Sword of Sinew and Steel

The Mirran sword cycle split protection into paired colors, and this entry claims the two that own most of the game's cheap answers: black and red, the homes of efficient point removal and burn. That pairing is the whole strategic pitch. A creature holding this walks through Lightning Bolt, dodges Fatal Push and Terminate, and shrugs off blockers of either color, forcing an opponent whose interaction skews black-red to find a workaround (a counterspell, a bounce effect, a blue or white exile) rather than the removal they already have. Protection does not stop everything: an edict names the player, not the creature, so a sacrifice effect still gets there. But against the removal these two colors are built around, the carrier is close to unanswerable at parity.

The earlier swords aimed their combat triggers at card advantage or hand disruption; this one goes after the two permanent types that most often anchor a stabilizing board. Connecting once clears a planeswalker and an artifact together, which turns a protected beater into a repeatable dismantler of exactly the shells that grind: planeswalker-heavy control and artifact-based value decks. The +2/+2 and the two-mana equip keep the rate in line with its siblings, but the intent is sharper than a buff. Each half of the card names an archetype it is built to beat, then hands its wielder the tools to take that archetype apart through combat.