Let's say a 3/3 creature with double strike, trample and deathtouch attacks, and a 0/10 creature with indestructible blocks. During the first strike combat damage step, 1 damage is assigned to the blocker, the rest to the defending player.

Question: Is the 1 damage that's marked on the blocking creature considered lethal? In other words, do i have to assign (at least) 1 damage again during the second combat damage step?

I assume the relevant rule is:
702.2c Any nonzero amount of combat damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal damage for the purposes of determining if a proposed combat damage assignment is valid, regardless of that creature’s toughness. See rules 510.1c–d.

From this, i can see that damage from sources with deathtouch that's assigned to a creature is considered lethal, but i don't see anything of the sort about damage that's marked on a creature. Therefore, i believe the existing marked damage isn't considered lethal. Am i correct?

Edited Grigory Startsev (Dec. 15, 2017 05:32:25 AM)

Hi,

Thanks for your question. Once we've passed the point of state-based actions being checked after the creature with deathtouch has dealt damage, there's nothing special about that damage (it's the reason why if, after the deathtouch creature dealt damage, you removed indestructible from the 0/10, the 0/10 is not immediately destroyed by the damage).

In this case, during the normal combat damage step, the attacking 3/3 will have to assign 1 more damage to the 0/10 creature, since the 0/10 has 1 damage marked on it, and that damage has nothing special associated with it. It doesn't matter that the damage was dealt by a source with deathtouch earlier, it does not count as having lethal damage assigned to it anymore.

Thanks,
Nathan Long
Magic Rules NetRep