Banding - What is it, how does it work, how to use it? Magic the Gathering's misunderstood keyword

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Banding - What is it, how does it work, how to use it? Magic the Gathering's misunderstood keyword

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Shivan Library

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 108

@HeavyMetalMouse 9 ай бұрын

In Ye Olden Days, I had a friend who loved to play monogreen stompy decks. Ramp, trample, rawr. At the time I was experimenting with white and noticed that Banding was basically 'anti-trample', so slipped in a four-set of Benalish Hero and Prismatic Ward. At which point I realized the one major flaw in playing anything related to Banding, no matter how useful or good it is for your deck - you have to explain how it works to your opponent, and even odds they simply just won't believe you, in my experience, because it sounds so ridiculous.

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Ha! Yeah, that is a big problem of the mechanic. Like, it's been 30 years and we still need a video explaining how it works.

@AgAiNsT87 6 ай бұрын

yea i remember too good making a banding deck as a kid and all my friends refusing to play against it because they felt its like cheating at one point i started to believe them that it was still the attacking player how gets to assign the combat damage hence rendering banding quite useless but i guess nobody of us fully understood the mechanic back then shame that youtube wasn't as accessible xD edit: i rembered that some time later there was an enchantment that allowed the blocker to assign the combat damage so for them this was proof that the attacker always assigns the combat damage even if creatures with banding are involved

@davidhowell1415 9 ай бұрын

I’m impressed you called it misunderstood. Because that is the best definition for it

@Jallorn 6 ай бұрын

Seriously- thinking of Banding as something that happens during the Declare Attackers phase, but after Attackers are declared is brilliant and I'm astonished I've never encountered that before.

@grantmurdock7385 9 ай бұрын

These days I have a commander deck that leverages banding. Everyone chuckles when I play Tolaria, questions come up about banding when I drop a Fortified Area or other enabler, and then everyone sees why I do it. Excellent explainer!

@Debatra. 6 ай бұрын

I'd love to see that decklist and torment one particular banding-hating friend of mine with it if you'd like to share.

@jaxblonk5127 6 ай бұрын

Fortified Area being in the cards that got gifted to us by an old head getting out of the game is the single card that got me interested in playing magic all those years ago, and I later built an arcades the strategist deck around it. After all, wall of fog is a perfect card to exploit damage prevention and banding. And also I had a bunch of najeela decks at my playgroup. Unstoppable force and immovable object gameplay.

@LibertyMonk 9 ай бұрын

Banding is a really flavorful and powerful ability, it really is a shame that it takes one of the most intricate parts of the game and doubles the complexity. It turns "math is for blockers" on its head. The idea of a Benalish Hero just coordinating a bunch of Savanah Lions and some Wall or regenerator in a defense so that nobody dies to some huge trampler is so cool, as is the idea of a Battering Ram bashing down a Wall of Denial in the hands of an Ornithopter or something. I'm really not sure that Banding is that much more complicated than Battles or flip-Sagas, but as evocative as the flavor is, I think it would only be worth it to print more in sets that can really make the most of the mechanic. Not a great idea to introduce it to Standard if it doesn't make a lot of people fall in love, while everybody else has to deal with thinking about the mechanic for a few years. Not that Foretell or Morph are really all that much better on that front, but people *really* don't understand Banding.

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Maybe people would have wanted to learn how banding works more if there was more good banding creatures. What we got were small, somewhat underwhelming creatures which did not look enticing. I wonder how many people would have wanted to know more if there was maybe a 4/1 banding creature for an affordable mana cost? A creature that could actually make you want to play it.

@Jallorn 6 ай бұрын

@@shivan-librarian Honestly, I think there's also more potential for flavor in the design than was emphasized. Creatures with Banding should be tacticians and strategists or selfless defenders and guardians. They should be either masterminds, putting their troops in the right place to defeat enemy tactics, or tough bodyguards shouting, "Get down Mr. President!"

@IaCthulhuFthagn 6 ай бұрын

Thing about Banding is the designers greatly overvalued it, so they didn't put it on anything with even remotely decent stats, not to mention how ludicrously expensive or situational they made things that give banding to creatures. Imagine if Baton of Morale or Helm of Chatzuk were mana rocks as well, or could cycle or sac for a card if needed (or if they were modes on Staff of Domination), or if the Legends land cycle were taplands that added mana. They wouldn't exactly be Legacy staples, but you wouldn't feel (as) bad about including them in your EDH decks either.

@Anonlyso 10 ай бұрын

Best and Cleanest explanation for banding vid, people really should just introduce it with "YOU redirect combat damage" rather than dive head-first into the technicals of "not-working with evasion" or "first you must form a mass, of which we'll label a band" and such. It's one of the neatest abilities that was done so dirty by bad explanations but also by now, with how efficient creatures are, has probably been well power-crept like regenerate or "prevent x damage" white used to have. Really just wish we had some way to give a mass/board wide Banding before it got phased out, at least beyond sinking a ton of mana into Helm of Chatzuk. Until then, the best case I can do is with a Jared Carthalion True Heir EDH deck all about re-directing damage to him and other repercussion-like effects.

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

Yeah. Banding is not difficult, it's just different from basically everything else. And because some folk make fun of it and try to make it sound confusing, people actually believe that it's confusing. I would have loved to see like a GW enchantment for a decent cost that gave your whole team banding. It would have been so good, and if it was cheap enough, people might still put it in their sideboards in other formats as a parity breaker in creature match ups.

@livedandletdie 10 ай бұрын

@@shivan-librarian It's such a fun mechanic as well, it really livens up the game a bit, and it really fucks up how people think about the combat step.

@LibertyMonk 9 ай бұрын

@@livedandletdie That's the best part of the mechanic, and the part that makes it so brain meltingly hard to understand. Combat is already half of the turn in terms of complexity, Banding isn't that bad if you've got a handle on the game, but if you don't, it's unapproachable. I feel like I have a good handle on it, but the moment anything else gets involved (say, a Cenn's Tactician is on the table, or a band full of Menace swings in) I can understand people feeling less confident.

@egoalter1276 Ай бұрын

Regenerate is still powerful, and banding in todays meta woupd be insane. Its a very powerful combat trick, that lets you preserve small creatures on both attack and defence, and with how stron small utility creatures are, it would be even mlre powerful now.

@mightyfp 9 ай бұрын

I knew a word was misspelled on gaseous form and it still took me more than 2 minutes to find it...

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Hadn't even noticed it before you mentioned it. Now I got to see how many more pure misspellings there are on old school cards

@kunopumpernikkel215 9 ай бұрын

I currently have two EDH decks with focus on banding - one of them have lots of normal creatures (many of them with banding on their own) and the other one has all the lands that allow legendary creatures to band with each other. They are both pretty fun and I always love to surprise opponents with this mechanic. You have even given me some good ideas for one of these decks, so thank YOU very much :D OH right...I did learn stuff I was not totally sure about, so I really appreciated that. I was particularly uncertain when it came to trample and blocking.

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Thanks. Glad I could help. Those Bands With lands might actually be useful in EDH. Never really thought about that angle. That is some clever secret tech.

@7Mark1983 5 ай бұрын

Would you mind shareing a decklist? I am really interested to see what did you combine.

@danacoleman4007 10 ай бұрын

I've always loved this mechanic. Never found it confusing. Nice video!!!

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

Glad you liked it.

@livedandletdie 10 ай бұрын

Banding is one of my favourite mechanics, it's just a shame how ridiculously worded it is, and how hard it is for people to understand. You can do some insane stuff with banding, as you control damage distribution. This means you can literally make it so that you can always win with a Vraska Assassin Token as long as you have a Banding creature attack alongside it. Banding is pretty strong a mechanic. People don't get how OP banding is, and being allowed to assign combat damage however you wish.

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

Yeah. The rules back in the day were just a mess and we still winged half of them. In the case of Vraska's token, you still need trample there, or you just can't assign any damage beyond the blockers. Banding doesn't get around the rule that creatures can't naturally deal excess damage to players.

@Funkytrip73 6 ай бұрын

@@shivan-librarianSo what happens when blocking a trampling 1/1 assassin token and another trampling 1/1 creature with bands with a 2/2? They need to assign all damage to the 2/2 first right? But if you block with a 2/2 and a 1/1, they can assign both points of damage to the 1/1 and state that the assassin does the excess 1 damage to the player?

@BoBnfishy 6 ай бұрын

@@shivan-librarian Looking at old magic cards you can see they thought the game was going to be a lot more open to interpretation like D&D. Then they realized people were taking it seriously and had to apply more definitive rules

@kennymaness 10 ай бұрын

bro I need you to know that as a banding enjoyer myself I deeply appreciate this content my Ayesha Tanaka deck thanks you for your service

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

My pleasure.

@koenvandiepen7651 8 ай бұрын

For some reason this video makes me feel like i entered a timelin where youtube and the internet existed in 1995

@shivan-librarian 8 ай бұрын

Thank you. That would have made early Magic quite different with people making top-10 videos of the best Homelands spoilers.

@kierafurneaux3172 8 ай бұрын

Banding and deathtouch, just off the top of my head

@ryanmanning2319 10 ай бұрын

I finally built a Soraya the Falconer banding deck and I love the way it plays. I stuffed the deck full of Coveted Jewel, Monarch, and Initiative, because creatures with banding defend so well. Nice Colossal Dreadmaw you have there. It would be a shame to trade it with my Welkin Hawk. I also like cards like Crescendo of War and Archangel of Strife, because even if your Colossal Dreadmaw has a whole bunch of extra attack, he will still only kill a 1/1.

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

That sounds freaking amazing. Kudos for making work with modern stuff.

@jujukinddd 10 ай бұрын

cool to see how banding works with trample especially!! super interesting and informative vid, ty sm !!

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

Glad you like you liked it. It is so wild what a single Benalish Hero can do in front of a giant trampler.

@TehKorwinMikke 6 ай бұрын

0:50 The "storm scale" is about how likely it is to be seen in Standard.

@pennyd.3651 4 ай бұрын

No, the storm scale is how likely the mechanic is to be printed on new cards or reprinted in new sets.

@calemr 4 ай бұрын

@@pennyd.3651The literal first sentence of the article on the storm scale is "The Storm Scale is a ranking of the likelihood that a given mechanic will be reprinted in any future Standard-legal set." Standard-Legal.

@pennyd.3651 4 ай бұрын

@@calemr Which is just a vague shortening of the actual description of what the storm scale actually is.

@calemr 4 ай бұрын

@@pennyd.3651 Oh, I'm sure they were especially focused on saving the word count by adding "Standard-Legal" to the description. Those two extra words really kept it laconic by an extra... Negative thirteen letters. And it's not like they have a meaning or anything, that might suggest the function is in some way connected to, I dunno, a specific format's rules?

@jamesgasik3424 9 ай бұрын

You didn't mention it specifically, but banding + indestructible works rather nicely as well.

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Absolutely. There are many modern mechanics that interact well with it, and Indestructable is one the better one.

@TeaGarrison 5 ай бұрын

I have been playing Shandalar lately but I have been avoiding Banding cards because I didn’t understand it. Thanks for this.

@sunlightbrewingcompany 9 ай бұрын

Hey wonderful video man, I was actually looking at using this mechanic in a commander deck and it's really helpful for me. If you made more of these "how-to" style videos I think they would catch on. These videos are probably a lot more work to make than the live match videos but if you made content for things like making tribal decks, exploiting the strengths of one-color decks, differences in multicolor strategies, etc. you would absolutely grow this channel really fast. Make some videos with simple concepts you know well and can put together without too much extra effort. I subscribed keep up the great work!

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Glad that the video was helpful and thanks for the sub. If time was not an issue, I would be making more of these kinds of videos. They are fun to make and being informative and helpful is something I aim for. That being said, I did want to learn how to make all kinds of videos. This way I can make sure that I know how to do anything if there's something I feel like I want to do, including live match commentary and gameplay stuff.

@captaindb4998 10 ай бұрын

Awesome! 🤘

@dzspdref 6 ай бұрын

Try adding in a Márton Stromgald into the deck when blocking; all your creatures get HUGE even if blocking in separate bands. Add in Altar of Dementia and mill your opponent to death. Oh, it also works with attacking, but blocking is so much nicer to save your creatures, although if attacking you might lose your Márton, but when you end turn after milling them, they lose the game.

@Matazuma 10 ай бұрын

I love banding

@Trenjeska 6 ай бұрын

Good explanation of what I (mostly) knew. The maze of Ith style abuses and the thing of bluntly assigning ALL trample damage to a 1 toughness creature were a bit of a "oh yeah, of course!" Even more interested in making a banding commander deck now XD

@devononair 7 ай бұрын

A lot of people have trouble understanding banding and I think I know what's missing. Instead of thinking of the creatures attacking or blocking "as a group," imagine the banded creatures in a pile with an elastic band around them. :)

@WIBYTIEDH 7 ай бұрын

I built a deck around Odric Master Tactician with banding being the main mechanic and it grts all levels of crazy. Being able to force blockers and forming a band with Odric raises a lot of eyebrows

@Jewels___ 6 ай бұрын

A few adjustments that could help bringing the keyword back: 1- As the band controller decides how combat damage is distributed, he would be limited on deciding the order of creatures that take the damage first and said creature have to take all damage from the same enemy creature until his toughness limit, where excess damage will go to another member of the band. So more creatures would die but you still get a choice on which ones. 1.1- If several creatures clash with the band, the band controler still decides how each blocker deals damage, separately. So yes there is a possibility of losing zero creatures when fighting with a band vs several enemy creatures. 2- Creatures with protection could reduce the damage to zero and block all of it even if it surpasses the creature's toughness because they wouldn't die while fighting, so that way of "abusing" still persists. 3- Following on the first point, no anti-trample bs. if your whole band don't have enough toughness, excess damage will indeed go through. I'm pretty sure there would be enough reasons to put some of those cards in our decks if new ones get printed. Specially as a RW players, I surely wouldn't mind having more battlefield related tricks under my sleeve.

@levendefjorder3239 6 ай бұрын

Agreed. I would have played banding, but I think the mechanic is a little bit too good and that it's unfun for the opponents. Still placing it in my pre-modern cube though 😈 (the cube is multi-part, we don't need to include the banding part😇, but it will be incuded in the Ice Age part to humour the real old-timers)

@Debatra. 6 ай бұрын

I've been saying for years how I unironically want banding to make a comeback.

@Dwarven_Steel_Games 5 ай бұрын

I don't know why banding confused people. It's very straightforward.

@Pedun42 10 ай бұрын

Back when I started playing mtg, I could not wrap my head around banding. It might have been the fact that I was more familiar with hearthstone combat and always forgot how attacking and blocking worked anyway. I don't know exactly why it was so difficult. I do know, however, that if I showed this video to myself in 2014, I would have a solid grasp of banding. Not only banding, but the combat phase in general.

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

Thank you. I tried to be as informative as I could with this video. Glad you got something out of it.

@bracket0398 6 ай бұрын

Good vid, I havent played in a long time but I did surprisingly recognise the braingeyser art immediately. Band everything! I am an old magic fogey! Dakkon Blackblade and Keldon Warlord!

@FinalTrade 6 ай бұрын

Mark Rosewater needs to watch this video. =/ Hopefully when he's gone we can get Banding back on some new cards.

@IneptCardCollector 6 ай бұрын

Had to subscribe for this one.

@3gard0g-s7one2 10 ай бұрын

great video

@LibertyFixxxer 6 ай бұрын

I have a changeling EDH deck with a bunch of tribal effects. Fortified area is in there :)

@ZeHamberglar 4 ай бұрын

I feel like the storm scale needs to be renamed at this point because Storm gets reprinted quite frequently (so frequently, that it's happened since this video released).

@AdurnaNagra 6 ай бұрын

You should work your way through all of Old Fogey's effects. Then, just have a big finale video on old rules explaining how Old Fogey would function.

@seandun7083 6 ай бұрын

One hilarious thing I recently realized is that his Echo ability doesn't do anything because he will phase out and miss the first upkeep.

@VydeoGramesJunk 6 ай бұрын

This should be great with that new Jodah 5 color legends especially since he makes your legends bigger (with the land that gives banding to your legendary creatures with each other)

@liampierce8607 10 ай бұрын

Banding plus brash taunted would be crazy

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

That sounds a nice way of making your opponent hurt.

@shpookie9604 8 сағат бұрын

if i have a 1/1 and a 7/6 in a band attacking and the blocking opponent blocks the band with a 10/9 could i allocate all of the damage to the 1/1 or does the damage go to the 7/6 when the 1/1 dies?

@adamwarehime6444 3 ай бұрын

They need to bring back banding back its not confusing at all. They still print cards with storm an its 10 on the storm scall so print banding

@Oxygen1004 8 ай бұрын

I have Baton of morale and helm of Chatzuk in my Maarika deck with creatures that have lure effects already on them. It's easily my most hated deck.

@dyne313 6 ай бұрын

Stuffy Doll / Brash Taunter

@aklepatzky 6 ай бұрын

What are good colours for banding? Obviously w, what would be a good 2ndary colour? Any commander that could take advantage of it?

@DK-ox7xi 10 ай бұрын

Can you take a look at flanking too? Doesn't get used much anymore

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

That is nice idea. I'll put it in my plan folder. Flanking have as much abuse potential, it is a fun and unique mechanic.

@janzibansi9218 10 ай бұрын

Won a draft game with that. Suq'Ata lancer enchanted with Setons desire over threshold. Cleared up the 1/1 spam really good

@Rorschachqp 4 ай бұрын

Banding is most powerful in Limited play.

@mariksebastianishtarthethi6998 9 ай бұрын

Thank you good sir. Now you are making me the most annoyin and weird player on my EDH group

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Glad to help. Don't forget to have a link to this video ready when you need to start explaining banding over and over again to every new opponent.

@MrDeathofOrigin 9 ай бұрын

I run a banding wall tribal with Zur the enchanter as commander. $25 and it's pretty competitive lol.

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Sounds nice. Just goes to show how strong the ability can be.

@yoshiyoshi9496 Ай бұрын

see but they added storm to one of the newest planeswalkers of bloomburrow, so a guy can dream

@DragoSmash 6 ай бұрын

i bought a Baton of Morale just because i love Banding Banding should return to the game as it isn't as complicated as some new stuff Change my mind

@jaceg810 10 ай бұрын

I mean, storm and cascade got reprinted recently, So I am still full of copium for banding to get an honorable mention on a novelty card that turns out to actually be a bit too good at what it does

@shivan-librarian 10 ай бұрын

I mean, considering what WotC is printing now, I would be too surprised to see a 1/1 banding, deathtouch creature for G.

@7abian 9 ай бұрын

How does Banding work in combination with Shadow when blocking? Does banding overwrite shadow? If I add a creature with shadow to a band which is then blocking, is the creature with shadow in the band able to block?

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

Unfortunately, it doesn't let you do that. With blocks, you need to be able to block the attacker with every member of the band. You do that first, and then if the blocking group has banding in there somewhere, you get the advantage.

@dyne313 6 ай бұрын

Phyrexian Obliterator

@MNman87 6 ай бұрын

How does it work with first strike or double strike? I can choose to assignee first first strike dmg first?

@seandun7083 6 ай бұрын

If you had 2 2/2s attacking in a band and they were double blocked with a 4/4 first strike and a vanilla 2/2, you would have to divide the 4/4's damage first. Since you can't have both of your creatures survive, your best move is to deal all 4 to one of them killing it. Normal damage then happens. Assuming your remaining creature still has banding you get to divide their 2/2's damage, but you only have the one creature to assign it to so there's only one choice. You can have your 2/2 take out theirs on the way out. If they didn't have first strike, then when normal damage comes around, you can instead force them to deal all 6 of their damage to a single one of your creatures saving the other one.

@jyomi7506 9 ай бұрын

honestly? I think it's less complicated than Mutate now that it's been explained... Kinda wanna try that random banding gryphon I got from the list now XD Might be worth it just for the reactions

@shivan-librarian 9 ай бұрын

You are not wrong. Mutate especially has a lot of weird and somewhat non-intuitive rules baggage when it comes to copies, bouncing and things like that.

@Eitbitman 8 ай бұрын

Banding is less complicated than mutate

@TO_Fenrir 3 ай бұрын

There are some differences between your explanation and my own interpretation of the rules, and I honestly have no Idea which is correct, could you expand on these points a bit more? 1. You say "nothing happens" when a creature loses banding midcombat. (6:08) But the rules seem to suggest that after losing banding neither of the damage step effects will work, for a defending band thats kinda obvious as the damage step is the only part where banding does anything, but if you attack, create a band, get blocked, lose banding and then go to damage step, doesn't your opponent get to assign their damage? 2. Your description of "bands with other" band creation is really confusing. (2:43) As far as I can tell you can make a band with *any amount* of "quality" creatures, of which at least 1 has "banding with other quality". I'm honestly not sure what that part of the video implies. 3. Also "the band must be formed ... in the declare blockers step when blocking" was kind of a throwaway comment at the end which I don't think many people paid attention to, but you don't declare bands when blocking at all, you just block with creatures and if one of them has banding you decide the damage from that attacker. This one I'm quite sure of.

@seandun7083 Ай бұрын

1. A band will still exist even if all is members lose banding, but you only get to divide their damage if something still has it once you go to damage. 2. Correct. Bands with other will also only let you divide their damage if a "bands with " and at least one creature are blocking/being blocked by the same thing. This is a change from normal banding where you could single block a trample creature with something that has banding and still get to divide their damage. 3. You are correct.