Gideon's Phalanx

Seven mana for eight power across four bodies is not where the value lives; the spell mastery rider is. The base half is an instant-speed army that arrives with vigilance to defend or swing, and stacking the graveyard condition folds a board-wide indestructible umbrella on top: a fog against the wrath you were already bracing for and a green light to attack into open mana without fearing a removal trade. That second effect is not a mode you choose but a clause that checks itself on resolution, so it costs nothing extra and simply comes online once the yard is stocked. And it need not be stocked by casting: two instant or sorcery cards milled, discarded, or looted away satisfy spell mastery just as well as ones you spent mana on, which quietly widens the decks that can turn the rider on. The indestructible clause rewrites a combat math problem in a single instant-speed window: four 2/2 vigilant blockers that cannot die turn an alpha strike into a wall, and because the whole spell resolves at instant speed, that wall can materialize in response to an opponent's swing or sweeper rather than telegraphing itself a turn early. The cost is the friction: seven mana with a graveyard prerequisite is a lot to ask of a token-maker, and the floor (four plain bodies with the rider dormant) is exactly that. The ceiling is a one-card blowout that defends the board it just built.