Rules Tip of the Day: Banding, Part 1—Banding is really two separate abilities. They are commonly referred to as mutual assistance and damage sharing. Both of these abilities apply when a banding creature attacks, where only damage sharing applies when one blocks.

Q: If I sacrifice Yosei, the Morning Star and play Exhaustion, will the Yosei and Exhaustion abilities combine so that my opponent will not untap for two untap steps?

A: Yes. When this player's next turn begins, he will skip his untap step due to Yosei's ability. In their next turn, when they do actually have an untap step, creatures and lands they control will not untap, due to the effect from Exhaustion. Keep in mind that artifacts controlled by this player will untap in this next step.

Q: I have Flickerform on a Ghitu Slinger. Do I have to pay the Echo cost once I have activated Flickerform?

A: Yes. This enchanted Slinger will return to play at the end of the turn in which the Flickerform ability was activated. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you will not have controlled the Slinger since the beginning of your last upkeep, so its Echo ability will trigger. Keep in mind that instead of paying the Echo cost, you can choose to activated Flickerform's ability again.

Q: If I have Leyline of Singularity and Reki, the History of Kamigawa in play, will I draw a card for every creature, artifact or enchantment I play?

A: No. Reki's ability triggers when you play Legendary spells, and Leyline of Singularity only affects nonland permanents in play, not spells on the stack or cards in any other zone.

Q: I have Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker in play, a Skeletal Scrying in my hand, and a number of 1/1 Rats I plan to sacrifice for some reason or another. After the Rats go into the graveyard, I play Skeletal Scrying to draw some extra cards, removing the Rat cards from the game. When Shirei's ability resolves, will the rats come back to play?

A: No. This is because when these cards leave the graveyard they are treated as new objects and cannot be found by Shirei's delayed triggered ability.

Q: My opponent and I each have no cards in hand. I activate Words of Waste, then Mikokoro, Center of the Sea. What happens?

A: Your opponent will simultaneously draw and discard a card. This means that he cannot discard the card he just drew. This also means that, as his hand is empty when Mikokoro's ability resolves, he will not discard anything. If he did have a card in hand, he would have to discard that. As you and your opponent started with no cards in hand, this interaction does not work in your favor; he ends up with a card in hand and you do not.

Q: If I play Aura Flux and have enchanted an opponent's creatures do I have to pay a two mana upkeep for those enchantments?

A: Yes. You are still the controller of the enchantments that are attached to creatures controlled by your opponent. As you control them, you'll have to pay two mana for each, or sacrifice them.

Q: My opponent plays Yawgmoth's Will. Can he play Force of Will by using its alternate cost of pitching a blue card and paying one life?

A: Yes. He can choose to play the cards in his graveyard via their alternate cost. Keep in mind that he cannot use a blue card in his graveyard to pay this cost, as those cards are not actually in his hand.

Q: in a recent multiplayer game with some friends, we couldn't agree if Celestial Dawn cancelled the multiple mana abilities of Fountain of Cho. Celestial Dawn reads "all lands are Plains", but does that mean that Fountain of Cho is a basic land, and stripped of its storage counter abilities, or only that all lands will tap for white mana?

A: It will lose the ability to generate multiple mana. When a land becomes a basic land type it will lose all abilities it currently has, and it will gain only the appropriate mana ability of the given land subtype. Note that it will not gain the supertype 'Basic'.

Q: I am playing Two-Headed Giant. One of our opponents has enchanted my teammate's Goblin Flectomancer with Mark of Eviction, but we want to get the Mark into the graveyard. After consulting with my teammate, I play Scatter the Seeds at the end of their turn, and he sacrifices the Flectomancer, targeting the Scatter. Our opponents claim that he can't do this, because Scatter has no targets to change, but the Flectomancer says "target instant or sorcery spell." Was this a legal play?

A: Yes that was perfectly legal. The Flectomancer's ability can target any instant or sorcery, not just those that have targets.