We all know that swords are good, but which is really best in EDH?
Obviously this is all opinion and is deck specific, however vote which sword you find most useful overall and post what decks you use it in and how it has been so good.
I have two decks a mono black control with sheoldred and an aggro Edric deck. The mono black runs feast and famine and fire and ice, while the Edric runs all five. For me the best sword by a mile is feast and famine. Untapping all your lands and protection from two powerful colors is absurd IMO.
Obviously everyone loves fire and ice, but I think it's a but overrated. People seem to go incredibly out of their way just to draw 1 card. 2 dmg is pretty irrelevant at least where I play and blue/red are not colors you really need protection from. Overall it just makes your creature a big orphan, while feast and famine can put you miles ahead in a hurry.
I like Fire and Ice the best and don't find it very overrated. In the case of your general, the protection from burn in red and bounce/annoyances, and even tuck, from blue, are always useful. I was going to say Feast and Famine, because it seems those two are the big contenders, but the way I see it is that, with FaI you get two effects, a usually useless burn and a neat draw, whereas, with FaF you get a helpful untap, but allowing an opponent to discard can be a really big setback for you.
I think fire and ice and feast and famine are the 2 best swords. Which sword is best depends on the deck and meta. Just for the abilities, it also depends on the deck. If my deck can get lots of card draw, the untap of lands is quite useful since i can continue to just dump cards on the table. If I'm aggro, the card draw and shock from SofI may be very useful.
Light and Shadow
Fire and Ice
Feast and Famine
War and Peace
Body and Mind
LaS is the best because it provides recursion, which is particularly valuable to blue and red decks which have no other access to it, but which is good basically anywhere. Recursion wins games, and this is easily repeatable and reuseable recursion. It also protects against the two most common removal colors in the format.
Then comes FaI. It provides card drawing, which many decks lack and any deck can benefit from, while at the same time allows for the sniping of utility creatures, which doesn't hurt.
Third is FaF. The land untapping can be very handy, but that's really all it does. Single-target discard is very negligible in EDH, and mostly will draw you fire from players who get upset about you doing it to them.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel are WaP and BaM. WaP provides no tangible card benefit, and often will not even provide a significant effect in the process. BaM provides a very minor card advantage form (2/2 creature), and generally milling a player will HELP them due to the prevalence of recrusion effects.
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I prefer feast and famine. I like the protection more, and while the card advantage isn't the same, the fact that they discard a card at least is a step in the right direction. Add to that the huge tempo advantage it should be giving you and I think it all makes for the better sword. It's a close call though, for certain.
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I like Feast and Famine as well. the discard is highly relevant versus control decks, where hitting them gets rid of counters and such. The untap is amazing as well. it turns the turn order into:
This question is pretty subjective, as depending on your deck one sword may be better than another. In a mono blue deck that runs a lot of counters, I'd have to put SoFaF at the top because of the land untap that allows you to almost always have counter mana up. Yet in a vacuum, I'd say that SoFI is #1 (which is where i put my vote) because both of it's abilities are always relevent. Even if there aren't any small utility creatures to burn, you can still zap someone in the dome for 2. As for the card draw, that's usefull 100% of the time. SoFaF's untap is nice to have, but not very useful if your hand is empty, and neither is the discard if your opponent's hand is empty as well.
SoWP is really good in aggro, and imo SoBM is just meh all around haha. I'd say that SoLS is third in line because the recursion can be really beast in edh, yet the lifegain isn't always relevant. Again, this is all based on how i think the cards would perform in a vacuum.
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voted for SoFaI, overall i find it fits into my decks more often than the others, F+F is the runner up, but i agree that each sword works best with a different deck design.
Probably fire and ice, has good abilities, good protections. Feast and famine is close behind it. The untap can be incredibly useful in almost any deck. Conveniently, those are the two I actually own also XD.
I would rank F&F and F&I at the same level, followed by L&S. F&F provides a ridiculous mana advantage, and F&I is great card advantage. The shock part of F&I is also not to be overlooked. Taking out a Kiki-Jiki, Oracle of Mul Daya, etc for free while drawing a card is extremely useful. L&S is good, but it requires you to have a full graveyard to be really useful. Early game or if there's a lot of graveyard hate, it loses a lot of value. W&P is ok, I guess, but it's really only useful for the protection abilities. B&M is terrible unless you have a deck or general that really likes mill. In EDH, milling for 10 is usually good for the person who's getting their graveyard filled up. Whether it hits Genesis or just gives them more choices for Eternal Witness or regrowth, mill is a double-edged sword.
I voted for Feast & Famine because I believe it can sometimes win you the game in just a turn or two. Fire & Ice is more consistently powerful but it doesn't have the explosive power of the other.
I definitely had to go with Feast and Famine here. Maybe it's just my meta, but the discard effect isn't that detrimental to the Sword wielder, and the untap effect is so much more helpful than either of the abilities on Fire and Ice. Not to mention that, in my opinion, pro is so much better than pro :symru:. Overall, it's just a better sword, unless you're playing against recusion or Niv-Mizzet. People are just nostalgic over Fire and Ice... not to say that it's a bad card by any stretch of the imagination. I just find Feast and Famine to be a bit better.
I like LaS for the recursion, especially out of color. The lifegain is irrelevant, however it's also targetted-removal resistant, with the exception of like, Chaos Warp and Beat Within. Then probably Feast and Famine, since it can go infinite with some cards, and even if it doesn't, always provides a ton of mana. Then probably FaI, since it's draw out of color, though the protections are meh. WaP and BaM are both vaguely useless in EDH, imo. Most games you don't actually want to mill anyone at all, since you're definitely not going to mill them out. And getting a Bear is ultra worthless. Doing more damage/gaining more life is okay, but pretty generic. I'd say that WaP is better though, since it could potentially one-shot a blue player. So...
All of the keyword abilities from Vengeance make it pretty much better than War and Peace and Body and Mind in EDH, imo, but it's still not a part of the Swords cycle.
If you are using that kind of logic, SoWaP usually gives somewhere in between +6/+2 and +9/+2, which would clearly be more aggresive.
Well, in either case, the source of the damage is the sword and not the equipped creature. So it's not general damage, it's just more damage, which mostly is irrelevant but I think noteworthy, yes?
I think FaF is the best in edh you normally already have reliable draw engine but you need the mana to play everything. Also does anyone else think because of how powerful the swords are they should have been legendary?
to stay on point though. I chose Fire and Ice...I primarily play 1v1 and while FaF is a close 2nd, fire and ice draws you a card (extra relevant for some colors, and even so turns something like clique into a draw engine? ridic) and the 2 damage while not amazing does allow you to clean up a TON of the good 1v1 generals. Pro blue is also at least as relevant or more so as Pro black especially for competitive 1v1 where blue is everywhere, pro green is probably better than pro red I guess, but neither is a major major factor for me for the sake of this poll........now if only they would make Sword of Famine and Ice then we would be in business!
3rd-Body and Mind (im not sooo worried about gy stuff and I get a blocker and pro blue)
4th-Light and Shadow (Pro white hasnt been uber relevant for me here, pro black is great, recurring creatures is cool and all, but the light ability to gain life is pretty irrelevant)
5th-War and Peace (I probably dont bother running this in my EDH decks for the most part...Id run it in multi-player I suppose just strictly for the sake of randomly having pro white)
Im sure a lot will argue over my 3rd vs 4th...but meh, that is the relevance for me when searching to equipment...there are some decks where I would specifically rather have Light and Shadow though.
...now if only they would make Sword of Famine and Ice then we would be in business!
Sword of Oblivion and Omnipresence4
Legendary Artifact - Equipment [M]
When Sword of Oblivion and Omnipresence enters the battlefield, choose 2 colors. Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and protection from those colors.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, choose two — you may return up to one target creature card from your graveyard to your hand or you untap all lands you control or you draw a card or Sword of Oblivion and Omnipresence deals damage to that player equal to the number of cards in his or her hand.
As far as EDH goes, I actually view both FaF and FaI over Jitte, maybe even LaS. Sure, Jitte's good, and easily the best in any other format it's legal in. But when it comes to EDH, the relevance of Jitte goes down quite a bit. It offers no protection/evasion like the "Sword of" cycle does, no card advantage, and it's abilities are mediocre at best. Maybe it's just my meta, but I had actually bought a fairly cheap copy of Jitte, and ended up re-selling it after a few weeks - it just doesn't do enough, and in a format where splashy spells rule, Jitte just comes up short. *shrug*
First off, I'll state my ground. I don't have a sword, I'll most likely never buy one, and I'll never trade for one. I don't like them, they coast way too much IRL. Plus I see them way too much for me to care. [/Rant over]
1) Plowshare. What. You said best sword in EDH. This is the best sword of magic, thus it's also the best sword of EDH. I'm dead serious about this.
2) fire and ice. I don't need to say anything.
3) light and shadow. It's better protection, but the abilities are slightly worst. (I'll rather get tapping/creature return more, but you can't win them all)
4) feast and famine. Untap in white? Please. The protection is kinda bad, but at least kill spells don't work?
5) War and Peace. It's not a BAD card, but it's made less powerful in a multi-player format. However, the protect is maybe the second best, after light and shadow. It's a shame.
6) Vengence. It's SOO good in a white equip based deck, but it does nothing as a stand alone card. People underestimate the ability of vigilance, first strike and trample together. It turns any decent attacker into a wall of awesome. Purely a defensive card, but a hella good one.
7) Kaldra. Even more limited in use. Unless you're playing Niv, it'll rarely, if at all, make this work.
8) Paruns. It's a sword, it's okay. In white, it's another anthem effect.
9) Body and Mind. Great, a blocker and milling. It's two bad colors, and the abilities are dumb. If I want a blocker, I'll use vengence. If I want to mill, I'll cast a spell that does that better.
10) all the other swords. Because meek is bad without the combo, greatsword is draft junk, sword of the chosen is bad, and the others are bland and dumb.
I didn't include other equipment because I wanted to narrow in on the "sword cycle". Either way it seems like FaF and FaI are the frontrunners, to nobody's surprise. Although people have made good cases for light and shadow and war and peace.
Obviously, like i said, it is specific to your deck and playgroup. So just tell which has been most useful or destructive in your eyes.
In my group we have a good amount of swords in blue, green and black and 5 color types of decks. Most of the time these decks ramp draw and tutor regularly. An unanswered FaI usually just draws a guy 3 or so cards before it is dealt with and has no major impact. An unanswered FaF usually puts that player so far ahead it's tough to keep up.
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Obviously this is all opinion and is deck specific, however vote which sword you find most useful overall and post what decks you use it in and how it has been so good.
I have two decks a mono black control with sheoldred and an aggro Edric deck. The mono black runs feast and famine and fire and ice, while the Edric runs all five. For me the best sword by a mile is feast and famine. Untapping all your lands and protection from two powerful colors is absurd IMO.
Obviously everyone loves fire and ice, but I think it's a but overrated. People seem to go incredibly out of their way just to draw 1 card. 2 dmg is pretty irrelevant at least where I play and blue/red are not colors you really need protection from. Overall it just makes your creature a big orphan, while feast and famine can put you miles ahead in a hurry.
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Light and Shadow
Fire and Ice
Feast and Famine
War and Peace
Body and Mind
LaS is the best because it provides recursion, which is particularly valuable to blue and red decks which have no other access to it, but which is good basically anywhere. Recursion wins games, and this is easily repeatable and reuseable recursion. It also protects against the two most common removal colors in the format.
Then comes FaI. It provides card drawing, which many decks lack and any deck can benefit from, while at the same time allows for the sniping of utility creatures, which doesn't hurt.
Third is FaF. The land untapping can be very handy, but that's really all it does. Single-target discard is very negligible in EDH, and mostly will draw you fire from players who get upset about you doing it to them.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel are WaP and BaM. WaP provides no tangible card benefit, and often will not even provide a significant effect in the process. BaM provides a very minor card advantage form (2/2 creature), and generally milling a player will HELP them due to the prevalence of recrusion effects.
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SoWP is really good in aggro, and imo SoBM is just meh all around haha. I'd say that SoLS is third in line because the recursion can be really beast in edh, yet the lifegain isn't always relevant. Again, this is all based on how i think the cards would perform in a vacuum.
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My 2 cents.
Sword of Light and Shadow > Sword of Feast and Famine > Sword of Fire and Ice > Sword of War and Peace > Sword of Body and Mind, imo. Though I can see that no one likes to recur creatures in this poll, so whatever.
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If you are using that kind of logic, SoWaP usually gives somewhere in between +6/+2 and +9/+2, which would clearly be more aggresive.
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Well, in either case, the source of the damage is the sword and not the equipped creature. So it's not general damage, it's just more damage, which mostly is irrelevant but I think noteworthy, yes?
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to stay on point though. I chose Fire and Ice...I primarily play 1v1 and while FaF is a close 2nd, fire and ice draws you a card (extra relevant for some colors, and even so turns something like clique into a draw engine? ridic) and the 2 damage while not amazing does allow you to clean up a TON of the good 1v1 generals. Pro blue is also at least as relevant or more so as Pro black especially for competitive 1v1 where blue is everywhere, pro green is probably better than pro red I guess, but neither is a major major factor for me for the sake of this poll........now if only they would make Sword of Famine and Ice then we would be in business!
3rd-Body and Mind (im not sooo worried about gy stuff and I get a blocker and pro blue)
4th-Light and Shadow (Pro white hasnt been uber relevant for me here, pro black is great, recurring creatures is cool and all, but the light ability to gain life is pretty irrelevant)
5th-War and Peace (I probably dont bother running this in my EDH decks for the most part...Id run it in multi-player I suppose just strictly for the sake of randomly having pro white)
Im sure a lot will argue over my 3rd vs 4th...but meh, that is the relevance for me when searching to equipment...there are some decks where I would specifically rather have Light and Shadow though.
Sword of Oblivion and Omnipresence 4
Legendary Artifact - Equipment [M]
When Sword of Oblivion and Omnipresence enters the battlefield, choose 2 colors. Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and protection from those colors.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, choose two — you may return up to one target creature card from your graveyard to your hand or you untap all lands you control or you draw a card or Sword of Oblivion and Omnipresence deals damage to that player equal to the number of cards in his or her hand.
Equip 4
That!
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As far as EDH goes, I actually view both FaF and FaI over Jitte, maybe even LaS. Sure, Jitte's good, and easily the best in any other format it's legal in. But when it comes to EDH, the relevance of Jitte goes down quite a bit. It offers no protection/evasion like the "Sword of" cycle does, no card advantage, and it's abilities are mediocre at best. Maybe it's just my meta, but I had actually bought a fairly cheap copy of Jitte, and ended up re-selling it after a few weeks - it just doesn't do enough, and in a format where splashy spells rule, Jitte just comes up short. *shrug*
1) Plowshare. What. You said best sword in EDH. This is the best sword of magic, thus it's also the best sword of EDH. I'm dead serious about this.
2) fire and ice. I don't need to say anything.
3) light and shadow. It's better protection, but the abilities are slightly worst. (I'll rather get tapping/creature return more, but you can't win them all)
4) feast and famine. Untap in white? Please. The protection is kinda bad, but at least kill spells don't work?
5) War and Peace. It's not a BAD card, but it's made less powerful in a multi-player format. However, the protect is maybe the second best, after light and shadow. It's a shame.
6) Vengence. It's SOO good in a white equip based deck, but it does nothing as a stand alone card. People underestimate the ability of vigilance, first strike and trample together. It turns any decent attacker into a wall of awesome. Purely a defensive card, but a hella good one.
7) Kaldra. Even more limited in use. Unless you're playing Niv, it'll rarely, if at all, make this work.
8) Paruns. It's a sword, it's okay. In white, it's another anthem effect.
9) Body and Mind. Great, a blocker and milling. It's two bad colors, and the abilities are dumb. If I want a blocker, I'll use vengence. If I want to mill, I'll cast a spell that does that better.
10) all the other swords. Because meek is bad without the combo, greatsword is draft junk, sword of the chosen is bad, and the others are bland and dumb.
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Obviously, like i said, it is specific to your deck and playgroup. So just tell which has been most useful or destructive in your eyes.
In my group we have a good amount of swords in blue, green and black and 5 color types of decks. Most of the time these decks ramp draw and tutor regularly. An unanswered FaI usually just draws a guy 3 or so cards before it is dealt with and has no major impact. An unanswered FaF usually puts that player so far ahead it's tough to keep up.