Knight Exemplar question

Your opponent has a Knight Exemplar and x amount of other knights in play.

you earthquake for lethal damage to the creatures.

what happens exactly?
The damage is dealt to all of them, but all but the exemplar are indestructible while he is in play. however, he is dealt lethal damage and leaves the battlefield. Does the damage "fall off" the other knights before he goes/when he goes/after he goes?

Trying to find the ruling ... but I think it would go like this:

-Lethal damage to Knight Exemplar

Now it goes one of these routes depending on how the rules define damage:

-Knight gets discard because of lethal damage
-Knight's ability leaves play, Knights now lose Indestructible
-Damage is on all the Knights still, enough to kill them.
-They die

OR
-Knight gets discard because of lethal damage
-Remove all damage
-Knight's ability leaves play, Knights now lose Indestructible
-Knights all live.

I'd like to think the first option works. I just think that damage would sit around and wait till the End of Combat, which means the Exemp leaves play and then the other Knights follow.

~Zuty

Damage doesn't leave until the end of the turn. So he dies, then the rest die.

Indestructible is a static effect that says destroy effects do nothing. Having lethal damage is a destroy effect. Once he's gone, the lethal damage is, um, lethal.

Slyphidine wrote:Damage doesn't leave until the end of the turn. So he dies, then the rest die.

Indestructible is a static effect that says destroy effects do nothing. Having lethal damage is a destroy effect. Once he's gone, the lethal damage is, um, lethal.

LETHAL DAMAGE: damage equal to or greater than a creature's toughness OR any amount of damage greater than 0 from a source with deathtouch.

so, Dan's correct. if any creature (without indestructibility/regen shield) has lethal damage on it, it is destroyed and put into it's owner's graveyard as a state-based action. (see rule 119.6)

thank you