(Sigarda's Aid | Art by Howard Lyon)

A Weapon of Darkness for a Warrior of Light...

If you've spent time browsing EDHREC decklists for inspiration or to dip your toes into Commander, you might have noticed equipment like Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, and Skullclamp popping up in decks of different colors and themes. Equipment cards are a sub-type of artifacts that can be attached to creatures. You usually do this by paying the amount of mana indicated on the card. They are a lot like equipment in other fantasy media. They grant their wielder special abilities, improved stats, and/or protection effects.

Equipment as a sub-type in Magic: The Gathering has been around since Mirrodin Block in 2003. Until recently, Equipment cards were exclusively colorless. Now, you'll find many with color identities like Embercleave and The Reality Chip.

Many Equipment cards printed over the years have become staples in EDH. Some, like the Boots and Greaves mentioned above, are prized for the protection they afford your important creatures. Others, like Helm of the Host and Blackblade Reforged, can help you win the game either by dealing massive damage or accumulating a huge advantage in the form of cards or other resources like Treasure. Still others, like Skullclamp, Shadowspear, and Lion Sash are more flexible and give you some combination of utility and raw power.

While many EDH decks will play one or more Equipment cards, it's very possible and in fact pretty rewarding to build an EDH deck with Equipment as the main theme.

Read on to learn the basics of building an Equipment deck in Commander, which commander to choose, and which staple cards to include!

 

How does an Equipment Deck Work in EDH? How does it win?

Unlike most EDH decks that choose to play a few pieces of the best Equipment in the format to help further their game plans, a deck built around Equipment will want to play more of them in order to reach a critical mass of synergy and power. One of the most common, if not the most common, ways to win with an Equipment deck is to suit up one creature, in many cases the deck's commander, with several Equipment cards that grant it protection from removal, stat buffs that make it lethal, and other effects like evasion, lifelink, or card advantage abilities. In Magic, we call this a "Voltron" deck.

Of course, many of these Equipment cards will be useful on their own once equipped to any creature, ensuring that you won't fall too far behind before you can build your giant threat.

Additionally, this type of deck can be resilient to removal, because even when your first big threat is killed, you can always try and suit one of your other creatures up. Likewise, several staple Equipment cards help protect your creatures, so you shouldn't be too worried if your opponents are playing removal-heavy decks.

When building an Equipment deck, consider the following important components and try to make sure you don't have too much of one type of card or too little of another. You can check out EDHREC's Equipment Theme page for more ideas on how to build an Equipment deck.

 

Which Commander should I play in my Equipment deck?

You don't need to play a synergistic commander to run Equipment cards in your deck, but I highly recommend you do so to get the most out of your theme. There are many commanders that work well with Equipment in EDH. They will either benefit greatly from wielding equipment, make finding or casting equipment easier for you, buff up your other equipped creatures, or some combination of the three.

It's also important to note that equipment decks tend to be based around the colors white and/or red, because both these colors have a lot of creatures and effects that work well with Equipment. Attacking opponents with equipped creatures is very much in the Boros Legion's wheelhouse, mechanically speaking!

I'll highlight the most popular Equipment-based commanders below, using EDHREC data.

These three top Equipment commanders all have a couple of things in common. First, they're all red and white, with Gwyn also allowing you to put black cards in your deck. Secondly, they all work well with Equipment and equipped creatures. Finally, all of them are great choices for a dedicated Equipment deck.

Gwyn, who appeared in a pre-constructed deck alongside the release of Throne of Eldraine, offers additional synergy around the Knight type. A Gwyn deck wants you to play both a lot of Knights and a lot of Equipment.

Ardenn and Rograkh are Partner commanders, meaning you can run them both in the Command Zone. Ardenn lets you equip one creature for free, while Rograkh supplies a cheap body that loves to get buffed up with Equipment and Auras (a type of enchantment). This pairing also lets you incorporate an Aura theme into your deck.

Finally, Nahiri is a Boros Equipment commander through and through! She benefits from having Equipment in play and giving you card advantage and mana discounts on--you guessed it, Equipment!

 

Remember, you don't have to go all in!

You have a lot of freedom to choose between commanders that want you to go all-in on Equipment as a theme, or ones that like having Equipment around but may synergize more generally with artifacts, "Modified" creatures (creatures wearing equipment or auras, or ones that have a counter on them), or creatures of a certain type.

Similarly, you don't have to play a red and white deck to play an Equipment theme. You can go off the beaten path and build a deck around Galea, Kindler of Hope or Tetsuo, Imperial Champion.

Thanks to Ardenn, you can also build a non-Boros deck by pairing him with Partner commanders from other colors. While not nearly as common, you'll find decks posted on EDHREC playing Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper, and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus!

Which Equipment cards should I play in my theme deck?

It's important to think about which particular cards have the most synergy with the commander and/or with the whole deck.

For example, if you're running a commander that is most powerful when itself is suited up, you want to prioritize cards like Commander's Plate, Mithril Coat, and Blackblade Reforged.

On the other hand, if you're playing a deck that can go wide in addition to going tall with an equipped creature, then Embercleave or Horn of Valhalla could be the perfect card for you.

Of course, there are a few Equipment cards that tend to see more play because of their powerful or versatile effects.

These three Equipment are staples in the format at large and you can get great use of them in a focused deck. There are also a few cards that are staples specifically in Equipment decks thanks to their power level and synergy with the theme.

These three cards are very effective at helping you build your "Voltron" threat. Aside from Hammer of Nazahn and Bruenor, there are several other ways in the format to get around Colossus Hammer's restrictive equip cost, which I'll get to later. Both Thran Power Suit and Hammer of Nazahn get more powerful the more equipment you play, so let's dive deeper into the subtype and look at more commonly played weapons in these decks.

These are examples of Equipment that are excellent in the deck but that are more replaceable due to not having effects that specifically key off other Equipment. These are great options, but you should definitely take the time to browse through our Equipment theme page to figure out which cards you want to include in your deck. For example, I like Masterwork of Ingenuity as a way to get double the effect out of Thran Power Suit!

 

Which creatures should I play in my Equipment deck?

Building a deck with this category in mind can be as simple as playing creatures that have offensive keywords that make equipping them more attractive. I'm talking about Lifelink, Flying, Trample, Double Strike, and many more abilities that make attacking creatures more threatening. Each time you equip a creature with more keywords, you get more value out of the mana you invested in casting and activating your equipment.

Deckbuilders have access to creatures that both enable your Equipment game plan and carry weapons well.

The main reason why decks most commonly run white is because the color has a special relationship with Equipment going back many years to cards Stonehewer Giant and Leonin Shikari. Running Sram and Puresteel Paladin in your deck means you're not down a card when you play Equipment and you have more opportunities to draw creatures or synergy pieces for your Voltron game plan. Stoneforge Mystic powers up any Equipment deck but is especially important for decks that seek to deal a ton of damage early with cards like Colossus Hammer.

There are also powerful creatures with Equipment synergies beyond the color white, though playing white certainly helps you reach the critical mass you need to build around your theme properly.

It's also worth mentioning the Reconfigure creatures from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty that are both creatures that can carry Equipment and powerful weapons in their own right!

Are there any utility cards I should play?

Creatures are some of the best cards you can play alongside Equipment, because they pick your weapons up and attack with them! While you definitely want to be playing a good amount of creatures in your deck, you also should consider playing non-creature, non-Equipment cards that have synergy with your game plan. Many of the most important utility cards for this theme are in white.

These three cards are incredibly synergistic with the theme and give a huge power spike to Equipment decks when you can draw them. Like Stoneforge Mystic, you'll often use Open the Armory or Steelshaper's Gift to find the final piece of the puzzle for your Voltron game plan, whether than means dealing a ton of damage surprisingly early in the game with Colossus Hammer, or going over the top of your opponents in the late game with Helm of the Host.

Depending on how you want to build your deck, you can also find room for instants and sorceries that protect your equipped creatures from sweepers or removal. On the one hand, any Equipment-matters deck will run artifacts that grant these protective abilities themselves, but a timely Flawless Maneuver, Heroic Intervention, or Fierce Guardianship can spell the difference between victory and defeat.

What EDH format staples should I include in my equipment deck?

Speaking of powerful cards like Flawless Maneuver, any EDH deck will want to play tried and tested format staples, even if they don't necessarily interact with Equipment. You can't go wrong with running the best removal in your colors like Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and Generous Gift.

To figure out which format staples you want to include in your equipment deck, you can check out my breakdown of the most played cards in different colors. I believe the list of top 10 mono white cards in Commander will give you the best idea of what to play in the average Equipment deck. Or, you can use EDHREC data to browse through the most played cards for each color.

 

If there can be no victory, then I will fight forever.

I hope this guide gave you some good ideas on how to build an Equipment-themed deck in EDH. Equipment is a fun and powerful theme to build around, and more synergistic cards are printed every year! Notably, the Fallout Commander set brought us a lot of new toys for this theme, so be sure to check out cards like Armory Paladin, Gunner Conscript, Power Fist, and more!