Hello folks! Equipment is awesome! It’s one of the biggest and most useful things you’ll toss into a deck at the kitchen table.

This list was inspired by the #1 card on it today. I totally missed it when putting together my Hope of Ghirapur Commander challenge last week and tried to have a fast Voltron Hope win with very cheap and powerful pieces of equipment. I missed the #1 card, and thus, it inspired me to look at some other underutilized pieces of equipment out there as well.

While today’s list is true of all multiplayer formats, it is particularly aimed at Commander decks, because some of these cards have enhanced abilities with legendary creatures, which are guaranteed to be drawn and played in that format. Champion's Helm is weaker in a 60-card format, as one example. So today’s article, while acknowledging all multiplayer formats, is particularly cognizant of Commander.

First of all, I want to thank Wizards of the Coast. When discussing the introduction of vehicles for Kaladesh, they mentioned that equipment had gotten too ubiquitous and powerful, and they had dialed it heavily back. Take a Vulshok Battlegear as my example. No one really runs it, as it is weak against other equipment, but if you do, you get a 3-mana piece of equipment that equips for +3/+3 and can creature a serious threat at the table. If someone kills the creature, they you can just equip another dork. Equipment works with virtually every creature printed; and, unlike auras, or other creature enablers, it’s (usually) colorless, and can be played in lots of places. And not every color can even handle a piece of equipment. So they weakened them in the last few years for normal expansion sets, to a few here and there, and mostly Limited fodder.

But, clearly they realized that they needed to keep investing in kitchen table equipment, and they released Blade of Selves and Conqueror's Flail in the last two Commander products, and this year, three very useful pieces of equipment were made. Two of these (not the tribally minded Heirloom Blade) are certainly capable of holding their own against older pieces of equipment.

10. Spy Kit

This is one of the most intriguing uses of equipment out there. It’s sort of liked the Runed Stalactite of creature names. But it is not getting the play it should since it was released, and that makes me sad. There are many combos out there to really take advantage of this card, like Maelstrom Pulse or Eradicate. Echoing Truth or Echoing Courage. Sever the Bloodline! Homing Lightning! Bifurcate or Mask of the Mimic! Bile Blight! Detention Sphere! Reflector Mage! For example, use Act of Treason to steal a creature for a turn, equip it, send it back, and then Eradicate it and exile most of the creatures in their library! Run Cornered Market to prevent people from casting creatures and adding them to the table. Cast Winnow to destroy any nonlegendary creature your foe has and draw a card too. Throw it on Evil Twin and you can tap to kill almost anything! Have Remembrance out and when the equipped creatures dies, search out any creature with that name for your hand! See also: Verdant Succession. And the best is if you have both! Imagine a Sakura-Tribe Elder with Spy Kit on it. Sacrifice for a land. You can fetch out any creature from your deck onto the battlefield and search out any other for your hand! You could sacrifice the equipped creature to Bubbling Cauldron to also drain everyone for four life and gain it.

Biovisionary?

Plague Rats? Relentless Rats?

Let the equipped creature attack along with Akron Legionnaire?

How are you not playing this card?!?!?!?

9. Slagwurm Armor

Outside of a toughness matters shell, like Doran, the Siege Tower, this is still a good piece of equipment. Imagine that you hypothetically put these on a very minor creature, like Silver Myr. So now, on the third turn, you have a 1/7 creature. You can block pretty much anything that comes down for turns, and keep them away. You are no longer the path of least resistance. Why would someone attack into your 1/7 Myr with their 3/2 aggro creature when they will just bounce off you. You can block, and survive, many of the best and beatingest creatures in Magic, like Sun Titan. A Birds of Paradise with this on it will block Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Consecrated Sphinx. It is hard to break down, and when you do, you can just Armor up something else to “Wall Up!”

8. Gorgon Flail

Huh. It says here this is not Basilisk Collar. Got it. But we all know how good deathtouch is on a creature, and having duplication on in your deck is important. How many equipment pieces give deathtouch? The Collar, this, Gorgon’s Head (yuck), Quietus Spike, and . . .  that’s it. So given the competition, this looks pretty sexy. Right? Right! +1/+1 and deathtouch are both useful, and I have seen decks that really want deathtouch that don’t run this. Why not? It’s not nothing!

7. Haunted Cloak / Chariot of Victory

I think we all know how good haste is in multiplayer. We all know it. Consider Swiftfoot Boots, that gives haste and hexproof for one mana to equip. These give you three abilities instead, with haste as one of them, for one mana to equip. Now yes, neither is as good as hexproof on its own, especially on a Commander we want to retain. But the trample and first strike (or vigilance) are both very useful abilities, and with that equip cost added, these are both very useful additions to your Commander arsenal!

6. The Kaldra Pieces – Sword of Kaldra, Helm of Kaldra, Shield of Kaldra

They still have a nice price on the secondary market, but I cannot remember the last time I saw the Kaldra pieces being played. Why? Where did they go? Now Darksteel Plate has been part of obsoleting the Shield a bit, I suppose. And the Helm is a slightly more expensive Chariot of Victory, but the Sword is still very strong, and the others are all good, especially together. As the Kitty Artifact subtheme takes hold and people are trying out new decks, like Nazahn, don’t forget to get them a whirl too!

Nazahn approves of your Kaldra Pieces!

5. Runechanter’s Pike

Be honest. How many times have you seen a spell-heavy Izzet build without this? While that is the best example I can think of, many others are around as well, like Jeskai or your new Grixis leader, Kess, Dissident Mage:

I am sure you can see the value of many spells in these shells, but the lack of a Pike there is very, very sad. It’s cheap to play, cheap to equip, and the size and first strike are strong. And yet, there is no Pike. It makes me sad.

4. Scythe of the Wretched

This is one of the few entries today (the other was #6 and Kaldra’s Stuff) that used to get more play and then dropped. This is a great card and a major threat at the table, especially when a lot of newer players may not have experience playing around it. The concept is simple enough. If my enhanced creature kills yours in combat, then I get yours back under my control, with the Scythe moving to it. Great! Now what happens is weaker creatures won’t come my way, because people won’t want to hand me a creature, and when you swing, people will often just skip blocking altogether, in over to avoid any traps like a pump spell. But did you notice one other thing? That’s right! This does not work on just combat damage . . .  You can put it on a Triskelion or a Walking Ballista and start shooting creatures dead, and then returning them to your side (often bringing an enters-the-battlefield trigger with them too!) I cannot tell you how many Eternal Witnesses or Mulldrifters I’ve killed and brought back to my team with this thing. Scythe on my friends, Scythe on!

3. Opaline Bracers

This piece of equipment should have seen a major renaissance last year in Commander world and it didn’t happen. The perfect home for it is a four color deck, that can pay the mana and get four charge counters on it. Thus, a four-color Commander deck . . . which was the theme of the five decks in Commander 2016. This is easier to get to a full level of smashery than the domain stuff like Manaforce Mace, but I have not seen it once in the last year. It’s also very good with the two Best- Of leaders in there, as an artifact for Breya, Etherium Sculptor and a counter-placing card for Atraxa, Praetors' Voice! Proliferate and artifacts work with it. Take Atraxa as a good example. With just one Doubling Season in play, play this with the full sunburst, and you have eight counters. Equip for two mana, and Atraxa is swinging with vigilance, lifelink, and flying for 12/12 without any additional aids or proliferates. I think you might win that game!

Seriously folks, you need to take these for a spin . . . 

2. Stoneforge Masterwork

And that is why this card is also on my list. With tribal on the loose in Commander 2017, this is a great entry, especially for the leaders that make token creatures. The best is likely Daddy Markov —

As you can see, Daddy Markov makes a Vampire creature token without investing any additional mana every single time you cast a Vampire. Equip him with Stoneforge Masterwork, and you can have a serious game-ending threat. Even if there are just four other Vampires out there, you get +4/+4, and it can scale up quickly! All of the tribals can find a great use for the Masterwork. It’s good for everything from increasing your Commander’s threat range to sending out an expeditionary force with a Merchant of Secrets token that has become 7/7 and is about to die anyway after Inalla’s trigger ends.

1. Tenza, Godo’s Maul

I think we have a mental block on this card, and it is a perfect example of the Fox Offering Syndrome. What does that mean? The Fox Offering Syndrome is named after Patron of the Kitsune, which is a great card for multiplayer, but has almost never gotten played, because mentally, we assign it to Fox decks, given that ability. Here, let me show you that creature, so you can see what I am talking about:

Can you see just how good it is in multiplayer? 6 mana for a 5/6 creature that you get a life for whenever any creature attacks, whether or not it is yours, and whether or not it attacks you. That is a lot of life, and yet, even life gain decks like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic are not running it. In reality, the Fox Offering ability has made Patron of the Kitsune worse, not better, by interfering with it in our minds, mentally. Tenza is the exact same way. We have assigned an affinity for Red in our minds. But we have a non-Red Commander, it will still give it +3/+3 for a single mana to equip. Isn’t that worth the price of admission? That has a big impact in a lot of decks. If your Commander is a cheap drop, like Hope of Ghirapur, Isamaru, Hound of Konda, or Rhys the Redeemed, then this is pretty early-game swingy. And it doesn’t suck later either, as you can use it on your other legendary creatures (most decks run a few)t o pump them.

I have also seen decks that include Red among their colors that are trying to Voltron or win with their Commander not even include this, where this is an amazing drop, like Jund or Abzan. Why? Again, I think we just have a mental block over using it.

And there we go! I hope you enjoyed this list. What did you think? Anything in here you want to rock in your next Commander deck?

Let’s equip some more fun at the kitchen table!