Empathic Bond
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Contents
Overview
Just as the element of Life revolves around numerous creatures and spawning multiples of them for damage, Empathic Bond is a specialized permanent that heals the player for 1 HP per creature on their side of the field.
General Use
Quick Facts:
- Heals +1 HP per creature, even if creatures are frozen, petrified, otherwise unusable, as long as they're on the field. The healing is applied on the permanent's turn as a bulk heal.
- The maximum amount of health recovered from a single Bond is 23 HP (the number of creatures that can fit on a field).
Empathic Bond is a moderate-cost card for 5 
quanta (4 upgraded, as Feral Bond). When in play, the permanent provides 1 point of healing per creature on the caster's field at the end of the turn. For example, if there are 23 creatures on the field, the permanent activates at the end of the turn to give +23 HP as total. Such healing is unheard of compared to other permanents; no other card (save for Miracle or an upgraded Shard of Divinity) can heal for that much in a single turn, let alone every single turn during a battle. Of course, the amount of healing provides varies based on the number of creatures the player controls; to maximize the benefit out of a Bond, one should find a way to generate multiple creatures as soon as possible.
However, Empathic Bond is often prone to both creature and permanent control. It can be easily destroyed or stolen by enemies to neutralize its benefit. While protecting Bonds may be helpful for healing in the long-run of a match, if the opponent has numerous CC cards such as Rain of Fire, the killed creatures will greatly reduce the healing provided. Having more vital permanents or alternative ways to mass-produce creatures will force most players (and some A.I.) to go to more extensive measures to stop the healing (if they have such cards to begin with).
Synergies
Rainbow Decks sometimes use Bonds for their healing prowess, and are decent of earning an Elemental Mastery bonus against False Gods. Because several standard rainbow decks depend on a large amount of creatures, Empathic Bond becomes a great addition if it's supplied with a reliable creature generator, such as Firefly Queen | Elite Queen (which produces Fireflies for two , making a decent Air and Life synergy). Given copious amounts of quanta, a person can essentially fill an entire field with Fireflies, generating even more 
(or 
) quanta and improving the amount healed by the Bonds. Of course, this strategy fails if FFQ is killed early on, so players should attempt protecting or mitigating the damage to it with cards such as Quintessence.
Another way of mass-generating creatures for Empathic Bond is by using Mitosis | Mitosis. Upon being applied to a creature, players can then slowly fill their field with copies of the target creature, increasing the amount of healing from the Bonds and adding more attackers. While Mitosis is slower than Fractal, the card is in-element and can be especially effective on other cheap Life creatures such as the Horned Frog, to gather an army of cost-efficient attackers.
Other Cards With Synergy
Empathic Bond works great with creature spam decks, or decks that focus on generating and playing as many creatures as possible for damage. Pharaoh has the capability of producing numerous Scarabs (even more so with Shard of Readiness), which can provide major CC given 
. Boneyard can produce several Skeletons if there's consistent creature control (killing the opponent’s creatures), and can slowly turn matches around if there are enough Skeletons on the field to heal up the damage. Even the alchemy spell, Aflatoxin, can spawn multiple Malignant Cells on one's field to reap the benefit from this permanent (after sacrificing one of your creatures from the poison), although this tactic is poor against shields or damaging AOE CC spells.
Conclusion
While there are various forms of healing available to players, Empathic Bond stands as one of the most traditional healing permanents in the game, given enough creatures on the field. Players who find themselves encountering them must either remove the permanent as quickly as possible, or utilize strong CC effects, lest they wish to fight incredibly long battles...
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