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| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
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| Limited | Legal |
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| Pauper Duel Commander | Legal |
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| Premodern | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Benalish Infantry
Creature — Human Soldier
Banding
Spell_Slam on
So, so, sorry.
1 year ago
The biggest (and probably only) advantage of the banding mechanic is that you are the one to decide how damage is spread out to your creatures when attacking. This can be leveraged.
Deftblade Elite and a bunch of banders means that you can not only force a creature to block your band, but you can prevent all combat damage to your creatures by moving it all to the Deftblade once you arrange combat damage.
Similarly, any creatures with protection are pretty strong. Guardian of the Guildpact comes to mind. You could also go with high-toughness creatures to soak up the damage for the team. Benalish Infantry and Shield Bearer are examples of good strategic use of banding creatures. You'll notice a lot of banding creatures have high toughness or first strike for these reasons.
Other than that... Wow. Unless you find a way to give your creatures trample, you're still dealing with all the drawbacks of banding.
With that in mind, I think you'll have a hard time winning using 8 walls. There's not much reason to play defensive banding creatures, honestly. If you want to run walls, well... Fortified Area? If not, there are lots of other banding creatures to choose from.
Caerwyn on Mechanics that never really worked
6 years ago
I mean, we should probably talk about that big ol' elephant in the room: Banding.
Banding is one of those abilities that should work. There are plenty of absurdly powerful combos you could assemble--I've always thought a combination of Breaker of Armies, Stuffy Doll, and Cooperation would be rather fun. On defense, a creature with banding can completely block a creature with trample, which is absurdly good, particularly given the numerous ways of giving creatures indestructible.
Now, it's pretty clear that I love the concept of banding, but there are several reasons why I do not think it worked.
Banding requires tremendous support to excel on offense, but is from an era of Magic where cards tended to be less complex. There really are not any creatures that both have banding and a way to abuse it.
Wizards had not quite figured out how to cost creatures with abilities when banding was released. 1/1s with banding (Benalish Hero and Timber Wolves) for 1 mana is quite reasonable--this is a card you want to throw in front of a trample user to buy you time. But it will not really help you much on offense. But once you start getting larger creatures like Benalish Infantry, the cost feels wrong--you're paying far too much for an ability that heavily requires other cards.
Often times, banding creatures together makes them worse in combat. There are some combos you can use, but none of those combos work well with the existing set of banding cards.
It's a wordy nightmare. I'm no stranger to complex legalese, and banding still gives me a bit of a headache.
While nothing else really compares to banding's blocking ability, there are far, far better pseudo banding options for offense such as Odric, Master Tactician.
The current selection of banding cards are far, far too slow for Legacy and Vintage, leaving only Commander. There are only two legendary creatures with banding. Ayesha Tanaka is just terrible, with a small body for 4 mana and an extremely situational ability. Soraya the Falconer has a wonderful ability to confer banding... but only to birds--a tribe which does not really have the support necessary to break banding.
