Mirran swords

The Mirran swords are a mega-mega cycle of mythic rare cards featuring Equipment artifacts.

Description

Each sword has mana cost , provides +2/+2, protection from two colors, has a triggered ability that triggers when the sword's equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, and equips for . The sword's triggered ability will offer two effects that come from the same two colors that the sword gives its equipped creature protection against. The allied-protection swords are granted more synergistic abilities, though weaker on the rate.

History

At first, the swords were released across sets that featured Mirrodin and New Phyrexia and offered protection from enemy colors. Swords featuring allied colors started being released with Modern Horizons, with three being in supplementary sets and the last two being from Phyrexian sets Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine.

Some swords have been reprinted in the Masters series, in Masterpiece Series, and even as judge promotional cards. While many different versions of art have been created for various swords, Chris Rahn has created artwork for the first eight swords in the series, and was the original artist for six of them.

Trivia

• The Sword of Dungeons & Dragons was first featured as a Hasbro promotional card, but then printed in Unstable. Like the Mirran swords, it gives +2/+2, gives protection from two creature types (instead of colors), has a triggered effect on combat damage to a player, and has an equip cost of 2. It was even illustrated by Chris Rahn.
• The Minneapolis Unknown Event playtest card Sword of Fire and Ice and War and Peace is a "team up" of the cards Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of War and Peace.
• The Philadelphia Unknown Event playtest card Sort of ____ and ____ is a Mirran sword that randomly assigns both an effect from the first half and the second half of the tournament-legal Mirran swords' names for a total of one-hundred possible combinations (Truth, Once, Sinew, Forge, Hearth, Light, Feast, Body, Fire, War; Justice, Future, Steel, Frontier, Home, Shadow, Famine, Mind, Ice, Peace). However, it does not give +2/+2 or protection from any colors.
• Sword of Wealth and Power is another sword, granting instead protection from instants and sorceries.

References