All Champions have a defence value. Even if a Champion’s printed defence value is 0, it can still be modified by card effects. A Champion’s defence value cannot go below 0. When a defence of 0 gets reduced, it remains 0.

During this step, the current defence value of the defender is subtracted from the current strength value of the attack. Remember to include any modifiers to strength and defence values in this step. Defence values are always applied to every attack made against the Champion, unless reduced or bypassed by a card effect. The end sum of this is the attack damage.

The attack damage is dealt to all targets of the attack. Place on the Champion card damage tokens equal to the damage the Champion is dealt. Keywords that affect damage such as Poison, Double, and Lifesteal are resolved in this step.