Rules Tip of the Day: Banding, Part 2: Mutual Assistance—Banding allows you to group creatures together when they attack, often called attacking in a band. In order to form an attacking band all creatures in the band except for one must have the banding ability. If your opponent wants to block any creature in the band he must block the entire band. For example, I could attack you with a Benalish Hero and a Grizzly Bears as a band. In order to block either of them, you would block the band. Creatures in a band do not share abilities. In other words, if I form an attacking band of a Benalish Hero and an Aven Cloudchaser, you could block the entire band with one non-flying creature.

Q: Would you be shooting yourself in the foot to play Crumbling Sanctuary with Szadek, Lord of Secrets? I suspect that the Sanctuary would prevent Szadek from getting additional counters.

A: Yes. The defending player can choose to apply the replacement effect from Crumbling Sanctuary first and mill cards. Then Szadek's ability will not be applied, as there is no damage to replace, so he won't get any +1/+1 counters.

Q: I have multiple Dark Confidants and Mirri's Guiles in play. I understand that Mirri's Guile does not stack but Dark Confidant does. May I place the abilities in between each other (Mirri's Guile, Dark Confidant, Mirri's Guile, Dark Confidant) so that I can arrange the top 3 cards with Mirri's Guile, then reveal with Dark Confidant, and then dig one deeper if I have another Mirri's Guile in play?

A: First of all, your initial statement is incorrect; the triggered ability of Mirri's Guile does use the stack, and the effects can be cumulative. In many cases, this does not mean anything if nothing else affects your library between the resolution sof these abilities. Anyway, what you want to do works. As the controller of all of these triggered abilities, you can determine the order that they go on the stack and, therefore, the order that they resolve resolve.

Q: I control Drift of Phantasms and my opponent controls two Screeching Griffins. If my opponent plays the ability of one of the Griffins on my Wall and attacks with both Griffins, can my Wall block the other Griffin? Since the ability mentions the name of the Griffin we believe that both would go though, since they have the same name.

A: You can block the Griffin that did not have its ability used. When a card uses its own name in its rules text it means "this object" and not other cards or permanents with the same name. In order for both of these Griffins to go unblocked your opponent would have to activate the ability of each of them.

Q: My opponent has a Yosei, the Morning Star. I have Greater Good in play and I play a Yosei. Can I sacrifice my Yosei before both Yoseis die?

A: No. As soon as your Dragon enters play, state-based effects will be checked. When this happens, both Yosei will go to the graveyard before anyone can play any spells or abilities.

Q: I was recently at a Friday Night Magic event and after a long game my opponent had me at one life. He then tapped a Caves of Koilos for white, took a damage and used the mana to cast Shining Shoal and redirected the damage to me. Does damage from pain lands occur too fast to redirect or is this a nice way to finish off an opponent with really low life?

A: That does not work, as the damage from Caves of Koilos and other similar lands is dealt when the mana ability is used. This cannot be responded to. This would work, however, if your opponent was able to play and resolve Shining Shoal before tapping the Caves.

Q: The card Promise of Bunrei says "If you do," right after it says "Whenever... sacrifice." Can you choose not to sacrifice it when one of your creatures dies, and let it stay up there? Or are you left with no choice but to sacrifice it whenever the first creature dies?

A: No, that line of text does not denote a choice. It is there in case the Promise is destroyed after its ability has triggered but before it resolves and you would be able to sacrifice it. Or in instances when the Promise's ability triggers multiple times, in which case you'll only be able to sacrifice it when the first ability resolves.

Q: I was wondering if the combo between Lethal Vapors and Mindslaver works? Could you pay 0 over and over to cause your opponent to skip their next so many turns?

A: Yes. But if the Lethal Vapors is in play before your opponent starts his next turn, he can choose to activate Lethal Vapors ability at that time (destroying it), so you can't make him activate it over and over again. In order to be truly effective you'd need to find a way to put Lethal Vapors in play during the Mindslavered turn.

Q: I was just wondering whether I can use Animate Dead to bring out both halves of the B.F.M. from the graveyard?

A: No. Animate Dead can only target and return a single creature card in your graveyard to play, it cannot bring both halves of B.F.M. back into play.