Sword of Once and Future

The Sword cycle has always defined itself by paired protections that answer a metagame question, and this entry names the two colors most likely to be holding instant-speed removal: blue and black. That protection does double duty. It shields the bearer from the removal that would blunt the swing, and it forces damage through against decks built to trade with your creature. The connect trigger is more ambitious than the rest of the cycle. Surveil 2 loads and sculpts your graveyard, then the second clause spends it, casting a two-or-less instant or sorcery from that graveyard for free. Exiling each recast spell instead of returning it keeps the loop from running away: every spell you steal back is a one-shot, gone after it resolves, so the payoff comes from a steady feed of small spells rather than one bomb looped forever. Read together, the two lines describe a coherent engine: surveil selects the fuel, protection helps clear the way for the trigger, and a cheap Lightning Bolt or Preordain returns every combat step you connect. But this is the least self-contained Sword in the family. Where Sword of Fire and Ice packs its payoff into the connect trigger itself, dealing damage and drawing a card the moment it hits, this one only pays off as well as the graveyard behind it, demanding a deck stocked with cheap instants and sorceries worth digging back for. It rewards you not for hitting, but for building the graveyard first, then hands you a scalpel to sort it.