MTG Rampage, Bushido, Flanking, Provoke, Banding and Horsemanship guide image showing an old-school fantasy battlefield with warriors, cavalry, forced blocks, combat formations, and retired Magic combat mechanics.

MTG Rampage, Bushido, Flanking & Provoke Guide

Alongside evergreen combat tools like flying and menace, Magic: The Gathering has experimented with a handful of older combat mechanics that never quite became part of the game's standard toolkit. Some were too narrow, some too easily punished, and one — banding — is widely considered the single most complicated ability ever printed. All of them still show up in Commander decks running old cards, cubes, and casual games, so knowing how they actually function still matters.

This guide covers rampage, bushido, flanking, provoke, banding, and horsemanship — with the exact rules behind each, including the mechanic that took Wizards twelve rules points to define.

This is the fifteenth article in our series on advanced MTG mechanics, following our guides to devour and amass and shadow and skulk.

Rampage

Rampage N is a triggered ability: whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N until end of turn for each creature blocking it beyond the first.

  • Blocked by exactly one creature gives no bonus. Rampage still triggers when the creature becomes blocked, but with only one blocker there are zero creatures beyond the first, so the result is +0/+0.
  • The bonus locks in once, when the trigger resolves. If more or fewer creatures end up blocking after that point, the bonus doesn't change — it's calculated a single time and stays fixed for the rest of the turn.
  • Multiple instances of rampage trigger separately, each calculating its own bonus.
  • It's widely considered a design failure. Rampage creatures were costed as if the bonus would reliably trigger, but a defending player simply avoids gang-blocking a rampage creature, so the ability frequently does nothing at all.

Bushido

Bushido N is a triggered ability: whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N until end of turn.

  • It doesn't care how many creatures are involved. This is the detail most often confused with rampage: a bushido 1 creature blocked by five creatures at once still only gets +1/+1. The trigger cares about the event of blocking or being blocked, not a count of participants.
  • It works both ways. Unlike most combat tricks tied to only attacking or only blocking, bushido triggers whether the creature is the attacker being blocked or the blocker doing the blocking.
  • Multiple instances stack by triggering separately, exactly like rampage — a creature with bushido 1 and bushido 2 (through some copy effect) gets +3/+3 total, from two separate triggers.

Flanking

Flanking is a triggered ability: whenever this creature becomes blocked by a creature without flanking, the blocking creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.

  • It only triggers when the flanking creature is attacking and blocked — not when a flanking creature does the blocking. A flanking creature that blocks something gets no bonus from flanking itself.
  • It triggers once per blocker without flanking. A flanking creature blocked by three non-flanking creatures triggers flanking three separate times, giving -1/-1 to each of them individually.
  • The -1/-1 can kill a blocker before combat damage. Since flanking triggers and resolves during the declare blockers step, a small blocker reduced to 0 toughness dies right then — before it ever deals combat damage, even if it has first strike.
  • The attacker is still considered blocked, even if every blocker dies. Killing the blockers with flanking doesn't let the attacking creature's damage through to the player, unless it also has trample.
  • Only creatures with flanking themselves are immune. A blocker that also has flanking takes no penalty.
  • Multiple flanking abilities are brutal. If the attacking creature somehow has flanking twice, each instance triggers separately, so a non-flanking blocker gets -2/-2 total.

Provoke

Provoke is a triggered ability: whenever this creature attacks, you may choose to have target creature the defending player controls block this creature this combat if able. If you do, untap that creature.

  • The forced block still has to be legal. Provoke doesn't override normal blocking restrictions — a non-flying creature still can't legally block a flying attacker, even if it was provoked.
  • You can target an already-untapped creature. There's no requirement that the target be tapped; provoke's untap effect simply does nothing extra in that case, but the forced block still applies.
  • The creature has to still be untapped when blockers are declared. If something taps the provoked creature again before the declare blockers step, it becomes unable to block despite being provoked.
  • If the target genuinely can't block at all — because of some other restriction — provoke just untaps it (if you chose to) and does nothing further.
  • It's an optional "may" ability, so you can choose not to force a block and simply attack normally.

Horsemanship

Horsemanship is a straightforward evasion ability: a creature with horsemanship can't be blocked by creatures without horsemanship. A creature with horsemanship can block anything, with or without horsemanship.

  • It behaves like an older, self-contained version of flying. A creature with horsemanship can only be blocked by creatures with horsemanship, but it can block creatures with or without horsemanship. Reach does not interact with horsemanship.
  • Multiple instances are redundant, same as most static evasion abilities.
  • It's almost entirely confined to one set. Nearly every horsemanship card comes from Portal Three Kingdoms, and the ability was famously legal in no tournament format at all until that set was added to Vintage and Legacy in 2005.

Banding: The Most Complicated Ability in Magic

Banding is not a triggered ability — it's a static ability that rewrites the normal rules for declaring attackers and assigning combat damage. It takes far more rules text than anything else in this guide, but it comes down to three core ideas.

1. Creatures with banding can form a "band"

As you declare attackers, you may group any number of attacking creatures with banding, plus up to one attacking creature without banding, into a single band. Every creature in the band has to attack the same target, and a creature can only be part of one band.

2. If any part of the band gets blocked, the whole band is blocked

This is where banding becomes genuinely strange. If a blocking creature legally blocks even one member of a band, that same blocker is considered to be blocking every creature in the band. This can make an otherwise-unblockable creature blockable, as long as it's grouped into a band with something that can legally be blocked.

3. Whoever controls a banding creature decides how the other side's damage is assigned

Normally, a creature's controller decides how its own combat damage is divided among the creatures it's fighting. Banding flips that rule whenever it's involved:

  • If an attacking creature with banding is blocked, the attacking player decides how the blocking creatures assign their combat damage among the creatures in the band.
  • If a blocking creature with banding blocks an attacker, the defending player decides how the attacking creature assigns its combat damage among the creatures blocking it.

In both directions, the player who controls the banding creature gets to dictate how the opposing creature or creatures assign their combat damage. This lets the banding player redirect lethal damage away from a creature they want to keep alive, spreading it onto something they do not mind losing instead.

Quick Reference

Mechanic What it does
Rampage N +N/+N per blocker beyond the first, calculated once
Bushido N +N/+N once, whether blocking or being blocked
Flanking -1/-1 to each non-flanking blocker, once per blocker
Provoke Force a specific creature to block, and untap it if needed
Horsemanship Can only be blocked by creatures with horsemanship
Banding Groups attackers together; banding player controls opposing damage assignment

Why These Matter Today

Most of these are functionally retired from new card design, but they remain fully legal wherever the printed cards are legal — including Commander, where old cards see occasional play in cube-style or nostalgia-driven decks.

Bushido rewards trading, not avoiding combat — a bushido creature wants to be in the fight, which makes it feel very different from most modern evasion-focused designs.

Flanking punishes chump blocking specifically. A small creature thrown in front of a flanking attacker just to save life total often dies before it can do anything at all, which is a much harsher tax than most modern combat mechanics apply.

Provoke is a rare tool for forcing bad blocks — untapping and compelling a specific creature into a fight it would rather avoid, which can be used to clear a path for other attackers or to pick off a particular blocker in a favourable trade.

Banding is a curiosity more than a strategy today, but understanding it matters if you ever play with or against genuinely old cards — it can produce blocks and damage assignments that look illegal to anyone unfamiliar with the mechanic.

You can find modern staples covering similar ground — flying, menace, deathtouch, and the rest of the evergreen evasion toolkit — in our full catalogue, or import your decklist directly with our decklist search tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does rampage scale with every blocker, or every blocker after the first?

Only every blocker beyond the first. A rampage 2 creature blocked by one creature gets nothing; blocked by two creatures it gets +2/+2 (one bonus instance beyond the first); blocked by three it gets +4/+4, and so on.

Does bushido give more of a bonus if more creatures are involved in the block?

No. This is the most common mix-up with rampage. Bushido triggers once on the event of blocking or being blocked, completely regardless of how many creatures are in the fight. A bushido 1 creature always gets exactly +1/+1 from a single instance of the ability, whether it faces one blocker or five.

Can a flanking creature's -1/-1 kill a blocker before it deals damage?

Yes. Flanking triggers and resolves during the declare blockers step, well before combat damage is assigned. A blocker reduced to 0 toughness by flanking dies immediately, before the combat damage step even begins — so it never deals damage, even if it has first strike.

Does provoke force an illegal block?

No. Provoke can force a creature to block if able, but the block still has to follow every normal blocking rule. A creature that couldn't legally block the attacker for some other reason — lacking flying against a flying attacker, for instance — still can't block it, provoke or not.

Can a normally unblockable creature be blocked if it has banding?

Not from banding alone — but if it's grouped into a band with a creature that opponents can legally block, and that other band member gets blocked, the whole band (including the otherwise unblockable creature) becomes blocked too. This is one of banding's strangest and most famous interactions.

Who decides how damage is assigned when banding is involved?

The player who controls the creature with banding decides how the opposing creature or creatures assign combat damage. If you attack with a banding creature and it becomes blocked, you choose how the blockers assign their damage among the creatures in the band. If you block with a banding creature, you choose how the attacking creature assigns its damage among the creatures blocking it.

More guides in our advanced mechanics series:

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