Instruments of War

The interesting decision here is deferring the payoff until the moment it lands. Most tribal anthems are colored enchantments that lock in a type during deckbuilding and sit at sorcery speed; this one is colorless, artifact-based, and picks its type on entry, so any tribal shell in any color can run it without touching the mana requirements. Flash is what elevates it past a static bonus. Choosing the creature type as the artifact resolves, at instant speed, converts a plain +1/+1 anthem into a combat instrument: hold it up, let an opponent attack or block into what looks like even math, then flash it in mid-combat or at end of turn to size your team past the trade. The colorless cost tells you who this is for. Anthem effects have historically lived inside a color's identity (white and green own most tribal lords), which forced an off-color aggro deck to either splash or go without. Four mana for a colorless artifact sidesteps that entirely, letting the tribe stay in the mana the deck already runs. You pay for that flexibility with rate: four mana for a single +1/+1 across one type is a soft anthem, and it does nothing until you have a board of the right creatures to point it at. This is a flash-speed lord for a deck already invested in one creature type, one that wants the bonus regardless of the colors it plays.