What Is Deathtouch In MTG?

There are many powerful creatures in Magic: The Gathering, but some are so toxically evil that they can kill with a mere touch. Deathtouch means certain death for those unlucky enough to meet a creature with this ability on the battlefield as their deadly nature leads to certain doom.

Deathtouch can come from a potent toxin, a ghostly aura, or merely being so sharp that a cut bisects the very soul of a creature. However it’s achieved, deathtouch is one of Magic’s most desirable keyword abilities for its ability to turn combat on its head. Here’s how deathtouch works, how to use, and some of the best cards with deathtouch.

What Is Deathtouch?

Deathtouch is a static keyword ability that applies to creatures. Any damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal regardless of that creature’s toughness.

The current on-card wording is: “Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.”

Deathtouch is most often found as a keyword on creatures, but it can also be given to creatures as an aura, a global enchantment, an equipment, an artifact ability, or temporarily given as part of an instant or sorcery.

Although deathtouch can be found anywhere in Magic’s color spectrum, most cards with the deathtouch keyword can be found in black or green mana.

How To Use Deathtouch

Deathtouch’s best use is to defend yourself from attacking creatures. An opponent will likely reconsider attacking with their Serra Angel if you have a Deadly Recluse, a 1/2 creature with both reach and deathtouch, because it would mean the death of their higher-value creature.

Deathtouch can also be used offensively by discouraging opponents from blocking. For example, Greater Basilisk’s deathtouch ability will likely convince an opponent to avoid blocking even if they possess a creature with greater power and toughness than Greater Basilisk because even a single point of damage would mean their creature’s death.

Deathtouch can often provide opportunities to damage opponents directly. In the previous Greater Basilisk example, an opponent will likely take the damage rather than sacrifice a larger creature to the basilisk, allowing you to play Giant Growth for even more damage.

Deathtouch can also be combined with other keyword abilities for greater effect. Normally, a Mirkwood Spider would also die after blocking anything as it’s a mere 1/1 creature. However, if you give that Mirkwood Spider first strike or double strike, it will assign its damage before your opponent, causing the opposing creature to die before it can assign damage to the Spider.

First strike or double strike with deathtouch is an incredible combination that essentially allows any creature with both abilities to kill in combat without fear of reprisal with very few exceptions. Some of the best creatures in Magic combine these keywords, which will be discussed further below.

Trample is another keyword that works well with deathtouch. As trample allows you to assign damage to an intended opponent or planeswalker after lethal damage is assigned to a blocking creature, deathtouch means you can assign one damage to the blocking creature to kill it and then assign the rest to the opponent or planeswalker.

Finally, deathtouch functions regardless of how the damage is dealt. For example, if a Prodigal Sorcerer becomes equipped with a Gorgon’s Head (an equipment that provides the equipped creature with deathtouch), then the Sorcerer’s ability to deal damage to a creature by tapping would also carry the deathtouch ability, destroying any creature the Sorcerer deals damage to.

However, deathtouch is not all-powerful. Creatures can use the regenerate keyword to avoid dying from deathtouch, and preventing all damage (such as with the instant Fog) also prevents deathtouch from activating. Creatures with the indestructible keyword are also not destroyed by deathtouch.

Best Cards With Deathtouch

There are a lot of cards that either inherently have deathtouch or bestow deathtouch to an existing creature. Here are a few of the better examples, but note this is far from an exhaustive list.

Baleful Strix

One of the things that deathtouch does is guarantee the like-for-like trade of a card in combat—if you block with a deathtouch creature, it’s likely to go down, but it’ll take an opponent’s creature with it.

Baleful Strix introduces the concept of card advantage in an interesting way. Because Baleful Strix draws a card upon entering, you’ll be one card ahead of your opponent when the Strix inevitably gives its life to take out an opposing creature, and having more cards than your opponent is a well-tread path to victory.

Acidic Slime

Acidic Slime provides the same card advantage trick as Baleful Strix, but in a different way. Instead of drawing an extra card, Acidic Slime takes out both an opposing artifact or enchantment as well as a creature, something known in Magic as a “two-for-one.”

The end result is the same—you have one more card than your opponent—but you get there in a slightly more aggressive fashion.

Hornet Queen

To cap our discussion on card advantage, Hornet Queen produces a swarm of flying 1/1 tokens that all have deathtouch, each of which can (usually) take out an opposing creature. Best-case scenario, Hornet Queen takes out five opposing creatures for just one card and seven mana.

Ohran Frostfang

Ohran Frostfang forces an interesting choice on your opponent. Because it gives every attacking creature deathtouch, anything your opponent blocks with is likely to be destroyed, but not blocking means the attacking player draws as many cards as unblocked creatures.

Preacher Of The Schism

Because deathtouch discourages your opponent from blocking, Preacher of Schism can attack with reduced risk of being blocked and therefore leverage its other two abilities to greater effect.

Thalia And The Gitrog Monster

Forget about the rest of this card’s text and focus on the combination of first strike and deathtouch. This means Thalia and the Gitrog Monster will kill any creature they face (with a few exceptions) before they can in return receive damage. The rest of the text is also pretty great too, but has less to do with deathtouch.

Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats

There’s no deathtouch for planeswalkers, unless you’re Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats. This card not only bestows deathtouch on your entire team, it also kills planeswalkers with any damage it or any other creature you control deals.

Sheoldred, The Apocalypse

Honestly, deathtouch on Sheoldred is hardly the big draw to this very expensive card, but it does mean the Sheoldred can menace people in combat almost as well as it menaces players outside of combat.

Questing Beast

One of the downsides of deathtouch is if your opponent knows they’re going to lose a creature, they might as well just throw a weak 1/1 or 2/2 at the problem rather than lose something more significant. Questing Beast prevents a chump block by ensuring that anything it kills has at least three power, plus a bunch of other useful stuff on a very efficient body.