Combat damage is a special kind of damage that is dealt by creatures during combat.

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Description[edit | edit source]

Unlike all other kinds of damage, combat damage is dealt only by creatures and only during the combat damage step of the Combat Phase. This type of damage does not use the stack and is equal to the power of the creature dealing the combat damage.

All creatures in combat deal combat damage at the same time, except when one or more creatures have first strike or double strike. In this case there are two damage assignment steps. In the first, all creatures in combat with first strike and double strike deal combat damage at the same time. Then, in the second, all creatures in combat that have not yet dealt combat damage or have Double Strike deal combat damage (this means creatures that lose Double Strike after dealing combat damage do not deal damage again).

An attacking creature that is blocked assigns combat damage among the creatures that block it. Blocked creatures with the Trample ability may also assign combat damage to players in certain cases.

An attacking creature that is not blocked assigns combat damage to its target - usually the defending player, but it could also be a planeswalker.

A blocking creature assigns combat damage among the attacking creatures it blocks, which is one creature except in the case of certain abilities.

Attacking creatures that are blocked but have the blocking creature removed from combat before the Damage Assignment Step deal no combat damage. Attacking creatures with Trample may deal combat damage to the defending player in this case.

Rules[edit | edit source]

From the glossary of the Comprehensive Rules (January 24, 2020—Theros Beyond Death)

Combat Damage Step

Part of the turn. This step is the fourth step of the combat phase. See rule 510, “Combat Damage Step.”

From the Comprehensive Rules (January 24, 2020—Theros Beyond Death)

• 510.Combat Damage Step
  • 510.1. First, the active player announces how each attacking creature assigns its combat damage, then the defending player announces how each blocking creature assigns its combat damage. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. A player assigns a creature’s combat damage according to the following rules:
    • 510.1a Each attacking creature and each blocking creature assigns combat damage equal to its power. Creatures that would assign 0 or less damage this way don’t assign combat damage at all.
    • 510.1b An unblocked creature assigns its combat damage to the player or planeswalker it’s attacking. If it isn’t currently attacking anything (if, for example, it was attacking a planeswalker that has left the battlefield), it assigns no combat damage.
    • 510.1c A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. If exactly one creature is blocking it, it assigns all its combat damage to that creature. 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. When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s actually dealt. An amount of damage that’s greater than a creature’s lethal damage may be assigned to it.

      Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). Vastwood Gorger can assign 3 damage to the Guardian and 2 damage to the Elves, 4 damage to the Guardian and 1 damage to the Elves, or 5 damage to the Guardian.

      Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). During the declare blockers step, the defending player casts Giant Growth targeting Pride Guardian, which gives it +3/+3 until end of turn. Vastwood Gorger must assign its 5 damage to the Guardian.

      Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Vastwood Gorger (a 5/6 creature) is Pride Guardian (a 0/3 creature) then Llanowar Elves (a 1/1 creature). During the declare blockers step, the defending player casts Mending Hands targeting Pride Guardian, which prevents the next 4 damage that would be dealt to it. Vastwood Gorger can assign 3 damage to the Guardian and 2 damage to the Elves, 4 damage to the Guardian and 1 damage to the Elves, or 5 damage to the Guardian.

      Example: The damage assignment order of an attacking Enormous Baloth (a 7/7 creature) is Trained Armodon (a 3/3 creature) that already has 2 damage marked on it, then Foriysian Brigade (a 2/4 creature that can block an additional creature), then Silverback Ape (a 5/5 creature). The damage assignment order of an attacking Durkwood Boars (a 4/4 creature) is the same Foriysian Brigade, then Goblin Piker (a 2/1 creature). Among other possibilities, the active player may have the Baloth assign 1 damage to the Armodon, 1 damage to the Brigade, and 5 damage to the Ape, and have the Boars assign 3 damage to the Brigade and 1 damage to the Piker.

    • 510.1d A blocking creature assigns combat damage to the creatures it’s blocking. If it isn’t currently blocking any creatures (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. If it’s blocking exactly one creature, it assigns all its combat damage to that creature. If it’s blocking two or more creatures, it assigns its combat damage to those creatures according to the damage assignment order announced for it. This may allow the blocking creature to divide its combat damage. However, it can’t assign combat damage to a creature that it’s blocking unless, when combat damage assignments are complete, each creature that precedes that blocked creature is assigned lethal damage. When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s actually dealt. An amount of damage that’s greater than a creature’s lethal damage may be assigned to it.
    • 510.1e Once a player has assigned combat damage from each attacking or blocking creature they control, the total damage assignment (not solely the damage assignment of any individual attacking or blocking creature) is checked to see if it complies with the above rules. If it doesn’t, the combat damage assignment is illegal; the game returns to the moment before that player began to assign combat damage. (See rule 722, “Handling Illegal Actions.”)
  • 510.2. Second, all combat damage that’s been assigned is dealt simultaneously. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. No player has the chance to cast spells or activate abilities between the time combat damage is assigned and the time it’s dealt.

    Example: Squadron Hawk (a 1/1 creature with flying) and Goblin Piker (a 2/1 creature) are attacking. Mogg Fanatic (a 1/1 creature with the ability “Sacrifice Mogg Fanatic: Mogg Fanatic deals 1 damage to any target.”) blocks the Goblin Piker. The defending player sacrifices Mogg Fanatic during the declare blockers step to deal 1 damage to the Squadron Hawk. The Hawk is destroyed. The Piker deals and is dealt no combat damage this turn. If the defending player instead left Mogg Fanatic on the battlefield, the Fanatic and the Piker would have dealt lethal damage to one another, but the Squadron Hawk couldn’t have been dealt damage.

  • 510.3. Third, the active player gets priority. (See rule 117, “Timing and Priority.”)
    • 510.3a Any abilities that triggered on damage being dealt or while state-based actions are performed afterward are put onto the stack before the active player gets priority; the order in which they triggered doesn’t matter. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)
  • 510.4. If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike (see rule 702.7) or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step. The only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are the remaining attackers and blockers that had neither first strike nor double strike as the first combat damage step began, as well as the remaining attackers and blockers that currently have double strike. After that step, the phase proceeds to the end of combat step.

Rulings[edit | edit source]

• If a blocker is removed the attacker is still considered blocked and only assigns combat damage if it has trample.^[1]

Trivia[edit | edit source]

• Damage on the stack was introduced in the Sixth Edition rules changes^[2] and abandoned in the Magic 2010 rules changes.^[3]

References[edit | edit source]

1. ↑If a blocking creature leaves the battlefield, is the attacker still blocked, or will it damage the opponent?
2. ↑Ben Bleiweiss (December 11, 2002). 'Damage on the Stack'. magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
3. ↑Aaron Forsythe and Mark L. Gottlieb (June 10, 2009). 'Magic 2010 Rules Changes'. magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.

Magic: The Gathering Arena is a free-to-playdigital collectible card game developed and published by Wizards of the Coast. The game is a digital adaption of the Magic: The Gathering (MTG) card game, allowing players to gain cards through booster packs, in-game achievements or microtransaction purchases, and build their own decks to challenge other players. It is commonly referred to as MTG Arena,^[1]Magic Arena^[2] or just Arena^[3] within the broader Magic: The Gathering context. The game was released in a beta state in November 2017, and was fully released for Microsoft Windows users in September 2019, with a macOS version due in 2020.

Gameplay[edit]

MTG Arena follows the same rules as the physical card game, in which players use decks of cards that include land cards that generate five separate colors of mana, and play cards that consume that mana to summon creatures, cast offensive and defensive spells, or other activate effects. Players battle other players using a selected deck, with the goal of reducing the opponent's health to zero before their opponent can do the same to them.

MTG Arena supports both Constructed Deck play and Draft play. In Constructed play, players create decks of cards from their library. The game gives new players a library of base cards and pre-made decks from those cards, but as players win matches or complete daily quests, they can earn new booster packs that add cards to their library, and allow players to then customize their decks and improve them. Unlike most physical packs of Magic cards which usually contain 15-16 playable cards, packs in MTG Arena contain 8 cards (1 rare, 2 uncommons, and 5 commons).^[4] In Draft play, players are first given a number of special booster packs to build out a deck. They then try to win as many matches as they can with that deck. Once the player has won either 7 matches or lost three games with that deck, that deck is then retired; the player gets to keep all the cards drafted and also earns rewards that provide more booster packs and resources to build up their library.

Arena follows the popular freemium paradigm, allowing users to play for free with optional micro-transactions. Players can use real-world currency to buy gems or in-game currency, which in turn can be spent on booster packs or to enter draft or constructed events. Gems are also given as rewards for winning draft mode. In addition to regular cards from the set, a player may also receive 'Wildcards' of any rarity in a booster pack or as a reward. The player may swap these Wildcards for any card of the same rarity. Magic: The Gathering allows decks with up to four copies of the same card, so once a player earns a fifth copy of a named card through booster packs, this instead is used to add to a Vault meter, based on its rarity. When the Vault meter is filled, the player can open it to gain Wildcards.^[5] The game does not include a feature to trade cards with other players as the developers state this would affect their ability to offer in-game rewards at the level they want while effectively calibrating the economy to make it easy and efficient to get cards through game-play.^[6][7]

As with the physical edition, new expansions are introduced into MTG Arena as other sets are retired. The bulk of the game's modes require player to build 'standard' decks that use cards from the current active expansions. However, the game also has limited support for 'historical' decks that use any card available in the game, though these modes are not eligible for various progression in the game.^[8]

Development[edit]

Arena is designed to be a more modern method of playing Magic: The Gathering with other players while using a computer when compared to Magic: The Gathering Online. A key goal of its development was to allow Arena to remain current with physical releases of new expansions to the physical game, with the goal of having the digital version of the expansion available the same day that they are available in retail.^[9][10] For example, the Dominaria expansion was released simultaneously as a retail product and within Arena on April 27, 2018,^[11] while the first major core game update in several years, 'Core 19', was available in Arena on the same day as the set's street date of July 13, 2018.^[12] The game will also stay current with the designated Standard format, where cards from the last few major expansions are considered valid for deck construction. Players will not be able to gain cards from sets retired from Standard, however, playing those card in a 'Historic' mode is possible.

The core part of the development of Arena was its game rules engine (GRE). The goal of this engine was to make a system that could handle current and future rulesets for Magic to support their plan to remain concurrent with the physical releases. The GRE provided means to implement per-card level rules and effects, allowing it to be expandable. The GRE also helped towards speeding up play in the game. Compared to other digital card games like Hearthstone where an opponent cannot interact during a player's turn, Magic: The Gathering allows opponents to react throughout a player's turn. In previous iterations of Magic games that allowed this, including both Online and Duels of the Planeswalkers, these systems were found to slow down the game while waiting for an opponent to react or opt to not react. Instead, in Arena, the developers were able to use the per-card support to determine when reactions to a played card needed to be allowed, using observations from Magic tournament play. This helped to speed up the game for both players while still allowing for complete card reactions to be played out.^[13]

Arena was not anticipated to replace Magic: The Gathering Online; Online will continue to support the whole of Magic's card history, while Arena only includes cards in the current Standard sets from its initial release and any expansions going forward. Arena was first tested in a closed beta. An initial stress-test beta to selected users started in November 3, 2017, with those selected limited to non-disclosure agreements for testing purposes, while others could apply to gain access to later stages of the closed beta.^[14] The first large scale closed beta started in December 2017.^[15] Its open beta started on September 27, 2018, with its full launch expected in 2019.^[16][17] It will include a battle pass feature, known in-game as the 'Mastery Pass'.^[18] While Arena will continue to be available directly from Wizards of the Coast, it will also be released on the Epic Games Store in early 2020, and a macOS client is expected to follow afterwards.^[19]

Magic The Gathering Arena Dmg Free

In July 2019, Joe Deaux, for Bloomberg, reported that 'nearly 3 million active users will be playing Arena by the end of this year, KeyBanc estimates, and that could swell to nearly 11 million by 2021 according to its bull case scenario—especially if it expands from PCs to mobile. That’s just active users, and registered users could be higher by the millions. Already, according to Hasbro, a billion games have been played online'.^[20] Of Hasbro's franchise brands, only Magic and Monopoly logged revenue gains last year. Brett Andress, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, predicts Magic: The Gathering Arena adding as much as 98 cents a share in incremental earnings to results by 2021 (which is at least a 20% boost).^[20]

Arena had its full release for Windows users on September 26, 2019, aligned with the release of the tabletop card game expansion, Throne of Eldraine.^[21][22]

Esports[edit]

In December 2018 Wizards of the Coast announced at The Game Awards 2018 that an esports pool would be created for the game for 2019. The $10 million prize pool will be equally divided between the traditional tabletop game and the new digital version Arena.^[23]

In 2019, Wizards of the Coast unveiled a new esports program which started with a special Mythic Invitational event and a $1 million prize pool at PAX East, in Boston, on the weekend of March 28-31.^[24] The event was held in as series of three double-elimination brackets using a new MTG format described as 'Duo Standard' requiring two complete decks with no sideboarding.^[25] The event was won by Andrea 'Mengu09' Mengucci claiming the top prize of $250,000. On February 16th 2020 Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa won the 2019 Magic World Championship. The format for the top 8 of this tournament was standard and the matches were played on Magic Arena.^[2][3]

References[edit]

1. ^'Magic: The Gathering reveals MPL Weekly on MTG Arena'. Dot Esports. 2019-04-28. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
2. ^ ^abNieva 04/02/19, Jason (2019-04-02). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena Mythic Invitational Champion Crowned At PAX East'. Player.One. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
3. ^ ^abChannelFireball. 'Mythic Invitational Champion'. www.channelfireball.com. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
4. ^'Promotional Droprates'. MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Retrieved 2019-01-17.
5. ^Fahey, Mike (January 17, 2018). 'How Buying Cards Works In Magic: The Gathering Arena'. Kotaku. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
6. ^Jones, Ali (April 25, 2018). 'Magic the Gathering: Arena won't have trading to create a 'unique digital experience''. PCGamesN. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
7. ^Wizards of the Coast (July 28, 2018). 'MTG Arena Public FAQs, MTG Arena Economy FAQs'. Retrieved July 28, 2018.
8. ^Carter, Chris (October 21, 2019). 'Magic: Arena now supports old cards with Historic, but Wizards is doing their best to hide it'. Destructoid. Retrieved October 21, 2019.
9. ^Bailey, Dustin (September 7, 2017). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena is a recreation of the tabletop game that will eventually support draft mode'. PCGamesN. Retrieved September 7, 2017.
10. ^Barrett, Ben (September 26, 2017). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena will eventually add new cards the same day as the physical game'. PCGamesN. Retrieved September 26, 2017.
11. ^Carter, Chris (April 27, 2018). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena adds in Dominaria expansion alongside the paper version'. Destructoid. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
12. ^Carter, Chris (July 3, 2018). 'Core 2019 confirmed for Magic: Arena on July 12, new player experience on the horizon'. Destructoid. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
13. ^Barrett, Ben (October 5, 2017). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena makes the world's best TCG as snappy as Hearthstone'. PCGamesN. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
14. ^Chalk, Andy (October 25, 2017). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena stress testing starts in November, closed beta coming soon'. PC Gamer. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
15. ^Minotti, Mike (November 21, 2017). 'Magic: The Gathering — Arena's closed beta launches December 4'. Venture Beat. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
16. ^Wilson, Jason (September 19, 2018). 'Magic: The Gathering — Arena launches open beta test September 27'. Venture Beat. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
17. ^Tarason, Domonic (September 27, 2018). 'Magic: The Gathering Arena ups the ante and launches into open beta today'. Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
18. ^Forster, Danny. 'Big changes coming to MTG Arena with Core Set 2020 update'. Dot Esports. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
19. ^Williams, Mike (August 19, 2019). 'MTG Arena Coming to Epic Games Store This Winter'. USGamer. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
20. ^ ^abDeaux, Joe (July 7, 2019). 'Move Over Monopoly: Hasbro's Next Big Growth Engine Is Magic'. Bloomberg. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
21. ^Hall, Charlie (September 4, 2019). 'Magic: The Gathering's new digital version will be released this month'. Polygon. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
22. ^Purchase, Robert (September 26, 2019). 'The free Magic: The Gathering game has just launched and it's quite good'. Eurogamer. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
23. ^'Magic: The Gathering launches esports league with huge price pool'. Esports.net. 2018-12-07. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
24. ^'Magic Esports 2019: $10 Million Up for Grabs'. MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
25. ^'The MTG Arena Mythic Invitational'. MAGIC: THE GATHERING. Retrieved 2019-05-01.

External links[edit]

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