Heirloom Blade MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 10 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost3
RarityUncommon
TypeArtifact — Equipment
Abilities Equip

Key Takeaways

  1. Heirloom Blade ensures consistent creature flow, vital for maintaining in-game momentum.
  2. Its ability to provide card advantage at instant speed can pivot game dynamics.
  3. Demands strategic mana fixing but rewards with versatile deck enhancement abilities.

Text of card

Equipped creature gets +3/+1. Whenever equipped creature dies, you may reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card that shares a creature type with it. Put that card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. Equip


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Heirloom Blade provides card advantage in a distinct way. Upon the death of the equipped creature, it allows you to reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a creature that shares a creature type with it. This intrinsic ability to “tutor” specific creature cards directly into your hand ensures a flow of resources and helps maintain pressure on your opponent.

Resource Acceleration: Although Heirloom Blade doesn’t directly produce mana or tokens, it accelerates your in-game resources by streamlining your draws. By filtering your deck for specific creatures, it indirectly increases the chance of drawing into more impactful spells, thus amplifying your board presence and the efficiency of your mana usage.

Instant Speed: While Heirloom Blade itself is an artifact and not an instant, its triggered ability can take effect at instant speed. This means that if the equipped creature is put into a graveyard on your opponent’s turn, you get to potentially draw into a relevant creature immediately. This surprise element can significantly alter the course of the game, especially when it helps you to find a key creature with haste or another impactful enter-the-battlefield trigger.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Heirloom Blade’s potential drawback lies in its necessity for a creature to die to trigger its ability, risking a decrease in your battlefield presence.

Specific Mana Cost: This artifact demands both generic and colored mana for its casting, necessitating a certain degree of mana fixing or base in decks to ensure consistency.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a cost of three mana to cast and two to equip, Heirloom Blade can be considered mana intensive, particularly in formats where speed is crucial.


Reasons to Include Heirloom Blade in Your Collection

Versatility: Heirloom Blade proves to be a dynamic addition to various deck archetypes. It shines in tribal-focused decks where creature type synergies are paramount but can also offer value in decks that strategically manage the creature card types within their library.

Combo Potential: This artifact has the unique ability to dig deeper into your library for creatures that share a type with the one that died. This lets you set up the stage for powerful combos by ensuring a smoother creature flow on the battlefield, maintaining pressure on your opponent.

Meta-Relevance: With the constantly shifting metagame, adaptability is key. Heirloom Blade maintains its relevance by its inherent capability to be tuned to the prevalent creature types or tribal themes dominating the play environment, making it a consistently wise choice for inclusion.


How to beat

Heirloom Blade serves as a powerful tool for creature-based decks in Magic: The Gathering, particularly those themed around tribal synergies. The blade not only boosts the power of your creature but also ensures that if it meets an untimely end, the chain of creatures doesn’t break. After a creature equipped with Heirloom Blade dies, the reveal mechanic digs for another family member to take its place, thus maintaining momentum.

Disarming this artifact’s influence requires a strategic approach. One is through enchantment effects that neutralize the power of artifacts, such as Null Rod, which prevents the utilization of any artifact’s abilities. Artifact removal spells like Disenchant or Abrade provide another angle of attack by simply destroying the Heirloom Blade outright. Moreover, preemptive counterspells targeting the Heirloom Blade’s casting or exile effects that bypass death triggers are efficient methods to ensure the blade’s inherited succession never occurs.

The efficacy in overcoming Heirloom Blade lies in your deck’s preparedness to interrupt artifact strategies and adapt to the tribal-cascade effect the blade induces. Deck compositions that include answers to artifacts and proactive control elements can significantly reduce Heirloom Blade’s impact on the game.


BurnMana Recommendations

Diving into the nuanced facets of MTG offers an exciting challenge for any player. The Heirloom Blade stands out as a powerful asset, providing a strategic edge in precision deck-building. It can be a game-changer in tribal decks, ensuring you’re never left without a creature in hand. Moreover, it serves as a pivotal piece in maintaining the tempo of your strategy, even in the face of adversity. If you’re eager to sharpen your skills and employ tactics that carry you to victory, embracing artifacts like Heirloom Blade is essential. Join us in exploring deeper strategies and card synergies to truly outplay your opponents and dominate the battlefield.


Cards like Heirloom Blade

Heirloom Blade brings a dynamic option to the suite of equipment cards in Magic: The Gathering. Its nearest kin in function and form is perhaps the well-known Sword of the Animist. Both pieces of equipment buff the creature they adorn and present a form of card advantage upon the creature’s death. Yet, Heirloom Blade distinguishes itself with the specific trait of putting a creature with a shared type from the top of your library straight into your hand, enhancing tribal decks significantly.

Another parallel can be drawn with the card Bloodforged Battle-Axe. While the Axe focuses on replicating itself with every combat damage dealt, enriching the player with a growing arsenal of equipment, Heirloom Blade is a one-off investment that continues to pay dividends in creature-based synergies. In terms of cost-efficiency, Heirloom Blade sits comfortably between these two, offering a beneficial trade-off of mana investment for potential card advantage.

Considering these comparisons, Heirloom Blade shines in its unique niche, particularly in commander and other formats that favor tribal strategies. Its ability to consistently retrieve utility creatures from your library establishes it as a formidable tool in the art of warfare within MTG.

Sword of the Animist - MTG Card versions
Bloodforged Battle-Axe - MTG Card versions
Sword of the Animist - Magic Origins (ORI)
Bloodforged Battle-Axe - Treasure Chest (PZ2)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Heirloom Blade MTG card by a specific set like Treasure Chest and Commander 2017, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Heirloom Blade and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Heirloom Blade Magic the Gathering card was released in 10 different sets between 2016-11-16 and 2023-11-17. Illustrated by 3 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12016-11-16Treasure ChestPZ2 656832015normalblackCarmen Sinek
22017-08-25Commander 2017C17 522015normalblackCarmen Sinek
32019-12-02Secret Lair DropSLD 3722015normalborderlessAyako Ishiguro
42020-04-17Commander 2020C20 2422015normalblackCarmen Sinek
52020-09-25Zendikar Rising CommanderZNC 1132015normalblackCarmen Sinek
62020-09-26The ListPLST C17-522015normalblackCarmen Sinek
72021-07-23Forgotten Realms CommanderAFC 2082015normalblackCarmen Sinek
82022-12-02Jumpstart 2022J22 7752015normalblackCarmen Sinek
92023-06-23Tales of Middle-earth CommanderLTC 2792015normalblackRamazan Kazaliev
102023-11-17The Lost Caverns of Ixalan CommanderLCC 3032015normalblackCarmen Sinek

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Heirloom Blade has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Heirloom Blade card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2017-08-25 "Artifact" isn't a creature type.
2017-08-25 Compare the revealed cards to the creature as it last existed before it died, not to the creature card as it exists in its owner's graveyard, to determine which one you put into your hand.
2017-08-25 If Heirloom Blade leaves the battlefield at the same time that the equipped creature dies, its triggered ability triggers.
2017-08-25 If the equipped creature has no creature type, no card can share a creature type with it.
2017-08-25 If you don't reveal a creature card that shares a type with the creature that died, you'll just reveal and randomize your library.
2017-08-25 You'll reveal cards until you find one that shares at least one creature type with the creature that died. For example, if a Cat Wizard dies, you'll stop if you reveal a Human Wizard or Cat Soldier.

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