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CardName: Harsh Taskmaster Cost: 3B Type: Creature - Gorgon Pow/Tgh: 4/1 Rules Text: Harsh Taskmaster may attack or block in a band with any number of creatures with lower power. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Community Set Rare |
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A probably controvertial suggestion for capturing the "chained together" flavour.
I never played when banding was first printed, but it seems like the rules for what happens once creatures are in a band is fairly intuitive, but the rules for what constituted a band were weird. Hence specifying that explicitly, instead of just saying "banding"...
Banding makes me frown.
Yeah, it's probably not a good idea, but I wanted to consider it :)
I've got a big box, and it 'in theory' contains one of every card for drafting. Whenever a card with banding pops up, I got to stop everything and explain exactly what banding does. It takes, like, 4 minutes. It's got a lot of rules baggage, and often requires creating examples up to explain what's going on.
It's also incredibly powerful. After Double Strike, I'd say banding is one of the most powerful keyword abilities you can slap on a creature. Despite that, people see a card with banding and fly right past it, not considering it an option, because they don't want to think about it. That's got to be a bit telling.
That being said, you're right, chain gangs feel like they should have something like banding. We could use that... banding is full of nooks and crannies, and we can focus on a part of banding and pull that apart (for example, this creature may attempt to divide combat damage among blocked creatures if it is attacking... just not part of a band). Players who've played the game may recognize it and smile, as well. I don't think Banding is right out as a mechanic anymore, and, in theory, I think it could come back... in the same way that no one ever thought Bucky Barnes, Captain America's sidekick would ever come back, because it was a sacred cow. Given enough time, breaking the taboo will seem more exciting than dangerous. But if it was to happen, it would absorb much more of a set's design than we'd be willing to give to it. It would need to be more present than Bushido in Kamigawa. If we aren't willing to warp our set that much, we shouldn't touch it.
Banding is a pretty nifty pair of abilities, oddly smooshed together. The Defensive Formation ability is jolly useful. The attack-in-a-band bit is confusing.