Actually, "this can't be countered" isn't really powerful enough to not be common. The problem is that it confuses people who read it because it's too niche, which is why you don't often see it as common. Otherwise it's a completely irrelevant line of text a lot more often than not. They could print about 3-5 common dudes per set with "can't be countered" and not affect anything, especially since dudes in particular are rarely countered except vs. really counter heavy control decks (more often they're handled with removal).
They could pretty much make "can't be countered" part of a keyword, like they made haste part of riot, and not price dudes any different than they'd price vanilla dudes. The other part of the keyword would have to be something tangible, so that they could justify putting a confusing but often completely irrelevant line of text on many cards. But it could easily be done.
I'm not sure it'd actually help against either UB or UR Delver, though.
I think Gurmag Angler is way more of a problem than Gush, mind you. And by "I think" I'm fairly certain that it can be proven by science, and has been sufficiently explained. And I'd ban Gush even if it wasn't identified as a staple of dominant decks, on principle, as it's a ridiculously broken card. Gurmag Angler is just much worse as far as it's effect on Pauper goes. Without Gurmag Angler around picking up 2 Islands off the board is actually a meaningful tempo-loss. It's not if it only takes you one mana to put down the biggest dude in the format nothing can attack into, nothing can trade with, who can kill the enemy on their own and who, due to the combination of size, color and creature type, takes very little protecting.
As for Monarch - I think the guys railing at Monarch are very wrong. And again by "I think" I mean that that can also be demostrated to be a fact. Most "monarch" decks actually side monarch cards out if they can't actually protect it, and they often play games 2/3 without monarch enablers. This means that for plenty of matchups they play two third of their games without what these jokers see as the central element. The problem isn't the monarch, it's whatever they're using to shut down dude strats so completely as to ensure they never take a single point of combat damage. I've certainly won plenty of games against Monarch decks by doing the generally trivial feat of dealing combat damage to my opponent. It's a VERY double-edged sword, Monarch, unless something lets you break the combat game so hard that you might as well use a few card-draw spells instead of whatever gives you Monarch.
So if Gush and Monarch cards are up for review, and actually do get banned, that'll solve nothing. Gush ought to have never been legal, fair enough, but as long as Gurmag Angler is legal UB Delver won't miss a beat, and as long as Prismatic Strands (or whatever's actually the lynchpin of that value pile) are legal neither will Boros / Orzhov Monarch.
We've sucessfuly contained blue in our local metagame for weeks, but he's succintly put down a problem which is terrible - there's Pauper Horizons coming, there's fine cards in War of the Spark and there might be good ones in the core set and in the upcoming sets, but you just can't design reasonable cards that would deal with certain things.
We had a 21-man tourney this evening, unfortunately only time for 4 rounds, and it had hilarous rezults:
1: 12 Izzet Blitz
2: 12 Rats - me (Rat Colony, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Unearth, Dirge of Dread, Duress, Wail of the Nim, Disfigure - pretty much all of the mainboard )
3: 9 UB Delver (lost only to the winner)
4: 9 Oops, all instants!
5: 9 Tooth & Scale (lost only to the winner)
6: 9 Bogles (lost only to the winner)
7: 6 Affinity (lost to the winner and me)
8: 6 Rainbow Tron
9: 6 Tradish Goblins
10: 6 GW Slivers
11: 6 Boros Tokens
12: 6 Heroes of Benalia
13: 6 Rebels
14: 5 Turbo Fog (guy was tutoring newbies while they played, otherwise would've placed higher)
15: 5 GW Slivers (piloted by complete newbie to MtG - only one loss out of 3 rounds. This is usually a better sign a deck is silly than when a veteran takes a tourney with something)
16: 4 Familiars
17: 3 Infect
18: 3 Inside Out Combo
19: 1 Rogue Tribal (Had awful matchups and was missing a key card - Wail of the Nim. That thing won me a lot of games in many different ways and needs to see more play.)
20: 1 Mono U Delver (piloted by complete newbie to MtG)
21: 1 Griffin Tribal (piloted by complete newbie to MtG)
It would have been hilarous if we had time for the 5th round and I actually won vs. Kiln Fiend, because then Rats would have won. I think I'll try out a list with 2-3 Sinuous Vermin mainboard, otherwise there's a lot of silly strong cards in there. Sideboard is mostly extra copies of 3-offs, a single Crypt Rats, 4x Chainer's Edict. 4x Chittering Rats, 4x Ruthless Invasion.
I think Ruthless Invasion has a place in GW Slivers lists if not elsewhere, too. Okiba-Gang Shinobi is practically a planeswalker, and Wail of the Nim is silly strong (albeit in the kind of deck it's meant to be played in). These three really ought to see more play.
There's a serious Rat deck out there and I'm probably close to it, my list just needs tweaking.
Letely I've not had time to report on the happenings at the Black Cat, but it's been very interesting. The recent flood of Delvers in Pauper challenges looks completely bizzare.
The last several 16-man events, 4-rounders all, have had the following top 4's:
And it's not like there wasn't a single Delver at the tourney, but this online resurgence is weird. If anything Tron has gotten more popular over here, Elves are always present, Goblins are still widely feared, GW Slivers took a tourney, Infect of all things took a tourney... I saw the latest pauper challenge report and there was barely any green at all in it, while Green seems to be doing quite alright for itself over here.
Prismite looks like a complete staple for Affinity. The biggest downfall for that deck is the fact that it's forced to run too many colors and will randomly drop matches due to mana screw. This little guy looks like he was made to adress this problem, and is a mana fixer which can also beat face, which is pretty good.
Gideon's Sacrifice is stronger than it might look, and it's priced to see play. Not sure exactly where you'd play it but it can be silly good.
Return to Nature does quite a lot and is likely to see play. Or even straight up replace Naturalize in future sets. I wouldn't mind seeing a red staple with graveyard hate tacked on, too.
Spark Reaper looks like a quality mana sink, it ought to see play somewhere. This sort of thing is more of an uncommon thing, and it also gives life for sacrifices, has fine stats and a relevant creature type. And Unearth friendly cc, too, which is nice when you know it'll eat a bolt as soon as it shows up on the field. Can't be Disfigured, too, nice. Can't say "best pauper common in the set" because there's quite a few nice ones and I don't have the proper perspective yet, but it might as well turn out to be exactly that.
Also, a card that's likely really good in the current Monarch-heavy metagame is Benthic Infiltrator. It dodges a lot of removal, blocks like a boss (even blocks Guardian of the Guildpact of all things) and steals monarch. And beats face with Bonesplitter, obviously. The random milling is not relevant even though it might occasionally snag an important one-of, but that thing needs to find a home, too.
- Someone ought to figure out the best decklist which uses Exalted, Shadow and Banding in the same deck (Exalted + Shadow for offense and stealing Monarch, Banding and your Exalted guys on defense to prevent attack into you). Key cards are Soltari Visionary , Qasali Pridemage and Mesa Pegasus.
- Home needs to be found for Entourage of Trest. The deck likely needs Spidersilk Armor and possibly features Penumbra Spider, which is another card that ought to see more play, and it might also be home for Thornweald Archer and / or Deadly Recluse. The best other color to add would be likely either be Black or White, with both adding interesting options.
- There's likely a functional mono-black aggro list with Agent of Shauku and at least some shadow guys (namely Dauthi Slayer) to both get in for damage and steal monarch. Dauthi Slayer in any black sideboard for boosting devotion, surviving electrickery and stealing Monarch is quality tech all on it's own.
- There's VERY likely a functional black metalcraft deck out there that just needs someone to put it together properly. Dhund Operative and Salvage Slasher come to mind immediately, backed up by Tooth & Scale, and possibly Night Market Lookout and Springleaf Drum for acceleration.
- Some deck, possibly even one of the established archetypes needs to find room for Power Sink. That card's completely nuts, it's just that it got taken out of circulation so long ago that most folks don't know just how nuts it is or that it even exists. I've tried it in Affinity lately and it won me games on it's own (although it is a bit matchup dependent, obviously). No reason it's not a well known format staple, though.
- Azorius First-Wing , Griffin Rider and Wings of Velis Vel make the core of an incredibly effective Griffin Tribal. The exact best build needs to be determined yet, and experimentation might lead to interesting results. So far we're of the opinoin that Griffin Tribal is missing one playable agressive griffin to be a true contender, but it might be that it could work even with the tools already at our disposal.
Those are some ideas for cards and archetypes which seem like they ought to be seen more often or figured out how exactly they're put together into effective decklists.
Could you explain the synergy of banding and exalted? I don't quite understand.
It's subtle - if you're piling exalted bonuses on, say, a shadow creature, then most of your other guys, the ones providing the exalted bonus, won't attack. They are, however, not very large and not very good at blocking. Enter banding. You attack with your unblockable shadow guy, and you use banding on defense with the rest of your exalted guys to let them all do damage on defense while minimizing / negating losses.
If you're GW this kinda means you get to play some really sweet stuff - Qasali Pridemage, Soltari Visionary, Deadly Recluse, Rabid Bite (with either the pumped up shadow dude's power or recluse's deathtouch), and if you can keep your shadow guy safe from burn you can steal monarch from monarch decks somewhat easily.
Band Together marks probably the strongest playable we've seen so far imo. 2 for 1 at instant speed in green. I'd be up to pay one extra over normal fight spells.
It doesn't work that way, I think. I think you just get 2 guys to both deal damage to the same target.
Contentious Plan will be pretty good in anything that works with Proliferate.
Kasmina's Transmutation is kinda-sorta held back by the non-bomby nature of individual guys in Pauper, but it's still good.
Courage in Crisis Likely also has it's place. I can see the phantom guys from Judgment possibly getting some play time if enough good proliferate shows up at common. Bloom Hulk isn't bad either.
Banehound look pretty meh. Irrelevant creature type, stats too small to do anything without pump, and most pump doesn't get him out of bolt range. Possibly a sideboard card vs. burn, though.
Spellkeeper Weird looks like complete cancer. Unboltable blocker which gets you something out of the grave if the other guy tries to kill it while your mana is up once you untap with it once. Seems like one of those cards that's easy to underrate, but is quietly stupid-good.
Lazotep Reaver is strange. At first glance the Army tokens are not better than Eldrazi Scions / Spawn, if for no other reason then because the eldrazi can trigger morbid at will. Amass is a really strange mechanic, doesn't actually look very good, but there might end up being changeling shennanigans with it.
No Escape isn't Exclude, and Exclude isn't seeing that much play despite being a great card, but it does put a stop to a bunch of shennanigans from Tron, Tortured Existance, Mono-Black and all that jazz.
Vraska's Finisher seems to be decently priced for what it does and that's good.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm sitting on a stack of Curfew ready to go into several decks, it's regarded as default tech vs. some stuff. The problem is, as I said, that my meta is so full of go-wide it's not even funny. That's in part because folks were at one point getting pushed around by Mono-Black and are still pushed around by Rakdos Control, and they managed to turn the tables by proofing themsleves vs. edicts. You've got go-wide Goblins, Tooth & Scale which is pretty much white Goblins, GB Aristocrats, Bogles that play a lot of dudes/tokens and prey on MBC and black in general, other Mono U Tempo decks where you really don't want to bounce the wrong thing, Rebels, Boros Tokens and whathave you. Curfew would be my first choice of double-bounce, but not when over half the field is the way it is over here. And you just get so much out of that sort of bounce to just stick Vapor Snag in.
I've seen Curfew in Anti-Bogles sideboards, but i'm reluctant to go all-in on it since it doesn't really do the trick against go-wide, and my local meta is infested with it. I've seen Edicts do nothing against Bogles, too, since they often have a token or simply a non-pantsed Bogle to bounce. The only way edicts work is if you have a lot of them and use them as follow-up to a mini-boardwipe, and a mono blue deck doesn't have a mini-boardwipe. And too many decks which aren't even aggro have something to sac/pick as a curfew target (think Thraben Inspector in Boros and Tooth & Claw, Augur of Bolas in blue decks, hasty and ETB critters in Red and Green, Gary and Chittering Rats in black decks, Basking Rootwalla and Grave Scrabbler in madness / Tort/Ex, Icatian Javelineers in Rebels, or even just random undecosted dudes), and at the same time there are may matches where you really want to pick your target / targets for bounce (Atog , Gurmag Angler , Tireless Tribe , Wild Mongrel , whoever the goblins pump up with sledder/raider, Ghostly Flicker targets, Spore Frog, the Infect guy who's about to receive the pumps, etc.)
Withdraw, however, has been hilarious against most things, and Rushing River is there to step in when non-creature permanents are what's giving you trouble / you need more bounce. With Faerie Miscreant, Ninja, Spellstutter Sprite and Faerie Duelist in the deck, there's just no end to shennanigans with those two. You can even use either to save 2 guys from a Crypt Rats activation.
I'm sorry about some inaccuracies but here's some tech that's been working out splendidly for us over at the Black Cat Bar. Faerie Duelist turned out so good that we retooled a Deep Hours Aggro towards Mono U Fae (w Ninjas, Bonesplitters and Spire Golems) and it won a tournament. Turns out that with another Faerie on board he tackles Delvers, flash lets him be EoT setup for next turn Ninja's, he literally kills Tireless Tribe if played at the right moment, and beats face when you put a Bonesplitter on him. So that's what we're running in the instant-speed power reduction slot currently.
And speaking of bounce, the same deck also runs Withdraw and Rushing River for major shennanigans with Spellstutter Sprite, the Duelist and all sorts of nonsense.
You don't need it to be pushed to make top 8, a simple Benalish Hero or Mesa Pegasus basicaly says "you own combat math". That's sort of the thing with Banding creatures, they just need to be format legal, and combat needs to be in some way relevant. What the individual cards need to be highly playable is to not to be overcosted or to fit into your curve somehow, that's all.
Or they could combine it with another ability. There are things which would combine really well with Banding - reach, deathtouch, afterlife, undying, vigilance, anything that benefits from you screwing with who tanks the damage. The problem is fitting a second ability on a card with banding due to how much reminder text it needs. But any reasonably costed / slightly pushed weenie or ETB midrange stabilizer / board clogger dude with banding could easily make a top 8 in a standard or limited format (or a particularly dude / combat oriented meta in any format). After all, so many white abilities really are "banding light", actual banding is generally stronger. It's not all that great vs. go-wide, it wasn't meant to be, but it's murderous vs. midrange.
If it wasn't for the reminder text, if they just printed a rules clarification token for banding to have handy, they could just stick banding on something that's playable anyway and not account for it in the casting cost. Insta-pushed banding dude, they'd be everywhere. As long as the format is good for white or whichever color they stick it in, ofc, and it tends to have the most sinergy with Abzan colors.
By this point more white mechanics were an attempt to bring banding back in some form than there were white mechanics that weren't. It's also pretty handy / powerful in pauper, and, fun trolling aside, we could use a few downshifts if not completely new cards. Noone mentioned War of the Spark as a place for that, though, but one of the compilation sets or the new modern line as a potential place for them.
And Banding isn't really one of those mechanics that were too clunky or underpowered, quite the opposite. It's a really powerful ability in any format/metagame where the combat step matters.
They could pretty much make "can't be countered" part of a keyword, like they made haste part of riot, and not price dudes any different than they'd price vanilla dudes. The other part of the keyword would have to be something tangible, so that they could justify putting a confusing but often completely irrelevant line of text on many cards. But it could easily be done.
I'm not sure it'd actually help against either UB or UR Delver, though.
As for Monarch - I think the guys railing at Monarch are very wrong. And again by "I think" I mean that that can also be demostrated to be a fact. Most "monarch" decks actually side monarch cards out if they can't actually protect it, and they often play games 2/3 without monarch enablers. This means that for plenty of matchups they play two third of their games without what these jokers see as the central element. The problem isn't the monarch, it's whatever they're using to shut down dude strats so completely as to ensure they never take a single point of combat damage. I've certainly won plenty of games against Monarch decks by doing the generally trivial feat of dealing combat damage to my opponent. It's a VERY double-edged sword, Monarch, unless something lets you break the combat game so hard that you might as well use a few card-draw spells instead of whatever gives you Monarch.
So if Gush and Monarch cards are up for review, and actually do get banned, that'll solve nothing. Gush ought to have never been legal, fair enough, but as long as Gurmag Angler is legal UB Delver won't miss a beat, and as long as Prismatic Strands (or whatever's actually the lynchpin of that value pile) are legal neither will Boros / Orzhov Monarch.
We've sucessfuly contained blue in our local metagame for weeks, but he's succintly put down a problem which is terrible - there's Pauper Horizons coming, there's fine cards in War of the Spark and there might be good ones in the core set and in the upcoming sets, but you just can't design reasonable cards that would deal with certain things.
1: 12 Izzet Blitz
2: 12 Rats - me (Rat Colony, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Unearth, Dirge of Dread, Duress, Wail of the Nim, Disfigure - pretty much all of the mainboard )
3: 9 UB Delver (lost only to the winner)
4: 9 Oops, all instants!
5: 9 Tooth & Scale (lost only to the winner)
6: 9 Bogles (lost only to the winner)
7: 6 Affinity (lost to the winner and me)
8: 6 Rainbow Tron
9: 6 Tradish Goblins
10: 6 GW Slivers
11: 6 Boros Tokens
12: 6 Heroes of Benalia
13: 6 Rebels
14: 5 Turbo Fog (guy was tutoring newbies while they played, otherwise would've placed higher)
15: 5 GW Slivers (piloted by complete newbie to MtG - only one loss out of 3 rounds. This is usually a better sign a deck is silly than when a veteran takes a tourney with something)
16: 4 Familiars
17: 3 Infect
18: 3 Inside Out Combo
19: 1 Rogue Tribal (Had awful matchups and was missing a key card - Wail of the Nim. That thing won me a lot of games in many different ways and needs to see more play.)
20: 1 Mono U Delver (piloted by complete newbie to MtG)
21: 1 Griffin Tribal (piloted by complete newbie to MtG)
It would have been hilarous if we had time for the 5th round and I actually won vs. Kiln Fiend, because then Rats would have won. I think I'll try out a list with 2-3 Sinuous Vermin mainboard, otherwise there's a lot of silly strong cards in there. Sideboard is mostly extra copies of 3-offs, a single Crypt Rats, 4x Chainer's Edict. 4x Chittering Rats, 4x Ruthless Invasion.
I think Ruthless Invasion has a place in GW Slivers lists if not elsewhere, too. Okiba-Gang Shinobi is practically a planeswalker, and Wail of the Nim is silly strong (albeit in the kind of deck it's meant to be played in). These three really ought to see more play.
There's a serious Rat deck out there and I'm probably close to it, my list just needs tweaking.
The last several 16-man events, 4-rounders all, have had the following top 4's:
1: Affinity
2: Rakdos Monarch
3: Tooth & Scale
4: Tradish Goblins
1: Deep Hours Aggro
2: Inside Out Combo
3: Zombies
4: Boggles
1: Dinrova Tron
2: Esper Familiars
3: Affinity
4: WB Pestilence
1: Tradish Goblins
2: RG Madness
3: Esper Familiars
4: Dinrova Tron
1: Rainbow Tron
2: WB Pestilence
3: Cascade Reanimator
4: Tooth & Scale
1: GW Slivers
2: Boros Monarch
3: Burn
4: Elves
1: Infect
2: Fangren Tron
3: Tooth & Scale
4: Elves
And it's not like there wasn't a single Delver at the tourney, but this online resurgence is weird. If anything Tron has gotten more popular over here, Elves are always present, Goblins are still widely feared, GW Slivers took a tourney, Infect of all things took a tourney... I saw the latest pauper challenge report and there was barely any green at all in it, while Green seems to be doing quite alright for itself over here.
Gideon's Sacrifice is stronger than it might look, and it's priced to see play. Not sure exactly where you'd play it but it can be silly good.
Return to Nature does quite a lot and is likely to see play. Or even straight up replace Naturalize in future sets. I wouldn't mind seeing a red staple with graveyard hate tacked on, too.
Spark Reaper looks like a quality mana sink, it ought to see play somewhere. This sort of thing is more of an uncommon thing, and it also gives life for sacrifices, has fine stats and a relevant creature type. And Unearth friendly cc, too, which is nice when you know it'll eat a bolt as soon as it shows up on the field. Can't be Disfigured, too, nice. Can't say "best pauper common in the set" because there's quite a few nice ones and I don't have the proper perspective yet, but it might as well turn out to be exactly that.
- Someone ought to figure out the best decklist which uses Exalted, Shadow and Banding in the same deck (Exalted + Shadow for offense and stealing Monarch, Banding and your Exalted guys on defense to prevent attack into you). Key cards are Soltari Visionary , Qasali Pridemage and Mesa Pegasus.
- Home needs to be found for Entourage of Trest. The deck likely needs Spidersilk Armor and possibly features Penumbra Spider, which is another card that ought to see more play, and it might also be home for Thornweald Archer and / or Deadly Recluse. The best other color to add would be likely either be Black or White, with both adding interesting options.
- There's likely a functional mono-black aggro list with Agent of Shauku and at least some shadow guys (namely Dauthi Slayer) to both get in for damage and steal monarch. Dauthi Slayer in any black sideboard for boosting devotion, surviving electrickery and stealing Monarch is quality tech all on it's own.
- There's likely another functional mono-black rats deck which makes use of Wail of the Nim , Skullsnatcher , Chittering Rats, and Rat Colony , if not also Okiba-Gang Shinobi and Sinuous Vermin.
- There's VERY likely a functional black metalcraft deck out there that just needs someone to put it together properly. Dhund Operative and Salvage Slasher come to mind immediately, backed up by Tooth & Scale, and possibly Night Market Lookout and Springleaf Drum for acceleration.
- There's very likely a strong UG Madness list that hinges on two things - Wild Mongrel + Cunning Survivor + Whiteout on the one hand, and Land Grant and Delver of Secrets on the other, with Brainstorm in it for shennanigans ("buyback" Whiteout, put it on top with Brainstorm, flip Delver).
- If mana wasn't an issue, there might be a Pirates / Goblins mashup with a very low mana curve which can play March of the Drowned to recur Nameless Inversion , Fanatical Firebrand and Goblin Trailblazer , play Sparksmith in the main, and combine Goblin Sledder / Mogg Raider with Buccaneer's Bravado. Probably not stronger than a regular goblin build even if mana wasn't an issue, but it'd certainly be grindier and interesting.
- Some deck, possibly even one of the established archetypes needs to find room for Power Sink. That card's completely nuts, it's just that it got taken out of circulation so long ago that most folks don't know just how nuts it is or that it even exists. I've tried it in Affinity lately and it won me games on it's own (although it is a bit matchup dependent, obviously). No reason it's not a well known format staple, though.
- Azorius First-Wing , Griffin Rider and Wings of Velis Vel make the core of an incredibly effective Griffin Tribal. The exact best build needs to be determined yet, and experimentation might lead to interesting results. So far we're of the opinoin that Griffin Tribal is missing one playable agressive griffin to be a true contender, but it might be that it could work even with the tools already at our disposal.
Those are some ideas for cards and archetypes which seem like they ought to be seen more often or figured out how exactly they're put together into effective decklists.
It's subtle - if you're piling exalted bonuses on, say, a shadow creature, then most of your other guys, the ones providing the exalted bonus, won't attack. They are, however, not very large and not very good at blocking. Enter banding. You attack with your unblockable shadow guy, and you use banding on defense with the rest of your exalted guys to let them all do damage on defense while minimizing / negating losses.
If you're GW this kinda means you get to play some really sweet stuff - Qasali Pridemage, Soltari Visionary, Deadly Recluse, Rabid Bite (with either the pumped up shadow dude's power or recluse's deathtouch), and if you can keep your shadow guy safe from burn you can steal monarch from monarch decks somewhat easily.
It doesn't work that way, I think. I think you just get 2 guys to both deal damage to the same target.
Contentious Plan will be pretty good in anything that works with Proliferate.
Tamiyo's Epiphany is likely playable in Tron/Familiars.
Topple the Statue is pretty dece.
Law-Rune Enforcer is pretty good in it's niche.
Kasmina's Transmutation is kinda-sorta held back by the non-bomby nature of individual guys in Pauper, but it's still good.
Courage in Crisis Likely also has it's place. I can see the phantom guys from Judgment possibly getting some play time if enough good proliferate shows up at common. Bloom Hulk isn't bad either.
Banehound look pretty meh. Irrelevant creature type, stats too small to do anything without pump, and most pump doesn't get him out of bolt range. Possibly a sideboard card vs. burn, though.
Spellkeeper Weird looks like complete cancer. Unboltable blocker which gets you something out of the grave if the other guy tries to kill it while your mana is up once you untap with it once. Seems like one of those cards that's easy to underrate, but is quietly stupid-good.
Spellgorger Weird is probably just stupid-good.
Lazotep Reaver is strange. At first glance the Army tokens are not better than Eldrazi Scions / Spawn, if for no other reason then because the eldrazi can trigger morbid at will. Amass is a really strange mechanic, doesn't actually look very good, but there might end up being changeling shennanigans with it.
Teferi's Time Twist is going to be played with Reality Acid for sure.
Vivien's Grizzly is probably a fine mana sink for some kind of Tron or Elves.
Burning Prophet seems more than good.
No Escape isn't Exclude, and Exclude isn't seeing that much play despite being a great card, but it does put a stop to a bunch of shennanigans from Tron, Tortured Existance, Mono-Black and all that jazz.
Vraska's Finisher seems to be decently priced for what it does and that's good.
Withdraw, however, has been hilarious against most things, and Rushing River is there to step in when non-creature permanents are what's giving you trouble / you need more bounce. With Faerie Miscreant, Ninja, Spellstutter Sprite and Faerie Duelist in the deck, there's just no end to shennanigans with those two. You can even use either to save 2 guys from a Crypt Rats activation.
And speaking of bounce, the same deck also runs Withdraw and Rushing River for major shennanigans with Spellstutter Sprite, the Duelist and all sorts of nonsense.
Or they could combine it with another ability. There are things which would combine really well with Banding - reach, deathtouch, afterlife, undying, vigilance, anything that benefits from you screwing with who tanks the damage. The problem is fitting a second ability on a card with banding due to how much reminder text it needs. But any reasonably costed / slightly pushed weenie or ETB midrange stabilizer / board clogger dude with banding could easily make a top 8 in a standard or limited format (or a particularly dude / combat oriented meta in any format). After all, so many white abilities really are "banding light", actual banding is generally stronger. It's not all that great vs. go-wide, it wasn't meant to be, but it's murderous vs. midrange.
If it wasn't for the reminder text, if they just printed a rules clarification token for banding to have handy, they could just stick banding on something that's playable anyway and not account for it in the casting cost. Insta-pushed banding dude, they'd be everywhere. As long as the format is good for white or whichever color they stick it in, ofc, and it tends to have the most sinergy with Abzan colors.
And Banding isn't really one of those mechanics that were too clunky or underpowered, quite the opposite. It's a really powerful ability in any format/metagame where the combat step matters.