Prevent Damage

tdellaringa
tdellaringa Posts: 89
edited July 2016 in MtGPQ General Discussion
Can someone explain how it works? Having a hard time finding anything on it specifically.

Comments

  • Barrelrolla
    Barrelrolla Posts: 289
    I think the creature that has prevent damage should not receive any damage, from spells or creatures, while the effect lasts.
    I use it for example when my 3/3 will attack a 4/3 defender and I want it to survive.
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
    I'm pretty sure in this game, "prevent damage" also prevents the creature from being destroyed while "prevent damage" is in effect. It's effectively the paper equivalent of "indestructible".
  • BigMao
    BigMao Posts: 117
    EDHdad: Have you tested to see whether Prevent Damage creatures are affected by "minus toughness" spells such as Languish?
  • EDHdad
    EDHdad Posts: 609 Critical Contributor
    I haven't tested that specifically, but my expectation would be that they would die as a state-based action. In paper magic, -x/-x spells are often used to kill indestructible creatures.

    My expectation is that gaining -6/-6 is not the same as taking damage. I seem to recall that when I was playing Jace consistently, I could use his first ability to Nerf a creature's power unless that creature had hexproof. However, if I hit a creature with "prevent damage" with Turn to Frog, my expectation would be that the creature would live and it would spawn a frog.
  • shteev
    shteev Posts: 2,031 Chairperson of the Boards
    tdellaringa wrote:
    Can someone explain how it works? Having a hard time finding anything on it specifically.

    This game really needs an official FAQ. Some people are paying real money for these cards, so it's only fair that they should be able to find out exactly how prevent damage works, or hexproof works, or disable works...
  • Hibernum_JC
    Hibernum_JC Posts: 318 Mover and Shaker
    We do have a FAQ in the works, btw.

    As for Prevent Damage, this is how it works right now. (it's always subject to change!)

    When a creature has Prevent Damage, any damage received from ANY source is nullified. This include 'Destroy' effects, since what they do is deal damage equal to the target's toughness.

    The one thing it doesn't currently bypass is stat reduction. If you give 0/-4 to a creature, it does not count as damage, and so this is works.
  • Morphis
    Morphis Posts: 975 Critical Contributor
    Hibernum_JC wrote:
    We do have a FAQ in the works, btw.

    As for Prevent Damage, this is how it works right now. (it's always subject to change!)

    When a creature has Prevent Damage, any damage received from ANY source is nullified. This include 'Destroy' effects, since what they do is deal damage equal to the target's toughness.

    The one thing it doesn't currently bypass is stat reduction. If you give 0/-4 to a creature, it does not count as damage, and so this is works.
    Never thought about it but would it be possible to change the way kill spell work? I mean making a kill spell give 0/-X to creature where X is the toughness.
    This way prevent damage would work more like expected and also be "less op".

    The only thing(not knowing any of the implementation details of course) that it would affect is undergrowth champion.
    I am under the impression that UC was implemented with kill spells "immunity" just as a side effect of this whole matter and not as a real development choice, cause in paper version it is killed with kill spells.
    So if it would end up making UC prone to kill spells it would effectively balance it(the mana cost should go back to original value as a counterbalance).

    Again, I obviously do not know the side effects of such a mechanic change, or how difficult it would be to do it in the first place.
    Since you would be getting two birds with one stone, wouldn't it be worth it anyways?

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