Banding!
I sort've liked it, too bad it's gone.
: c
Posted By:
Deepfried-Owls
(4/17/2011 2:26:24 AM)
Banding was clearly explained in the revised rulebooklet that came with every starter. But then WoTC stopped printing the rulebook in starters and shortly after that they disbanded banding, because people didn't know how it worked.
Posted By:
tavaritz
(6/20/2011 3:01:17 PM)
Banding as an ability was fine, they just overestimated how much it should cost. Like the gwiffon here, which could probably cost {1}{W}{W} and be pretty fair.
Posted By:
Ideatog
(11/5/2011 11:34:59 AM)
I have a legacy Griffin deck that I play every now and then, mostly for teh lulz than in any hope of it winning. I've mostly stripped out the Mirage-era griffins since they were pretty crap; this is one of the few I've kept in. Not only that, I've kept in three of them. To put that in perspective, the only griffin I have four of is Azorius First-Wing.
Banding is a woefully underestimated ability. It can literally make the difference between winning and losing, having to block and lose a creature versus having a reliable, repeatable blocking strategy. It even defeats trample outright, without having to have so much as one additional creature blocking.
Also, the art on this bad boy is pretty good.
Posted By:
yyukichigai
(2/10/2012 11:05:43 PM)
Banding is the butt of a lot of jokes, but it's surprisingly useful when you get into it. (I made a lot of use it in the Microprose computer game!) I think the card designers feared at first that banding would pretty much guarantee you kill off your opponent's creatures without losing any each combat, so it got pretty mana-heavy on any creature bigger than 1/1.
It kind of loses some of its effectiveness with flyers, since in order to keep the evasion in a band everyone in it needs to fly, but it's still fine for blocking! Plus, as said earlier, a single creature with banding can shut down a giant trampler for a turn. The griffin here is pretty good, being only a little overcosted.
Posted By:
Kirbster
(7/7/2012 12:50:14 PM)
I remember in the earlier days of magic when I was learning to play. Banding completly confused me, mainly becuse I couldn't find anyone who knew how exactely it worked.
Posted By:
Silverware
(8/21/2009 11:53:23 PM)
One of the better early griffins thanks to banding.
Posted By:
nammertime
(11/9/2009 2:06:41 PM)
@yyukichigai: Banding doesn't stop trample from working, but aside from that, it is indeed pretty sweet.
Posted By:
Tiggurix
(5/5/2012 3:52:12 PM)
@Tiggurix : Banding does indeed stop trample completely, banding states that the person who controls the banded creatures gets to assign the combat damage. Since trample damage is that you MAY assign damage = to the toughness then the rest to the player, you can chose to assign it all to one creature. Also because of this you could attack with something with huge attack and low toughness, like Kamahl, Pit Fighter and a small banding creature, and no matter what they block it with you can send all the damage away from Kamahl and he should live. (the ruling gets weird if you have a blocker that can double block alone and band it with something though)
Posted By:
cha0sc0w
(9/4/2013 5:19:36 PM)