Modern Horizons started off its first week of spoiler season with a great many amazing new cards. We covered one of the more recent spoilers in Sword of Truth and Justice yesterday. Today’s spoiler of Sword of Sinew and Steel on Magic: The Gathering‘s Twitch channel expands the Sword Cycle even further.
The Breakdown
Sword of Sinew and Steel continues to build on the Sword Cycle created originally in Darksteel. The Swords are an Equipment that cost three mana to play and two mana to equip. Each Sword grants the equipped creature +2/+2 and protection from two of the five Colors. For Sinew and Steel, this Sword grants the equipped creature protection from Black and Red. This is extremely useful to help protect your most prized creature from burn spells like Lightning Bolt and destroy spells like Murder. That makes it one of the most useful protection combinations in the game.
The second integral part of the Sword Cycle is that the equipped creature gains triggered abilities when it successfully deals combat damage to a player. These abilities often correspond to the effects found in the Colors that the Sword grants protection from. For Sinew and Steel, the Black side of the ability is that you can destroy a target planeswalker. The Red side of the ability is the ability to destroy a target artifact. Not only do these abilities correspond great to the colors they represent, they can also greatly impact the game.
How to utilize Sword of Sinew and Steel
Sword of Sinew and Steel is pretty self-explanatory to use. Obviously, you want to throw it on creatures that can easily get damage in on opponents. Such creatures include menace creatures like Boggart Brute and unblockable creatures like Invisible Stalker. A good benefit of the Sword is that it gains protection from Red and Black, meaning that it cannot be blocked by creatures of those Colors.
The Verdict
Sword of Sinew and Steel feels less effective than most of the other Swords in the Cycle. It may not see major main-board play in Modern or Legacy. However, the Sword will find great sideboard effectiveness against many superfriends and artifact-based decks. If Esper Control finds its way into Modern or Legacy, it might be a good idea to pick up one or two copies of this Sword.
The last note of this review is that, with the reveal of this and Sword of Truth and Justice, it does look like Wizards is trying to complete this Cycle of ten Swords. It may not happen in this set, but its chances are certainly looking up. For now, make sure to keep up with all our coverage of Modern Horizons spoilers on our Magic: The Gathering page!
