Was Banding really that bad of a concept for MtG?
>>92550241No, it was a lot of fun and works fine.I just made a banding Soldier deck yesterday for fun play.
>>92550241The problem is that is was confusingly worded, and much more restrictive than it looked. Mechanically, it's an underpowered ability, but one with a few really useful niche applicationsIf it came back in a more flexible, more effectively worded form it would be fine.
>>92550241It's kind of fiddly compared to how useful it actually is in the game. I think if it was popular it would have stuck around but I rarely saw anyone utilize it in a deck
>>92550241banding is a better mechanic for a different game. It works well in Culdacept.
>>92550345This.Before anything else, it's a situational ability.There's plenty of times where something that can band shouldn't, and in order to get anything out of banding, you kinda have to build a deck around it, just throwing in a couple guys with banding in won't do jack. Next, most of the things that actually have banding have stupid restrictions about what they can actually do with it, and let's not even get into the fucking nonsense that is "bands with wolves" does not actually let other wolf creatures jump into this banding ball.If it were printed today, it would probably work best as some kind of artifact or enchantment that can give banding to creatures, since the most valuable part of banding is to make giant chunks of abilities and rules that ideally synergize. Maybe some fukkin bears or something can also have it for free, but a creature without any other abilities should NEVER actually be paying to band. If you want to restrict what a creature can band with, it would be better to do it by goingBandingThis creatures can only band if at least one creature it would join is X type/only if the band contains only X type of creature. Standardize that for a while, then shift to keyword shortenings. As it currently exists, the mechanic is mostly just extremely weak since there's fairly limited application, and pointlessly cumbersome because of how restrictive most forms of banding actually are.
>>92550590Arguably Saddle and Crew are mechanics that get the idea of banding (two creatures joining together to make a big fuck you creature that's hard to stop), without the mechanical baggage of banding since it's just tapping one creature with a power restriction.
>>92550241People just didn't understand it.>>92550319is generally correct.
>>92550786Wasn't Enlist an even more blatant attempt to fix banding, where you can just apply any creature's power to your attacker?
Not bad at all, it was the main way to use walls to your advantage and avoid trample damage. Main problem was that the rules were full of small nitpicks that always made people play it wrong or stop a game to discuss how does it work.
>>92551302I had completely forgotten about Enlist, but you are absolutely right. Looking through the Enlist cards and how many of them are pack filler, I am completely unsurprised it slipped my mind.
>>92550319I tried rewording without keywording or using reminder text (which is the easier way to explain banding) while covering at least as much of the mechanic as I can (the get out of combat if the other guy gets killed I put as an advantage really). I don't think it's worth it getting to yugi-oh levels of text.
>>92550241Why would they print a card like that? I know some cards are intentionally better than others but that's just a waste of a tree. For 3 mana you could just summon another creature.
>>92550590>bands with wolves" does not actually let other wolf creatures jump into this banding ball.This has been changed long ago. Check the Oracle text of that master of the hunt card.
>>92550241it's not that bad, but it's definitely no good. Banding is just too much headache for a pretty lame payout of "you can block an 8/8 with 8 1/1s and only one of those 1/1s will die", a function that could probably be better served by an ability that says "if this creature is not blocking alone, creatures blocking with it do not take damage until end of turn"
>>92558164You can also attack with a chump banding creature and another one with a good "when attacking" ability, and have the banding creature take all the damage once it's blocked so you keep the good one.Once you actually understand how "double block" works, banding is really easy to understand
>>92550241There's an alternate universe where Magic: the Gathering releases a lot of new rules to develop and explore its core mechanics, rather than developing new mechanics layered atop the old ones, and in that world banding is a good evergreen keyword. If you understand the core attacking/blocking rules then it isn't that hard to understand banding, but at the same time banding modifies those rules in an interesting way, enough to justify its own existence. At some point Magic became more about value-pile cards with multiple activated/static/triggered abilities that enhanced your overall economy, and the battlefield needed to be a bit simpler as a foundation, so that people could more easily understand the value granted by all their other abilities.
A problem that I felt with Banding was that it was often just thrown on 1/1 creatures which made cashing in on the benefits really weird.Give like a 4/1 or a 1/4 banding and the benefits become a lot more clear.
>>92560391Camel is 0/1 and Desert damage prevention for W, Shield Bearer is 0/3 for 1W, and Wall of Shields is 0/4 Defender for 3
>>92560391>A problem that I felt with Banding was that it was often just thrown on 1/1 creatures which made cashing in on the benefits really weird.This. People think Banding was a bad ability, but it was only that because it was always put on bad creatures. 95% of creatures with Banding were 1/1s and all of them were drastically overcosted in mana - WotC treated Banding like it's Indestructible or Protection From Everything, when it should have been treated more like it's Reach or Vigilance or any random normal ability.Designwise, its only real flaw was that it was two completely different abilities jammed together. Banding worked differently when attacking or blocking, and that was the main thing that tripped people up. It should have been split into two unrelated abilities with different names, then just tossed on bodies that are playably statted even without it, and it would have made an impact.
>>92562330Those are all shit creatures. Put it on Brimaz with vigilance replaced with banding and hell yeah people would have used it.
>>92563017>It should have been split into two unrelated abilities with different names,I don't even agree with that, because the defending version is just "hoses attackers that have banding"That could just not exist and it wouldn't make the banding cards worse
>>92550590what creature type does it let you band with then?
>>92551482Jesus this might be the worst rules writing I've ever seen
>>92559280what's double block?
>>92565667Give it a try, I don't think it is easy. You can't use reminder text (so no groups)
>>92563017They could absolutely repackage the blocking mechancis of banding into a keyword like idk, Formation or something. Put that bitch on some creatures with first strike or deathtouch or even just with a fat ass and people would jerk themselves into a stupor over it
ITT: Newfriends that haven't heard Banding is 11/10 on the storm scale. It really isn't hard to grok and it completely flips combat in your favor.>first strike + banding>provoke + banding>damage prevention + banding>protection + banding>anthems + banding>combat buffs (giant growth) + bandingConsider it in the context of a white weenie deck. Mother of Runes provides pro: color so you can attack/block your band to avoid all damage. Deftblade Elite provides provoke and allows you to dump damage in your band onto it while activating the ability, allowing you to snipe smaller critters or safely pull big boys to let your other creatures through. White knight provides first strike which works beautifully with banding. Anthems allow you to safely maneuver damage around even without a prevention and speed your damage plan. Then supplement with removal, winter orb/Armageddon, or whatever combo breakers you need. It might be a touch slower than traditional white weenie but in exchange you will completely control every creature board and be able to hander even bigger threats than usual.>>92560391This anon is right that the actual creature quality of banding cards is the problem. A regular 2/2 banding for 2 and a 3/3 banding for 3 would be great, and even 1 more decent keyword tacked onto either of those would be a oppressive.Banding is simply too based for this game and is my #1 least likely mechanic to receive a reprint. I would give Rosewater the best sloppy toppy of his life if he gave me 10 new highly playable banding creatures cmc 3 or less for my banding + damage redirection creatures EDH deck.
>>92565698Probably a joke but I'll bite:In magic, when a creature is attacking you, you're allowed to block it with more than one creature at a time. When you do, the attacker decides the order in which each defending creature will take damage, and then has to assign damage to the first one until it's at least lethal, then the second one etc...Once you understand that, banding can just be read as "The controller of a band is the one deciding how to assign damage to their band, and a creature in a band can be assigned more than lethal damage"
>>92567657Protection from Color also works as evasion so you can have a non-flyer in an otherwise flying Band and still require Flying or Reach to block any of them. First Strike is an anti-chump feature, demanding blockers have more Toughness than the total First Strike Power in the Band. Anthems and spot-buffs are nice but you need several or good keywords to de-weenie past attrition.>>92568260Technically, it may override the clause that you must assign lethal damage to prior creatures in the order. Which would mean N X/2s blocked by an N/X creature can all survive, instead of dumping arbitrary damage into one.
>>92571368>Technically, it may override the clause that you must assign lethal damage to prior creatures in the order. Which would mean N X/2s blocked by an N/X creature can all survive, instead of dumping arbitrary damage into one.I always saw it as this.If you've banded 3 2/2s together, you have 3 "free" points of damage the band has to take before creatures start dropping, since 1 point can be distributed to each, and nothing dies.
>>92567478why can't he use reminder text?
>>92568260that's not "double block", that's just blocking with more than one dude, there's no reason to give it a term
>>92550590Blocking, and that's about it. Also yes, ha ha, "bands with wolves" does indeed only band with creatures which have "bands with wolves".
>>92571982Because reminder text is not meant to be rules accurate, just useful for understanding how a mechanic works, and I was trying to recreate banding without using the keyword. It turned out to be a complete mess, (and I made a mistake regarding redirection of all damage to a single creature in a band because I didn't remember it well).If you go look for the reminder text for banding you'll see it uses "as a group" which doesn't appear anywhere else in a card outside of this reminder text. There is no template in rules for arbitrary groups of creatures like you can target single creatures, all creatures, any number of creatures, or a subset of creatures, like all goblins. All the attempts to recreate the banding mechanic leave crucial aspects of banding out, like an enlisted or a rider (the one on a mount) creature doesn't attack, or those mechanics being attack only.
>>92550241Did Phil Foglio really do illustrations for Magic?
>>92574110yeah, so did Kaja
>>92567657>Deftblade Elite provides provoke and allows you to dump damage in your band onto it while activating the abilityThis is one I'm fond of.
>>92550241>bad of a conceptYou're confusing concept with execution. The concept is fine, how they actually implemented the mechanic was dogshit.
>>92550319This poster doesn't know how banding works
>>92574110https://scryfall.com/search?q=artist:foglio
