MTG Top 10: WORST Mechanics | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 163

[@sdfkjgh]

What I find funny is the fact that both banding and phasing, the two most complicated, convoluted, and confusing mechanics in _Magic's_ history, never had any reminder text printed on any of their representative cards.

[@stefanoanselmi12]

They are too old, there was no remind text on cards for mechanics in the 90's. All the existing mechanics (at the time quite few in number) had an explanation in the rulebook, followed by examples.

[@CarbonSpire]

Back in the day, a starter box came with a current rule book. We didn't need reminder text bc everyone had a rulebook handy.

[@emosquiddy5388]

I know Legends had a rules insert card in each pack, but that didn't explain Banding, only Legends and Rampage, although it did explain "Bands with other".

[@shaden489]

Phasing got reminder text like over 20 years later on tefaris protection

[@EidoEndy]

@etru6 Makes sense. I read somewhere Mirage was also when Wizards really started tightening up their templating for tournament play.

[@zachreese6498]

Gotta make things a little more confusing. Phasing happens before untap not upkeep. Check rule 702.25a

[@cstaie85]

I use two cards with phasing in Commander. Equipatose and Tefari's protection.

[@lequinow]

@@cstaie85 I played Vanishing in quite a lot of deck. A one mana enchantment that protects a dude against destroy, sacrifice, bounce, exile effects and what not is quite useful.

[@Klikkitse]

Reality Ripple & Vision Charm I know it's a little niche but they are the only cards that can specifically save a Dramatic Scepter. The synergy is neat because the Dramatic Scepter and your rocks get untapped and nobody can touch them before you have priority and all your mana available.

[@meryatathagres1998]

Old school players know how much fun phasing can be with coinflips.

[@sideshowgaming1178]

(13:04) Yes phasing is bad but.....there is one card with phasing that absolutely rocks. Most people have never Heard of it but I rocked a couple in my blue control magic/counter spell deck "back in the day". This card is king at severely disrupting your opponents mana and only affected you if your opponent ran the same colors. This wonderful, magnificent, severely overlooked card is......shimmer! It straight up rocked!

[@noctusdoesthings]

I actually liked cipher as a mechanic, though I do completely agree with the mana cost bit though. It's very powerful with unblockables especially if given hexproof/indestructible.

[@soren1803]

Noctus does things The true problem with the mechanic was a lack of good evasive creatures in dimir at the time

[@AnEnemySpy456]

I loved Cipher when I first got into Magic in 2012. I'd load my Deathcult Rogues up with tons of Ciphers and watch them go crazy.

[@noctusdoesthings]

@@soren1803 Very true, my modern mill abuses accursed spirit

[@Sky_Sovereign]

But that's the thing though. It only works when you put it on an evasive creature. Without them, the mechanic is utterly useless which happened during the standard during the time. Hated the mechanic when it came out. They could have just stuck with milling and gave it a mechanic or something.

[@Ninjamanhammer]

The problem with it was how most of the cards were over costed. In order for a cipher card to be good it would need to be good after just activating it one time, since just connecting with the creature once is actually a troublesome requirement in itself.

[@Zuranthium]

Banding is a very interesting mechanic and represents something MtG should be about more often - combat between creatures. In the right circumstances it gives a lot of board control and it also inherently cancels out Trample on an opposing creature when your banding creature blocks it.

[@m2pt5]

Banding also worked a little differently than described in the video - an attacking band could have any number of creatures with banding, and one without, and was blocked as though it were a single creature; a defending band consists of any number of creatures (where at least one has banding) blocking a single creature/band, and the only benefit is choosing how damage is divided among the creatures in the band (attacking bands also got that). Bands with other was even more stupidly complicated.

[@Mrtfarrugia]

Putting a Lure on a creature with Rampage was fun back in the day.

[@keldaris8625]

Yep. Oh you've got 10+ elves/goblins/saplings/slivers etc? Well I cast lure on my craw giant and attack. He's now a 26/24 with trample.

[@crovax1375]

My brother did that once after I flooded the board with saproling tokens. Craw Giant ended up being a 78/74 or something crazy like that

[@spacepawdyssey4288]

Rampage and Lure was always the dream play back when I first started out.

[@cinderheart2720]

Lure/Menace effects are the only way to get Rampage to actually trigger. Otherwise its something that is always taken into account but almost never actually triggers.

[@ADPRadio]

I used to do that when I was a kid, it was awesome.

[@Cyberium]

Let's be honest, are these mechanics truly bad, or just good cards with the said mechanics didn't get made? We see how powerful phasing could be in Teferi's Protection versus Mirage block ones. And how many of these cards could be far more useful if the cc went down 2~3? It's like evaluating double strike on Ridgetop Raptor compare to Mirran Crusader, no?

[@wp6007]

If you need to reduce the cc on every card that has a mechanic, the mechanic isn't viable,

[@Cyberium]

​@@wp6007 Remember the time when we could put companions directly into play from outside the deck? It was so powerful that WotC ended up having to change the entire companion rule, now you require 3 additional mana just to put it into your hand. Mana cost is frequently used by WotC to balance a card's power. There's no question that cheaper is always better. Consider how many people used to play companions, and how many people play it after the rule change, you'd know that the cost always plays a role in how viable a mechanic is. And let's try thinking it in reverse: How viable is cycling if it requires 5~6 mana on average, across the board? How viable is storm if each trigger requires 3 additional mana? Not doubt people could still play them, but they wouldn't be the powerhouse they are today. Yes, a mechanic's viability is strongly affected by its cost. If it's expensive, it WILL be less playable.

[@wp6007]

@@Cyberium Okay, let's errata every banding card to be 1 mana

[@Cyberium]

​@@wp6007 There's no need to be snide. Banding cards were discontinued mainly due to the rule confusion it caused, not because it was weak, though it was also true that many banding cards were overcosted and could be made better with a cc reduction. WotC mentioned during Stronghold expansion that the Kor creatures and their damage sharing ability was a simplified version of banding, the concept remained largely the same; give you a way to spread out damage when you have more than one creature.

[@sammysammyson]

The power level of a mechanic doesn't determine whether it's good or bad, though it can be a factor of course. The existence of Teferi's Protection doesn't change that phasing is a poorly designed and too complicated of a mechanic. Any variation of Protection that did effectively the same thing, but without the use of phasing, would remain a powerful card. Similarly, banding is another bad mechanic due to how complicated it is. I agree with your overall statement, though. This list was generally more of an evaluation of how well or how poorly these mechanics were executed. Cipher is probably the poster child for this; it was just grossly overcosted to be worthwhile playing. The 4 mana draw a card cipher...when there are 4 mana enchantments that do what is does, but for *all* of your creatures. Rampage is another great example of it. Efficiently-costed creatures with menace and rampage? Sign me up!

[@justinanderson2631]

I think most of the cipher cards (stolen identity) are pretty cool! I mean there's not a lot of cards that clone artifacts...oh and the tap cards are cool too Rafiq of the many anyone? Lol

[@darkmatter32x]

Cypher bad not only because the spell is insanely costly, but the creature that gained the cypher now becomes removal magnet.

[@usernamemalfunctioning6768]

arguably stolen identity is one of the only useful cipher cards. the rest are just overpriced and not really worth it unless you combine them with something like affinity or some of the few cards which discount spell costs. The most use they have is as expensive manasinks in the lategame, when you have useful cards such as the mentioned before stolen identity. Cast it, copy an enemy's beefy creature, attach to an unblockable character, and prock it again.

[@justinanderson2631]

You should really treat cipher as if they were "better auras" Voidwalk, Hidden strings and whispering madness* (some builds) can be really useful! Well the first 2 in Rafiqs case lol. Or whatever blue deck is good at dealing combat damage like yuriko, tigers shadow. That said these are edh strategies.

[@madisonking8057]

Username Malfunctioning i feel like hands of binding was pretty dec. It should have worked well in blue agro as well as in the right circumstances it can permanently detain key blockers.

[@atlys258]

In my meta Cipher was FUCKING BONKERS in a RTR/Theros UWR heroic list my friends and I played.. Binding and Strings were stupid heroic enablers. Brave the Elements, Gods Willing, Mizzium Skin, Boros/Azorius Charm, Teleportal, Cyclonic Rift, Ordeal of Thassa, Madcap Skills, and Hammer of Purphoros. It had a demanding mana base but damn, Cipher made the damage output absurd.. It bricked a little more than we liked, but when it went off *IT WENT* I miss that deck so much.

[@merlintym1928]

Cast stolen identity on a nightveil predator. Just trust me. 20% of the time, it works every time.

[@bart0nius]

stolen identity + worldspine wurm is a combo that i enjoy almost too much.

[@sheilaghoul7019]

I doubt we'll ever see tribute again honestly, riot really just seems like a very improved take on it.

[@Altorin]

Yeah that's how WotC do. Bushido was basically a fixed Rampage

[@clawtooth35]

I really thought we'd get Tribute or something similar to it as the Orzhov mechanic in Allegiance, I guess we kind of got a flavour of it with Smothering Tithe.

[@ElfHostage]

*“This creature enters the battlefield with riot if the tribute wasn’t paid.”*

[@EidoEndy]

Disagree. It may not be the strongest ability, but it's flavorful and typically does things other than giving a creature haste. I'm willing to bet it will show up in some commander products, if it hasn't already.

[@sdfkjgh]

@Sheila Ghoul: _This is not the greatest mechanic is the world, no; this is just a tribute!_

[@Randalor]

Cipher was a good mechanic for draft and sealed at least. Whispering Madness and Paranoid Delusions were fun when they were repeatable, and a Deathcult Rogue with a Hands of Binding or three (or five in the case of one sealed tournament I went to) can keep an opponent's board tied up for a good long while. I can see why it never saw play in higher levels of competitive play, but it was a good Draft/Sealed mechanic.

[@Sleepattle]

Cipher was great for unblockable stuff.

[@nickhughes8179]

Cipher cards just had high CMC for what they did outside of Hands of Binding, Paranoid Delusions and Whispering Madness. Call Of The Nightwing should've only cost UB and a more powerful Cipher card could've been made. I'd have printed this for Cipher Senses of the Thief Sorcery. 1UB Cipher Search an opponent's library for an artifact or creature with mana value 2 or less and put it into play under your control

[@AccessAccess]

Rampage was designed to be used with Lure. It was an okay combo for its time, though a bit vulnerable when most decks included some form of either creature or enchantment destruction. And it was quickly eclipsed by others.

[@tmakalpha1]

Feel like making a EDH banding deck one of these days just to screw up the young people

[@sdfkjgh]

Tariq Maketab: You are a horrible person for even thinking this.

[@andrewamann8855]

Toss in phasing to really spice things up....

[@darkmatter32x]

Do it.

[@crovax1375]

A guy in play group has a Darien, King of Kjeldor deck that's a banding/soldier tribal deck.

[@kingfuzzy2]

Add two world enchantments as well the rulings on those are just as hilarious. (Only one In play at a time or if two are played at once sacrifice them both )

[@clauderains1894]

Cipher does see play in EDH. Whispering Madness is in 7,970 decks on EDHREC. With the Cipher mechanic this card is windfall on a stick and it is a great way to fuel graveyard strategies.

[@Ninjamanhammer]

Stolen Identity is also decent.

[@rangerlogan74]

Whispering madness is super fun and good. Whispering madness + sphinx tutelage = toooooonnnsssss of mill and you can trigger this twice on the turn you cast it.

[@letsmakeit110]

There was also a decent standard UW aggro deck based around the Heroic mechanic and Trait Doctoring, a 1-mana card with cipher that targetted a creature. Im surprised that deck never top-8ed anything.

[@Ninjamanhammer]

@David Kennedy Because trait doctoring does nothing besides triggering heroic, it's awful.

[@ohno8569]

Stolen identity is the reason my play group still uses overpriced counters in extremely budget modern builds... That and Fireball. Because what kind of nerd doesn't like fireballs.

[@snailgate2172]

I genuinely really like the idea of Banding, maybe if they brought it back as something like Teamwork where its more loose and allows you to form a Team/Band with any number of creatures allowing your multiple white weenies to run over larger creatures? Maybe effects that activate when X creature attacks as a Team the whole Team gains +1/+1 or gets First Strike, Trample or Lifelink.

[@iBloodxHunter]

It should have been in the lotr set as a Gondor mechanic.

[@PokeBattlerJaze]

Time to get upset when one of the mechanics I enjoy appears :^)

[@narutolover1286]

Like banding?

[@ParanoeX]

probably Cipher

[@seanflannery8587]

Banding, in theory, is actually a pretty decent mechanic. The issues banding has is that it really needs to be attached to big, strong creatures so that one could use it effectively, which is why I think the Baton of Morale exists. Baton of Morale allows someone to pay 2 colorless to give any creature banding. Apply that to a couple big creatures and have one small creature join as a non-bander, then it becomes a sufficient threat, as you get to control where the damage goes, preferably all of it going to the small creature to leave your big creatures unscathed. This would also be useful against deathtouch, infect and wither as damage is effectively redundant and it can all be redirected to the 1/1 you slapped onto the band. Of course, the big problem with banding is that it's never really explained how it works on the card unless you read up tons of oracle and rules text. To effectively take a Magic: The Gathering theory class on how a single mechanic like banding works is not really something that a new player might enjoy. That, and the fact that there's no real big creatures the mechanic is attached to, other than mishra's war machine, which has a big upkeep cost keeping it from being viable, and that creature is a 7 mana 5/5. Having banding creatures with high toughness and low power is pretty much redundant, as creatures with banding need high power to be a threat so they can toss on a weakling to soak up damage. All in all, banding is a solid mechanic that just wasn't utilized properly. If they put it on some high-power low-toughness creatures with reasonable mana costs, then it would be a real threat. oh well, at least there's Baton of Morale.

[@Alibast]

I used to have a good time when enchanting a creature who had Rampage with Lure and Venom, making it a walking Wrath of God.

[@florianw116]

Soulshift is cool, ok? The Kami look awesome and having spirits in other colors than W and B is sweet. Return to Kamigawa when?

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Soulshift is cool in theory, but like most other Kamigawa cards, spirits cost 1 mana more than they are worth.

[@sdfkjgh]

@@schwarzerritter5724: _*At least_ 1 more mana Iftfy.

[@matthewutech5970]

The issue, as others stated, is soulshift in a competitive environment needs good spirits to bring back to be good. Do you know what og kamigawa block had a noticeable *lack* of? Good spirits & spirits payoffs. It does get better in og kamigawa block limited; but then you're facing cards like Sensei Divining Top & Jitte.

[@Niv0505]

Top 10 recommendation: Best "hard to cast cards" So the format of siege rhinos, manta riders, chan whirlers, and Crackling draked Ex: Kahn's of Tarkir: CDD Dominaria: CCC Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance: CCDD War of the Spark: CCD

[@mynameisgrundle8157]

I don't disagree with banding being #1, especially given the metrics of the list. But I honestly never had a big problem with banding. I know you say it had the overcosted issue like so many others, but there were creatures like banalish hero as a 1 mana 1/1, Helm of Chatzuk as a 1-mana, 1-cost activation artifact to grant it, Mesa pegasus at 2 mana, I mean, there were cheap ways to get the ability. So the question is, is the ability useful if you can make having it be cost effective? I feel like it certainly can be. I don't even think it's all that complicated. When you boil it down banding gives you control of assigning your opponent's combat damage. That can be extremely useful. I know you say "your opponent sees it coming" but that just means you should be using it to put your opponent into the position of having no real good options. When you can gang block a big beastie with a pile of guys and by having a single bander in the mix (pretty sure it was 1-1 on the attack, but one bander worked for a whole group on the defend) lets you siphon all that damage onto one guy. Will your opponent ever give you the chance to do that? Probably not, but that means they're being held off of the attack because of something with banding. That's useful, and not overly costly to make happen in the right deck. Ultimately I don't disagree that banding wasn't implemented that well. But personally, I always thought it was an interesting ability that could lead to some strong combat options. I'd be happy to see them take another stab at it someday.

[@kylereblitz2856]

I think their updated version of banding was the "Kor" mechanic introduced on some white creatures in Tempest block, i.e. Warrior en-Kor & Shaman en-Kor. This version was more intuitive and useful as it allowed you to reassign damage to a creature point-by-point, and worked for any damage, not just combat damage.

[@spencerschmidt-rundell1612]

I'm working on some custom cards that use mostly only abilities from this video and have banding as white's primary thing. I have stuff to buff banded creatures, given additional keywords or protection, and some benefits for destroying creatures.

[@snowboundwhale6860]

I always liked the idea of Cipher, mechanics and flavour-wise, but scarcely ran cards with it unless I had at least a play-set of Invisible Stalker in the same deck. The idea is good, but as you said, it's overbalanced; given how you're far from assured to benefit from the Cipher feature, the cards almost all cost far too much mana for their effects. Whispering Madness is actually fine for what it is, but Paranoid Delusions should mill 3~4, and Last Thoughts should be a 2U: draw 2 cards, Cipher. Shadow Strike (4B: burn 3, Cipher) should really cost 1B/ 2B, or have an extra effect like preventing regeneration.

[@bastionunitb7388]

Wow battering wurm has some terrible art The bright green clashes with the purple and yellow and the face the Wurm is making is so dumb looking

[@machina5]

Really? It's one of the better artworks in this video in my opinion

[@bastionunitb7388]

@@machina5 glad someone enjoyed it Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is aren't wyrms supposed to be serpentlike dragons Then why does this one look more like a centepede with a T-rex head

[@Marcus-mb2sr]

Bastion Unit B73 wurms and wyrms are different yo

[@zaclock-4228]

Actually, banding isn't "bad". (Nullifying trample is in itself pretty good, if it was only that.) The real problem, which you mentioned, in addition to it being complicated, is that the cards it was printed on were jank. Add to it that the standards of that time were either noncreature-based or combo, and the mechanic was doomed to fail. Take good cards printed today with vigilance or first strike or trample and replace those keywords with banding, I can guarantee that banding would see competitive play, and it would be impactful in games.

[@usernamemalfunctioning6768]

that's actually really true, I wasn't around during the time of banding but from what i've seen it got killed off because all of its prints were jank. A real shame, the concept of banding characters together honestly sounds like something really fun to play with 😅

[@jca6682]

So there are quite a few things wrong with your statements. I've been playing since 1994. When banding was first introduced (1994), there wasn't a "Standard", let's be clear. (Standard, or Type 2 as it was known, didn't get introduced until late 95) Also, the environment in 1995-1997 was quite creature-based, with the exception of "Black Summer". Green stompy/zoo decks have been around and did well in the early days. The 1996 World Championship deck is a white weenie. Seriously - just go look at the top 4 from the 1997 Worlds - Black Aggro, Counter-Burn, Green Stompy, and U/R aggro with more creatures than spells. Things like this frustrate me to no end - when people are spewing things that they really don't know 100%.

[@zaclock-4228]

​@@jca6682 True, I was wrong about the Type 2 part of my comment. I realized it 10-15 minutes after writing the comment, when my memory reminded me that white weenie was actually a thing.

[@jca6682]

@@zaclock-4228 Order of Leitbur and Order of the White Shield with Savannah Lions FTW.

[@naomisalama430]

Hey. Banding is actually pretty good in oldschool 93/94.

[@neocomer]

One word: Horsemanship

[@NizzahonMagic]

Cards from those sets weren't eligible for reasons I mentioned.

[@BurntFrost]

Horsemanship is just flying

[@alexmaragh7766]

@@BurntFrost On a horse

[@blahblah9707]

Horsemanship is basically unblocks me, which makes the cards super busted

[@blahblah9707]

Because only other creatures with horsemanship can block them

[@Dreikoo]

Cipher is like...some guy came up with enchant creature cards, but then remembered it already existed, so he gave it a new name.

[@Zarbon000]

Sorta. Cipher cards can’t be Disenchanted.

[@emeraldboar5923]

Phasing had a major impact during MIR-VIS-WL Block. It was a serious deck at the time. Decks were based upon phasing out opponents cards and not allowing them to phase in. (Equipoise + Sands of Time). This should improve its ranking as a mechanic. As for "Banding". The mechanic has two sets of rules with it. Attacking had only one non bander. In defence, one banding guy allow the defender to assign damage as they saw fit. It was quite good in defending.

[@MrPatrizzo]

Phasing out your own team and casting Jokulhaups also was a ”thing”. 😂

[@RT-br4uq]

Mist Dragon also commanded respect.

[@ClexYoshi]

when I think of Cipher, I think of Whispering Madness,

[@jakewilliams4879]

That's what I thought. But it's also like the only cipher card I think of immediately. (To be fair it's also cause I play Nekusar edh)

[@kaisinnott6774]

The way to make rampage good is giving the creature menace

[@HuttDK]

When rampage came out, a lot of players had Lure in their decks, so by that logic, they felt it paid off.

[@nicholasyost8400]

Lure is still OP to this day.

[@Rakshasa1986]

"Ho ho ho! Midgets! You think you can stand in my way?!" 12:22

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

Yes, Rampage made the list! Such a cool old school mechanic and Craw Giant is awesome when you put a Lure on it, because it also has trample 💪

[@crackcorn0404]

Cipher would've been cool if it was an additional cost like kicker.

[@Poutrel]

I've tried to build decks around some old mechanics, and for Banding, my idea was to make it redirect damages on creatures that give you some kind of bonus like Stuffy Dolls. Doesn't quite work, but I'm a very very casual player and deckbuilder xd Then Rampage would work, if the creatures were cheaper. Give your opponents tokens with Varchild's Rider, make them block, and give your creature Trample/super Trample, or cast Impact Resonance. Phasing simply doesn't work without Equipoise, which is off-colour

[@SmartAlec1]

Banding remake: "Whenever [creature name] blocks a creature, you choose how combat damage is distributed this turn" (via the blocked creature)

[@SmartAlec1]

@juter4397 I think the group part is unneeded mechanically. Choosing how to distribute combat damage is cool, attacking/blocking as a group is annoying.

[@SmartAlec1]

@juter4397 i see that

[@AndrusPr8]

I'm building a vehicle deck and suddenly Inspire is exactly what I need! Creatures that give me value out of them when they crew a Vehicle.

[@robinpate3822]

With your methodology you're more judging the est of card with a certain mecanic than the mecanic itself. There can be one good card totally op with a bad mecanic only because the mana cost is far too low for what it offers or other good mecanics paired with the bad mecanic

[@fourtables2855]

Inspired seems like an odd inclusion, as King Macar is probably the most unique example of the keyword, and he allows you to use the unique strategy of Mono Black Vehicles in Commander. Likewise, I’m not happy with Bloodthirst, as Scab-Clan Mauler sees play in pauper, and Bloodlord of Vaasgoth is an auto-include in Vampire Commander decks as well as being fringe-playable in Modern. My pick would be for Outlast, as when I first read it, my first thoughts were, ‘Great, repeatable +1/+1 counters! Wait, it requires tapping and can only be used at sorcery speed...? Right...’. It’s a shame it was almost playable in Standard, but the only reason it’s played in Commander is for the static effect a lot of its creatures have.

[@EvanFarshadow]

You should add EDHRec deck amounts to the blurb of cards and mention their popularity in the format if not calculating them in the scoring.

[@draxthemsklonst]

About 3 mins in, he refers to Primalcrux (has chroma) and Wort the Raidmother (has conspire) as not on the list due to only heavy EDH play.

[@__-nd5qi]

Well then wouldn't he have to use CEDH? Because he uses gran Prix no?

[@thomasallen3570]

Banding could have been interesting mixed with Exalted if partnered with creatures that get "+x/+y" when blocking or blocked, a psudo-common thing in green and white. However, it would take considerable work to put that together. I loved the idea of banding, and the new 'party' mechanic from Zendikar kind of smells like a twist on it, but It would need so much re-work and 'love' that it may as well be a new mechanic at that point. Amplify needs to make a comeback, so much in more recent sets has been type focused, Amplify would be a good "do I let them know what I have or remain under the radar" choice.

[@איתןשי]

I would love if Tribute came back as well... Just make the vanilla test be decent snd make each effect equally devastating (like say a 3 mana 3/3 with Tribute 3 that forces the opponent to chose between a 3 mana 6/6 or a removal effect if tribute isn't paid)

[@eac-ox2ly]

Man, I play some Cipher cards a lot on EDH. Stolen Identity is a beast in the right deck.

[@Cabbolf]

I had a wolf deck which contained a playset of Timber Wolves (which have banding). It wasn't often useful, but it was occasionally hilarious when an opponent forgot about it and I was able to screw them over with it.

[@AscensionStudiosCA]

Phasing was really fun and in draft the cards were usually pretty good. One big attack every other turns

[@dhaddine5472]

AscensionStudiosCA Shimmer + quicksilver fountain vs any non-blue opponent was always a blast.

[@StyxTBuferd]

Man, the reason everyone hates Tribute is the reason I love it. I love having to consider the fact that my opponent will choose the worse of the two options for me every time- it gives me some information about their deck, and typically both modes of the tribute cards were pretty good. I know MTG players can be obsessive about having more powerful mechanics, but Tribute was an interesting way to flip traditional power on its head by slightly pushing two modes of a card at the cost of agency. I still play the Phoenix in any EDH deck where he fits.

[@infamousXsniper055]

A lot of these cards represent issues in wizard's design philosophy throughout magic's history that they are recently overcoming. The first is that a lot of cards are designed to either enable or be a payoff for their mechanic. This leads to a lot of feel bad moments where you have enablers but no payoffs or payoffs with no enablers. Ramp decks are a great representation of this because it happens often where you have your ramp but nothing big to play or you have your big stuff but haven't the ramp for it. In Magic the Gathering, there is not innate source of card advantage. You start with 7 cards and only draw one card per turn. About 1/3rd of cards you draw will be lands that don't usually enable or payoff your strategy. This results in players not drawing many cards and top decking very easily. Each card you draw is precious and needs to work at all times or work at its role very well. Ramp decks can get away with this due to drawing a single ramp payoff being almost game winning if your opponent doesn't have removal, but top decking a mana dork is awful later in the game. Nizzahon touched on this with Cipher. You need other pieces to make a cipher card good so the cipher card alone is bad. Cards like Tireless Tracker are really good because you can build around them but it still works great on its own. Pollenbright Druid is a recent example of a great card for proliferate decks. It's a 2 mana 1/1 that can either place a +1/+1 counter or proliferate. This means the card is both a payoff and an enabler. Hopefully more cards are printed like this. Another issue with many of those mechanics is that Magic players typically do all they can to avoid creature combat. Mechanics like Banding and Rampage are good if creatures have to attack and block in order for players to win. However, players usually just play cheap removal that allows them to both remove the opponent's creature and allow them to swing in with their own creatures. Removal is usually cheaper and better than the creatures it removes. It doesn't matter that you have a 8/8 trampler, I can murder it for 3 mana at any time that I want and then get in with my creatures. Finally, Wizards usually have higher mana costs scale linearly. It makes sense that for 2 mana I get a 2/2 with small upside, for 3 mana I get a 3/3 with small upside, and for 4 mana I get a vanilla 4/4 (higher stats get slightly exponentially better). However, how does a player go from 2 mana to 3 mana or from 3 mana to 4 mana. They usually have to either draw lands or risk taking a starting hand with less action cards and more lands. Either way, have to do more than wait turns and play mana. Every +1 to mana cost becomes exponentially more difficult to get to. 2 mana is pretty easy, you almost always start with 2 lands in hand. 3 mana is pretty easy too. 4 mana isn't guaranteed but not too bad. 5 mana isn't reached in quite a few games, you might just never draw the 5th land. At 6 mana you might just be dead before you ever reach that and it gets worst and worse beyond that. Because of this, as a creature's mana cost gets higher and higher, it needs to become exponentially better and better. If I survive to play my 7th land, a 7/7 isn't going to cut it. I need something that'll start winning me the game and make it worthwhile that I managed to draw 7 lands and survived 7-10 turns. Thankfully, recent sets seem to be fixing these issues. High costed creatures even at common are slightly better like Invading Manticore being a 6 mana 4/5 with a 2/2 or Bloom Hulk being a 4 mana 4/4 with proliferate. Typically the 6 mana creature would be a 6/5 vanilla and the 4 mana creature be a 4/3 vanilla. I hope more cards will be printed in this way so that competitive magic isn't just dominated by cheap creatures and cheap removal while most of the cards are just wastes of cardboard.

[@WylliamJudd]

Kind of surprised Benalish Hero never saw play in competitive magic, simply because it was the only One mana 1/1 in white for a while. I mean, I know you can just play Savannah Lions, but I thought if your plan was 1. Creature, 2. Crusade, 3. Creature, 4. Armageddon, Benalish Hero might be worth including as Savannah Lions 5-8. Maybe there was no competitive magic that early though.

[@TimmytheSorcerer]

Wait! What?! Banding 😱 It's a great mechanic and banding has wrecked me in many old school tournaments! Banding as a defender is golden! Benalish Hero is a great card and works super in White Weenie 93/94

[@PandaXs1]

shhhh let them hate banding, when they get fucked over by banding the payoff will be hilarious.

[@cinderheart2720]

Also, the problem with Cipher is that its essentially creature enchantments with etb effects. Making a card cantrip normally adds 2 to the cost. Yet Last Thoughts costs 4 while being curiosity (1 cost enchantment) with a cantrip. The mechanic was super overcosted and needed support. Technically the spell is being copied and cast again, a card like "whenever you cast a copy of a spell draw a card" would've given Cipher a fair shot at being not useless.

[@NizzahonMagic]

All good points for sure.

[@cinderheart2720]

@@NizzahonMagic If you could remake 1 cipher card, which one would you pick and how would you fix it?

[@hiygamer]

A while back, I designed an EDH deck that actually made good use of banding. I combined it with things like flanking and bushido to make blocking or attacking a lot more dangerous for my opponents. It wasn't an incredible deck by any means, but it worked pretty well.

[@mikeshaver-miller745]

Cooperation is a REALLY cool enchantment to play in EDH. It can enable some degenerate things, particularly when paired with the right creatures. My favourite is putting it on a Stuffy Doll. Pairing it with a creature like Guardian of the Gateless can actually just kill people and wipe their board. Since you are distributing the combat damage dealt, you can decide to put it all on Stuffy Doll. That also means you can use a creature like Guardian to kill all of your opponent’s creatures and it even trumps trample. So good! But it could also be better. If you wanted to get spicy, use that stuffy doll to band with your commander when it attacks and put people in impossible situations thanks to banding.

[@luizgagliardi6614]

So many memories :'( Congrats on the videos. Can't wait to see the top BEST mechanics.

[@kigirudrewko4767]

I still think that Banding is fun and in proper enviroment actualy pretty good. I remember some time ago seeing a report from oldschool magic tournament (93/94) won by White weenie deck that used Banding along with Abu Jafar as removal. And i think here's the actual problem of banding - on itself it was extremely situational, either it allowed to save few creatures or did absolutely nothing. Making more card like Jafar (or Camel, but this one despite being the idea that i think about sucks ass) would help alot.

[@sebrr039]

Soulshift didn't make a spirit deck standard at the time because standard at the time was mirrodin tribal lmao

[@Proclaimfame]

but spirit craft was awesome with Ischorn Scepter available.

[@imofage3947]

Hahaha, banding is so easy to dump on. But it's spiritual successor ability (The en-Kor damage redirect ability) had some nasty combos around it (life.dec, cephalid life, cephalid breakfast) built on the ability.

[@davidleonardflanagan]

Feels bad, the strings unseen cipher spell is one of my most commonly played spells in my Ojutai commander deck. 😅

[@Stray7]

That's because it's basically an aura that gives Ojutai pseduo-vigilance with a nifty second effect of tapping or untapping something. That it is specifically good in *one* edh deck doesn't make up for the mechanic being shit everywhere else.

[@HladgerdKissinger]

It's so great to see how much the production quality of these videos have improved!

[@stalkerorstalker]

Really enjoyed! Cant wait until flying wins best mechanic!

[@kochsalz3197]

i am not so certain about that. sure, every format has flyers in it, but there are also a whole lot of common and uncommon creatures with flying designed for draft that never see any competitive play. being in the air is arguably a bigger deal in limited than it is in constructed

[@robspear03]

@@kochsalz3197 Flying, without a doubt, is THE most important mechanic in mtg. You have a lifelink, vigilant, trample, banding, indestructible infect phasing creature? Neat!!! My 20/20 can fly.

[@blacktimhoward4322]

You stopped playing in 2005 didn't you? 😂

[@adamdaus3316]

One word: annihilator. One more word: storm.

[@ScribeAwoken]

Soulshift is interesting because there are Zubera Storm combo decks in Pauper that are starting to use it as a means to recur Zuberas, so if we ever get GPs or MCs for that format, it could potentially put up points there.

[@ramirgeddon]

I thought frenetic efreet made some waves back then. It did some sort of phasing of some sorts.

[@cinderheart2720]

Cards that phase in and out are not the same as cards that have phasing. A card with phasing you have no control over. A card that has U:Phase out is much more useful, essentially a very slow flicker.

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

It was the only creature in a very early mono-U Draw Go control. Honestly that deck was a hot fucking mess, but people didn’t know how to play around control, so...

[@Kefka.]

@@TheShinyFeraligatr You mean Rainbow Efreet? Frenetic was RB.

[@SYST3MGL1TCH]

Since no one uses banding, i find that it can actually be pretty useful in niche EDH decks.

[@samelol8149]

About cipher, whispering madness(windfall effect) does see good edh play in decks that need an extra windfall effect, and is powerful in Nekusar. Stolen identity is also a really good card if you play a evasive commander and create some mana rocks tokens at the worst of its effect

[@miikkakorpiranta]

After 20 years I finally found use for the banding mechanic when I got in to ger highlander. My aggro abzan has one banding inside the deck: 1/1 with one green called Timber Wolves, and it's there only against other creature decks so that I get to choose how opponent is going to block my creatures because in the band there can be one creature without banding.

[@darkconfidant479]

I kinda like Tribute though. Need some tweaking though.

[@leftthigh3999]

Bloodthirst i also think couldve been pretty good if they did more with it

[@Senrabekim]

Ahh, the good ole days when a craw giant with a lure on it was just the best counter to large bands of white.

[@MayorMcFilthy]

Wait, how did Rainbow Efreet not get any mention at all for phasing? Wasn't it the main creature of one of Randy Buehler's main decks during mirage - tempest era?

[@TheRemyWagner]

Yep, in Draw, go deck. Rainbow was (and is in Premodern) a great creature. Of course because you decide when is phasing out.

[@TransparentEclipse]

I love any time banding is in a video, just because I love looking at the crappy banding cards that I’ll never play 😂

[@AscensionStudiosCA]

Banding was pretty powerful in Mirage block limited.

[@puttputt524]

The best way to use Bushido is to mix your cards with creatures that SEEM like they should have bushido. It gets confusing what has what stats in combat.

[@HaydenX]

I thought that Benalish hero was used in some very early white weenie decks in tournaments...so my prediction was gonna be that banding wouldn't make the list...with Soulshift at number 1.

[@TheShinyFeraligatr]

Old White Weenie had White Knight and like 3 cards like it to fill the early curve out. I thought Soulshift would be a bit higher because Ghost Dad.

[@kigirudrewko4767]

Remember that earliest MTG had like no tournament play (at least in the form we know today), and idea of what's good and what's bad was pretty alien. People played literaly every kind of crap because others did it too. It took few years for people to realize some deck archetypes and generic strategies. "Mana Curve" started to be a thing in '94 when Paul Sligh and Jay Schneider saw huge success with so-called "Sligh deck" (Mono Red highly focused on early-game pressure and low mana curve). But still, banding in 93/94 "oldschool" magic see today some play in specialized white weenie decks. There's nothing more beautiful than to stack your bunch of banding creatures onto attacking Abu Jafar and explain your opponent that either they will let this attack go, or you will redirect all damage from blockers onto Jafar, basicaly cleaning their field.

[@Devoguy]

Pikemen was a great card with banding. My group played them a lot in white weenie.

[@draxthemsklonst]

Mishra's War Machine = the bandwagon.

[@YellowSpaceMarine]

Don't jump on the bandwagon! Don't do it!

[@bordwithasword]

I like the inspire mechanic on 1 card, my mksy favorite card ever. Kragma Butcher. Buff him with angelic gift, knights pledge, and maybe brute force and you have one powerful creature. Especially against decks without flying or reach. The constant stream of tapped and untapped makes sure the +2/+0 is always active. Keep other creatures under it and you have a powerful combo

[@Kavou]

I am calling Banding on top 3.

[@MorroWolf]

Banding on wall of nets is pretty great. And phasing works great with cards like stasis.

[@pleravens]

banding is REALLY strong on defense. On offense, it is kind of meh.

[@richardbell7678]

I remember when the Craw Giant came out. At the time, I played a lot of what the people that I played with called 'Pillar' games. There were five players around the table and each player only used a single color (plus artifacts) to build their deck and the goal was to eliminate the two players opposite you (seating was arranged as the colored dot pattern on the card back, so the green player would be trying to eliminate both blue and black). The potentially terrifying combo facing Black in a 'Pillar' game was for Green to put a 'Lure' enchantment on his Craw giant and, before declaring the attack, bring out the Kormos Bell that turns all swamps into 1/1 colorless creatures (this was back in 1992, when games were slower) The 'Trample' mechanic of the Craw Giant meant that enough untapped swamps would turn it into a combination of 'Wrath of God' and 'Armageddon' that only affected Black. Too many untapped swamps and the Craw Giant may even survive the battle.

[@CarbonSpire]

Phasing was one of my favs as a kid. I had a terrible phasing drakes deck that never stood a chance. It was so much fun. Really expected to see flanking on the list over rampage, tho.

[@mynameisgrundle8157]

Taniwhaaaaaaaa!!......and I lost....:(

[@AdesVomSilberfeuer]

Flanking is a decent mechanic though. Sidewinder sliver gets played for a reason.

[@lemkele1]

In my opinion haunt and untapsymbol also belongs to the list. (I think some of the mechanics spoiled in Future sight also do, but facing the fact that most of these mechanics are only printed on one card yet its unfair to judge them in the same way as „regular“ cards)

[@NizzahonMagic]

Orzhov Pontiff does enough to keep Haunt off the list. You may be right about the untap symbol though.

[@jaysillynx3190]

There are actually some decent cipher cards for edh imo. Hands of Binding and Hidden Strings can be decent tools and I especially love Stolen Identity. I also see Whispering Madness be played every now and then. It works well with evasive creatures and can be especially neat if you can give the creature doublestrike. Some of them are overcosted and all of them being sorceries somewhat hurts but idk if I'd call it "one of the worst abilities"

[@tronman64]

Man seeing Primalcrux and remembering that was my 1st rare pulled from a booster back when I started playing bring back memories (love to create copies of it to make them incredibly big)....and gosh with devotion coming back/in Theros in general 6 green pips is nice.

[@ppellacani]

Some mechanics of the list aren't bad, the problem was that they decided to put them on insanely crap cards! Even weird stuff like rampage, if the cards were good, they would see play.

[@robotetanus]

You forgot one thing about banding, you can stack it with multiple creatures. For example, If you have 4 creatures on the board with banding and 1 without they can form a band of 5. I guess the way you have to look at it is that it was designed as a defense mechanism against large creatures, particularly ones with trample or death touch.

[@jasonreardon8477]

Nothing really had deathtouch back in banding days. Maybe like 4 or 5 cards.

[@aidenpearce6624]

at least cipher is a interesting design for Commander, but there are not many cards and usefull for commander is only Stolen Idendity. Thats sad...

[@mpapalionakis7816]

Does no one else remember that whispering madness exists? That card is a bomb in so many commander decks

[@worldthroughabucket]

@@mpapalionakis7816 Yeah whispering madness is great. Repeatable windfall? yes please.

[@LJW1912]

I actually really like banding, my friends who never got mtg understood it pretty easily

[@arivald6677]

Banding is crazy strong for limited and you should always remember about it when drafting chaos drafts.Imagine you had 2/4 with banding and 1/1. Your opponents literally couldn't attack you with creatures because you could make super favaroble trades. (Imagine like 9/3 attackiing into 2/4 and 1/1 then you transfer all the damage on 1/1 trading 1/1 for 9/3 and still keeping banding creature)

[@iBloodxHunter]

​​​@@jonathanzentelin2815's funny you would mention trample because banding straight counters trample and regenerate requires your card to be untapped or spending extra mana. They are not 1:1 comparisons. Furthermore, they said "make your opponent take unfavorable trades" which you're not doing with your little 1/1.

[@dougstephen6180]

Ah the good old days. I used a banding deck and a rampage deck. And dude you cant judge rampage without looking at the cards in its sets. Lure, venom. Rampaging gorillas/lure= lots of trample dmg that you'll have to eat.

[@z.s.7992]

I actually thought bolster was cool. It was just implemented poorly.

[@kingfuzzy2]

It honestly is cool esp. in commander or with Bushido.

[@Ouja]

I love Shimmering Efreet. Putting out a jank critter that makes your opponent's creature phase out is awesome. I use it in a deck that wins by utterly confusing the other players. I also, am fond of Wolverine Pack. It is still in my mono-green vintage deck. Quite lethal when paired with banding Timber Wolves or a boost from my Wyluli Wolves.

[@boedacious]

Cipher is severely underrated. I use it in Noyan Dar for edh. Incredibly effective

[@chris-sb6sq]

As for banding, fortified area is amazing with arcades the strategist. It gives you an insane defense after swinging with some of your walls. Also Ayesha tanaka is just neat.

[@ACherimoya]

This is the content I'm here for

[@kingfuzzy2]

Oh yes, same.

[@BrimstoneMwG]

Wow! This was a really interesting video to watch and I am so glad you took the time to go through it. I also watched your video on over powered mechanics and I was surprised to see that many of the "worst" mechanics could have been much healthier for the game if they were just printed on the correct cards. (I kinda broke up these mechanics into 3 categories) -Poorly Priced Amplify and Blood Thirst I feel are key examples of abilities that cannot really be abused (amplify could be abused... mebbe....) but could be added to cards at a better cost ratio and would be great! Similarly, Cypher could create opportunities to alleviate the risk of enchanting a creature by allowing one free cast of the ability, but still have a risk of losing out on those follow up abilities. However again, this only really works if the cards are at a better cost/value ratio. I also guess that Soul Shift falls into this category only because it was forced into such a narrow tribal deck idea, and probably could work, but only if those cards were cheaper. If Soul Shift brought cards straight into play they could cost more, but it would probably result in dangerous legacy combos. -The enemy gets to choose (mostly) In this category I put Tribute, Rampage, and Banding because they are all very transparent abilities that really only come into effect when the enemy gets to make a discussion, which is usually beneficial to them, even if both outcomes are bad. Tribute has the greatest potential to be a really neat card, but they need to have global effects to be worth it.. This does not work for a 1v1 setting but could be really cool for a multiplayer setting where whoever Does pay tribute ignores an effect while others who do not pay suffer it. Rampage is a kinda obnoxious "win more" effect where most of the time a creature has to be big enough and mean enough to force multiple blockers, then it Has to have trample to make it matter.. otherwise it will always be chump blocked. While this mechanic also probably falls under the poorly priced area, it's also interesting that a similar effect was added to "Ichorclaw Myr " which (as far as I know) did not see high level competitive play but the understandable threat was a little more reasonable for the price of the card. The last card type in this category is banding, which would be op if added to cards for no reason, but is such a poor mechanic its not really worth talking about. -Useless or broken Phasing is useless and complicated and annoying until it is NOT USELESS and is just complicated and annoying. Zur with phasing is obnoxious. Phasing as a mechanic fixes some of the problems that inherently exist with enchantment auras and could be neat for decks that build counters on creatures, but it is either costly and obscure, or it is incredibly obnoxious and hard to deal with. At instant speed it's completely broken (in an over powered way) and at other speeds it means that decks with Instant removal are ok but sorcery removal may be completely incapable of dealing with it (this is not in reference to current cards printed so much as it is the idea of further cards being created.) Inspired is a nightmare waiting to happen. As it is. It is a very poor mechanic using the cards printed, but a revisit of the mechanic or the right card being printed in the future easily risks an infinite combo situation. Anyways, mostly I apparently just wanted to type a lot. Again I appreciate your videos! This one gave me a whole lot to think about! Keep it up!

[@johannpohland2826]

Stolen identity for cipher is OK in EDH Teferis protection good

[@adamrawn2063]

Vanishing is pretty good in EDH (phase Zur the Enchanter out in response is not bad)

[@pokeyclawz8727]

I think teferis veil is actually a super cool card with phasing that should be played more in edh. You can run in it decks like edric or yuriko and your creatures will avoid boardwipes

[@Dracomandriuthus]

I love Banding and Phasing myself, though I completely understand the frustrations aith them, since both are incredibly confusing

[@charlesknapp2503]

Agreed. Two of my favorite mechanics along with Cipher, but they can be frustrating and a bit toxic sometimes.

[@wingedparagon4448]

Secret Identity is cool. I occasionally use it in EDH. Absolutely hated Infect, wither and poison in one, when my main deck when it came out was hide behind walls and summon eldrazi.

[@evanvandeneinde7095]

"attack the opponent... TO DEATH!"

[@weirdmusicmixmaster]

As a purely EDH deck brewer, tribute, bloodlust, and bolster all come in handy often and can ve built around in very exploitable ways. Edit: cipher is being used in unblockable dimir in my current deck project.

[@Sweetguy1821]

Should of put energy on here just for making standard an unplayable mess.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

How did energy do that?

[@ryokukurogane7185]

Ooo, that Pain Seer's going RIGHT into my 4 colored wizard deck. I've got tons of ways to tap creatures outside of combat in that bad boy anyway, so I'm not even worried about it's inability to do it alone, lol