Since your Cap's power is negative, it doesn't deal damage at all according to the rules. Before the game goes into the first combat damage step, the cunning opponent “shrinks” your Captain, say, by choosing it as the first target for Agony Warp. So, the nearest point when you are able to react to a creature with first strike or double strike dealing damage is after the consequences of this damage have been processed.īut look at the bright side: after gaining priority you may cast instant spells, activate abilities and perform special actions! If one player controls multiple triggers, he or she places the triggers in the order he or she chooses. They do not use the stack, there is no pause between those, players do not gain priority until both are performed.Īfter combat damage is dealt, the game state is checked, SBA are performed if necessary, then the players place the awaiting triggers on the stack. I hope you remember that assigning and dealing damage are turn-based actions. In the first combat damage step only creatures with first strike and/or double strike assign and deal damage. By default, the combat phase consists of five steps:īut if a creature with First or Double strike partakes in combat, an additional step is squeezed in, and the phase looks like this: We are ready to take a look at the most important: First Strike and Double Strikeįirst strike and Double strike not only influence the way damage is dealt, but also modify the turn structure. Her ability triggers again and if it resolves, yet another counter is put on her. Then during the second combat damage step, Markov Blademaster assigns and deals 2 damage. When it resolves, she gets a +1/+1 counter. If Markov Blademaster attacks a player and isn't blocked, then at the first combat damage step she assigns and deals one damage to the player. That means that if the ability gets countered or removed from the stack otherwise, the vampiric girl doesn't get any counters ( Disallow). The +1/+1 counter is put on Markov Blademaster as the ability resolves. it counts players that took damage, not the damage itself. And if multiple players take damage (remember the redirection effects?), Markov Blademaster's ability triggers that many times.

We don't care which player takes that damage. In this case it matters that the damage is combat damage dealt to a player (a Planeswalker is not a match!).

We have already faced such an ability when we inspected Fiend of the Shadows.

Before we set to practice first and double strikes, let us take a look at our visitor.

How does first strike work