MTG Top 10: WORST Mechanics | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 163 

What I find funny is the fact that both banding and phasing, the two most complicated, convoluted, and confusing mechanics in _Magic's_ history, never had any reminder text printed on any of their representative cards.

Gotta make things a little more confusing. Phasing happens before untap not upkeep. Check rule 702.25a

Banding is a very interesting mechanic and represents something MtG should be about more often - combat between creatures. In the right circumstances it gives a lot of board control and it also inherently cancels out Trample on an opposing creature when your banding creature blocks it.

I actually liked cipher as a mechanic, though I do completely agree with the mana cost bit though. It's very powerful with unblockables especially if given hexproof/indestructible.

Putting a Lure on a creature with Rampage was fun back in the day.

Cast stolen identity on a nightveil predator. Just trust me. 20% of the time, it works every time.

Rampage was designed to be used with Lure. It was an okay combo for its time, though a bit vulnerable when most decks included some form of either creature or enchantment destruction. And it was quickly eclipsed by others.

I think most of the cipher cards (stolen identity) are pretty cool! I mean there's not a lot of cards that clone artifacts...oh and the tap cards are cool too Rafiq of the many anyone? Lol

I doubt we'll ever see tribute again honestly, riot really just seems like a very improved take on it.

Cipher was a good mechanic for draft and sealed at least. Whispering Madness and Paranoid Delusions were fun when they were repeatable, and a Deathcult Rogue with a Hands of Binding or three (or five in the case of one sealed tournament I went to) can keep an opponent's board tied up for a good long while. I can see why it never saw play in higher levels of competitive play, but it was a good Draft/Sealed mechanic.

Cipher does see play in EDH. Whispering Madness is in 7,970 decks on EDHREC. With the Cipher mechanic this card is windfall on a stick and it is a great way to fuel graveyard strategies.

Let's be honest, are these mechanics truly bad, or just good cards with the said mechanics didn't get made? We see how powerful phasing could be in Teferi's Protection versus Mirage block ones. And how many of these cards could be far more useful if the cc went down 2~3? It's like evaluating double strike on Ridgetop Raptor compare to Mirran Crusader, no?

Feel like making a EDH banding deck one of these days just to screw up the young people

I genuinely really like the idea of Banding, maybe if they brought it back as something like Teamwork where its more loose and allows you to form a Team/Band with any number of creatures allowing your multiple white weenies to run over larger creatures? Maybe effects that activate when X creature attacks as a Team the whole Team gains +1/+1 or gets First Strike, Trample or Lifelink.

I used to have a good time when enchanting a creature who had Rampage with Lure and Venom, making it a walking Wrath of God.

The way to make rampage good is giving the creature menace

Soulshift is cool, ok? The Kami look awesome and having spirits in other colors than W and B is sweet. Return to Kamigawa when?

"Ho ho ho! Midgets! You think you can stand in my way?!" 12:22

Yes, Rampage made the list! Such a cool old school mechanic and Craw Giant is awesome when you put a Lure on it, because it also has trample 💪

Hey. Banding is actually pretty good in oldschool 93/94.

Phasing had a major impact during MIR-VIS-WL Block. It was a serious deck at the time. Decks were based upon phasing out opponents cards and not allowing them to phase in. (Equipoise + Sands of Time). This should improve its ranking as a mechanic. As for "Banding". The mechanic has two sets of rules with it. Attacking had only one non bander. In defence, one banding guy allow the defender to assign damage as they saw fit. It was quite good in defending.

When rampage came out, a lot of players had Lure in their decks, so by that logic, they felt it paid off.

It's so great to see how much the production quality of these videos have improved!

I had a wolf deck which contained a playset of Timber Wolves (which have banding). It wasn't often useful, but it was occasionally hilarious when an opponent forgot about it and I was able to screw them over with it.

Cipher would've been cool if it was an additional cost like kicker.

when I think of Cipher, I think of Whispering Madness,

Banding remake: "Whenever [creature name] blocks a creature, you choose how combat damage is distributed this turn" (via the blocked creature)

So many memories :'( Congrats on the videos. Can't wait to see the top BEST mechanics.

Time to get upset when one of the mechanics I enjoy appears :^)

I always liked the idea of Cipher, mechanics and flavour-wise, but scarcely ran cards with it unless I had at least a play-set of Invisible Stalker in the same deck. The idea is good, but as you said, it's overbalanced; given how you're far from assured to benefit from the Cipher feature, the cards almost all cost far too much mana for their effects. Whispering Madness is actually fine for what it is, but Paranoid Delusions should mill 3~4, and Last Thoughts should be a 2U: draw 2 cards, Cipher. Shadow Strike (4B: burn 3, Cipher) should really cost 1B/ 2B, or have an extra effect like preventing regeneration.

Ah the good old days. I used a banding deck and a rampage deck. And dude you cant judge rampage without looking at the cards in its sets. Lure, venom. Rampaging gorillas/lure= lots of trample dmg that you'll have to eat.

Banding on wall of nets is pretty great. And phasing works great with cards like stasis.

I've tried to build decks around some old mechanics, and for Banding, my idea was to make it redirect damages on creatures that give you some kind of bonus like Stuffy Dolls. Doesn't quite work, but I'm a very very casual player and deckbuilder xd Then Rampage would work, if the creatures were cheaper. Give your opponents tokens with Varchild's Rider, make them block, and give your creature Trample/super Trample, or cast Impact Resonance. Phasing simply doesn't work without Equipoise, which is off-colour

Inspired seems like an odd inclusion, as King Macar is probably the most unique example of the keyword, and he allows you to use the unique strategy of Mono Black Vehicles in Commander. Likewise, I’m not happy with Bloodthirst, as Scab-Clan Mauler sees play in pauper, and Bloodlord of Vaasgoth is an auto-include in Vampire Commander decks as well as being fringe-playable in Modern. My pick would be for Outlast, as when I first read it, my first thoughts were, ‘Great, repeatable +1/+1 counters! Wait, it requires tapping and can only be used at sorcery speed...? Right...’. It’s a shame it was almost playable in Standard, but the only reason it’s played in Commander is for the static effect a lot of its creatures have.

Wow! This was a really interesting video to watch and I am so glad you took the time to go through it. I also watched your video on over powered mechanics and I was surprised to see that many of the "worst" mechanics could have been much healthier for the game if they were just printed on the correct cards. (I kinda broke up these mechanics into 3 categories) -Poorly Priced Amplify and Blood Thirst I feel are key examples of abilities that cannot really be abused (amplify could be abused... mebbe....) but could be added to cards at a better cost ratio and would be great! Similarly, Cypher could create opportunities to alleviate the risk of enchanting a creature by allowing one free cast of the ability, but still have a risk of losing out on those follow up abilities. However again, this only really works if the cards are at a better cost/value ratio. I also guess that Soul Shift falls into this category only because it was forced into such a narrow tribal deck idea, and probably could work, but only if those cards were cheaper. If Soul Shift brought cards straight into play they could cost more, but it would probably result in dangerous legacy combos. -The enemy gets to choose (mostly) In this category I put Tribute, Rampage, and Banding because they are all very transparent abilities that really only come into effect when the enemy gets to make a discussion, which is usually beneficial to them, even if both outcomes are bad. Tribute has the greatest potential to be a really neat card, but they need to have global effects to be worth it.. This does not work for a 1v1 setting but could be really cool for a multiplayer setting where whoever Does pay tribute ignores an effect while others who do not pay suffer it. Rampage is a kinda obnoxious "win more" effect where most of the time a creature has to be big enough and mean enough to force multiple blockers, then it Has to have trample to make it matter.. otherwise it will always be chump blocked. While this mechanic also probably falls under the poorly priced area, it's also interesting that a similar effect was added to "Ichorclaw Myr " which (as far as I know) did not see high level competitive play but the understandable threat was a little more reasonable for the price of the card. The last card type in this category is banding, which would be op if added to cards for no reason, but is such a poor mechanic its not really worth talking about. -Useless or broken Phasing is useless and complicated and annoying until it is NOT USELESS and is just complicated and annoying. Zur with phasing is obnoxious. Phasing as a mechanic fixes some of the problems that inherently exist with enchantment auras and could be neat for decks that build counters on creatures, but it is either costly and obscure, or it is incredibly obnoxious and hard to deal with. At instant speed it's completely broken (in an over powered way) and at other speeds it means that decks with Instant removal are ok but sorcery removal may be completely incapable of dealing with it (this is not in reference to current cards printed so much as it is the idea of further cards being created.) Inspired is a nightmare waiting to happen. As it is. It is a very poor mechanic using the cards printed, but a revisit of the mechanic or the right card being printed in the future easily risks an infinite combo situation. Anyways, mostly I apparently just wanted to type a lot. Again I appreciate your videos! This one gave me a whole lot to think about! Keep it up!

Soulshift is interesting because there are Zubera Storm combo decks in Pauper that are starting to use it as a means to recur Zuberas, so if we ever get GPs or MCs for that format, it could potentially put up points there.

Feels bad, the strings unseen cipher spell is one of my most commonly played spells in my Ojutai commander deck. 😅

Man, I play some Cipher cards a lot on EDH. Stolen Identity is a beast in the right deck.

Man seeing Primalcrux and remembering that was my 1st rare pulled from a booster back when I started playing bring back memories (love to create copies of it to make them incredibly big)....and gosh with devotion coming back/in Theros in general 6 green pips is nice.

You obviously put a lot of work into this video man. Great job. I look forward to the best mechanic video tomorrow

Phasing was really fun and in draft the cards were usually pretty good. One big attack every other turns

Actually, banding isn't "bad". (Nullifying trample is in itself pretty good, if it was only that.) The real problem, which you mentioned, in addition to it being complicated, is that the cards it was printed on were jank. Add to it that the standards of that time were either noncreature-based or combo, and the mechanic was doomed to fail. Take good cards printed today with vigilance or first strike or trample and replace those keywords with banding, I can guarantee that banding would see competitive play, and it would be impactful in games.

Ooo, that Pain Seer's going RIGHT into my 4 colored wizard deck. I've got tons of ways to tap creatures outside of combat in that bad boy anyway, so I'm not even worried about it's inability to do it alone, lol

I remember when the Craw Giant came out. At the time, I played a lot of what the people that I played with called 'Pillar' games. There were five players around the table and each player only used a single color (plus artifacts) to build their deck and the goal was to eliminate the two players opposite you (seating was arranged as the colored dot pattern on the card back, so the green player would be trying to eliminate both blue and black). The potentially terrifying combo facing Black in a 'Pillar' game was for Green to put a 'Lure' enchantment on his Craw giant and, before declaring the attack, bring out the Kormos Bell that turns all swamps into 1/1 colorless creatures (this was back in 1992, when games were slower) The 'Trample' mechanic of the Craw Giant meant that enough untapped swamps would turn it into a combination of 'Wrath of God' and 'Armageddon' that only affected Black. Too many untapped swamps and the Craw Giant may even survive the battle.

Wait! What?! Banding 😱 It's a great mechanic and banding has wrecked me in many old school tournaments! Banding as a defender is golden! Benalish Hero is a great card and works super in White Weenie 93/94

One word: Horsemanship

After 20 years I finally found use for the banding mechanic when I got in to ger highlander. My aggro abzan has one banding inside the deck: 1/1 with one green called Timber Wolves, and it's there only against other creature decks so that I get to choose how opponent is going to block my creatures because in the band there can be one creature without banding.

You should add EDHRec deck amounts to the blurb of cards and mention their popularity in the format if not calculating them in the scoring.

Top 10 recommendation: Best "hard to cast cards" So the format of siege rhinos, manta riders, chan whirlers, and Crackling draked Ex: Kahn's of Tarkir: CDD Dominaria: CCC Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance: CCDD War of the Spark: CCD

Soulshift didn't make a spirit deck standard at the time because standard at the time was mirrodin tribal lmao

Banding could have been interesting mixed with Exalted if partnered with creatures that get "+x/+y" when blocking or blocked, a psudo-common thing in green and white. However, it would take considerable work to put that together. I loved the idea of banding, and the new 'party' mechanic from Zendikar kind of smells like a twist on it, but It would need so much re-work and 'love' that it may as well be a new mechanic at that point. Amplify needs to make a comeback, so much in more recent sets has been type focused, Amplify would be a good "do I let them know what I have or remain under the radar" choice.

Had several Cipher cards in my original Ninja commander deck before Yuriko came out. Loved it.

Banding was pretty powerful in Mirage block limited.

Really enjoyed! Cant wait until flying wins best mechanic!

Banding, in theory, is actually a pretty decent mechanic. The issues banding has is that it really needs to be attached to big, strong creatures so that one could use it effectively, which is why I think the Baton of Morale exists. Baton of Morale allows someone to pay 2 colorless to give any creature banding. Apply that to a couple big creatures and have one small creature join as a non-bander, then it becomes a sufficient threat, as you get to control where the damage goes, preferably all of it going to the small creature to leave your big creatures unscathed. This would also be useful against deathtouch, infect and wither as damage is effectively redundant and it can all be redirected to the 1/1 you slapped onto the band. Of course, the big problem with banding is that it's never really explained how it works on the card unless you read up tons of oracle and rules text. To effectively take a Magic: The Gathering theory class on how a single mechanic like banding works is not really something that a new player might enjoy. That, and the fact that there's no real big creatures the mechanic is attached to, other than mishra's war machine, which has a big upkeep cost keeping it from being viable, and that creature is a 7 mana 5/5. Having banding creatures with high toughness and low power is pretty much redundant, as creatures with banding need high power to be a threat so they can toss on a weakling to soak up damage. All in all, banding is a solid mechanic that just wasn't utilized properly. If they put it on some high-power low-toughness creatures with reasonable mana costs, then it would be a real threat. oh well, at least there's Baton of Morale.

Fascinating list and approach, love it!

With your methodology you're more judging the est of card with a certain mecanic than the mecanic itself. There can be one good card totally op with a bad mecanic only because the mana cost is far too low for what it offers or other good mecanics paired with the bad mecanic

Wait, how did Rainbow Efreet not get any mention at all for phasing? Wasn't it the main creature of one of Randy Buehler's main decks during mirage - tempest era?

Great top 10. With defined, measurable criteria, it's a very sensible approach.

Secret Identity is cool. I occasionally use it in EDH. Absolutely hated Infect, wither and poison in one, when my main deck when it came out was hide behind walls and summon eldrazi.

I thought frenetic efreet made some waves back then. It did some sort of phasing of some sorts.

About cipher, whispering madness(windfall effect) does see good edh play in decks that need an extra windfall effect, and is powerful in Nekusar. Stolen identity is also a really good card if you play a evasive commander and create some mana rocks tokens at the worst of its effect

Hahaha, banding is so easy to dump on. But it's spiritual successor ability (The en-Kor damage redirect ability) had some nasty combos around it (life.dec, cephalid life, cephalid breakfast) built on the ability.

I love Shimmering Efreet. Putting out a jank critter that makes your opponent's creature phase out is awesome. I use it in a deck that wins by utterly confusing the other players. I also, am fond of Wolverine Pack. It is still in my mono-green vintage deck. Quite lethal when paired with banding Timber Wolves or a boost from my Wyluli Wolves.

A while back, I designed an EDH deck that actually made good use of banding. I combined it with things like flanking and bushido to make blocking or attacking a lot more dangerous for my opponents. It wasn't an incredible deck by any means, but it worked pretty well.

Wow battering wurm has some terrible art The bright green clashes with the purple and yellow and the face the Wurm is making is so dumb looking

I found this one super interesting. Keep up the new direction.

As for banding, fortified area is amazing with arcades the strategist. It gives you an insane defense after swinging with some of your walls. Also Ayesha tanaka is just neat.

I don't disagree with banding being #1, especially given the metrics of the list. But I honestly never had a big problem with banding. I know you say it had the overcosted issue like so many others, but there were creatures like banalish hero as a 1 mana 1/1, Helm of Chatzuk as a 1-mana, 1-cost activation artifact to grant it, Mesa pegasus at 2 mana, I mean, there were cheap ways to get the ability. So the question is, is the ability useful if you can make having it be cost effective? I feel like it certainly can be. I don't even think it's all that complicated. When you boil it down banding gives you control of assigning your opponent's combat damage. That can be extremely useful. I know you say "your opponent sees it coming" but that just means you should be using it to put your opponent into the position of having no real good options. When you can gang block a big beastie with a pile of guys and by having a single bander in the mix (pretty sure it was 1-1 on the attack, but one bander worked for a whole group on the defend) lets you siphon all that damage onto one guy. Will your opponent ever give you the chance to do that? Probably not, but that means they're being held off of the attack because of something with banding. That's useful, and not overly costly to make happen in the right deck. Ultimately I don't disagree that banding wasn't implemented that well. But personally, I always thought it was an interesting ability that could lead to some strong combat options. I'd be happy to see them take another stab at it someday.

I thought that Benalish hero was used in some very early white weenie decks in tournaments...so my prediction was gonna be that banding wouldn't make the list...with Soulshift at number 1.

Ahh, the good ole days when a craw giant with a lure on it was just the best counter to large bands of white.

Since no one uses banding, i find that it can actually be pretty useful in niche EDH decks.

I kinda like Tribute though. Need some tweaking though.

Phasing was one of my favs as a kid. I had a terrible phasing drakes deck that never stood a chance. It was so much fun. Really expected to see flanking on the list over rampage, tho.

Cooperation is a REALLY cool enchantment to play in EDH. It can enable some degenerate things, particularly when paired with the right creatures. My favourite is putting it on a Stuffy Doll. Pairing it with a creature like Guardian of the Gateless can actually just kill people and wipe their board. Since you are distributing the combat damage dealt, you can decide to put it all on Stuffy Doll. That also means you can use a creature like Guardian to kill all of your opponent’s creatures and it even trumps trample. So good! But it could also be better. If you wanted to get spicy, use that stuffy doll to band with your commander when it attacks and put people in impossible situations thanks to banding.

I'm building a vehicle deck and suddenly Inspire is exactly what I need! Creatures that give me value out of them when they crew a Vehicle.

Mishra's War Machine = the bandwagon.

This is the content I'm here for

The way i used banding back in the day was protection from and something with banding, attack with both, assign all damage to the protection creature.

Wasn't hidden strings (a cipher card that allows you to tap or untap 2 permanents with cipher for 1U) played in a few combo decks? I also remeber playing a combo deck with wishpering madness + notion thief that was quite strong

A lot of these cards represent issues in wizard's design philosophy throughout magic's history that they are recently overcoming. The first is that a lot of cards are designed to either enable or be a payoff for their mechanic. This leads to a lot of feel bad moments where you have enablers but no payoffs or payoffs with no enablers. Ramp decks are a great representation of this because it happens often where you have your ramp but nothing big to play or you have your big stuff but haven't the ramp for it. In Magic the Gathering, there is not innate source of card advantage. You start with 7 cards and only draw one card per turn. About 1/3rd of cards you draw will be lands that don't usually enable or payoff your strategy. This results in players not drawing many cards and top decking very easily. Each card you draw is precious and needs to work at all times or work at its role very well. Ramp decks can get away with this due to drawing a single ramp payoff being almost game winning if your opponent doesn't have removal, but top decking a mana dork is awful later in the game. Nizzahon touched on this with Cipher. You need other pieces to make a cipher card good so the cipher card alone is bad. Cards like Tireless Tracker are really good because you can build around them but it still works great on its own. Pollenbright Druid is a recent example of a great card for proliferate decks. It's a 2 mana 1/1 that can either place a +1/+1 counter or proliferate. This means the card is both a payoff and an enabler. Hopefully more cards are printed like this. Another issue with many of those mechanics is that Magic players typically do all they can to avoid creature combat. Mechanics like Banding and Rampage are good if creatures have to attack and block in order for players to win. However, players usually just play cheap removal that allows them to both remove the opponent's creature and allow them to swing in with their own creatures. Removal is usually cheaper and better than the creatures it removes. It doesn't matter that you have a 8/8 trampler, I can murder it for 3 mana at any time that I want and then get in with my creatures. Finally, Wizards usually have higher mana costs scale linearly. It makes sense that for 2 mana I get a 2/2 with small upside, for 3 mana I get a 3/3 with small upside, and for 4 mana I get a vanilla 4/4 (higher stats get slightly exponentially better). However, how does a player go from 2 mana to 3 mana or from 3 mana to 4 mana. They usually have to either draw lands or risk taking a starting hand with less action cards and more lands. Either way, have to do more than wait turns and play mana. Every +1 to mana cost becomes exponentially more difficult to get to. 2 mana is pretty easy, you almost always start with 2 lands in hand. 3 mana is pretty easy too. 4 mana isn't guaranteed but not too bad. 5 mana isn't reached in quite a few games, you might just never draw the 5th land. At 6 mana you might just be dead before you ever reach that and it gets worst and worse beyond that. Because of this, as a creature's mana cost gets higher and higher, it needs to become exponentially better and better. If I survive to play my 7th land, a 7/7 isn't going to cut it. I need something that'll start winning me the game and make it worthwhile that I managed to draw 7 lands and survived 7-10 turns. Thankfully, recent sets seem to be fixing these issues. High costed creatures even at common are slightly better like Invading Manticore being a 6 mana 4/5 with a 2/2 or Bloom Hulk being a 4 mana 4/4 with proliferate. Typically the 6 mana creature would be a 6/5 vanilla and the 4 mana creature be a 4/3 vanilla. I hope more cards will be printed in this way so that competitive magic isn't just dominated by cheap creatures and cheap removal while most of the cards are just wastes of cardboard.

at least cipher is a interesting design for Commander, but there are not many cards and usefull for commander is only Stolen Idendity. Thats sad...

I think teferis veil is actually a super cool card with phasing that should be played more in edh. You can run in it decks like edric or yuriko and your creatures will avoid boardwipes

Sphinx's Disciple is pretty good. I use it in Derevi, Emperical Tactician because I have many ways to keep tapping and untapping it to keep constant card draw happening

Cipher is severely underrated. I use it in Noyan Dar for edh. Incredibly effective

"attack the opponent... TO DEATH!"

I personally have Snake of The Golden Grove in my Green/Blue Hydra/ Snake/Naga deck and Call to/of the Kindred is a very useful enchantment for building theme based decks as it allows you to equip it to your Hydra creature type and search for one and play it for free on each of your turns, making for a very rapidly overwhelming boardstate as snakes should be.

Suddenly it make sense why my mono blue cypher pioneer deck throws people through a loop. Awesome!

I love Banding and Phasing myself, though I completely understand the frustrations aith them, since both are incredibly confusing

I am calling Banding on top 3.

I still use a couple of cards with phasing - Shimmering Effreet (2U for 2/2 flying, and every time it phases in, target creature phases out) and Shimmer (2UU Enchantment that causes all lands of chosen type to gain phasing) They have their applications.

I haven’t run the statistics to nearly the same degree as this vid, but I run a modern cipher deck using 1-3 drop unblockable spirits and a hexproof/unblockable invisible stalker, add to that some dark ritual mana ramping and I constantly wreck with that thing in casual play anyway

Only in my mind does the intro play as "Pizzahon"

bolster is actually played in mono white devotion in pioneer. anafenza's bolster is used to give 1/1 walking ballista a counter so it can combo off with heliod. So it actually has a home and it's a really strong one

You forgot one thing about banding, you can stack it with multiple creatures. For example, If you have 4 creatures on the board with banding and 1 without they can form a band of 5. I guess the way you have to look at it is that it was designed as a defense mechanism against large creatures, particularly ones with trample or death touch.

Banding is crazy strong for limited and you should always remember about it when drafting chaos drafts.Imagine you had 2/4 with banding and 1/1. Your opponents literally couldn't attack you with creatures because you could make super favaroble trades. (Imagine like 9/3 attackiing into 2/4 and 1/1 then you transfer all the damage on 1/1 trading 1/1 for 9/3 and still keeping banding creature)

Huh, I figured Hellbent would make the list. I remember most of the cards as pretty underpowered, I wonder what saved it?

I like the inspire mechanic on 1 card, my mksy favorite card ever. Kragma Butcher. Buff him with angelic gift, knights pledge, and maybe brute force and you have one powerful creature. Especially against decks without flying or reach. The constant stream of tapped and untapped makes sure the +2/+0 is always active. Keep other creatures under it and you have a powerful combo

There WAS a card with Phasing that saw play. Rainbow Efreet used to be a finisher for Mono-U control back in the ye olden days of Magic when creatures were really bad and it was still called "Type 1" and "Type 2". And for Bloodthirst, Skarrgan Pit-Skulk sees plenty of play in Pauper in Stompy decks.

Some mechanics of the list aren't bad, the problem was that they decided to put them on insanely crap cards! Even weird stuff like rampage, if the cards were good, they would see play.