There are loads of strategies in Commander, and pretty much all of them can benefit from a good piece of Equipment.
Equipment as a card type definitely suffers in the face of instant-speed removal, but you can often work around that if you’re a little cunning.
Well, if you’re in the business for the best Equipment in Commander, then you’ve come to the right place.
The 10 best Equipment in Commander
A lot of the best Equipment in Commander work really well in multiple strategies, but some of these are definitely at their best in a more fine-tuned deck.
There are plenty of worthwhile cards not on the list, like Nim Deathmantle, which lets you bring Creatures back from the dead, and Embercleave, which can end a fight before your opponent has even had a chance to fight back.
However, these are the best Equipment in Commander overall, in our opinion, so let’s strap in and get on with it.
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10 – Mace of the Valiant
Our first entry is Mace of the Valiant, which is a three-mana White Equipment card that costs three to equip. Initially, all the mace does is grant vigilance, but every time a Creature enters the battlefield under your control, it gets a charge counter, and it grants an additional +1/+1 for every charge counter on it.
While Mace of the Valiant is often at home in any White deck, it really shines when you’re going as wide as possible and pumping out tokens. In situations like this, it can very quickly be something that can end a game because it’ll grant an obnoxious power boost to whatever you equip it to. It’s also a lingering threat unless removed directly, because the counters remain on the Mace of the Valiant itself, and not on any one Creature.
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9 – Quietus Spike
Quietus Spike is another three-mana Equipment that costs three to equip, but this one grants deathtouch. Of course, that’s not all it does, as it also makes it so that when the equipped creature deals damage to an opponent, they also lose half of their life rounded up.
This is, unsurprisingly, a rather potent effect that will quite quickly kill off any opponent regardless of life total, especially if you can combine it with double strike. There are plenty of good Creatures to equip this onto, although we always recommend something with trample to make sure it always punches through.
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8 – Hammer of Nazahn
In a list specifically about Voltron strategies, this card may well be at the top, but this isn’t all about Voltron, so Hammer of Nazahn is here instead. The Hammer of Nazahn is a four-mana Equipment that costs four to equip. It gives the equipped Creature +2/+0 and indestructible, which isn’t bad at all.
However, the real reason it’s so potent is that when it or any other Equipment enters the battlefield under your control, you can then attach that Equipment to a target Creature you control. Being able to equip things for free is very powerful indeed, and if you’re going all-in on Equipment, then this should be the first card on your list.
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7 – Sword of Feast and Famine
Most of the Swords are a fun time in Commander, but not all of them stand equal or even close to it. The Sword of Feast and Famine is a three-mana Equipment that costs two to equip, and it grants the equipped Creature +2/+2 and protection from Black and Green.
It also makes it so that when that Creature deals combat damage to a player, they have to discard a card, and you get to untap all of your lands. We’re pretty sure it’s easy to understand why doubling your mana every turn allows you to a wide array of silly things, so we’ll just leave it at that.
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6 – Whispersilk Cloak
With a casting cost of three and an equip cost of two, Whispersilk Cloak isn’t very fancy, but it does get the job done. The cloak gives the equipped Creature unblockable and shroud, which basically means you can get through the vast majority of obstacles that might try and stand in your way.
There are no secrets here as to what makes the card strong, and the main reason that it’s not higher on the list here is that it costs just a touch too much to both equip and play in the first place. It’s still hard to argue with the combination of keywords here, though.
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5 – Sunforger
Sunforger is a different breed of Equipment. It costs three-mana to cast and equip, and it gives the equipped Creature +4/+0. That would be rubbish on its own, but as is often the case, the real power comes from the bit of text we’re leaving for the second paragraph. It’s called suspense, and we love it.
So, for one Red and one White mana, you unattach Sunforger, and then you get to cast a Red or White Instant card that costs four or less from your library. That means you can bring out pretty much any answer your want whenever you want as long as the card is equipped to something. It’s kind of obnoxious, and we love it dearly.
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4 – Sword of the Animist
We’re getting into the truly big leagues now, and Sword of the Animist is one of those cards that has an incredibly powerful but rather simple effect. For two-mana to both cast and equip, you get a sword that boosts the equipped Creature by +1/+1, which is fine.
The power comes in because whenever the equipped Creature attacks, you get to put a basic Land card from your library into play tapped. It basically allows you to cast Rampant Growth every single turn as long as you attack, and it’s a very hard thing to beat.
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3 – Skullclamp
Skullclamp is card advantage to the extreme most of the time. For just one mana to both cast and equip, you get an equipment that gives +1/-1. That’s actually not bad all on its own, and we mean that genuinely, but it’s nothing compared to the main ability here.
The feast here is that Skullclamp lets you draw two cards when the equipped Creature dies. If you put this in a deck that’s swinging in regularly, or just one that wants to be killing off its Creatures, then you can very quickly gain far more cards than you really need, and that’s basically the most fun you can have in Commander, isn’t it?
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2 – Helm of the Host
Helm of the Host is super fancy. It costs four to cast and five to equip, which is rather expensive for sure. However, it has one of the coolest abilities of any Equipment ever printed, and it can completely take over any game in which it is cast.
You see, it creates a token of whatever it’s equipped to at the beginning of combat on your turn. That would be good, but this is Commander, so it has to be a little better. What puts it so high up on this list, is that it makes tokens that aren’t Legendary, even if the Creature it’s equipped to is. What this means, is that you can have an army of your commander, and that makes it very easy to do very silly things.
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1 – Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves
There’s literally no way we’re going to split the hairs needed to choose one of these other the other, so they’re both number one. Lightning Greaves is faster, costing two mana to cast and no mana to equip, and it gives haste and shroud. Swiftfoot Boots costs two mana to cast but one mana to equip, but it gives hexproof and haste instead.
The key defining thing here is whether or not you value being able to equip this on turn two, or if you’d rather be able to target your own Creatures. That’s the main thing to consider when choosing one or the other here, but generally speaking, you probably want both in your deck anyway.
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