Hello all, in this deck you will control combat, mostly through banding, because banding is awesome.
What is banding? It's an old keyword that is never printed anymore, due to it being complex.
The basics of it:
-When you declare attackers, you select as many banding creatures as you want and up to one non-banding creature and you put them in a band (you can form multiple bands as well).
-The whole band attacks one player or planeswalker.
-If one creature in the band is blocked, the whole band is blocked, this ignores any and all evasion.
-During combat, you get to assign the opponent's damage and distribute it among creatures in your band as you wish, you can also place all the damage on one creature.
-Also, if you block a creature with creatures with banding, you get to assign the opponent's damage as well.
tl;dr your creatures form a mob and gang up on a creature.
Card choices:
I'm going to be blunt. most of the banding creatures in the game are mediocre at best. However, Banding is awesome, so I don't mind putting a few mediocre creatures in the deck.
-Honor of the Pure and
Pianna, Nomad Captain
are buffs to all my creatures, which makes my bands scary.
-
Deftblade Elite
lets me choose a creature and have it be swarmed by my whole field; also, I can use his ability to protect the whole band by assigning all damage to him.
-
Ajani's Presence
protects one or more important creatures from removal.
-Odric, Master Tactician lets me basically control the opponent's whole combat step while I'm attacking. I get to choose all of his blockers (and whether or not he blocks at all) and I get to assign all of his damage with banding.
-Heliod, God of the Sun, vigilance is great, and it is easy to get 5 devotion here.
-Archetype of Courage, first strike for all is great with banding, since you get to assign the whole band's damage before the opponent's creature can.
This is how you become a master of combat :D.
