Creatures with trample may deal "excess" damage to the defending player if they are blocked. For example, under normal circumstances, if a 6/3 attacker is blocked by a 1/1 creature, the attacker's 6 damage is all directed at the defending creature, despite it being only able to take 1 damage before being killed. If, however, the attacker has trample, the attacking player may choose to have the difference (in this case, 5) between the attacker's power and the defenders' total toughness "trample over" and be assigned to the defending player; this choice is to be made by the attacking player, and circumstances can arise in which "overkilling" the blocking creature is a more advantageous move. Even if the blocker does not take the damage (if it is prevented, for instance) the trample damage is still assigned to the defending player. Trample only applies when a creature with trample is attacking; if a 6/3 creature with trample blocks a 1/1 attacker, the blocker's extra 5 damage cannot be assigned to the attacking player. Creatures with trample are most often green or red.
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Famous quotes containing the word trample:
“We make a ladder for ourselves out of our vices when we trample them.”
—St. Augustine (354–430)
“There they stand, the small ones, like grass and weeds and scrub—innocent in their wretched insignificance. And now I make my furtive way through them and trample down as few as I can—but in doing so disgust consumes my heart.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“A man shall perhaps rush by and trample down plants as high as his head, and cannot be said to know that they exist, though he may have cut many tons of them, littered his stables with them, and fed them to his cattle for years. Yet, if he ever favorably attends to them, he may be overcome by their beauty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)