How They Brew It - Banding Together

Elesh Norn (among others) | Illustrated by Magali Villeneuve

^{What does fighting for New Phyrexia do for you? It gives you strength. It gives you courage. It gives you purpose you never knew you had. What does fighting for New Phyrexia show others? It shows them you're determined. It shows them you're passionate. It shows them you're willing to stand up for what you believe in. What does fighting for New Phyrexia mean? It means spreading order and unity. It means protecting the ones you love. It means turning puppies into hulking, metal masses.}

^{It's the drive. It's the power. It's the mind control. Be a part of history.}

^{Enlist in the Phyrexian Elesh Norn Invasion Service today.}

Full Metal Jacket

ATTEN-SHUN! I'm Drills Sergeant Michael Celani, and they call me that because compleation has surgically replaced both of my arms with two gigantic, mechanical drills. Two gigantic, mechanical drills that I'm not afraid to shove up your asses to get them in gear! In forty-eight hours, New Phyrexia will invade every plane in existence, and I'm not just talking about what we did to that flight at the start of Lost. We need platoons of highly trained, elite soldiers to put terrifying, Giger-esque boots on the ground. We couldn't find that, so we had to settle for you compleat failures. If you want to survive the desolate, war-torn planes of Ikoria, Tarkir, and Chicago, you're gonna have to survive me, first.

Remember what you're fighting for, mite. Elesh Norn wants to be the Multiverse's one mom, and I don't want to have to tell her about the pwecious little recruits that couldn't do as they were told. Your purpose: take pain for her, because every time someone tries to strike against the glory of New Phyrexia, she strikes back -- with taxes, or maybe two life, so leave your hopes and dreams in the trash where they belong, because you're all now a unit. Learn to band together and endure the pain, or you'll never survive out there!

Long Live The Queen

Rule number one: do what I say. You've signed up for the Phyrexian Elesh Norn Invasion Service now, but don't think that gives you big dick energy. Obey the crown, which means obey Elesh Norn. That's right: the monarchy is integral to the rule of law here in New Phyrexia, because if a player is the monarch, they draw an extra card at the end of their turn. However, they can lose the crown to someone else if they take combat damage from a creature. Elesh Norn actively punishes those attacking us, so provoking our enemies to swing at us by adding the monarchy to the game is actually great for our strategy, and if they see through our clever ruse and abstain from fighting, we actually get to draw cards like planned.

• Like the British Empire "discovering" a new world, we'll almost certainly have to introduce the monarchy into the game, and a simple creature like Palace Sentinels is a good way to do the trick. Cards that make you the monarch can also take it back from an opponent if you find no profitable attacks.
• Palace Jailer cranks the tension by locking up the best creature on the other side of the board -- as long as everyone agrees not to hit you and let you draw cards for the trouble. Target the token-player's commander with this and watch them take tons of damage from Elesh to release it in the world's most Pyrrhic prison break.
• With Archon of Coronation, any damage you take while you're the monarch won't cause you to lose life, but since you still technically took damage, Elesh Norn still counts it.
• And Elesh Norn doesn't care if you get hurt or one of your permanents gets hurt, so Protector of the Crown remains, at the very least, a free Fog with card draw on top.
• Court of Grace rewards you with huge beaters every upkeep if you can hold onto the crown, but it still grants you some evasive dorks to take it back if you can't.
• But if you can't become the monarch because you don't know your left from your divine right, taking the initiative is a pretty good substitute. White Plume Adventurer makes you venture into the Undercity and lets you untap creatures you attacked with so that you can block with them and get additional Elesh Norn triggers.
• When Seasoned Dungeoneer swings at the king, she sure doesn't miss -- largely because she's capable of giving herself protection from creatures, rendering her effectively unblockable. She's the perfect soldier to keep control of both the monarchy and the initiative, and to top it off she Explores as well, which helps you hit your land drops.
• And finally, Coveted Jewel is like a turbo-Monarch, granting you three whole cards and significant ramp when you play it. Just don't play it out if you can't protect yourself effectively - without enough blockers, your opponent can use the Jewel to pay for Elesh Norn's tax.

Brothers in Arms

Rule number two: Your squadmates are your lifeline. If you think you can blow up an entire enemy army on your own, drop and give me five-thousand dollars because you must be Tony goddamn Stark. Elesh Norn has us attack and defend in huge numbers, because the more creatures that take damage during the fight, the more her triggered ability can whittle down our opponents' life totals. Having a big group also makes it that much easier to activate her ability since she needs three lucky chosen ones to sacrifice themselves to power her up. Here's how we keep a big field:

• With Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, each attack creates three 1/1 Soldiers, one for each of your opponents, unless you have no friends to play with and are the type of person to go to a Dave & Busters by yourself. You should take care to remind your opponents that blocking will cost them mana or deal more damage to them than they would have taken from the Soldier, so why not just let it through?
  • Veteran Soldier is much the same, but it attaches the effect to Elesh Norn. If Elesh Norn survives combat, you can even immediately flip her with the three tokens created.
• Monastery Mentor creates a Monk with Prowess each time you cast a noncreature spell, and these can add up fast.
• Prava of the Steel Legion is both an anthem and a token-generator in one, and that additional four toughness is substantial when the penalty for blocking a creature is as deadly as Elesh Norn's.
• Hero of Bladehold comes with Battle cry, which is what you'll end up doing if you don't listen to your drills sergeant. It's a decent little attack buff, and he recruits more Soldiers when he enters combat. What's not to like?
• God-Eternal Oketra and her monument create vigilant tokens whenever you cast a creature spell. Vigilance is especially powerful in this deck because being able to attack and block with the same creatures each turn cycle maximizes your chance to trigger her ability.
• Silverwing Squadron's creature tokens are vigilant, don't throw themselves headfirst into a train when they enter the battlefield, and Silverwing Squadron itself has flying and is unlikely to encounter much resistance when attacking.
• Secure the Wastes and Grand Crescendo are both instan-speed token-generators, which is a great backup if you find yourself holding up interaction.
• Most people don't turn to Maskwood Nexus for additional bodies, but it can make more creatures. It's mostly here because it has the ancillary ability to save your creatures from Elesh Norn's back side wrath.
• Chivalric Alliance is basically drawing you a card every time you attack, since you only need two attacking creatures and we're in a deck full of throwaway tokens. Plus, you can pitch useless lands in the late game to it to make some Knights.
• Both modes of Felidar Retreat are useful here. If you need more creatures, go ahead and make the 2/2; otherwise, you can buff your entire board and give them vigilance for the turn as well.
• Rabble Rousing literally doubles your board with each attack, and for some reason it also lets you cast a card for free. This thing's busted.
• And ironically, Elspeth, Sun's Champion is here, too, for the reason you think she is. Don't tell Elesh.

Pain au Chocolat

I can't believe I'm saying this, but good job, mite. You might have what it takes to be a part of Phyrexia's Elesh Norn Invasion Service, a task force which my editor has prevented me from making an acronym of this time around. Now all that's left is to test your tolerance for pain. That you is plural, by the way, because like an Enrage deck, we want as many of you to be hurting as possible. Now if you look under your seats, you'll find an I-Don't-Care package, each of which contains a full ghost pepper, a picture of your significant other cheating on you with Danny DeVito, and a mirror. Hurts, doesn't it? But you don't have to suffer alone.

When you use Banding, you and your squadmates get to endure the pain together. Here's how it works: when you attack, you get to declare any number of creatures with Banding, and up to one without, in a band. If any creature in that band gets blocked, that blocking creature is assigned to block all the creatures in the band. Then, when it comes time for damage, you get to split up all the damage the blockers would do amongst the creatures in the band however you want, so when you attack with a huge band, one of two things happen:

• The band gets blocked, and you spread the damage amongst as many creatures as you can, causing Elesh Norn to dome your victim for two that many times;
• The band gets through and just deals the damage they would have.

Banding works well on defense, too. If an enemy attacks you with anything at all, block it with any number of creatures and at least one Banding creature. Then, you're able to split up the damage the same way. Defensive Formation gives this effect to your entire field for just one mana. You can even nullify big trample creatures this way if you really just need to survive, because trampling damage over is optional!

To make your attacks a fork that's much more Morton's, buffing up your tokens with anthem effects both increases the amount of damage you can do if unblocked and the amount of damage you can take otherwise. This means your wimpy 1/1s don't have to die for no reason in a war of aggression anymore. This is also great if you don't have your Baton of Morale out yet, which is your main way of getting your whole army into a band.

And Banding isn't the only way to spread the damage out; using combos like Nomads en-Kor and Martyrdom, you can redirect damage that's not even going your way in the first place. Gideon's Sacrifice also works on the en-Kors, even if super looks like it doesn't, thanks to how replacement effects work. Blood of the Martyr can be used politically to save an ally's creatures while damaging the player attacking them, and if your opponents aren't attacking at all? Hey, the source of damage from a Wave of Reckoning is technically each creature, so set up a redirect combo with that!

Temporary Truce

Bad news, everyone. It seems like invading everything, everywhere, all at once is not an effective military strategy by any stretch of the imagination. We really should have learned from Napoleon, but we sold him short. And now our entire plane is phased out! But what can you do? We'll just have to make way for Magic's next villain and first Universes Beyond antagonists, Darth Vader and the Vadettes. I'm so excited for the future of this card game!

If you enjoy How They Brew It, please check out the Discord and my other projects at my website. If you're tired of Banding shenanigans, you can always vote for something a little bit more understandable, like a deck that wins by tutoring an enemy's best spell into exile and then casting it from their graveyard. Yup, you read that right. Hope to see you there!

View this decklist on Moxfield