I saw another flagbearer article on the pojo, but the writer was obviously 
confused about the rulings and all combos he/she thought of would not work. 
Well, basically there are 3 "flagbearing" cards: 

-Standard Bearer, 1W for a 1/1 with "flagbearing" ability (type= Flagbearer) 
-Coalition Honor Guard, 3W for a 2/4 with "flagbearing" ability (type= 
Flagbearer) 
-Coalition Flag, W for a creature enchantment gives creature "flagbearing" 
ability. (enchanted creature type becomes Flagbearer) 

What is the flagbearing ability?  Basically it says: 
"If a spell or ability an opponent controls could target a Flagbearer in 
play, that player chooses at least one Flagbearer as it's target." 

Basically if your opponent, say, activates Prodigal Sorcerer's ability, 
they'd have to choose a Flagbearer in play to take the damage, rather than 
being able to choose any other target.  I will now analyze each of the 
Flagbearing cards: 
(NOTE: My analyzation will be against "counterburn" decks, as it is the 
easiest to explain this way.  You'll have to figure out how to use them 
against other deck types.) 

Standard Bearer 
Creature- Flagbearer 
1W 
"flagbearer ability" (explained above) 
1/1 
This creature is great "bait".  It costs little, and is expendable.  With 
this out your opponent is going to have to WAIST something to get rid of it 
if they want to play a spell such as Giant Growth on their creature or want 
to, say, Urza's Rage you. 
Now, you may say "But they can just counter it..." which is true and is 
USUALLY a bad disadvantage nowadays with all the good counter cards and 
counterburn decks.  Well, that means they took the bait!  You got rid of a 
counterspell, and tapped some of their land, with only tapping 2 of yours. 
Okay, say they don't counter it.  Now they really have a problem.  They can't 
burn you, or any of your other creatures without burning it first.  They 
can't pump up their creatures with cards such as giant growth or fires of 
yavimaya.  They can't even play creature enchantments without it going on 
your flagbearer!  They'll feel stupid using a ghitu fire on a little 1/1 when 
there's a Dragon Legend or something far better out! 
Okay, there is a problem though.  Fire/Ice... a common card for counterburn.   
They can deal 1 damage to your flagbearer and 1 damage to something else... 
easily disposing of the problem.  In that case we use... 

Coalition Honor Guard 
3W 
"flagbearer ability" (explained above) 
2/4 
The great thing about this one is it's high toughness.  You couldn't kill it 
if you just used an Urza's rage (w/o kicker) on it!  Fire/Ice wouldn't kill 
it!  Unfortunately it costs a bit more than the Standard Bearer, so is more 
costly to lose.  A counterspell against this often means that you spent more 
mana playing it, than they did countering it, and they also feel more 
confident countering a 2/4 than a 1/1. 
However, if it does come out, everything gets twice as bad for your opponent! 
 They'll often have to use a good burn or two on it just to get rid of it!   
You'll be thankful when they Ghitu Fire it for 4 when, with all their land, 
they could have ghitu fired you for 8.  There are less quick solutions when 
it comes to this guy, but it comes at the price of being more expensive.  If 
you aren't playing against burn or ping, Standard Bearer is usually much 
better.  But if you are, you might want to stick with Coalition Honor Guard. 

Coalition Flag 
W 
Gives enchanted creature "flagbearer" ability and creature type (explained 
above) 
This is a nice card to have, and in many ways is better than the other 
flagbearing cards.  You can choose whether to enchant a big wall (glacial 
wall is good), or to enchant a little saproling... or, whatever seems 
convenient.  All the same stuff as above still applies, basically.  The only 
difference is that the creature's ability can be gotten rid of by either 
creature OR enchantment destruction.  Nowadays it could get Orim's Thundered, 
which could kill some other 1/1 creature, without waisting a generic burn 
card.  Unless you have a lot more than average enchantments, they probably 
won't have waisted their enchantment destruction. 

HOW TO COUNTER FLAGBEARERS! 
-A good way to nullify a flagbearer's ability is by using Alexi's Cloak or 
Diplomatic Immunity on a flagbearer.  Now, since the flagbearer CAN'T be the 
target of spells or abilities, the ability becomes null, since the card 
states "If a spell or ability an opponent controls COULD TARGET a Flagbearer 
in play..."  If it can't, then there ya go.  It still might be waisting a 
Diplomatic immunity, depending on the situation.  Then again, who uses those? 
-Fire/Ice.  You can fire it and another creature each for 1 if it's the 
standard bearer that's annoying you. 
-Any other spell that can targets more than 1 creature.  It says you have to 
AT LEAST target one flagbearer, which means if you play fireball and add a 
new target after dealing 1 damage to flagbearer, well... it works. 
-Disenchant or Orim's Thunder against Coalition Flag.  Usually people don't 
have many enchantments so it isn't really a waist. 
-The card that deals x damage to all creatures and players (earthquake) will 
take out your standard bearers easily and your coalition honor guards if it's 
4 damage and not take away from the spells effect. 
-Any other card that doesn't target creatures, since you won't have to target 
a flagbearer. 
-Engineered plague on Flagbearers automatically kills standards and will make 
it so honor guards will only take 1 urza's rage to kill.  Also people won't 
want to make their creatures flagbearers with coalition flag since it'll give 
it -1/-1, unless it's just bait. 
Well, that's all I can think of tonight.  I hope I've made everyone realize 
the value of flagbearers, especially against counterburn. 
Goodnight. 
brett3@aol.com