what does wither do magic the gathering

[kevin]

what does wither do in magic?

[Kappu1]

Instead of dealing normal damage Wither deals combat damage in the form of
-1/-1 or some variation of counters.

So if you attack a creature with a 3/3 wither crature and it says it deals in -1/-1 counters and you attack a creature with lets say 4/4 then your creature would die and the other creature would be effectively a 1/1 becuase it has 3 -1/-1 counters.

At least from what I have used the search function for this is what I understand about how they work.

[Twanos]

basically when a creature with wither deals damage as soon as the damage is done being felt it is cleared off right away instead of waiting to clear off at the end of the turn. For each point of damage that is cleared off this way you put a -1/-1 counter on it.

but it does still initially deal it as damage because it can be redirected or prevented and will still trigger things like lifelink.

[Arix]

To be kind of pedantic, that's not really how it works. It doesn't deal damage, clear that damage off, then put -1/-1 counters on it. The -1/-1 counters are the damage. It's just that simple.