Ranking Every Equipment with EDHREC - 2022 Edition

January 23, 2023 by Joseph Megill

(Luxior, Giada's Gift |Art by Volkan Baǵa)

The Sins of the Past Must Be Accounted For!

It has come to my attention that I forgot a mana rock in the 2022 round-up (like, not even forgot to put it in the data, just literally forgot to talk about it. This cannot stand. Every mana rock needs a write-up, so let's talk about it right now before anything else!

113: Noble's Purse: 2,677 Decks

It's a better Sphere of the Suns.

It's still not ideal.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: Good, glad I got that off my chest! Let's now talk about the Equipment that released in 2022.

Wait, Equipment? Oh right, shoot!

Equipment of 2022

  • Eligible Sets: Innistrad, Crimson Vow, Crimson Vow Commander, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Neon Dynasty Commander, Streets of New Capenna, New Capenna Commander, Commander Legends: Battle of Boulder's Gate, Dominaria United, Dominaria United Commander, Unfinity, Warhammer 40k Commander
  • Previous Number of Equipment: 328
  • New Additions from 2021: 59
  • New Number of Equipment: 387

Did Wizards once again release way too much Equipment to feature in a regular year end round-up article? Yes, they did.

Have I been able to convince the editors to let me publish an article that is 10,000 words long? No, I have not.

Am I then going to do what I did last year and speed run through all the Equipment that I don't have much to say on? Yes, I am.

So let's do that.

All The Equipment I Didn't Have Space For 2: Electric Boogaloo

And now the fifteen or so Equipment I wanted to talk about this year. Apologies if I missed your favorite. There're way too many of these things!

277: Mystery Key: 630 Decks

I remain annoyed that they wanna put all these card draw Equipment in the color that does not need the help. Like, I get that it's on flavor, but the rest of the color pie still has to play Rogue's Gloves. In any case, Mystery Key actually seems really good. It's basically three mana to draw three in Equipment decks, or any deck with tons of evasive creatures. which is pretty good, and it's super good with other ways to recur it. I like it!

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: It's faster than Rogue's Gloves, anyway.

219: Strength-Testing Hammer: 1,645 Decks

Along similar lines here, Rogue's Gloves is two mana to equip, draws a card on damage, and gives no buff. Strength-Testing Hammer is three mana to equip, almost always draws a card since Voltron commanders are usually the biggest beef on board, and can give a pretty substantial buff half the time? Yeah, I'm kinda into this. So long as they refuse to give us good card draw Equipment, I'll take what I can get.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: I even kinda like it in Isshin.

216: Drach'Nyen: 1,442 Decks

My first though with Drach'Nyen was "that's a very cool name I have no idea how to pronounce. I should probably google how to say it."

My second though was "Oh, hey! Equipment Duplicant. Cool!" And it is, except probably 60% of the advantage of Duplicant was that it was colorless and a creature. Drach'Nyen is neither of those. No colorless, mono-red, or mono-blue decks for this; no Feldon of the Third Path, Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, or Sneak Attack shenanigans, either.

Granted, the card is not devoid of synergy. You can still do things like Daretti, Scrap Savant with it to exile a thing every turn, and being an Equipment opens up some synergy for this in Voltron decks. But, I don't know, Voltron decks don't really wanna pay six mana for their value-based removal, do they? Artifact decks are surely fine enough with Duplicant, yeah?

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Unless you wanna just play it because it's a really cool sword. I won't diss you for doing that.

189: Ceremonial Knife: 2,299 Decks

I hear a little voice in my head saying "Prying Blade!" when I look at Ceremonial Knife, so I'm already paying attention to this card. Blood tokens are not quite as usable as Treasures or Clues, but they're still pretty good value for decks that want to make artifact tokens, like our dear friend Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer or Meria, Scholar of Antiquity.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: All that plus Blood itself being harder to make than Treasure, and Ceremonial Knife looks like a solid role-player.

172: Bone Sabres: 2,845 Decks

Okay! This is, like, the limit of how good an Armory of Iroas-style card needs to be for me to be interested. I'm not even a huge fan of Bone Sabres, but it seems good if you get two attacks in, and passable with one. Fine, whatever! You can have this one.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: Maybe I need to play Warhammer, but I have no idea how wielding a bunch of swords makes you more buff over a prolonged period.

161: Mask of the Schemer: 3,177 Decks

I could once again complain about a blue Equipment that draws cards, but Mask of the Schemer is just absurd. I play Ancient Excavation as a way to sculpt pretty absurd hands, and Mask absolutely gives me that vibe. Even if you put this on a 3/3, that's still draw three, discard three, and you probably get at least one counter on your friend. That's pretty good, and when you put this on a 10/10? Ooooh, I love it! I love it a lot!

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: Obviously, you only wanna play this if you have creatures that are evasive, but when you do, this is fantastic.

135: Pact Weapon: 4,124 Decks

Wow. Just a strictly better Murderer's Axe. The power creep, man.

Pact Weapon is not nor will it ever be Dark Confidant. You play Confidant when your curve is a stalagmite placed at two mana as a way to draw cards early and often. Pact Weapon is not gonna draw you cards early, nor really very often. That's not the place for this.

And while the card is probably fine in Voltron decks, the place it really belongs is in the life payment decks: Selenia, Dark Angel, Greven, Predator Captain, Asmodeus the Archfiend, things like that. These cards might play it for the first line of text alone. The card draw and life loss are delicious upside on this card, and the buff is just gravy.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: Also, it's good in Volrath the Fallen. PS, why have you not built Volrath the Fallen yet?

132: Resurrection Orb: 4,540 Decks

This, uh, doesn't seem good? I don't get it. Resurrection Orb looks like a worse Darksteel Plate and Hammer of Nazahn? What's the upside here of playing Orb in particular? It's a stupid amount of mana to equip. It still doesn't get around exile or bounce removal. It's worse than indestructible since you lose the creature for the turn if someone kills it. Barring the precon it was printed it, I don't see the appeal here.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Pokeball, Gooooooo!

106: Tanuki Transplanter: 5,991 Decks

Did you have "callback to the snake people, ala Sakiko, Mother of Summer" on the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty bingo card? We got a callback to Sakiko before we got another card with Epic. I am slightly miffed.

Only slightly miffed, though, because this card is very fun. It's basically an Equipment version of Mark of Sakiko, which is a weird card. It's only going in dedicated green combat decks, but when you find the Surrak, the Hunt Caller deck that wants this specific card? Oh boy, it's real easy for it to add three, four, five mana. Sometimes more. It's like a Gilded Lotus on steroids.

Tanuki Transplanter is basically that but as a Reconfigure creature, meaning that it's slower than Mark, but much more resilient to removal and attachable to bigger creatures. Sounds good to me. A whole new generation of players can experience the joy of attaching this to an Omnath, Locus of Mana.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: I was more of a Mario World than Mario Bros 3 guy, but I still 100% sign off on calling this a Tanuki Suit.

101: Robe of the Archmagi: 6,579 Decks

Oh, goody! Another card draw Equipment for the color that could run Tidings as an option and still probably be better off than Boros. Whoooooooooooooo.

There're two subsets of decks on Robe of the Archmagi's page. There are the Equipment or Voltron decks that run this, and I was just complaining that they don't have much card draw, but at four mana to equip, I don't think this is what they want. I know some people are going to bring up Sigarda's Aid, but if I'm ranking people out with Aid, it's with things like Colossus Hammer that kill people.

Then there are the Shamans, Warlocks, and Wizards that are populating this card's page. Your Alela, Artful Provocateur, your Farideh, Devil's Chosen, your Cecily, Haunted Mage. These I like better, but you gotta have evasion for it, so yay for Alela with flying, yay for Cecily because she always wants to get in, but boo for Burakos, Party Leader since he's not gonna be quite as high on evasion.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Can we just get a better colorless card draw Equipment than Rogue's Gloves already?

85: Cloudsteel Kirin: 8,361 Decks

So Reconfigure might have a bunch of extra text and give some creature stats, but by and large, we can go back to Equipment fundamentals to evaluate these cards.

Question for the class: why don't we play Angelic Armaments? If you answered, "Because the equip cost is ludicrous," congrats! You remembered the fundamentals. It's never in the casting cost that these mediocre Equipment get you. It's in the equip cost. That's what you're primarily spending up front, and it's what you're respending should you need to rebuild.

Most of the Reconfigure creatures have pretty mediocre equip costs for not much benefit. All the common ones are obvious, but even something like Acquisition Octopus or Ogre-Head Helm are still pretty mediocre Equipment for the mana you invest. The upside is that they're creatures to wear the Equipment when you don't have one, but if that's all you want, play Ancestral Blade or Simian Sling, because those are cheap and are also back-up creatures.

Cloudsteel Kirin is probably the most evident example because it's a whopping five mana to Reconfigure. That's absurd, especially for a thing that grants no buff to power or toughness. I know people are gonna reach for Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist and friends, but even Ardenn has better things to spend time on than this. The only real case I can see for running this is if you wanna combo with it, like with Lich's Mastery or something, but at that point, just run Platinum Angel and skip the rigamarole.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Reconfigure is cute, but not really for EDH. The reason Lion Sash is good is because it's a Scavenging Ooze and has a relevant creature type, not because it's a Reconfigure card.

71: The Reaver Cleaver: 11,050 Decks

Hey, look! A super Goldvein Pick.

Is The Reaver Cleaver good? I don't know, but I also don't really care. It makes any creature into a mini-Old Gnawbone. You know that's gonna lead to some shenanigans!

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: I probably could have snuck this in the Equipment roundups, but the card made me laugh.

67: Luxior, Giada's Gift: 11,452 Decks

Speaking of cards that make me laugh, way back in the eons of my planeswalker series, I mentioned a really silly combo you could do with Oko, the Trickster and Mutate where you could make him a creature and then protect him from being attacked while still getting all his loyalty abilities.

Well, now Luxior, Giada's Gift can do that with any 'walker. You know we're signing up for some shenanigans here. I would like my Ajani, Mentor of Heroes to mentor itself. Sounds lovely! I would like a Progenitor Mimic copying an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, yes indeed. I would like Nahiri, the Lithomancer to kill someone with commander damage. This card is wonderful.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: All of this in my veins now.

33: Lizard Blades: 18,762 Decks

Here's one of the only Reconfigure dorks I like. Lizard Blades is one of the most efficient ways to give double strike available. It's more efficient than both Fireshrieker and Embercleave. Being a creature gives the card its own batch of upsides and downsides, but the Equipment side of this is good enough, that I'm into it. This is a Voltron staple. Heck, I'd consider it a Commander staple.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: The only real limiter here is the red color identity, but that still gives it many homes.

18: The Reality Chip: 32,280 Decks

(1030 Decks as a Commander [Yes this can be a Commander], 33,933 Decks in the 99)

I think this year is mocking me.

I could get kinda persnickety about The Reality Chip being above both Lizard Blades and Lion Sash as the best Equipment of the year. I mean, artifact decks have tons of card draw, and this is fighting for one of this coveted slots at five mana, no less.

But I'll give it a pass. Equipment Future Sight is going to be absolutely busted in any cheerios-style deck, and still quite good in any artifact deck that wants to play it. You'll flood out sometimes with it, but you younguns will learn quickly that the player with the Future Sight often wins the game.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: Plus, it's a Jellyfish, and I like jellyfish.

Jellyfish are the Most Adorable Freaks of Nature

I will let you get back to your Phyrexia: All Will Be One brewing now. Oh wait, first tell me what you think about these Equipment. Anything I didn't talk about that you wanna gush over? Anything in what I did talk about that I overrated? Post your thoughts down below! Until next week!

Joseph started playing in Theros Block but decided that the best way to play the game was to learn every single card and hope that would somehow make him good at Magic. It hasn't. He is a college student in Santa Fe, New Mexico and also enjoys reading and other games of all shapes and sizes.

Tags

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