How would first strike and deathtouch interact with multiple blockers in this scenario?

Question

How exactly would the following work?

I have a creature with first strike and deathtouch, it's enchanted to be able to block any number of creatures (Entangler). Lets say its a 2/2 and it blocks five 3/3's - what exactly would happen?

Suppose the same creature is instead enchanted with Lure:

All creatures able to block enchanted creature do so.

Lets say I attack with that 2/2 and my opponent has five untapped 5/5's that are forced to block. Again, what exactly happens?

I'm hoping to build a green/white/red deck based off of these combos but I'm a little confused about the mechanics of it all.

Answer 1

You would only be able to destroy two of the blocking creatures. For deathtouch to have an effect, you must do damage to a creature. On the plus side, an attacker with deathtouch only needs to assign one damage to each blocker. In your scenario, your creature is only a 2/2, and so even with a team of blockers, only two damage can be shared among them.

Based on your scenario's here is the change needed to leave your creature alive yet destroy all blocking or attacking creatures: your Entangler must be at least a 5/1. I say a 5/1 because toughness can't be 0 and you must be able to deal at least 1 damage to all blocked or blocking creatures. Using a card such as Giant Growth would allow your creature to live assuming it has both first strike and death touch. Without the first strike as long as you have 1 power for all attacking or blocking creatures you would be able to take them out as well.

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702.2b Any nonzero amount of combat damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal damage, regardless of that creature’s toughness. See rules 510.1c–d.

704.5h If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and it’s been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since the last time state-based actions were checked, that creature is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

Answer 2

When your declare your First Strike Deathtouch creature as a blocker for multiple attackers, you must choose the order in which your blocker will deal damage to those creatures (the owner of a creature chooses the order it's damage is dealt to creatures it attacks or blocks). When this is done, and play progresses to the combat damage step (for creatures with first strike), you must then assign lethal damage to each creature in the order you chose earlier. The addition of deathtouch means that lethal damage is 1 damage for any creature, including indestructible and regenerated creatures. This means with a 2/2 first strike deathtouch creature, you can assign lethal damage to the first 2 creatures in the order you declared.

When all creatures have no more damage to assign, the damage step ends, any creatures assigned lethal damage die and combat progresses. As you would expect any remaining creatures then deal damage to your creature as normal. In your example, you would kill the first 2 3/3s and then the rest would survive to kill your 2/2.

in the second scenario, the result is very similar, all creatures that can, must block your first strike deathtouch creature. Next, you choose the order of those blockers (just as before, the controller of each creature declares the order in which it's damage is dealt), and when the damage step comes assign lethal damage in that order, killing 2 of the 5/5s and leaving 3 standing to then finish your creature.

Deathtouch makes any damage assigned lethal damage, however just as a 0/4 creature with curiosity deals no damage to a player and hence its controller does not draw a card, so too a creature with deathtouch assigning 0 damage to a creature cannot destroy that creature.

If your opponent has 1,000,000 attackers (e.g. through Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch combo), and you wish to survive and kill all those creatures, I encourage you to look at Engulfing Slagwurm which has a kind of "Super Deathtouch" which just kills any creature that blocks or becomes blocked by it, giving you life equal to those creatures toughness. In the example I just gave, you would not only survive but stand to gain 4,000,000 life in the process.