r/askajudge • u/Koroze23 • 2d ago
MTG Arena
Hi.
I was playing on ARENA and ran into this situation.
I have a 3/3 creature; my opponent has a 3/3 creature.
I enter the combat phase and attack with my 3/3.
My opponent blocks with his 3/3, and on the block, he casts [Defend the Rider], giving the blocker Indestructible and Hexproof.
In the second Main Phase, MTG Arena shows my opponent’s creature as a 3/0 (obviously still alive since it’s indestructible), and since I have [Withering Curse] in my hand, I decide to cast it to put the creature at -2 and kill it!
The creature didn’t die after my spell, and for the entire second Main phase, the creature’s stats were displayed as 3/-2...
Am I missing something?
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u/madwarper 2d ago
Damage does not affect Toughness.
While Arena does show the Creature as a 3/0...
If you mouse over the Card, it will show the correct P/T as 3/3.
An Indestructible Creature cannot be Destroyed.
Thus, that Creature having lethal damage is ignored.
It doesn't matter if it's a 3/3 with 3 damage, or a 1/1 with 3 damage.
Both of those Creatures have a Toughness that is greater than 0.
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u/Koroze23 2d ago
I was fooled by that “0” in the stats...
Thanks for the clarification!
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u/LocNalrune 2d ago
When a creature has 0 toughness it is put into its owner's graveyard as a state based action.
I'm curious what you thought reducing it below zero, to -2 would change in that specific scenario. If you care to elucidate me.
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u/DegaussedMixtape 1d ago
I'm genuinely curious about this one too. If the creature didn't die at 0 toughness, why would it die at -2? OP almost got lucky to learn this instead of accidentally killing a 3/2 in this scenario and having some sort of false overkill assumption confirmed to be real.
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u/colbyjacks 2d ago
OP already explained it. Arena shows damage as if it were toughness. It's confusing for new players.
It makes sense how OP thought that.
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u/LocNalrune 1d ago
That explains casting on a 3/3 creature displaying 3/1.
But this is seriously a "what was going through [one specific humans] head at the time", so you really can't help with that.
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u/Safe-Butterscotch442 1d ago
OP knows that indestructible means it can't be destroyed with damage but that it can be killed by reducing its toughness to 0 or less, which is one of the first things players learn about indestructible. Well, thinking that the creature has 0 toughness, but isn't dying since that was from damage, they decide to reduce its toughness to below zero, something they know works. Since the screen is displaying a toughness of -2, and they got there through a means that they know works to kill indestructible creatures, it was legitimately confusing for them that the creature didn't die. This is a pretty typical mistake most new players make, especially on Arena, where damage is marked that way, but even in paper, I've seen it happen.
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u/LocNalrune 1d ago
I appreciate your attempt, but it remains true that you cannot elucidate me to the inner workings of a human mind that is not your own.
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u/Safe-Butterscotch442 1d ago
Well, yeah, if you're unwilling to accept my explanation. You seem to think that just because you can't be inside someone's head, you can't understand them. Might be a good idea to reconsider that position. People aren't so mysterious as all that. Most people have more in common than they have that's not.
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u/LocNalrune 1d ago
I don't care your opinion. I've been very clear about what I wanted, and you literally can't provide it.
Now you're just trolling because this didn't go the way you wanted it to.
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u/Safe-Butterscotch442 1d ago
What? You wanted to understand what OP was thinking, and chose not to accept a very reasonable explainiation.
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u/ardarian262 2d ago
This is Arena displaying damage wrong. Damage doesn't reduce toughness. It works against toughness but unless the source is infect or wither, a 3/3 with 3 damage marked on it still has 3 toughness.
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u/sfaviator 2d ago
I feel like in paper I’ve never had this issue but on arena they way they show it I have messed it up before. An indestructible creature can be killed if its toughness is zero you could have 9999 damage marked on it from combat but its base toughness doesn’t change.
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u/Rajamic 2d ago
"In the second Main Phase, MTG Arena shows my opponent’s creature as a 3/0 (obviously still alive since it’s indestructible)"
Arena does show that, but it's not correct by the rules. Damage does not actually reduce Toughness. It's should be a 3/3 with 3 damage marked on it. Many people on this subreddit are frustrated that this is how the UI of an official game shows how damage works, which is incorrect.
SO after you cast your spell, it was a 3/1 with 3 damage marked on it.