Pointed Discussion

Zelyon Sword is essentially equipment, back before rules for equipment existed. Its virtually identical to Bonesplitter in terms of game effect, but its casting cost and "equip" costs are much higher. The one advantage of Zelyon Sword is that you can equip it at instant speed, so long as its untapped (i.e. not all ready equipping another creature).

This. Art. Is.

AWFUL

Oh, look, proto-equipment. Oh so very, very proto...

Run with Spirit Shield.

Equipment before equipment existed.

Of course nowadays there's the Mirrodin swords that make this look rather embarassing.

It's interesting that they had these types of cards so early. And I actually really like the art.

In a way, this mechanic makes more sense than modern-day Equipment, and it's less degenerate. Compared to the Equip mechanic, the only differences are (1) you can't 'equip' Zelyon multiple times per turn to bounce it from creature to creature, and (2) you can 'unequip' Zelyon for during your untap step.

(I'm assuming they would tack on "Equip only as a sorcery" for modern-day equipment type cards, so the instant-speed thing woul not be an issue.)

With this mechanic, you get all the functionality of equipment, but you wouldn't be able to equip Skullclamp onto four 1/1 tokens to draw eight cards for , at least not all in one turn--and you wouldn't be able to blithely tap Equipment to satisfy Tangle Wire type effects, at least not without losing the equip functionality.

I like Equipment quite a lot as-is, but I would like it just the same if they had stuck with this proto-mechanic. It works fine.

Man this Scott Kirschner character really likes to paint with the colour orange!

Try Power Matrix.

Dat instant speed equip. Eat your heart out, Cranial Plating.