The Sword, the Shield, and the Spirit: Stoneforge Mystic
“This is the law. The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield, and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain, all else is supplementary.”
This quote resonated with me as I was writing this article. Because, at the end of the day, despite casting powerful spells and attacking with monstrous creatures, Magic is a thinking game. One in which a hopeless situation can often be turned around completely due to deft strategy. Or, will be revealed to have never been hopeless at all as you control the information your opponent has access to in order to lull them into a false sense of security. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental, and to forget that invites doom to your doorstep.
Stoneforge Mystic is a card with a storied history, being a card that most seasoned Magic players know well. From being banned during her tenure in Standard nearly 15 years ago (WOOF, I’m old), to being a Modern and Legacy staple in the intervening years, she has seen play in nearly every competitive format that she’s been legal in. At one point or another, she has been at the top of those formats. Unsurprisingly, she is exceptionally strong in Commander as well, and I am bound to include it in nearly any white deck I make (a fact any who’ve played against me will attest to, but also demonstrated in another article I wrote for this website about upgrading the Angels: They're Just Like Us but Cooler and with Wings Commander precon).
With the release of the new Final Fantasy Standard set and—more specifically—Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, it became obvious to me that a lot of Commander players completely miss why Stoneforge Mystic is as good as she is. Cloud is a card that was sure to draw comparisons to our venerable Kor Artificer, as they are both two mana white creatures that tutor for an equipment upon entering the battlefield, but the similarities end there.
Cards like these have a history of making 60-card Magic unfriendly for small creatures.
The two creatures may each cost two mana, but Stoneforge Mystic costs one generic and one white whereas Cloud costs two white, generally a huge consideration in deck-building is the ability to cast something easily based on the number of colors in your deck relative to the amount of colored pips on cards. In mono-white commander decks with a healthy amount of basic Plains, this shouldn’t be a problem, but in most other places, it can prove problematic. Now let’s look at what we are actually paying for. Stoneforge Mystic is a 1/2. Two toughness is generally the benchmark for a playable low cost creature in Magic these days for a litany of reasons that are far more relevant in competitive Magic than in Commander.
Cloud’s 2/1 power and toughness and more restrictive mana cost make him an unattractive option in 60-card Magic, but certainly does not preclude him from Commander, a format where I’m sure plenty of people will have fun giving him a lot of Swords and other equipment with triggered abilities. In fact, having both entering the battlefield to find two dangerous pieces of equipment, and then utilizing Stoneforge Mystic’s powerful ability to cheat in whichever of the two you deem to be more useful at whatever moment you choose seems like a great pattern of play for Commander.
However, though each card has the same enters-the-battlefield ability, the second line of text is where the bulk of the difference lies, and where the bulk of Stoneforge Mystic’s strength lies. She was banned in standard primarily for iher ability to cheat in powerful one-of Equipment at instant speed in a nigh uncounterable fashion. She has been run in Modern for her ability to find Colossus Hammer in Hammer Time, and she’s been run in Legacy to find and cheat out any number of Equipment with powerful ETBs with no timing restrictions in Death and Taxes (sure, I GUESS in addition to other Stoneblade decks). Stoneforge’s enter the battlefield effect is strong to be sure, but her activated ability is the truly powerful part of the card. When used deftly and at the correct moment, this ability can surprise and disrupt opponents in ways they never saw coming.
You’ve no doubt realized that I really like Stoneforge Mystic and love playing with her in a lot of formats, but this article, being hosted by a Commander gameplay site, will mostly focus on her use case in Commander. Now, unlike Cloud, Stoneforge Mystic can’t be your commander. So you will unfortunately have to rely on getting her into your hand the old fashioned way, Recruiter of the Guard. Or just drawing it I GUESS. Once we have her in play, what are we doing with her? Well first, you’re obviously tutoring for whatever Equipment best suits your needs at any given moment, be it one to play immediately with whatever mana you have available, or something expensive and game-warping that you need to cheat out early.
As you may recall, I said that I use Stoneforge Mystic in nearly every white deck I make. Does this mean every white deck I make is an Equipment deck? Far from it! One of my most well known and popular decks is SINNER GET READY, my Mid Power (by PlayEDH standards) or Bracket 4 (by Wizards of the Coast standards) Giada, Font of Hope deck. The deck is far from what I would consider an Equipment deck, it only has six pieces of Equipment in it. But each and every one of them is a powerful addition with a specific reason for being in the deck, and I have several ways to find them without drawing them naturally, of which Stoneforge Mystic is my favorite.
Helm of the Host is a powerful, game-warping card in most decks that run it, including in my Giada deck. But the mana value combined with the equip cost makes it a prohibitively expensive card to use to great effect in the early, or at times even mid game, in the same turn, oftentimes giving an opponent a whole turn cycle to remove your Equipment before you've had the chance to equip it, and restricting your ability to do much else the turn you do so if you are playing it on curve. Stoneforge Mystic solves that problem not only by finding your Equipment, but by allowing you to put it into the battlefield in an uncounterable fashion at instant speed during the opponent’s end step before your turn begins. This costs just two mana compared to Helm’s cost of four, and reduces your opponent's ability to efficiently react to what you are doing, and frees you up to immediately equip it as soon as it becomes your turn. Here we are using all of Stoneforge Mystic’s best qualities to their full effect. We tutor a card, reduce a card’s cost, make it uncounterable, and ignore the timing restrictions to which we are normally beholden. A card like this being in the deck makes finding these one-of’s far easier, and justifies running costly Equipment that you would normally balk at paying full cost for.
Another thing that white is good at, and that has traditionally been abused in both competitive Magic and in commander, is blinking. Blinking any card with a strong enter the battlefield effect is powerful and a common strategy in commander and the primary engine behind my favorite Legacy deck. Cards like my girl Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Sword of Hearth and Home (my favorite in this cycle) can blink Stoneforge Mystic and keep our chain of tutors running. We can then continue to use her ability to cheat them out. This enables us to construct a real engine that finds Equipment-based combo pieces, build voltron monsters turn over turn, or just search our toolbox for exactly the right card to get us out of a sticky situation. Blinking Stoneforge Mystic with Sword of Hearth and Home to go find Commander’s Plate to protect a powerful attacker and then blinking it again to find Lion Sash to flash in on the graveyard player’s turn to ruin their day is just indescribably cool.
Stoneforge Mystic has had a number of amazing art printings, and honestly every single one has a place in my heart for it's own reason. My personal favorites are, the Rebecca Guay Secret Lair printing, followed by the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Special Guests printing. The Rebecca Guay one is the printing I used in my aforementioned Giada deck, and I've even gotten it signed by the artist and have the art on a playmat as well. Rebecca's art is some of my favorite in Magic and has always just conveyed a sense of esoteric mysticism that I've always enjoyed and stands out even more in a sea of sameness in the modern era of hyperrealistic Magic art. Additionally, Rebecca's art channels a queer and feminine energy that really speak to me and is super evident in all of her pieces that I've seen. Conversely, my legacy deck contains a playset of the OTJ Special Guest printing. The lovely art contains a sultry, old west, gunsmith re-imagining of our favorite Kor Artificer. Given that I'm from Texas, had white-blonde hair when the card was released, and am a known Stoneforge Mystic enjoyer, my social media was inundated with "OMG is this El" posts, so I had to indulge the gimmick a bit. It's also just really great art!
Editor’s note: Hold on a second! We can’t get through this entire article without posting the best Stoneforge Mystic artwork, the original borderless one from Double Masters! Eliana is usually right about this stuff, but not today! (Just kidding. This is my favorite but they are all great.)
For your health, I strongly recommend against looking up the price of the judge version.
From voltron strategies that want to pound the opponent’s face in while keeping them on their toes to toolbox decks with powerful pieces you need to get out in a hurry, Stoneforge Mystic is extremely versatile and powerful. She’s really the gift that keeps on giving in a multitude of ways, and Wizards clearly understands that as well with all of the amazing art treatments she’s gotten over the years. A timeless classic that has held on as the best example of her archetype of card for over a decade, Stoneforge will (probably) never be outclassed. So as you are making your Cloud, Midgard Mercenary Commander decks, make sure to stick a Stoneforge Mystic, a Recruiter of the Guard, and a few ways to blink your stuff in it so you can give that pretty boy the most Swords you can, whenever you want.
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