Banding - How does it work and how to abuse it? - Magic the Gathering's most misunderstood mechanic

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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.

Banding and deathtouch, just off the top of my head

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

Awesome! 🤘

Had to subscribe for this one.

great video