Deathtouch MTG: How It Works, Trample, First Strike and an $84 Fynn Deck (2026)

Deathtouch is a Magic: The Gathering keyword that makes any amount of damage lethal. If a creature with deathtouch deals even 1 damage to another creature, that creature is destroyed, no matter how big its toughness is. A 1/1 with deathtouch that blocks a 10/10 kills it. The 1/1 dies too, but it has traded a one-mana card for whatever your opponent spent the most on.

Deathtouch first appeared as a keyword on Thornweald Archer in Future Sight in 2007, and it has been printed every year since. Scryfall lists 338 cards with the keyword and another 234 that give it to something else. The angle most guides skip is what that 1 damage is worth against the real creature pool, so we counted it: of 17,920 Commander-legal creatures, 5,521 (31%) have toughness 4 or more, and 1,206 have toughness 6 or more. Every one of them dies to a 1-power deathtoucher. Meanwhile 61% of deathtouch creatures in Commander have power 2 or less: the keyword lives on small, cheap bodies because it does not need a big one.

This guide covers the deathtouch rules (combat, fight spells, pingers and the zones it works from), the two questions everyone searches, does first strike beat deathtouch and how deathtouch works with trample, the most played deathtouch cards and commanders, legality in every format and an $84.28 budget Fynn, the Fangbearer Commander deck that turns each deathtouch hit into two poison counters.

What is deathtouch in MTG?

Deathtouch is rule 702.2 of the Comprehensive Rules. Rule 702.2a calls it a static ability, and rule 702.2b says what it does: a creature with toughness greater than 0 that has been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since state-based actions were last checked is destroyed. The same rule appears as state-based action 704.5h.

Three details in that rule matter in real games:

• It’s any damage, not only combat damage. A deathtouch creature that fights, that “deals damage equal to its power” through a bite spell, or that taps to ping for 1 destroys the creature it hits. This is why deathtouch pingers are among the strongest cards in Commander.
• It destroys, it doesn’t kill directly. Destruction can be stopped. Indestructible creatures ignore it, and rule 704.5h says regeneration can replace the destruction.
• It needs damage to actually be dealt. If the damage is prevented (protection, a Fog, a damage prevention shield), nothing was dealt and nothing is destroyed.

The other sub-rules are short. Rule 702.2c makes any nonzero combat damage from a deathtouch source “lethal damage” when you divide damage among blockers or trample over. Rule 702.2d says deathtouch works “no matter what zone” the source deals damage from. Rule 702.2e uses last known information if the source has left its zone, so a deathtouch creature that dies with its damage ability on the stack still destroys its target. Rule 702.2f says multiple instances are redundant: two Basilisk Collars on one creature do nothing extra.

If you want the short side-by-side with first strike, double strike and trample, our combat damage keywords guide puts all four in one table. This page goes deep on deathtouch alone.

Deathtouch rules: 12 common situations

Does first strike beat deathtouch?

Usually, yes, and this is the deathtouch question with the most searches. First strike gives combat an extra damage step (rule 510.4). If the first striker’s damage is enough to kill the deathtouch creature in that first step, the deathtoucher dies before it deals any damage, and the first striker survives. A 2/2 first striker blocked by a 1/1 deathtoucher kills it and takes nothing.

If the first strike damage isn’t lethal, deathtouch wins. A 1/1 first striker that blocks Fynn, the Fangbearer (a 1/3) deals 1 damage, Fynn survives, and in the regular step Fynn deals 1 deathtouch damage and destroys the blocker. So the real test is the first striker’s power against the deathtoucher’s toughness, and deathtouch creatures are small: 94 of the 326 in Commander have power 1 or less, and 228 of them (70%) have toughness 3 or less.

The best of both is a creature with both keywords: it kills anything it fights before taking damage. Only five creature cards print first strike and deathtouch together: Glissa Sunslayer, Glissa, the Traitor, Master of Cruelties, Thalia and The Gitrog Monster, and Nirkana Cutthroat at level 3. Our first strike guide covers the other side of this fight.

Does double strike beat deathtouch?

Same answer, with one extra wrinkle. A double striker deals damage in the first step. If that kills the deathtoucher, the double striker survives and deals its second hit as normal. If it doesn’t, the deathtoucher deals damage in the regular step at the same time as the double striker’s second hit, and both die. Scryfall lists no creature card printed with both double strike and deathtouch; you get the pair by giving one to the other, for example Fireshrieker on a deathtoucher.

Deathtouch and trample

This is the most famous deathtouch combo, and it comes from rule 702.2c. A trampler has to assign lethal damage to every blocker before the rest goes to the player (rule 702.19b), and with deathtouch, 1 damage per blocker counts as lethal. A 6/6 with deathtouch and trample blocked by a 0/8 wall assigns 1 to the wall and 5 to the player, and the wall is destroyed.

The surprise from our count: no card is printed with both deathtouch and trample on itself. Scryfall’s keyword search returns one match, and it’s Odric, Blood-Cursed, which only lists the keywords in its text. (Rhonas the Indomitable has deathtouch and gives trample, but only to another creature.) Every deathtouch-trample creature in a real game is built: Rancor, Garruk’s Uprising, Triumph of the Hordes or Ram Through on one side, Basilisk Collar, Ohran Frostfang, Bow of Nylea or Gift of the Viper on the other.

Ram Through shows the rule outside combat. It has a creature deal damage equal to its power, and excess damage goes to the controller if your creature has trample. Rule 120.4a says any damage above 1 is excess when the source has deathtouch, so a 5-power deathtouch trampler kills the target and deals 4 to its controller.

One rules change to know: since Foundations (November 2024), the game no longer has a “damage assignment order”. An attacker blocked by several creatures divides its damage as its controller chooses (rule 510.1c). With deathtouch that means 1 to each, so a deathtoucher with power N blocked by N creatures can destroy all of them.

What a 1-power deathtoucher trades with

Deathtouch is a damage keyword that ignores the number damage keywords care about. So the useful count is not the deathtouch pool but the creatures it beats. We ran it against Scryfall’s Commander-legal pool on 1 November 2026:

And the deathtouch creatures themselves (326 in Commander):

• Power 1 or less: 94 (29%). Power 2 or less: 198 (61%). Power 4 or more: 64 (20%).
• Mana value 2 or less: 90 (28%). Three-drops are the biggest group.
• Black has 164 of the 338 keyword cards (49%), green 69 (20%) and black-green 24. White, blue and red have almost none alone.
• Most common partners: flying on 48, lifelink on 29, reach on 15, menace on 8. Reach plus deathtouch is the classic anti-flyer wall (Deadly Recluse, Thornweald Archer).

So a 1-mana deathtoucher trades with any of 31% of the creature pool that a vanilla 1/1 could never touch. That makes deathtouch the best defensive keyword in multiplayer Commander, where the creature you need to stop is usually a 6/6 or bigger. It’s also why deathtouch creatures are rarely blocked: no one wants to trade a 7-drop for a one-drop.

Deathtouch beyond combat: pingers, fight and bite

Because rule 702.2b counts any damage, deathtouch turns damage effects into removal. The counts from Scryfall:

The classic pairing is Basilisk Collar on a pinger: a creature with “{T}: deal 1 damage to any target” becomes “{T}: destroy target creature, gain 1 life.” In the deck below, Viridian Longbow does the same job from the other side: it gives any deathtoucher the ping. For 1-damage board wipes, the source must be the creature with deathtouch; an enchantment or a spell that deals the damage only kills everything if it has deathtouch itself.

The 25 most played deathtouch cards

Ranked by the number of Commander decks on EDHREC that play them (1 November 2026). “Grants it” means the card gives deathtouch to something else. Prices are the cheapest regular printing on Scryfall.

Three things stand out. The most played card doesn’t have deathtouch at all: Basilisk Collar (427,449 decks) gives it, with lifelink, for 1 mana. Ten of the top 25 grant deathtouch rather than having it, so in Commander the keyword is as much a tool as a creature trait. And the top creatures are value cards that happen to have deathtouch: Baleful Strix (a 2-mana flyer that replaces itself), Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and The Gitrog Monster. Deathtouch makes them terrible to block or attack into.

Deathtouch also gets more common every year: Scryfall shows 51 new keyword cards in 2026, the most ever, after 35 in 2025 and 39 in 2024. Use our card price search to check any of them before you buy.

Best deathtouch commanders

The legendary creatures with deathtouch (or that make deathtouch creatures) by EDHREC deck count. Only Fynn and Hapatra are built around the keyword; for the rest it’s a bonus that keeps the commander alive in combat.

For a deck that wins through deathtouch rather than just using it, Fynn is the pick: 2 mana, mono-green, 19 cents, and its trigger turns every small deathtoucher into a poison clock. You can browse community builds for any of these on our public deck gallery.

Is deathtouch legal in Standard, Modern and Commander?

Deathtouch is an evergreen keyword, so it is legal in every format. Counting every card that has or gives deathtouch (572 on Scryfall, 1 November 2026):

Budget Fynn, the Fangbearer deathtouch deck ($84.28)

Fynn is a 1/3 deathtouch creature for two with one line of text that matters: whenever a creature you control with deathtouch deals combat damage to a player, that player gets two poison counters. Ten poison counters lose the game, so each opponent needs five hits. In Commander that’s fewer than it sounds, because every source stacks on top:

• Toxic and infect add more. Ichorspit Basilisk has deathtouch and toxic 1: three poison per hit. Triumph of the Hordes gives the team +1/+1, trample and infect for a turn; a 1/1 deathtoucher becomes a 2/2 that deals 2 poison as infect damage plus 2 from Fynn.
• Team-wide deathtouch turns on every attacker. Ohran Frostfang and Bow of Nylea give all your attacking creatures deathtouch, so even the mana elves, Bloated Contaminator and Evolution Sage trigger Fynn. Ohran also draws a card for each creature that connects.
• Double strike doubles the trigger. Fireshrieker on a deathtoucher hits twice: four poison counters a combat.
• Proliferate finishes the job. Evolution Sage proliferates on every land drop, plus Contagion Clasp, Smell Fear and Bloated Contaminator. Fynn’s ruling confirms Fynn doesn’t have to still be on the battlefield when the tenth counter lands.

The deck plays 33 cards that have or give deathtouch, 35 creatures in all and an average mana value of 2.23 for its 70 nonland cards. Deathtouch also makes its removal efficient: Ram Through, Bite Down, Infectious Bite, Khalni Ambush and Smell Fear kill anything when the creature using them has deathtouch, and Viridian Longbow turns any deathtoucher into a removal machine. Saryth, the Viper’s Fang gives tapped creatures deathtouch and untapped ones hexproof, and Lure on a deathtoucher with Rancor forces every able blocker into a 3-power deathtouch trampler. The deck validated clean on Scryfall: 100 cards, all mono-green, all Commander legal.

The ten most expensive cards:

Those ten are $51.69 of the $84.28; the other 90 cards cost $32.59 together. To go cheaper, cut Triumph of the Hordes first (about $72 without it) and add another proliferate card. To go up, add Inkmoth Nexus, Vraska Joins Up in a black-green build, or Atraxa’s proliferate shell. Run your version through our free MTG deck analyzer to check its curve and land count.

How to beat deathtouch

• Kill it with first strike. A first striker with power at least the deathtoucher’s toughness wins the fight. 70% of deathtouch creatures have toughness 3 or less.
• Use indestructible or regeneration. 75 indestructible creatures in Commander ignore deathtouch completely; Heroic Intervention and Tamiyo’s Safekeeping give it for a turn. Our indestructible guide lists the rest.
• Prevent the damage. Protection from the deathtoucher’s color, or any prevention effect, stops it before it is dealt.
• Chump with tokens. A 1/1 token blocking a deathtoucher costs you nothing. Deathtouch is great at trading, not at getting through.
• Remove it before combat. Deathtouch creatures are small; a -1/-1 effect or any 1 damage kills most of them.

Deathtouch FAQ

What does deathtouch do in MTG?

Any amount of damage a deathtouch source deals to a creature destroys that creature (rule 702.2b). It works in combat, with fight and bite spells and with pingers.

Does deathtouch kill indestructible creatures?

No. Deathtouch destroys, and indestructible creatures can’t be destroyed (rule 702.12b). The damage still marks, but nothing happens.

Does deathtouch work when blocking?

Yes. Deathtouch works on attackers and blockers. A deathtouch blocker destroys any attacker it deals damage to, unless a first striker kills it first.

Does deathtouch work with fight?

Yes. Fight damage is ordinary damage, so a deathtouch creature that fights destroys the other creature, even with 1 power.

Does deathtouch work on planeswalkers?

No. Deathtouch only destroys creatures. Damage to a planeswalker removes loyalty as normal.

How does deathtouch work with trample?

1 damage to each blocker counts as lethal (rule 702.2c), so all the rest of the attacker’s damage can go to the player. No card prints both keywords on itself; you have to combine them.

Does deathtouch work with infect or wither?

Yes. Infect and wither damage arrives as -1/-1 counters, but it is still damage dealt by a deathtouch source, so the creature is destroyed.

Do multiple instances of deathtouch stack?

No. They are redundant (rule 702.2f). A creature with deathtouch gains nothing from a Basilisk Collar except the lifelink. Our lifelink guide covers that half.

What is the best deathtouch commander?

By EDHREC deck count, Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice (46,056 decks) is the most played commander with deathtouch. For a deck built around the keyword, Fynn, the Fangbearer turns every deathtouch hit into two poison counters and costs under a dollar.

Is deathtouch in Standard?

Yes. 140 Standard-legal cards have or give deathtouch on 1 November 2026, and 51 new deathtouch cards were printed this year, the most of any year.