I'll miss it since I've tricked my oponents more than once with this

Damage assignment order was always a rule that only existed to make the game more convoluted
But what's weird is that you don't have to declare the damage division first

Massive buff to Sword of Kaldra

Damage assignment order was always a rule that only existed to make the game more convoluted

in short now damage is divided after instances and abilitys are resolved meaning attackers can more easily clear opponents defenses.
Sounds like a rule change to discourage stall tactics but as a commander player of loves playing token decks I highly doubt this will affect me much if at all.
Still this will make for a fun conversation topic next Commander Night

Ive been playing magic long enough to go through all these combat changes. However, my only question at this point is can i take my 10/10 with trample against a 2/2 and assign 1 damage to the creature and 9 to the player? Against 2 2/2 creatures can i assign 1 per creature and 8 to the player? Being able to split the damage how you see fit vs having to plow through each creature 1 at a time changes how trample works at a basic level imo.

this is influencing fogs as well?

Lol, at home we have always played by the foundation rules. For me nothing changes

what if the creature is tapped and there is unspent mana on the stack?

This rule sucks

Idk if i like this

This is just the best ad for MTGO I have ever seen

The amount of people claiming this is how they played already is concerning. I am against this change as there doesnt seem to be a need for this and now even more players will be playing incorrectly out of ignorance like before apparently.

Seems pretty clear this is just confusing for arena newbies so they go rid of it. (Ie. New players don’t like having so many stops to cast spells)

I think deathouch lure is going to get much more mean.

But damage will NOT go on the stack again, right? They are just reverting to the old rule that the attacker can distrubute the damage as they see fit, rather than just declare the queue (order) of dealing damage to all blockers?

So every creature now has the keyword:
"Banding light"

This new rule is how I have always played, and everybody at my LGS as far as I know including Judges!!? So I'm very confused... they trying to Mandela us?

Definitely thought this was always the rule. Decade of prep for this change 💪

Or play real MTG where creatures are irrelevant and you lost on turn 0.

I like this change. It reminds me more of the way we used to play in the '90s. My only small critique is that I wish the phrasing was simply that the attacker can reassign damage in response to other actions.

Pump up the jam, pump it up while your feet are stompin... 🎵🎶🎵

Let's say I have a 6/6 trample Colossal Dreadmaw and a damage tripler City on Fire, vs my opponent's two 3/3 Dinosaur tokens. Am I now allowed to assign one point of damage to each token expecting lethal damage, then assign 12 trampling to my opponent?

Basically TLDR this rule reverts to the old assignment of damage priority being for the attacking player, except you can't use combat tricks in the damage step like you used to be able to years ago as the attacker.

Seems fine.

All of this because they can't program a way for priority to be managed in the arena client....

Considering power is in general far more important than toughness, I did prefer the previous rule.

Defense is already considerably less impactful as is.
Combat tricks like these gave defensive play a slight edge, which is now gone.

But for overall gameplay, it does make things easier.
Personally I'll actually profit from this more often than not considering my playstyle.
And it makes it more beginner-friendly by simplifyling things, which is generally a good thing.

Yet I can't help but feel like this time, it's at the cost of interesting tactics, especially in limited.

Soon Wizards is going to tell me I can dump all my lands turn one. This game is just becoming more shit and more shit , oh yea and it's gonna be SpongeBob

lol I love that you started Technotronic when you said “pump it”.

i need wizards of the coast to understand that this is how everyone already played the game

to my knowledge, combat phase goes:
-declare attackers step
-post-attack priority
-declare blockers step
-post-blocker priority (giant growth would go here)
-attacker chooses damage order (unless defending creatures are in a band)
-first strike damage
-regular combat damage

this is how everyone i know has played for decades and how it was done on DotP as well, the attacker doesn't choose an order until after the post-blocker priority

As someone who prefers to play more aggressive, i see this as an absolute win.

So, how does Sorrow's Path work? With this new change.

Yes, I play Sorrow's Path!

First off. I appreciate the "pump it up" music everytime you say pump up
Second: holy shit this is huge. This got explained very briefly at my prerelease but i didnt hear properly and assumed it would be minor enough that I wouldn't need to care. This is actually a pretty big change though

Nobody talks about how broken deathtouch will become...