MTG Flanking Explained: How Flanking Works, the Math, All 33 Flanking Cards Ranked and a $52 Sidar Jabari Deck (2026)

Flanking is a Magic: The Gathering triggered ability: whenever a creature without flanking blocks a creature with flanking, the blocking creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn. The shrink happens before combat damage, so a 1-toughness blocker dies before it can deal any damage, and a 2/2 blocker becomes a 1/1 that loses the fight. It is the cavalry keyword of Mirage-era Jamuraa: knights on horseback that punish anyone who stands in front of them.

We pulled every flanking card from Scryfall, every deck count from EDHREC, and the printed power and toughness of all 17,692 Commander-legal creatures with numeric stats, then worked out what a single flanking trigger actually does in a fight. The headline: a vanilla 2/2 beats 16.6% of possible blockers outright. Give it flanking and that rises to 50.3%. Two instances (Cavalry Master) push it to 74.3%.

There are 33 Commander-legal flanking cards: 29 creatures with the keyword and four cards that grant it, double it or take it away. 32 of them were printed between 1996 and 2007. The only new one since then is Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa from Commander 2016, and it fills 48.9% of all the Commander deck slots flanking cards get. This guide covers the rules word for word, the rulings that come up, the math, every flanking card ranked by Commander play, the commanders, what the keyword cost a creature in stats, legality in every format, and a $52.16 budget Sidar Jabari Commander deck built around tapping one blocker and shrinking the rest.

What is flanking in MTG?

Flanking debuted in Mirage on 8 October 1996, on 10 creatures, almost all of them Knights of the Zhalfirin and Femeref armies. Visions added 6 more in February 1997 and Weatherlight one (Shadow Rider) in June 1997. Then the keyword went quiet for nine years, until the Time Spiral block, which was built from Magic’s old mechanics, printed 11 more between October 2006 and May 2007. Commander 2016 added Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa, a partner commander and the keyword’s only card in the last 19 years.

The Comprehensive Rules define it in two lines:

702.25a Flanking is a triggered ability that triggers during the declare blockers step. (See rule 509, “Declare Blockers Step.”) “Flanking” means “Whenever this creature becomes blocked by a creature without flanking, the blocking creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.”

702.25b If a creature has multiple instances of flanking, each triggers separately.

(Rules text from the Comprehensive Rules effective 25 September 2026.) Older guides number it 502.3 or 702.24; the wording has not changed.

How flanking works, step by step

1. You attack with a creature that has flanking. Nothing happens yet.
2. Your opponent declares blockers. For each creature without flanking that blocks your flanker, flanking triggers once. Rule 509.3d makes this explicit: an ability that reads “whenever [a creature] becomes blocked by a creature” triggers once for each creature that blocks it. Double-block a flanker and both blockers get -1/-1.
3. The triggers resolve. Each blocker gets -1/-1 until end of turn. A blocker with 1 toughness is now 0 toughness and goes to the graveyard as a state-based action, before combat damage.
4. Combat damage. Your flanker is still blocked, even if every blocker died. Without trample it deals no damage to the player. With trample, rule 702.19d says that if no creatures are blocking it when damage is assigned, all of its damage goes to the player.

The rulings that matter

• A blocker with flanking is immune. If your opponent blocks your Benalish Cavalry with their own Benalish Cavalry, nothing triggers. That is the whole reason flanking says “without flanking”: in 1996 it was meant to stop cavalry from trading badly with cavalry.
• Flanking only matters when blockers are declared. Gatherer’s ruling on Jabari’s Banner: giving a creature flanking after blockers have been declared does nothing, because the trigger event has passed. Use the Banner before blocks (in the beginning of combat or declare attackers step).
• Multiple instances stack. Agility’s ruling: an enchanted creature that already has flanking gets two triggers, so each blocker gets -2/-2.
• Cavalry Master adds exactly one instance. “Other creatures you control with flanking have flanking” gives one extra instance per creature, not one per existing instance, and a creature that loses flanking loses the Master’s instance too.
• Losing flanking after blocks doesn’t save the blocker. Sidewinder Sliver’s ruling: once a Sliver is blocked by a creature without flanking, the blocker gets -1/-1 even if the Sliver loses flanking before the trigger resolves.
• Knight of Valor’s activated ability is not flanking. Its “{1}{W}: Each creature without flanking blocking this creature gets -1/-1” is a separate ability. Effects that remove flanking (Barbed Foliage) don’t touch it.

Flanking math: what it actually wins

Rules explanations usually stop at “the blocker gets -1/-1”. The useful question is how often that changes the result of a fight. Most flanking creatures are 2/2s (22 of the 29), so we took a vanilla 2/2 attacker and blocked it with every Commander-legal creature that has numeric power and toughness, 17,692 of them, using printed stats. Then we did it again with one flanking trigger, and with two.

Without flanking, a 2/2 kills its blocker and lives in 16.6% of cases and trades in 30.0%. With one trigger, 21.6% of blockers die before damage is dealt and another 28.7% become small enough that the 2/2 kills them and survives. That is 50.3% of all blockers turned into a clean win, three times the baseline. Trades fall to 19.2%. The double-trigger column is the Cavalry Master case: 74.3%.

Two caveats. The model ignores first strike, double strike and deathtouch, which change fights in either direction; 796 of the creatures (4.5%) have one of the three. And it uses printed stats, so the 259 creatures printed with 0 toughness (most enter with +1/+1 counters) count as dying to one trigger when in play they usually don’t.

Who dies to one flanking trigger?

The second way to read flanking is as removal: which blockers die before damage at all? That is a toughness question.

21.5% of Commander-legal creatures have printed toughness 1 or less, so a single flanking trigger kills them before they deal damage. That includes the mana dorks, the 1/1 token makers and most of the small utility creatures people chump-block with. With two triggers the figure is 46.6%. This is why flanking feels strong in a 1996 Limited format full of 1/1s and 2/2s, and why it fades in Commander: the blockers that matter there (Dragons, big green creatures, 4/4 tokens) mostly have 3 or more toughness.

Every flanking card, ranked by Commander play

All 33 Commander-legal cards with flanking or that interact with it, sorted by the number of Commander decks on EDHREC that include them. Prices are the cheapest regular (non-promo) printing on Scryfall at the time of writing. Old Fogey, an Unhinged joke card that lists flanking among nine keywords, is left out: it isn’t legal in any format.

The 33 cards fill 55,744 Commander deck slots. Two cards take most of them: Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa (48.9%) and Sidewinder Sliver (15.6%). Neither is there for flanking. Sidar Kondo is a cheap partner commander whose real ability makes creatures with power 2 or less unblockable by anything without flying or reach. Sidewinder Sliver is a 1-mana Sliver, and Sliver decks play every cheap Sliver they can find. Past those two, the next most-played card is Outrider en-Kor (3,976 decks), a damage-redirect creature for Kor and Knight decks.

The rest of the list is the Mirage and Time Spiral Knight army: 2/2s for three mana with a small activated ability attached. In a format where a three-mana creature is expected to draw a card or make a token, they show up in a few hundred decks each, mostly Knight tribal.

Flanking by colour and stats

Flanking is a white keyword with a red sideline. Of the 29 creatures with the keyword, 16 are white, 6 red, 4 black, 1 blue (Knight of the Mists), 1 green (Jolrael’s Centaur) and 1 green-white (Sidar Kondo). 22 of the 29 are 2/2s; four are 3/3s (Cavalry Master, Pentarch Paladin, Shadow Rider, Skulking Knight), two are 1/1s (Mtenda Herder, Bogardan Lancer) and Sidar Kondo is a 2/5.

Cards that grant, double or remove flanking

Only five cards care about flanking as a keyword, plus Knight of Valor’s lookalike ability and Telim’Tor’s payoff. Oracle text below is exactly as Scryfall has it.

For a flanking deck the useful ones are Cavalry Master (double triggers), Jabari’s Banner (put flanking on your best attacker before blocks) and Telim’Tor (+1/+1 to every attacking flanker). Riftmarked Knight is the oddity: when it comes off suspend it makes a 2/2 black Knight token with flanking and protection from white, the mirror image of itself. Barbed Foliage is the only flanking hoser ever printed: creatures attacking you lose flanking, and any non-flyer that attacks you takes 1 damage.

The flanking commanders

Three legendary creatures have flanking. EDHREC counts decks that each one leads alone, and decks that include it anywhere:

Sidar Jabari (Mirage, mono-white, 2/2 for four) is the real flanking commander. “Whenever Sidar Jabari attacks, tap target creature defending player controls” removes the best blocker, and flanking punishes the rest. EDHREC’s 41 Sidar Jabari decks are Knight decks: their top cards are Knight of Valor, Femeref Knight, Zhalfirin Crusader, Zhalfirin Knight and Cavalry Master, each in 28 to 31 of the 41.

Telim’Tor (Mirage, mono-red, 2/2 for five) pumps every attacking flanker by +1/+1. Red has only 6 flanking creatures (plus Agility and Jabari’s Banner), so a Telim’Tor deck is a red Knights deck with a flanking subtheme. Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa is played for partner and its blocking restriction, not flanking.

Don’t confuse Sidar Jabari with Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir, a 2023 Esper (white-blue-black) Knight commander from March of the Machine Commander. It has flying, first strike and an eminence ability that loots whenever you attack with Knights, and no flanking. One of our community members has a Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir deck up on KrakenTheMeta if you want to compare the two Jabaris.

What flanking cost a creature

Was flanking free, or did Wizards charge for it in power and toughness? We compared every flanking creature in Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight, Time Spiral, Planar Chaos and Future Sight with every other creature in the same six sets, mana value by mana value. (Comparing whole-set averages would mislead, because flanking creatures cost less on average: 3.14 against 3.61.)

At two and three mana, where 20 of the 28 flanking creatures sit, flanking was free: the flankers have the same or slightly better stats than the rest of their sets. At four mana they give up about 0.2 power, and the three five-drops (Gustcloak Cavalier, Pentarch Paladin, Telim’Tor) are much smaller than other five-drops because their activated and triggered abilities are the point. The design was “a 2/2 for three, plus flanking, plus a small ability”, which was a fair deal in 1996 and is a weak one in 2026.

Flanking legality in every format

Every flanking card is legal in Commander, Legacy and Vintage, and none is banned or restricted anywhere. The Modern-legal ones are the cards printed or reprinted (as timeshifted cards) in the Time Spiral block, plus Sidewinder Sliver; Mirage, Visions and Weatherlight cards that never got a Time Spiral reprint aren’t. 17 of the 29 keyword creatures have a common printing, so they are Pauper-legal. Flanking has never been in Standard or Pioneer.

Budget Sidar Jabari flanking deck ($52.16)

The plan: attack every turn with a wide board of white Knights, tap the scariest blocker with Sidar Jabari and the other tappers, and make every remaining block a losing one. Cavalry Master turns each flanking trigger into -2/-2, Knight Exemplar makes the Knights indestructible, and anthems (Glorious Anthem, Honor of the Pure, Benalish Marshal, Valiant Knight) push the 2/2s out of trading range. The deck has 15 flanking creatures, 27 Knights and 36 lands, and it was validated against Scryfall: 100 cards, all Commander-legal, all inside white’s colour identity.

How the deck plays

• Turns 1 to 3: Knights. Mtenda Herder, Benalish Cavalry, Knight of the Holy Nimbus and the Zhalfirin knights come down early. Worthy Knight makes a 1/1 Human every time you cast a Knight, and Acclaimed Contender finds more.
• Turn 4: Sidar Jabari. From here, every attack taps one blocker. Gideon’s Lawkeeper, Giant Killer, Court Street Denizen, Topplegeist and Hylda’s Crown of Winter tap more, and Lossarnach Captain makes a 1/1 Human every upkeep that taps an opposing creature as it enters.
• Turn 5 onward: make the blocks bad. Cavalry Master, Knight of Valor and the anthems make blocking a losing trade for anything with toughness 3 or less. Blinding Light taps every nonwhite creature for a single big attack; Mass Calcify destroys every nonwhite creature (note that it hits your own Solemn Simulacrum and the black Knight token from Riftmarked Knight).
• Card flow. Mentor of the Meek lets you pay {1} to draw whenever another creature with power 2 or less enters, which is most of the deck. Mangara, the Diplomat draws when an opponent attacks you with two or more creatures or casts their second spell in a turn.
• The finisher. Kinsbaile Cavalier gives every Knight double strike. Flanking shrinks the blocker first, then first-strike damage kills it before it can hit back.

The ten most expensive cards

The top ten add up to $31.91; everything else costs under a dollar. To cut the price further, swap Emeria, the Sky Ruin for a Plains and Kinsbaile Cavalier for another white Knight; to push the power up, add Kor Haven, Land Tax and Skullclamp if the budget allows. Our budget swap tool will suggest cheaper replacements for any card, and the card price finder shows every printing’s price.

Flanking compared with other old combat keywords

Flanking belongs to a family of 1990s and 2000s keywords that change how blocking works, and comparing them shows why it fell out of use:

• Bushido (Kamigawa, 2004) is the generous version: +N/+N whenever the creature blocks or becomes blocked, and it works on defence. Flanking only works when attacking and only shrinks the blocker.
• Rampage (Legends, 1994) pumps the attacker for each blocker beyond the first. Flanking punishes every blocker, including the first.
• Horsemanship (Portal Three Kingdoms, 1999) is the other cavalry keyword: creatures with horsemanship can only be blocked by other horsemen. It is evasion; flanking is a fight-winner.
• Banding lets the attacking player assign the blockers’ damage, the most complicated way Magic ever tried to make attacks favourable.
• Afflict (Hour of Devastation, 2017) skips the blocker entirely: whenever the creature becomes blocked, the defending player loses N life.

Modern Magic gets the same effect from deathtouch, first strike and “can’t block” abilities, which are simpler to read and don’t depend on the blocker’s keywords. That, plus the fact that a -1/-1 trigger is mostly irrelevant against Commander-sized creatures, is why flanking hasn’t appeared on a new card since 2016.

Flanking FAQ

What does flanking do in MTG?

Whenever a creature without flanking blocks a creature with flanking, the blocker gets -1/-1 until end of turn. The trigger resolves before combat damage, so 1-toughness blockers die before they deal damage.

Does flanking work when my creature blocks?

No. Flanking triggers only when the creature with flanking becomes blocked, which means only when it attacks.

Does flanking trigger once per blocker?

Yes. Rule 509.3d says an ability that reads “whenever [a creature] becomes blocked by a creature” triggers once for each creature that blocks it. If three creatures without flanking block your flanker, each of them gets -1/-1.

What happens if a creature with flanking is blocked by another creature with flanking?

Nothing. Flanking only affects blockers without flanking, so cavalry blocking cavalry is a normal fight.

If the blocker dies to flanking, does my creature deal damage to the player?

Only if it has trample. A creature stays blocked even after every blocker has left combat. With trample, rule 702.19d sends all of its damage to the player when no blockers remain.

Do multiple instances of flanking stack?

Yes, each instance triggers separately (rule 702.25b). Cavalry Master, Agility and Jabari’s Banner can all give a creature an extra instance, so the blocker gets -2/-2 or more.

Is flanking evergreen?

No. Flanking appeared in Mirage, Visions, Weatherlight, the Time Spiral block and on one Commander 2016 card. Wizards has not used it since.

What is the best flanking commander?

Sidar Jabari for a flanking-focused deck: its attack trigger taps a blocker, and every other blocker gets shrunk. Telim’Tor is the red alternative. Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa has flanking but is played for partner and its blocking restriction.

Does Flanking Troops have flanking?

No. Flanking Troops is a Portal Three Kingdoms (1999) Human Soldier whose ability is “Whenever this creature attacks, you may tap target creature.” It shares the name, not the keyword.

Is flanking legal in Modern?

13 of the 29 flanking creatures are Modern-legal: the Time Spiral, Planar Chaos and Future Sight cards, including the Mirage and Visions cards that came back as timeshifted reprints (Suq’Ata Lancer, Zhalfirin Commander). The rest are not, and Sidar Kondo is a Commander-product card that has never been in a Modern-legal set.

Want a Knights deck built around your own collection? Browse the community decks for ideas, or generate one with the AI deck builder below.