Picture this, it's 2013, and you're settling in for a prerelease at your LGS, playing the second set from the Return to Ravnica expansion. Gatecrash gave us five more guilds from Ravnica, following up on the original set's five guilds. Each of the guilds had their own keyword, and Battalion was reserved for the Boros Legion. For anyone who played at one of those pre-releases, it was almost immediately obvious how good this mechanic was in a Limited environment. But what made it so good? And where is it today in a game that's dominated by the Commander format?

Battalion: Going Wide Is The Order

The phrasing for the Battalion keyword is simple: Attack with three or more creatures and something happens. This plays very synergistically with the Boros Legion's ideals of flooding the board very early with small creatures and swinging in for lethal. More often than not, those creatures became too difficult to handle or had abilities that removed blockers from their way.

Battalion is a rich keyword, and has seen appearances in Universes Beyond sets like Fallout and Doctor Who.

However, it's also very flavorful, focusing on Boros' guiding principle of flooding the field like an army overwhelming its enemy. In the original release, it also came with a handful of "enablers" which allowed players to get Battalion out of nowhere. Hasty creatures and those with evasion were among the best threats Boros had, often closing games out on turn three or 4. Sadly, there haven't been too many cards to support the mechanic being printed recently.

A Sparse Mechanic

In all of Magic, there are only fourteen cards that have the Battalion keyword and further six that reference, "When you attack with three or more creatures..." which is technically the same thing. A field of 20 cards isn't much, but within those cards are some standout examples of how this mechanic can take over a game.

Frontline Medic is a great example. If you swing with three or more creatures, ALL your creatures become indestructible until end of turn. This makes it impossible for blockers to block favorably. Another good example is Firemane Avenger, which can potentially deal 6 damage to an opponent when it attacks with friends. The big downside is that these creatures aren't removal-proof and removing just one might be enough to ensure Battalion doesn't trigger.

Where Does Battalion Come From?

Battalion was originally named Assault, and was a submission by Shawn Main through The Great Designer Search 2 (a competition held by Wizards of the Coast in 2010 to find new designers).

The mechanic was one of several included in Return to Ravnica that drew inspiration (or copied directly) designs submitted to these competitions. Another notable mechanic included in the set was Evolve, drawn from another entry into The Great Designer Search.

Since its inception, it's never really shown up as a huge competitor in Constructed formats, and most of its impact was made in Limited. Commander players have never really taken to the mechanic either, but they have a decent reason for doing so.

Battalion In Commander

With only 20 cards, and no really interesting legendary creatures among them to helm a deck, it's not a wonder that Battalion doesn't get a lot of love in Commander. The really standout legendaries like Aurelia, the Law Above (only technically a Battalion creature) and Tajic, Blade of the Legion are decent cards in their right, but their Battalion keyword is more of an "added spice" than something to build around.

That said, cards like Odric, Master Tactician are Commander staples because the pseudo-Battalion effect he creates is just too powerful to ignore, especially in other go-wide decks. The big problem with Battalion for Commander players is that it advises you to do something that is probably not in your best interests: overcommit to your board.

To have Battalion trigger, you need three creatures without summoning sickness on the field, ready to go. That means, your board has to have a certain level of commitment for the mechanic to function. Without it, your Battalion creatures are just bad regular creatures. With the prevalence of board wipes in Commander, overcommitting to the board is a terrible mistake.

Playing Battalion in Commander means ignoring the mechanic until we have enough creatures to make it work. Boros has several pseudo-Battalion creatures (that don't have the keyword but check for the same trigger) that can be quite powerful in the right shell, like Phoenix Chick or Warcry Phoenix. While it's not a popular mechanic, it still sees its share of play in some decks that run those colors.

Edge Case Rules To Be Aware Of

Battalion triggers when three or more creatures attack. Once the initial trigger occurs, then removing the Battalion creature will usually stop the ability, unless it's not tied to the creature. Odric, Master Tactician is a good example. Removing him after his ability triggers still allows the attacking player to resolve choosing blocks.

In Commander, when there's more than one opponent, do the Battalion creatures need to be attacking the same opponent? No. Once the creatures attack, which opponent they attack is irrelevant to the ability's resolution.

What about tapped-and-attacking creatures? Sadly, those won't cause Battalion to trigger. The trigger happens when the player declares an attack with two or more other creatures. Tapped-and-attacking creatures are never declared as attackers and so skip the declare attackers subphase, where Battalion checks to see it if procs.

Battalion and pseudo-Battalion abilities vary widely from card to card, so the only way to know if you're playing a card right is to read the card carefully.

Will We Ever See Battalion Again?

With a Storm Scale rating of 4, it's a good chance that we'll revisit Battalion in the future. As we saw before, some Universes Beyond cards have Battalion as a keyword, so there's nothing stopping more from coming out, albeit at a trickle. The keyword is nice in the right shell, but it's not very popular, and as a result, we may only ever see fringe additions to the Battalion card pool.