Pointed Discussion

its a sword, so it is obviously amazing, but its ability feels quirky to me being hand dependent on both sides.. you want them to have cards in hand??

The only beef I have with this card is how the sword is held.

The two Mirrodin swords were held angled left and right. The scars swords were held left and right as well. This should have been held upward!

Not as good as the others in my opinion, but still pretty darn amazing.

The protection is the main draw, whereas Feast/Fam is ridiculous because of the ability. For aggro, the lifegain will almost always be 0-1, which is unfortunate. Cawblade, however, will be gaining 4-6 life each time they hit. In the control mirror, this sword really shines.

@garabor: No, you don't, but if they happen to have those cards in their hand, why not punish them for it?

Sword of Maro and Oram.

Between War and Peace I think we are all going to hold the flame side out.
Flavor aside, this card seems a little too quarky to compare to the other swords. Don't get me wrong I welcome this new sword that looks like it is made of the sun. I just keep thinking of the fact that this card probably started out as Black Vise and Ivory Tower fused together, but then got nerfed mid testing for obvious reasons.

I have to say this card will kick ass with the mirran crusader. Thats a lot of damage. But really its the protection that counts.

If this is on an infect card, for the second ability regarding hand size, does it do extra poison counters or does it damage their life total?

I don't like that there's white sun on the flaming blade side and red sun on the white blade side. It should be the other way around, imo.

I for one am glad that it didn't get some boring expected ability, like shock and tap something. Pretty neat seeing Sudden impact and Gerrard's wisdom stapled together.

Hey I didn't recognize you there lightning helix

Geese Every Sword Is................AMAZING. Hope u dont have cards in your hand plus im stillmoon protected as well. LOL

I am pleased with the design of this final sword. What makes the swords of x and y so much fun is that while they are all strong it's not always obvious how to use them. Their abilities aren't opposing or similar, just two seemingly unrelated abilities from enemy colors. It's up to the players to find ways to highlight both abilities and bring out the full potential of these great cards. This element of creative deck building is my favorite part the game of magic!

@jarrod21 It will only do damage, and not poison counters. The reason for this is that it says that the sword will be doing the damage, and not the creature. Too bad though, I love buffing my Infect creatures too.

I disapprove.
Each of the other swords has had two unique abilities (in regards to the other swords), now this one comes along and has life gain (which sword of Light and Shadow already had) and direct damage (which Sword of Fire and Ice already had). This should've been something quite different. Excommunicate and Pyretic Ritual would've made for a unique, flavorful, and fun combination.

I think they did a good job with this one, +2/+2 and pro red/white are a good enough reason to use this card.. it could have so easily been broken

How can I brew a deck with this and Runeflare Trap and win... hmm.

werent there cards back in kamigawa that encouraged both sides to have cards in hand? like the arcane mechanic. this could work with those just sayin

Protection from Boros is always nice

@Atali The problem is those two things are almost useless during combat. What's the point of returning a creature at the very end of the combat step, or creating mana that will disapear as soon as everyone passes priority. This one works very well, because it's looking at HANDS, something different, to determine the amount of damage.

Personally I like this sword second best of the 5. Most people don't play aggro and even if they do it's not difficult to slow them down (Rule of Law). Gaining life dependant on your hand offers a new unique way of building a deck and hitting the enemy for their cards is amazing. True, most often you're not going to hit them for a lot but every point you do hit them for counts. Most games I play where I lose I get the opponent down to just a couple life points left so I know that even a dumb little one or two damage can make a big difference.
And of all the swords, this one has the coolest art :)

Swords, not words!

The one downside to this sword is I feel it is so much better than the others. Lightning helix'ish on every attack is pretty nuts, by comparison of feast and famine that potentially does nothing if they are top decking, and body and mind that while making tokens the mill doesn't necessarily do that much.

Then they make a red white one that has protection from two big removal colors, and to top it off they make it gain life and have burn all on one card. I'm imagining they worded it as the cards in your opponents hand due to that it will be that much deadlier against blue decks that are drawing lots of cards.

I think this sword is deceptively versatile. Against almost every aggro build, the protection will cut through little cheap guys, preventing easy chump blocks or multi-blocks to kill your creature. In the control mirror, it quickly puts your opponent in a position where they can't hold on to every spell until the very last moment or when the time is just right, forcing them to make difficult decisions and use cards they don't want to lose. It has the potential to kill planeswalkers from the damaging trigger. As an aggro player. You get a big beat stick that's killing your opponent faster. As a control player, you have the option to kick back and relax, gaining a healthy amount of life while you keep a full hand, hoarding creature removal until its absolutely necessary. I would rank it the second best sword, next to SoFI.

I think this card is good in cawblade mirror but weaker in other matchups and I will try to explain why.. Cawblade like tons of white creatures to block and lots of planeswalkers to dish out card advantage whilst having mana counters and such in hand. So, there are three main threats when considering cawblade, planeswalkers, Squadies, and Card advantage. This card deals with all three. First advantage, the squadies and other such blockers. War and peace easily dispatches these threats and allows our sword wielding birds to walk right on through their every defense, it makes our birds unblockable in essence. Second threat, planeswalkers. This card allows us to be efficient by attacking planeswalkers and players at the same time. Swing at an opponents Jace, knock him down some counters, and then deal damage to the opponent, which brings us to the next disadvantage when facing cawblade mirror. The fact that they have cards in hand is usually a very bad thing, and whilst this card does not completely eradicate the problem is does play up its strength by inflicting a sizable amount of damage and gaining life, extending our clock. Now, against other decks the card seems worse. Against any sort of aggro variant, whether its KRed, RDW, G/W Aggro or Boros, this sword gets worse and better. The lifegain is very nice, however the fact of the matter is that these decks aim to have very few cards in hand. Also, When compared to feast and famine, Feast and famine gets us extra land and perhaps more room for removal or counters to counter crucial spells and eats up their hand even more, which they probably aren't too concerned with. Against the other big baddy in the format, Valakut, This card is good but Feast and Famine is a much better choice. Play out spells and then give yourself room to leak titan. However, in most of the above mentioned decks, the protection from red gives us vitality against inferno titan and lightning bolts and such nonsense. Against other control variants, aka Blueblack, they dont care about the life difference and would take it over a time walk anyday. The PLaneswalker advantage, however, still applies in this deck. Against some of the outskirt decks in the format, It pretty much tears apart grixis Tezzie. The whole deck revolves around tezzie and the sword just demolishes him whilst dodging lightning bolts. Outside of Cawblade, this sword really shines in Aggro variants and definantly quickens their clock.

mirran crusader with this, oh yeah.

Next sword;
Flamberge of Rain, Drain, and Root. UBG. Sure why not.

The most aggressive of the Swords, this one can cut someone's life-total down incredibly fast. I suggest anyone who is not convinced of this card's value in-game to play-test it now.

Slap that on Akroma, Angel of Wrath in EDH...

as if caw-blade could get even more powerful...

pssssst listen everyone... its the sound of the sword hitting and.... THE DAMAGE BEING REDIRECTED TO A PLANESWALKER!!!! lol hitting a planeswalker AND a player.

I had some great combos with this sword during the prerelease. I tapped someones defender out with my Vedalken Certarch and then assault strobed my attacker and equipped this. It was nice. :)

Sword of Anti-burn and Anti-Exile.

Sword of War with Jace.

*shoots self*

But seriously, Wizards is aware of how powerful Papa Jace is, and this is one of many things in NPH (Hex Parasite, Beast Within, Surgical Extraction, hell even Praetor's Grasp) than will help bring the inferno that is Planeswalker presence in the metagame down to a controllable ember.

My favorite part about this sword is that it can force your opponent to play cards at less than peak efficiency, just for the sake of getting cards out of their hand.

why isn't this phyrexian?

Not really sure how this is rated the lowest of the Swords right now. I think it's arguably better than Light and Shadow and it's almost certainly better than Body & Mind.

Light & Shadow has just about as good protection colors as this but a worse damage trigger, while Body & Mind has the two least relevant protections, and its damage trigger is only particularly good for the dude it gives you, for board state.

Debatable, but I think this one should be #3, at least; its protections might make it better than even Feast & Famine.

I have a feeling this sword is going to fit in well in my elf deck running a set of Howling Mines. Oh yeah baby.
Got this sucker in my first booster I got from New Phyrexia, I call that a win.

So I've already had some problems playing with this card, maybe someone can help settle this debate for me.

My friend used this Sword on 'Hovermyr' I tryed to use 'Solemn Offering' on the Sword and was told that I couldn't because the Sword is also protected from white and red as well as the monster it is equipped to.

I countered that the card states the monster is protected from white and red not the artifact itself. Anyone have some insight for me?

I bought two New Phyrexia fat packs this week. Cracked one of these in the first pack, and got a sparkly foil one in the next.

Great cards, but I'll probably just sell them or trade for something real nice.

Plays well with Time Reversal.

Also: War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again y'all!

@Kyzar: Because it's a sword and the swords are Mirran. It's also not even remotely corrupted from the originals.

@ascorpiosmom: You're right the sword doesn't have the protection.

Just pulled two of these from one fat pack that also had 2 of the praetors (one of which was foil) bringing my total of War and Peace to three. One of the best fat packs ever.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't play swords and really like them not being overpowered.
But the first ability makes no sense. Dealing damage cause of the red part, sure. But equal to cards in hands? Most of the times that's 1-2 in aggro red, white or boros decks by the time you use the ability. The only time I see the ability being effective is against control. Soo...versatile since it's good both against aggro and against control?

how did the mirrans lose when they had all 5 of the swords?

I'm looking forward to Sword of Crime and Punishment. Also, Sword of Pride and Prejudice.

Broken with Mirran Crusader.

T1: Razorverge Thicket, Birds of Paradise
T2: Land, Mirran Crusader
T3: Sword of War and Peace, attack for 4 with Mirran Crusader
T4: Equip to Mirran Crusader, attack. The game is probably over.

Mirran Crusader, when equipped with this, has protection from 4 colors and hits like a Darksteel Colossus with lifelink. I'm not going to claim it's something to build around or that it's a top-tier strategy, but it's something you've got to worry about whenever your opponent shows either of those cards.

War.
War never changes.

When I saw this, I was disappointed. Then I pulled one, was excited cuz it was a mythic, then stuck it in my control deck which always has its hand full...I then proceeded to deal 10 damage turn 5 with a Wind Zendikon...this card is AMAZING!!!!!

5/5

This sword easily has the best protections, and I think Wizards recognized that and downplayed its other abilities. Because of that, It is a far cry from Sword of Fire and Ice, which is almost always a two-for-one (negating the card they use for removal). I don't think anyone should swap for this just to avoid Path to Exile.

Put this on something with double strike, play time reversal, get a hit on someone an it's gg.

@DarthParallax
Do you pay attention to any of the R&D folks who post about the development process? The entire Scars of Mirrodin block was finished long before Caw-Blade was discovered. They knew the Swords would have good synergy with Stoneforge Mystic, and they knew Batterskull would have great synergy with Stoneforge Mystic, but they didn't realize just how good during development. As well, Batterskull underwent a major (but unspecified) change towards the end of the development cycle which make it into the powerhouse that it is. R&D was probably already working on Innistrad, if not already DONE with Innistrad block, by the time Kibler invented Caw-Blade. By the time they realized what was happening, New Phyrexia was probably already being printed and packaged up.

Fap fap fap fap fap

one of the many reasons New Phyrexia keeps coming to my house

Pro Red and White. Can't be bolted, exiled, journeyed, or O-ringed. Pretty good.

This and Mirran Crusader. A 4/4 double striker with protection from 4 out of the 5 colors of Magic, plus more damage, PLUS lifegain.

Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Body and Mind
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of War and Peace

the art's a bit wrong. The arm of a person shouldn't be what's holding the sword, it should be Squadron Hawks beak.

Oh hey who put balefire liege in a sword? But seriously this is a nice sword though by far not the best, I guess their making up for Boros getting the shiniest liege now Boros gets the not-as-shiny sword? Don't get me wrong I think this sword is fantastic but I really think if we're going by ability we may as well call this the Adamaro of burn and heal.

I used this in the launch tournament with Bighted Agent. It was lulzy. I also equipped the Agent with Caged Sun thanks to Bludgeon Brawl

Have to admit, wasn't too impressed w/this one at 1st glance.. Then I played with it on my ps3 (Dotp 2012) and its won me countless matches. It's awesome in the "wielding steel" deck which is white/artifact equip. Just brutal folks.. 5/5

@ZeroSheep only if you're Dimir.

Slap this baby on a Boros (like Boros Swiftblade, or Skyknight Legionnaire, or -- huhuhuhuhahahahaha -- Boros Recruit), then play Concerted Effort and you have a full fleet with "Protection from Brightflame, no matter how much mana it's charged with!

It's been interesting watching the price of Sword of War and Peace compared to Sword of Feast and Famine. Feast and Famine was dominant pre-Innistrad, when decks were more about the slow roll and control. With Innistrad, once faster tempo decks with evasive creatures started dominating, War and Peace jumped in price and Feast and Famine has fallen a bit. (Also important is the fact that decks like Delver, as aggro-control, hold a fair number of cards in their hands, meaning the life gain is relevant.) Of course they're both still great, but I'm just happy I happened to invest in two of this little gem back in the $17 days. =)

Wow, this card's price is skyrocketing right now. A couple weeks ago it was $20, and today it seems to be about $45 on average. I'm glad a dude gave me his for an Inkmoth Nexus.

Anyway, on the actual card; this has always been my favorite of the sword cycle. The protections are very relevant, and the abilities are fun to build around. Sadly, I can't maindeck it in my FNM deck because I run cards like Angelic Destiny and Faith's Shield, which don't play well with the sword's pro-white. Oh well, it's always fun to side it in against mono-white or mono-red decks.

Equip this to Tidehollow Sculler. Most. Unkillable. Prick. Ever. The list of things that can't hit him when he carries this Sword is just dumb.

Tidehollow Sculler has virtual 'protection from Black' (not QUITE. If he were a Spirit Zombie, he would be Rend Flesh-proof, and thus broken)

@Grath: You have some things backwards. Then again, you posted in 2011 and it's taken some major hindsight to figure this out:

Of all the parts to Stoneforge Mystic and Scars Block that made 'Caw Blade' so bad, Batterskull and the Swords hardly mattered. No, I'm being dead serious. Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Light and Shadow were houses in their day too, and the Five Mirran Swords all seem fairly similar on power level.
The ones with the weakest pro-halves (pro Greens and Blues) got the best abilities. The ones with the best pro combinations (pro Whites and Reds) got the worst abilities. Every part of each Sword card is still very good, though not broken.

Caw Blade was doomed to explode when StoneForge was printed. There just aren't any fair good equipment you make after you make Tinker Belle. SWORD OF VENGEANCE, which is currently a crap rare, (I mean, it's good, but not PROTOUR good, not quite) would have been carried by Squadron Hawks if we didn't have Swords of X and Y. That's just how good Tinker Belle is. So I asked what the hell was up with her.

And I got an email response about Ms. Belle: they basically said 'we expected her to go in aggro, not control, and that's primarily how our decks built around and against her' And that just barely makes sense. They were also playtesting Gut Shot at 2 damage for a little while. That one didn't last very long.

And, I'm not sure, but I was reading about the last time the plane of Mirrodin caused Standard to explode, and it seemed that Fifth Dawn was in the process of being created at the time that Mirrodin was released. Fifth Dawn KNEW that Darksteel was too good at THIS point, but not during Darksteel's creation. Read up on the precon deck that included Skullclamp, lol. By your sense of time, they would have been wrapping up Kamigawa Block at the time. They had the smallest window of opportunity to try to mess with Affinity in Fifth Dawn, and it shows basically just in how Fifth Dawn is really not synergistic with Mirrodin-Darksteel except accidentally. But it just wasn't nearly enough. New Phyrexia did indeed have enough time to respond to Caw Blade- the only question was, how? They had a choice: Don't make Batterskull or Sword of War and Peace Awesome-- Caw Blade will still use what already exists. And players will have negative responses to the NPH cards after the inevitable bannings.

Batterskull and War/Peace aren't making anything unreasonably good right now, so R&D's choice was the right one. Scars Block turned out to be totally fine, actually. It goes all the way back to those 2 cards in WWK, and banning those 2 did indeed clear everything up.

Bonesplitter Axe has great synergy with Stoneforge Mystic for pete's sake! Wizards recognized that hating on the Equipment would be very wrong, and the enabler should never have been that good in the first place.

Batterskull's unspecified change matters the least in all this, since no matter what, Sword of War and Peace was going to have to finish the cycle, and it would have to grant Pro-Boros, which right there is very good. They may have given us weaker abilities on this than originally planned...I'm not sure...but the inertia of completing the cycle guaranteed War and Peace's rough shape, and they wouldn't go against that if it wouldn't even make a difference to Caw Blade.

But, whenever you are looking back on Gatherer and thinking 'wow, this is so retarded and this makes Deck X WAY too powerful'-- Consider that Phage the Untouchable and Emrakul the Aeons Torn are not banned in any format (well, except Em is in Commander but that's beside the point).

My point is, you can make some RIDICULOUSLY powerful Bomb effects in this game, and they can still be fair- it's the Dark Ritual-types, the Birthing Pod-types, and the Stoneforge Mystic-types,
the ENABLERS, not the bombs themselves, that are actually what needs the most watching.

Naturalize will destroy any Sword, and Batterskull, and 'Dies to Naturalize' is a valid defense for proving an Artifact isn't broken in many modern(*!!!) cases. (Stupid Stupid artifacts have been made in the past that are too fast or that destroying them doesn't help. They do that less nowadays though. In fact, I think Blightsteel was the only really good Indestructible beast in Scars, proving that Wizards knows it needs to keep Naturalize good.)

Went ahead and bought two of these along with a few packs. Pulled a third in the pack. ^^

Just because of all those people calling Baneslayer Angel Walletslayer, I think this deserves to be called Sword of War and Wallets.

To get a foil of this would be to become rich.

aside: quick props to Sgt Swagger--courtesy links to other cards in a cycle are always among my favorite comments!

Anyhow, this card being ~$35-45 shows just how silly and clueless people who mock the "Dies to removal!" criticism are. This card is all about giving your creature evasion and removal-resistance!

Paleopaladin: This sword does not say "protection from removal". Standard right now doesnt have much white removal that doesnt directly target the sword itself. Red might be slightly problematic, but +2/+2 takes care of that anyway.

You want a sword that screams removal evasion: Sword of Light and Shadow.

If you are playing control, this card gives you life.

If you are playing against control, this card deals massive amounts of damage.

If you are playing an aggro mirror, this card goes in your sideboard.

It's actually quite simple. Also, imagine for a second, mirran crusader with this. 4 protections, 8 damage base and you gain 2xthe number of cards in your hand while your opponent loses additional life equal to 2x the number of cards in theirs.

"Dies to Removal" is a bad argument up until the point you get to more than 5 mana (titan excluded because they set the standard for what 6 mana looks like, and are more powerful than a lot of 7-8 mana creatures... and even then titans do damage just by coming into play, so even after removal your in a bad spot. Sun titan into 3 phantasmal images anyone?)

Angel of Hope is isnt amazing because, although she is indestructible, she is 8 mana and therefore very easy to leak, to vaporsnag, to chump block into a tragic slip, ect. While she is good, at 8 mana she better have a huge benefit. and indestructibility that late in the game is not a huge benefit. Elesh norn at 7 mana means "I win" with the sheer damage she begins to pump out.

The only Casual Legal Enemy Sword.

Why isn't this card a 5? even without the broken mechanic it gives protection from the two best colors in the game.

This humbles RDW, forcing them to play Smelt or something.

@Gcrudaplaneswalker
Thats not really a drawback. A drawback is when the card hurts you in some way, not when its ability is going to be slightly weaker in some situations. You could say sword of body and mind is a drawback if your opponent has flashback or reanimation cards, but thats still situational, not a real drawback.

I just bought a copy of this card, my first ever "Sword of X and Y". Going to use it in my Damia EDH deck as a source of lifegain (which the deck lacks, but Sword giving potential 7 a swing) but also because of a prevalence of mono-y Red decks in my area. Personally I think War and Peace is the best of the Scars swords and am glad to have one!

Not nearly as exciting as the other swords, but still good.

3.8/5

The worst of the five swords; despite this, it's still more than worthy of a 5/5.

@Continue: Not at all I'd say Body and Mind is worse.
I'd say:
1) Sword of Fire and Ice.
2) Sword of Feast and Famine
3) Sword of Light and Shadow
4) Sword of War and Peace
5) Sword of Body and Mind

Anyone see Venser in the background shooting lightning at a Phyrexian?

@Paleopaladin
People hate-rate cards that are expensive because it shows a failure in design. If a card is so good that it sells for 20x other cards do that you consider good, then why was it even printed?

Also, swords aren't really to make your creatures resistant to removal. That's just an added bonus. The sword make it so any creature you equip suddenly turns into a huge threat if unblocked. The protection mostly just gives evasion to make them even more annoying.

This sword, while giving the least advantage, provides a really scary clock.

I love putting this on Kor Duelist, the reaction when you can swing at your opponent and tell them "oh yeah 12 damage and I gain 10" is priceless. Great card my favorite of the swords 4.5/5

"The best of the swords; the worst of the swords."

-Herman Cain

This was probably the best sword of the three in scars in standard, because of the fast clock it provided.
In EDH it's probably the weakest sword, although it would be funny in something like in (or against) decks that have a ton of cards, like Nekusar.