I need to understand the finer points of banding
Asked by feyn 6 years ago
Say I use a helm of Chatzuk (gives target creature banding until end of turn) and give my Sengir Vampire (SV) banding. The SV then bands with a prodigal sorcerer(PS), and use PS special ability (gives target creature 1 damage). Does this activate the ability of the SV (when SV deals damage to a creature, and that creature dies in that turn, it gets a +1/+1 token) when I kill the creature afterwards ? Does it make any difference, if I give banding to the PS instead, and he binds with the SV ?
What if I band it with an royal assassin(RA), and the assassin kills a tapped creature with it's special ability ? Does that get me a token ?
I need to tap my PS, or my RA to use their ability, does that also tap my SV ?
What if I band it with say a cockatrice (C), and they attack together. The C has the ability to destroy any non wall creature it blocks or is blocked by it at the end of combat.
Basically my idea here is to use lure so he has to block my 2 banded creatures with everything that legally can, put all the damage on the cockatrice, and get a shitton of tokens on the SV (one per destroyed creature). Especially effective against weeny decks. I know the lure cockatrice combo works, the question is how/if this triggers the SV ability.
I mean imagine 4th or 5th round, he has like 5 creatures out, and I pull this, BOOM 9/9 flyer and he has nothing to block.
I wanted to provide some clarification on the Cockatrice and Sengir Vampire interaction:
Here's how this works. You band the Cockatrice and Sengir Vampire together, then cast lure. All creatures are forced to block Cockatrice. Because Cockatrice is banded with Sengir Vampire, Sengir Vampire is blocked as well.
You get to divide up combat damage for both the attacking and blocking creatures.
You would direct 1 damage from Sengir Vampire onto each blocking creature. You have now dealt damage to 4 creatures. You would assign the blocking creatures' damage in such a way to leave your Sengir Vampire alive.
Combat ends, and Cockatrice's ability triggers. All the creatures that blocked the band die. Because Sengir Vampire did 1 damage to 4 creatures, and these four creatures died, its ability would activate and it would get 4 +1/+1 counters.
You ONLY get +1/+1 counters for the creatures dealt damage by the Sengir Vampire himself. Damage dealt by the cockatrice does NOT trigger Sengir Vampire's ability.
As Pieguy396 said, banding only matters during combat. There's a few basic rules you need to know to fully understand banding:
(1) When you attack with a creature using banding and it is blocked, you get to divide the damage of blocking creatures.
(2) You can band any number of banding creatures together, and up to one without.
(3) Banding is blocked as a group. Evasion matters only if the entire band has the evasion. i.e. if 4 members of a band have flying, and one does not, the entire group can be blocked by creatures without flying.
(4) Creatures are not banded as a group when blocking--you can already block with multiple creatures.
(5) You assign how damage is divided by any attacker that you block with a creature with banding. This is actually crazy useful. If you use a 1/1 with banding to block a 100/100 with trample, you can assign 100 damage to your 1/1, and 0 damage to yourself--that's right, Banding is a complete defense to Trample!
Edit: Please link your cards when asking questions using double brackets:
[[Black Lotus]]
March 17, 2018 6:34 p.m. Edited.
Some more clarification on the Cockatrice/Sengir Vampire band. With Cockatrice having Lure on it, all of your opponents creatures with flying or reach would block the band, but none of their other creatures would. Every creature they have that could block Cockatrice has to, but this doesn't allow creatures that can't block to do so, and as the creature with Lure (and even the one without it) have flying, this greatly limits the ones able to block. You'll want Sengir Vampire to deal damage to as many blockers as possible, but it will have to assign lethal damage to each creature it hits before moving on to deal damage to the next one, so this will also limit the number of +1/+1 counters you are able to get. Because of the way banding works, you'll be deciding how combat damage is assigned by both your own attacking creatures, with the rule for lethal damage being taken into consideration, and how your opponent's blocking creatures assign damage, this time ignoring the requirement on lethal damage.
March 19, 2018 5:08 p.m.
While you have to kill a defending creature to move onto the next, I believe you can fudge the numbers some. I did not find an official rule on this, however, and may be wrong, so take my understanding with a grain of salt. There's some difficulty when your keyword disappeared before the internet really took off!
They have a 3/3, a 1/2, and a 5/5. You have your Cockatrice and Sengir Vampire. Sengir Vampire deals 1 damage to the 1/2, Cockatrice deals 1 damage, it dies, Cockatrice does 1 to the 3/3, Sengir does 2 (it dies), Sengir does it's last damage to the 5/5, Cockatrice's ability kills it. You get +3/+3 counters.
Regarding your first question, you are correct--only creatures with flying can block that band.
Predator Ooze is the card you want. You attack with Predator Ooze and Cockatrice. Your Cockatrice has lure, forcing your opponent's creatures to block. You direct all damage from the blocking creatures onto Predator Ooze. It survives as it has indestructible. You parcel out damage, killing one or more creatures, netting yourself a +1/+1 counter. Yes, it starts as a 1/1, but it has built-in protection from removal, it attacks the first time as a 2/2.
Another option would be Scythe of the Wretched and a creature like Ashmouth Hound. Asmouth Hound's ability would trigger, dealing 1 damage to each of their blocking creatures. It has now satisfied Scythe of the Wretched's ability. Your Cockatrice would destroy all the creatures at the end of combat--Scythe of the Wretched would activate for each. You would suddenly own all their creatures.
March 19, 2018 5:59 p.m.
You can fudge the damage some, but not to the degree you were suggesting. For the same results what you would have to do is for Cockatrice choose damage assignment order as the 3/3, then 1/2, then 5/5 and for Sengir Vampire choose damage assignment order as the 1/2, then 3/3, then 5/5. Then, during the combat damage step, first have Cockatrice assign it's combat damage, which will result in 2 marked damage on the 3/3, then have Sengir Vampire assign it's combat damage, which will be 2 to the 1/2, 1 to the 3/3 (as it already has 2 marked damage), and 1 to the 5/5. You can't switch between which creatures are assigning damage after you choose one to assign it's damage, but you can give different damage assignment orders to individual creatures within a band.
Also, if you choose to combine Cockatrice and Predator Ooze within a band, you can give Lure to Predator Ooze instead of Cockatrice. Because Predator Ooze does not have flying, more creatures will be able to block it, which will result in them blocking Cockatrice for the purposes of it's triggered ability, despite the fact they could not normally block Cockatrice (this is because of how bands attack and are blocked together).
March 19, 2018 8:19 p.m.
You should discount my last post--it contained a good deal of errors--having the time to refresh myself on Banding's rules, you are correct on both fronts. That's what I get for trying to spit out a response between calls!
Pieguy396 says... Accepted answer #1
Banding only affects combat, it doesn't make two creatures one creature. The interaction you mentioned between Prodigal Sorcerer, Royal Assassin, and Sengir Vampire will not work. Same with the Cockatrice/Sengir Vampire interaction (Lure works the way you want it to, but the Vampire can only deal damage equal to its power, Cockatrice's damage doesn't count for its ability). Banded creatures remain completely separate except during combat, and even then, they are only joined in the sense that they can be blocked together.
March 17, 2018 11:15 a.m.