If we rewind the clock back to the reveal of Commander 2016, the biggest fun new thing was the ability "Partner". This ability printed on legendary creatures allowed you to use two creatures with partner as a single commander, and I knew exactly what I had to do: I had to play partners and I had to give them banding! What does banding do? We'll get there, but first, I had to pick my partners.
I knew that I wanted Bruse as he's the best attacker of the bunch, which you want with banding (we'll get there), and I knew I wanted green for Captain Sisay because the deck was going to be legendary themed (I'll explain it soon, I promise!), and I knew I wanted a 4 color deck for the best chance at banding my commanders (it'll make sense, I swear). That made my options Thrasios, Tritan Hero, Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix, and Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper. I had no plan for +1/+1 counters, and I didn't want a mana dork as that gets in the way of attacks, so that leaves Thrasios and Ikra Shidiqi. After much deliberation, I landed on Thrasios, because even though Ikra Shadiqi is combat related, the menace doesn't really do anything with banding, and I wanted a low mana-cost creature since my deck was destined to be filled with difficult to cast legendary creatures. I do still consider what black would mean to this deck sometimes. But Bruse and Thrasios took the helm, now I just needed to band them together...
This is how you give your partners banding, a full cycle of lands from Legends that don't tap for mana. Instead, each of them can give all legendary creatures you control of a specific color "bands with other legends". So what does "bands with other legends" do exactly?
Banding is an ability that allows creatures to attack and block as a single unit that you get to choose how combat damage is applied among the creatures. Under normal circumstances, if you team block with multiple creatures or if your opponent were to block multiple attackers with the same creature, your opponent gets to decide how the damage is dealt to your creatures, typically referred to as "ordering blockers" because of the requirement to kill one creature before moving on to the next. If an opponent attacks with an Obstinate Baloth, and you block with Bruse and Thrasios, your opponent can decide to order Thrasios before Bruse, they have to assign lethal damage to Thrasios, in this case 3 damage, and then the last damage can either be added onto Thrasios or assigned to the next blocker, Bruse. But what if you have banding instead? If you had Bruse and Thrasios in a band, you are now in charge of how the damage is assigned. And it's not just ordering creatures, as you are not held to the obligation to assign lethal to a creature. You can choose to have that Baloth deal 2 of its damage to Bruse and 2 of its damage to Thrasios, and have both generals survive. Or if you're blocking or blocked by something huge like a Grozoth, you can have all the damage assigned to overkill a single creature and let the other survive. In combat, having creatures in a band is somewhere between having a power and toughness boosting aura and having an aura with totem armor, which is actually super cool!
But what does "bands with other legendary creatures" mean? Typically, the way a band works is that it can contain any number of creatures with banding and up to one creature without, and if it's a "bands with other" ability, the creatures being banded with must meet that quality. It's easy to confuse yourself when trying to apply these limitations as a whole, but much easier if you think about it 1 creature at a time. All of your creatures typically exist as individual entities. Spread them all out so their separated into single creatures. Then, when you go to attack or block, if you have a creature with banding, that means it can glom on to any other creature you control for the rest of combat. If you have another creature with banding, you can glom that one onto any other creature or band you control. It's much easier to not be confused by how many things go in a band if you just consider your banding creatures one at a time. If instead you have creatures with "bands with other legendary creatures", it follows the same procedure of glomming onto other creatures, except it cannot be glommed onto a creature or band of creatures unless every creature in that band is legendary. You can't use "bands with other legends" to band to non-legends, and for that purpose, every creature in this deck is legendary.
And that is how you build a band, but the next question is why build a band?
We want to band because we want to survive combat. You would be shocked and amazed at how many legendary creatures there are in the game that trigger off of declaring an attack or dealing combat damage. Márton Stromgald is by far the poster child for how sweet banding can be: he has to attack to pump your team, but he doesn't pump himself, so attacking with him is sending a 1/1 to his death... but if he's banded, you can assign any damage he'd receive from blockers to another creature in the band, one that just got a massive toughness buff. This is why I like Thrasios. In addition to the busted activated ability, Thrasios is a really low cost creature in the command zone to absorb the combat damage that would be dealt to my less expendable attackers.
There are, of course, a couple big downsides to banding. First, you need to have multiple creatures capable of attacking. Second, a blocker needs only be able to block a single creature in a band in order to chump the whole band. To that end, the second set of cards in this deck after attack triggers are cards that enhance or protect my attackers, particularly those granting haste or trample, so that the creatures have maximum opportunity to attack as well as the chance to trample through while banding.
The third set of cards in this deck is things that dig through the deck looking for our powerful legends. A deck built around a pile of legendary creatures actually has a substantial list of tools to dig them out of the deck, notably Caption Sisay and both Pods.
The fourth set of cards are just raw draw power. Reki, the History of Kamigawa is sneakily one of the best cards in the deck, as it turns most of the non-land cards in the deck into cantrips.
The fifth set of cards are some limited interactive elements. This deck wants to be on the attack, but it never hurts to irritate opponents a little bit. Ride Down might seem like a strange inclusion, but that goes back to the bit about trample. Opponents of this deck are very proud of themselves for figuring out how to chump block an entire band of creatures, they will often put one creature in the way of 20+ power and Ride Down just kills the player on the spot.
And then of course there's the ramp and the lands it takes to play magic, made up of the 4-color mana base support I happen to have unused in my collection at the moment.
With how heavily you're playing around banding, did you give any thought to Baton of Morale or Helm of Chatzuk? I'm guessing there are occasional games where you don't find one of the lands for a while or find one that doesn't work with the legends you've drawn.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
With how heavily you're playing around banding, did you give any thought to Baton of Morale or Helm of Chatzuk? I'm guessing there are occasional games where you don't find one of the lands for a while or find one that doesn't work with the legends you've drawn.
I have considered other banding, but any one of the lands gives a commander banding, and then Reconnaisance and Crop Rotation are copies 5 and 6 of my attackers never dying, as well as Crop Rotation going the other direction and turning a banding land into mana production. If anything, I would likely slide Expedition Map back in to find the lands themselves.
Because of the amount of setup required before the banding becomes important, there's typically one around by the time it's needed. In early iterations of this, I was decidedly too aggressive with getting banding and cut into actually having creatures to band in the first place.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
That's fair. You also don't have a lot of token production, which is where the vanilla banding would be better than "bands with other."
Do you find that you have enough ways to give trample/other evasion? I'm seeing Nylea and Surrak, which seems a little light even with the tutors. Mina and Denn, Wildborn could be a good fit, both for that and as a way to play nicely with the bouncelands you're running. There's also manabase options like Kessig Wolf Run and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I could see Odric, Lunarch Marshal as a way to keep flying bands from being blocked on the ground, if that's something you run into frequently.
How has Razia, Boros Archangel been working? That's one of many cards I like a lot on the board and hate having in hand. Is the ramp suite and pod effects enough to not feel the cost too much?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
I came here expecting a commander deck dedicated to the band mechanic and I was not disappointed.
If you want your lands to tap for mana, you can add Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Sure, they'll tap for B, but that can be useful for paying 1, which is better than nothing.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
That's fair. You also don't have a lot of token production, which is where the vanilla banding would be better than "bands with other."
Do you find that you have enough ways to give trample/other evasion? I'm seeing Nylea and Surrak, which seems a little light even with the tutors. Mina and Denn, Wildborn could be a good fit, both for that and as a way to play nicely with the bouncelands you're running. There's also manabase options like Kessig Wolf Run and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I could see Odric, Lunarch Marshal as a way to keep flying bands from being blocked on the ground, if that's something you run into frequently.
How has Razia, Boros Archangel been working? That's one of many cards I like a lot on the board and hate having in hand. Is the ramp suite and pod effects enough to not feel the cost too much?
I've actively avoided token production. There was a big Omnath in here at one point, but then the tokens couldn't band and I got sad and cut it. Similarly I had Akroma's Memorial and then I couldn't use Bruse's trigger and got sad and cut it.
Razia has done exceptionally nothing because she only hit the deck in the last couple weeks as I started theory crafting replacing her in Zedruu. I can't not use my foil Razia. I have high hopes though, as the combination of haste and damage prevention is sort of a consolidated representation of the whole deck.
Mina and Denn, Wildborn is an excellent suggestion I intend to take right away. I love that card, and didn't include it in this deck because I had them as a deck of their own, but I took that apart a while ago and will gladly get them involved here.
Colorless lands are a tough sell in here. I'd need to be playing way more efficient color sources to get colorless lands in a four color deck with this density of colored mana symbols. It's not just 4 colors, I've got double mana symbols in every color.
I came here expecting a commander deck dedicated to the band mechanic and I was not disappointed.
If you want your lands to tap for mana, you can add Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Sure, they'll tap for B, but that can be useful for paying 1, which is better than nothing.
The thing is, I'm not totally convinced this deck shouldn't have black somehow anyway. Deathtouch trample banding would be one hell of a drug. If they ever print 3 color creatures with partner, there's a strong chance this becomes 5 color. Like, how sweet would it be to get Phage the Untouchable in here?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I came here expecting a commander deck dedicated to the band mechanic and I was not disappointed.
If you want your lands to tap for mana, you can add Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Sure, they'll tap for B, but that can be useful for paying 1, which is better than nothing.
The thing is, I'm not totally convinced this deck shouldn't have black somehow anyway. Deathtouch trample banding would be one hell of a drug. If they ever print 3 color creatures with partner, there's a strong chance this becomes 5 color. Like, how sweet would it be to get Phage the Untouchable in here?
My only fear of running Phage the Untouchable in commander is someone blinking her or reanimating her from my graveyard. Then it's GG for me for free.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
My only fear of running Phage the Untouchable in commander is someone blinking her or reanimating her from my graveyard. Then it's GG for me for free.
Then you have time to play another round. It's all upside!
Edit: In addition to getting Mina and Denn, Wildborn in here, I'm also interested in Finale of Glory from the new set, and I have a Chord of Calling in my collection so I could reasonably play Fblthp, the Lost as a bandable cantrip that sometimes has a special double-draw, and if I want to be able to pod out Fblthp, I could play Mikeaus, the Lunarch which is itself reasonably on theme.
And I've failed to find one in the wild, so next time I order cards off the internet, I want a copy of Invasion Plans.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
I'm by no means expecting busted. I just figure a deck with this much clunk wouldn't mind an Elvish Visionary to begin with, being able to treat Fblthp like a totem armor later is just potential upside.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I'm by no means expecting busted. I just figure a deck with this much clunk wouldn't mind an Elvish Visionary to begin with, being able to treat Fblthp like a totem armor later is just potential upside.
I guess you're right. At worst, Fblthp is a legendary Elvish Visionary.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I knew that I wanted Bruse as he's the best attacker of the bunch, which you want with banding (we'll get there), and I knew I wanted green for Captain Sisay because the deck was going to be legendary themed (I'll explain it soon, I promise!), and I knew I wanted a 4 color deck for the best chance at banding my commanders (it'll make sense, I swear). That made my options Thrasios, Tritan Hero, Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix, and Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper. I had no plan for +1/+1 counters, and I didn't want a mana dork as that gets in the way of attacks, so that leaves Thrasios and Ikra Shidiqi. After much deliberation, I landed on Thrasios, because even though Ikra Shadiqi is combat related, the menace doesn't really do anything with banding, and I wanted a low mana-cost creature since my deck was destined to be filled with difficult to cast legendary creatures. I do still consider what black would mean to this deck sometimes. But Bruse and Thrasios took the helm, now I just needed to band them together...
This is how you give your partners banding, a full cycle of lands from Legends that don't tap for mana. Instead, each of them can give all legendary creatures you control of a specific color "bands with other legends". So what does "bands with other legends" do exactly?
Banding is an ability that allows creatures to attack and block as a single unit that you get to choose how combat damage is applied among the creatures. Under normal circumstances, if you team block with multiple creatures or if your opponent were to block multiple attackers with the same creature, your opponent gets to decide how the damage is dealt to your creatures, typically referred to as "ordering blockers" because of the requirement to kill one creature before moving on to the next. If an opponent attacks with an Obstinate Baloth, and you block with Bruse and Thrasios, your opponent can decide to order Thrasios before Bruse, they have to assign lethal damage to Thrasios, in this case 3 damage, and then the last damage can either be added onto Thrasios or assigned to the next blocker, Bruse. But what if you have banding instead? If you had Bruse and Thrasios in a band, you are now in charge of how the damage is assigned. And it's not just ordering creatures, as you are not held to the obligation to assign lethal to a creature. You can choose to have that Baloth deal 2 of its damage to Bruse and 2 of its damage to Thrasios, and have both generals survive. Or if you're blocking or blocked by something huge like a Grozoth, you can have all the damage assigned to overkill a single creature and let the other survive. In combat, having creatures in a band is somewhere between having a power and toughness boosting aura and having an aura with totem armor, which is actually super cool!
But what does "bands with other legendary creatures" mean? Typically, the way a band works is that it can contain any number of creatures with banding and up to one creature without, and if it's a "bands with other" ability, the creatures being banded with must meet that quality. It's easy to confuse yourself when trying to apply these limitations as a whole, but much easier if you think about it 1 creature at a time. All of your creatures typically exist as individual entities. Spread them all out so their separated into single creatures. Then, when you go to attack or block, if you have a creature with banding, that means it can glom on to any other creature you control for the rest of combat. If you have another creature with banding, you can glom that one onto any other creature or band you control. It's much easier to not be confused by how many things go in a band if you just consider your banding creatures one at a time. If instead you have creatures with "bands with other legendary creatures", it follows the same procedure of glomming onto other creatures, except it cannot be glommed onto a creature or band of creatures unless every creature in that band is legendary. You can't use "bands with other legends" to band to non-legends, and for that purpose, every creature in this deck is legendary.
And that is how you build a band, but the next question is why build a band?
We want to band because we want to survive combat. You would be shocked and amazed at how many legendary creatures there are in the game that trigger off of declaring an attack or dealing combat damage. Márton Stromgald is by far the poster child for how sweet banding can be: he has to attack to pump your team, but he doesn't pump himself, so attacking with him is sending a 1/1 to his death... but if he's banded, you can assign any damage he'd receive from blockers to another creature in the band, one that just got a massive toughness buff. This is why I like Thrasios. In addition to the busted activated ability, Thrasios is a really low cost creature in the command zone to absorb the combat damage that would be dealt to my less expendable attackers.
There are, of course, a couple big downsides to banding. First, you need to have multiple creatures capable of attacking. Second, a blocker needs only be able to block a single creature in a band in order to chump the whole band. To that end, the second set of cards in this deck after attack triggers are cards that enhance or protect my attackers, particularly those granting haste or trample, so that the creatures have maximum opportunity to attack as well as the chance to trample through while banding.
The third set of cards in this deck is things that dig through the deck looking for our powerful legends. A deck built around a pile of legendary creatures actually has a substantial list of tools to dig them out of the deck, notably Caption Sisay and both Pods.
The fourth set of cards are just raw draw power. Reki, the History of Kamigawa is sneakily one of the best cards in the deck, as it turns most of the non-land cards in the deck into cantrips.
The fifth set of cards are some limited interactive elements. This deck wants to be on the attack, but it never hurts to irritate opponents a little bit. Ride Down might seem like a strange inclusion, but that goes back to the bit about trample. Opponents of this deck are very proud of themselves for figuring out how to chump block an entire band of creatures, they will often put one creature in the way of 20+ power and Ride Down just kills the player on the spot.
And then of course there's the ramp and the lands it takes to play magic, made up of the 4-color mana base support I happen to have unused in my collection at the moment.
1 Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder
1 Thrasios, Triton Hero
Banding
1 Adventurers' Guildhouse
1 Cathedral of Serra
1 Mountain Stronghold
1 Seafarer's Quay
Attack Triggers
1 Radha, Heir to Keld
1 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
1 Grand Warlord Radha
1 Márton Stromgald
1 Azor, the Lawbringer
1 Medomai, the Ageless
1 Sakiko, Mother of Summer
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Explorer's Scope
1 Sword of the Animist
1 Druid's Repository
Improve and Protect Attackers
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Gideon Blackblade
1 Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist
1 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent
1 Surrak Dragonclaw
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
1 Razia, Boros Archangel
1 Reconnaissance
1 Teferi's Protection
Search and Dig
1 Finale of Devastation
1 Chord of Calling
1 Captain Sisay
1 Prime Speaker Vannifar
1 Birthing Pod
1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
1 Weatherlight
1 Heroes' Podium
1 Kamahl's Druidic Vow
1 Reki, the History of Kamigawa
1 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
1 Myth Unbound
1 Bident of Thassa
Interaction
1 Ride Down
1 Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage
1 Urza's Ruinous Blast
1 Kamahl, Pit Fighter
1 Ith, High Arcanist
Ramp
1 Crop Rotation
1 Azorius Signet
1 Boros Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Izzet Signet
1 Rampant Growth
1 Selesnya Signet
1 Simic Signet
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Cultivate
1 Harrow
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle
1 Nikya of the Old Ways
Lands
1 Ash Barrens
1 Ancient Ampitheater
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Blighted Woodland
1 Boros Garrison
1 Breeding Pool
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Frontier Bivouac
1 Gateway Plaza
1 Gruul Turf
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Kuzandu Refuge
1 Krosan Verge
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Scattered Grove
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
1 Simic Guildgate
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Terramorphic Expance
1 Thornwood Falls
1 Tranquil Cove
1 Transguild Promenade
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Forest
It's a fun deck, it's extremely battlecruisery, and it catches people a little off guard.
I have considered other banding, but any one of the lands gives a commander banding, and then Reconnaisance and Crop Rotation are copies 5 and 6 of my attackers never dying, as well as Crop Rotation going the other direction and turning a banding land into mana production. If anything, I would likely slide Expedition Map back in to find the lands themselves.
Because of the amount of setup required before the banding becomes important, there's typically one around by the time it's needed. In early iterations of this, I was decidedly too aggressive with getting banding and cut into actually having creatures to band in the first place.
Do you find that you have enough ways to give trample/other evasion? I'm seeing Nylea and Surrak, which seems a little light even with the tutors. Mina and Denn, Wildborn could be a good fit, both for that and as a way to play nicely with the bouncelands you're running. There's also manabase options like Kessig Wolf Run and Skarrg, the Rage Pits. I could see Odric, Lunarch Marshal as a way to keep flying bands from being blocked on the ground, if that's something you run into frequently.
How has Razia, Boros Archangel been working? That's one of many cards I like a lot on the board and hate having in hand. Is the ramp suite and pod effects enough to not feel the cost too much?
If you want your lands to tap for mana, you can add Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Sure, they'll tap for B, but that can be useful for paying 1, which is better than nothing.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
I've actively avoided token production. There was a big Omnath in here at one point, but then the tokens couldn't band and I got sad and cut it. Similarly I had Akroma's Memorial and then I couldn't use Bruse's trigger and got sad and cut it.
Razia has done exceptionally nothing because she only hit the deck in the last couple weeks as I started theory crafting replacing her in Zedruu. I can't not use my foil Razia. I have high hopes though, as the combination of haste and damage prevention is sort of a consolidated representation of the whole deck.
Mina and Denn, Wildborn is an excellent suggestion I intend to take right away. I love that card, and didn't include it in this deck because I had them as a deck of their own, but I took that apart a while ago and will gladly get them involved here.
Colorless lands are a tough sell in here. I'd need to be playing way more efficient color sources to get colorless lands in a four color deck with this density of colored mana symbols. It's not just 4 colors, I've got double mana symbols in every color.
The thing is, I'm not totally convinced this deck shouldn't have black somehow anyway. Deathtouch trample banding would be one hell of a drug. If they ever print 3 color creatures with partner, there's a strong chance this becomes 5 color. Like, how sweet would it be to get Phage the Untouchable in here?
My only fear of running Phage the Untouchable in commander is someone blinking her or reanimating her from my graveyard. Then it's GG for me for free.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Then you have time to play another round. It's all upside!
Edit: In addition to getting Mina and Denn, Wildborn in here, I'm also interested in Finale of Glory from the new set, and I have a Chord of Calling in my collection so I could reasonably play Fblthp, the Lost as a bandable cantrip that sometimes has a special double-draw, and if I want to be able to pod out Fblthp, I could play Mikeaus, the Lunarch which is itself reasonably on theme.
And I've failed to find one in the wild, so next time I order cards off the internet, I want a copy of Invasion Plans.
I added in the aforementioned Mina and Denn, Wildborn, Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Finale of Devastation, Chord of Calling. And then I made my 7-drop Ith, High Arcanist. Ith does not remove things from combat, just prevents all the damage, so it's another way to make a band completely protected from combat damage, and can be a two-mana investment that eventually pods into an 8-drop.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
I guess you're right. At worst, Fblthp is a legendary Elvish Visionary.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!