For Tryndamere's excess damage ability, if the battlefield has 2 units with 3 Might each, does excess damage count after killing one unit (since 5 damage remains), or must there be 5 excess damage after ALL units are killed?

Question

Accepted Answer

Excess damage only exists once you've assigned lethal damage to all opposing units. You may not treat leftover damage as "excess" while there are still enemy units that can receive lethal damage. So in the scenario with two 3-Might units, having 5 damage remaining after killing one unit does NOT count as excess damage as long as the other 3-Might unit still exists to be assigned damage to. Excess is the damage remaining after lethal damage has been assigned to all units [460.2.c.3] [460.2.c.4].

You must assign lethal damage to the remaining 3-Might unit before any damage can be considered excess. Only damage beyond the total required to assign lethal to every opposing unit becomes excess (i.e., after all units have been assigned lethal damage) [460.2.c.3] [460.2.c.4] [143.2.a].

Determine the summed damage your side is assigning and the Might of each enemy unit at the battlefield at the time of assignment [460.2.c.2] [460.2.c.3]. Assign lethal damage to one enemy unit (equal to its Might) before assigning any damage to another enemy unit; repeat until either you run out of damage to assign or there are no more enemy units to assign to [460.2.c.3]. If you still have damage remaining after you have assigned lethal damage to all enemy units, that remaining damage is excess (because no further units remain to have damage assigned) and can be counted for effects that reference "assigned excess damage" [460.2.c.4]. If, at any point, enemy units leave the board or become non-board objects, different rules about targeting and assignment relationships may apply, but excess only exists when there are no further units left to assign lethal damage to [FAQ:unleashed#22] [460.2.c.4].

If an effect changes what counts as lethal damage (for example, altering the lethal threshold for units you damaged), the amount required before damage becomes excess changes accordingly; check those effects' text and relevant clarifications [FAQ:unleashed#8]. If a unit's Might becomes below 0 it is treated as 0 when referenced for assignment; this can alter when you reach the point of having no further units to assign to [143.2.b]. If enemy units are removed from the board into a non-board zone during resolution, assignment relationships may break; damage already assigned to non-board objects becomes irrelevant for assignment calculations per targeting rules [FAQ:unleashed#22]. If a triggered ability checks "assigned X excess damage" (like Vi - Piltover Enforcer wording), that check uses the result of the assignment process (i.e., whether you had leftover damage after assigning lethal to all units), not an intermediate moment after one unit was killed [460.2.c.3] [460.2.c.4].

The Core Rules require you to assign lethal damage to units in order before assigning to another [460.2.c.3]. You may not put more damage on a unit than the minimum required to kill it while there remain other units to which you could assign damage; you can only assign damage beyond lethal if there are no further units left to assign to [460.2.c.4]. "Killed" is defined as having damage equal to or exceeding a unit’s Might [143.2.a].

Applying that to your scenario: with two enemy units that are each 3 Might, you must assign at least 3 damage to one of them before assigning any to the other [460.2.c.3]. If you have, for example, 8 total damage to assign, you must assign 3 to the first and 3 to the second (6 total). Only after those two assignments are complete do the remaining 2 damage become excess. If instead you have 5 damage total, you must assign 3 to one and 2 to the other — there is no excess because there is still another unit to receive lethal damage [460.2.c.3] [460.2.c.4].

Therefore, you do NOT get to treat the 5 remaining damage (after killing one 3-M unit) as "excess" while the second 3-M unit still exists and can be assigned lethal damage. Excess damage is the leftover after lethal has been assigned to all enemy units [460.2.c.3] [460.2.c.4].

If Tryndamere’s ability specifically looks for "assigned X excess damage" (like Vi - Piltover Enforcer), it will only trigger if, after the assignment process, there was at least that much damage remaining once every opposing unit had lethal damage assigned to it. If you want a ruling tied to the exact Tryndamere card wording, provide the card text and I will apply the same rules to that specific templating.