Gnawing Crescendo

A pump spell that turns a losing race into a self-refueling one. The +2/+0 is the trap: it invites you to swing wide, trade creatures, and lose the board, except every nontoken creature that dies for the rest of the turn hands back a Rat, so the attrition runs one direction only. That reads as a combat trick, but the more dangerous line is aggressive rather than defensive. The timing that matters is casting it before combat damage: buff your attackers, force through blocks, and when your creatures trade in the exchange each death spawns a Rat, so you come out of a mass block with your board largely intact. Better still, point it at your own aristocrats board where creatures are meant to die: pair it with a sacrifice outlet and each nontoken death both triggers your drain package and manufactures a fresh Rat to feed to the outlet, a stream the anthem effect only sweetens. The "can't block" clause on the tokens keeps the Rats purely offensive rather than letting them wall up a stalled board, which is the exact tension the card is built around: it wants creatures dead and swinging, not defended. Most anthems ask you to already have the board; this one is happy to spend it, converting bodies you were going to lose into bodies you get to keep.