Band of Misfits and Throne Room

Question

I found this ruling on Dominion Strategy Wiki FAQ for Band of Misfits:

You first play Band of Misfits, then you play the card you chose to emulate. In this sense, Band of Misfits plays like a Throne Room variant, and one play of Band of Misfits with a successful emulation counts as two Actions played; this matters for Conspirator.

So my understanding of Band of Misfits is that it basically reads "Choose a card in the supply costing less than Band of Misfits. Band of Misfits is that card until it leaves play. Play band of Misfits." Is this correct?

However, on the same page, I found this:

If you use Throne Room, King's Court, or Procession to play a Band of Misfits card multiple times, you only pick what to play it as the first time; the other times it is still copying the same card.

These two rulings don't seem to make sense if Band of Misfits is copying Feast. I would think it works like this:

• Play Throne Room. Choose Band of Misfits.
• Play Band of Misfits. Choose Feast.
• Play Band of Misfits as Feast. Trash Feast.
• Throne Room loses track of Band of Misfits and can't put it into play, but it's still played from the trash.
• Band of Misfits has reverted to itself, so the card you're playing shouldn't be Feast anymore. From here I see two possibilities, and neither one seems completly right:
  • Since Band of Misfits isn't in play, it can't copy anything(?), so nothing happens.
  • You can play Band of Misfits as a new card, but it immediately reverts to being itself on resolution(?).

Why does Throne Room keep track of what Band of Misfits copied? It seems like there's no reason for that. And if this is the case, what exactly is being played the second time? Is it actually a card? Does Band of Misfits mean it's actually copying that exact card in the supply that you chose?

Answer 1

Found it. They even use my exact example (I guess they're the canonical "play twice" and "one-shot" cards). From the Complete and All-Encompassing Dominion FAQ:

Regarding Band of Misfits no longer being in play, see 10.5 Atomicity of abilities. If you use Throne Room to play Band of Misfits twice, it will be the chosen card the second time you play it, so you will play it as the same card twice. However, if the card is removed from play (like a Feast), it will be just a Band of Misfits again the second time. You can then choose another Action card from Supply to play it as. The card will stay where it is, and the chosen card's abilities will trigger even as the Band of Misfits will immidiately revert back to being just Band of Misfits (since it's not in play), but you will resolve the triggered abilites of the card (link, link). This reverses a previous ruling.

So speculation #2 was actually correct.

Answer 2

As of September 2019, Band of Misfits has received official errata that changes its behavior in regards to this question.

The new text for Band of Misfits is:

Play a non-Command Action card from the Supply that costs less than this, leaving it there.

So Band of Misfits no longer "becomes" another card, instead each time you play it, it causes you to play another card from the supply without that card moving from the supply.

This means that now when you play Throne Room + Band of Misfits, you will play an actual Band of Misfits twice, and each time you will choose a card costing less than it to play. So you can now choose a different card each time; it makes no difference if you chose a self-trashing card like Feast or not.

Also, if you do choose a self-trashing card such as Feast; nothing will get trashed. The Band of Misfits is no longer trashed because it is just a Band of Misfits, not a Feast. And the Feast will not get trashed because it expects itself to be in play but it isn't. This means that each time you play Band of Misfits choosing Feast, you will gain a card costing up to $5 without trashing anything.