Twisted Fate helps your Flag's immensely. Though if you are adverse to just the Twisted Fate aspect, you might look at a semi-decent Air Blessing in order to stop all arrowfire. Though you are still going to run into the problem of having no armor and being chewed up by most other units out there.

Flags with a 9 Water blessing are decent, but I would more than likely stick to a Fire 9 Blessing so they are able to punch through most armors and hit a bit of the time. Use them as flankers and stopgap units, not as standard troops. Only use them if you need a powerful flank but don't mind taking a significant loss for it.