so me and my friends are having a bit of an argument. He want to add a palace guard to his edh deck and give it first strike. So how do the rules work for that? Particularly against a group of attacking tokens?
When a creature like Palace Guard blocks multiple attacking creatures, it’s basically the same situation as when an attacking creature is blocked by multiple blockers.
The player who controls the creature that’s in combat with multiple other creatures chooses in which order that creature will assign damage to the creatures blocked by (or blocking) it. It can’t assign any damage to creatures later in the damage assignment order until it assigns lethal damage to each creature before that creature, and it only gets to assign a total amount of damage equal to its power.
For example, if Palace Guard has first strike and blocks five 1/1 tokens, then its controller will put those tokens in a damage assignment order. When damage is assigned, it will assign and then deal 1 damage to the first token, killing it. It won’t get to assign or deal any damage to the other tokens since it has already dealt its full power in damage. In the second combat damage step, the remaining four tokens will each assign and deal 1 damage to the Palace Guard, killing it.