Please explain banding to me!

[Will]

I have no idea how banding works (been playing a week). Could someone
please explain how it works in attacking/defending and so on.
--
Will
wbr...@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov
"With such confusion don't it make you want to scream?
Your bash abusing victimized within the scheme,
you try to cope with every lie they scrutinize.
Somebody please have mercy cause I just can't take it."
-Michael & Janet Jackson, Scream

[Christopher Robert Durston]

In <3tjv33$6...@sulawesi.lerc.nasa.gov> wbr...@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (Will) writes:
>I have no idea how banding works (been playing a week). Could someone
>please explain how it works in attacking/defending and so on.

There's a whole section devoted to banding in the rulebook. Read
it, since there's *lots* of neato stuff in there. Here's a quick
explanation:
When attacking, if you have a creature with ability banding you
can band it with another creature, forming a "super creature" of sorts.
This super creature acts as one thing - if part of it is blocked, then
all of it is blocked. Eg band a benalish hero with a scryb sprite. The
opponent blocks the hero with a goblin, and that means the sprite is also
blocked.
When defending, if a group of creatures gangs up on one attacking
creature, and one of the creatures in the gang has banding ability, the
defending group bands together.
In both cases, the controller of the banded group decides how to
distribute damage done to the band. In the above example, the controller
of the hero/sprite band would decide where to put the point of damage
from the goblin. This is different from the normal approach in which the
controller of a creature assigns its damage - banding overrides it.
When attacking, you must declare banding. In your banded group,
you can have only 1 non-banding creature.
When defending, banding is automatic when a group blocks and one
has banding. You can have as many non-banding creatures as you like.

That's it. Look in the rule book for this and many more exciting
special abilities explanations.
-Chris

[James Hanley]

In article <3tjv33$6...@sulawesi.lerc.nasa.gov>,

Will <wbr...@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>I have no idea how banding works (been playing a week). Could someone
>please explain how it works in attacking/defending

Banding is real simple, and in summary:

Defence if you have 1 creature in a defensive team with banding, it is you
and not your oppenent that assigns damage. Damage can be assigned any way
you want, you can even assign more damage to a creature than it has toughness
eg. oppenent attacks with a 6/6 creature.
you block with:
a banalish hero (1/1 banding)
a mesa pegasus (1/1 banding,flying)
a wall of swords (3/5 flying,wall)
and a wall of wood (0/3 wall)

now you have to assign 6 damage, the best way would be 4 to the wall of swords
and 2 to the wall of wood, no damage left, none of your bugs die.
Now in assigning damage to him you only do 5, so he lives.

Attack is some what more complex:
Firstly, in attack a band can have as many banding creatures in it as you want
plus one non-banding creature.

Secondly, a if your opponent blocks one creature in the band he blocks the lot
this is a double edged sword this one he can be looking at a lot of damage, but
if you have 4 flyers and 1 walker in a band he can block the lot with a walker.
NB You still assign damage to your creatures when attacking so you can use the
trick from the above example.

Thirdly, if a banding attack meets a banding defence both players get to assign
damage to their own creatures.

Fourthly, you can use banding to kill those irritating first striking buggers
as you assign damage assign it all to a small creature, it dies leaving all
others in the band alive to deal damage to the first striker hopefully killing
it.

Banding is a very powerful ability and it is one I like to think I Know well,
I have been playing magic since just before the release of arabian nights and
played a mono colour white deck with some artifacts, for about the first six
months.
Like most other things in magic, banding is full of nasty tricks which only
expierance and thought will show up. Personally I think banding is the best
of the abilities, but it gets so much better when used in conjunction with the
others especially first strike and tample.

I hope this has at least shown you the light at the end of the tunnel, if you
have any further questions you can e-mail me and I'll be happy to reply.

e-mail: je...@tardis.ed.ac.uk