(Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang | Art by Martina Pilcerova)

Brevity is Underrated

Hi. Welcome to this series where we rank every Equipment based on the number of decks they have on EDHREC. Let's get right into it.

...

I'm sorry, uh. Can we start the list now?

You're waiting for a funny opening? Sucks to be you, I guess. I spent all my energy brewing Strixhaven, and quite frankly, you should, too. Article now. Tut tut. Let's go!

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190: Silverskin Armor: 296 Decks

My first thought with Silverskin Armor was to look at stuff that works with Liquimetal Coating, but surprisingly, a lot of Coating's cute synergies comes from targeting opponents' creatures. Outside of some real shenanigans, you can’t use stuff like Memnarch with Silverskin Armor. 

My next thought was that maybe there's a creature I could abuse that mentioned artifacts but that wasn't an artifact itself, but I looked through all those, and the best that I could find that worked with Silverskin Armor was, like, Quicksmith Spy? Underwhelming would be an understatement.

So if you're not doing any of that, maybe you're turning a creature into an artifact so they work well with other artifacts? Like, there’s King Macar, the Gold-Cursed, and the shtick of that deck is to tap and untap him a million times, so maybe you want Silverskin to help Macar work with stuff like Clock of Omens? At that point though, we're drifting towards "I'm playing six bad cards when I could just be playing Puppet Strings" levels of jank.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: I'm honestly a bit disappointed. It's not often something very unique is actually so utterly boring

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189: Shield of the Realm: 298 Decks

Shield of the Realm has about one purpose, and it's to abuse it with creatures like Hammerfist Giant or Living Inferno. It's like a build-your-own Lethal Vapors going on here where you just lock creatures out forever. One trick pony, but a fun one.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: All super cute, but it’s definitely not a random Equipment card.

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188: Pathway Arrows: 305 Decks

The more I see cards like Pathway Arrows, the more upset I am that Heart-Piercer Bow doesn't work like I want. Like, yeah, Arrows still work incredibly well with deathtouch, and you don’t have to get into combat to make Arrows work, but you have to pay two mana every time you wanna do it. Is it still worth playing Equipment like this when you have to invest five mana just to start killing creatures? It's certainly way less appealing, at the very least.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: It's still fine in the deathtouch tribal decks, and maybe it's okay in Chevill, but now I just look at these and ask what might have been.

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187: Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang: 307 Decks

Now, if you want to play an Equipment that gives a stupid amount of power and toughness, you might as well run a really cool one like Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang. Plus, a lot of decks running this card are Samurai decks, and what could be cooler than a Samurai with a dragon sword!

What's the card do? Doesn't matter, it looks cool, and no one that actually cares about the power level is even looking at it.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: Here’s a combo for r/badMTGcombos: Tatsumasa, the Dragon’s Fang, March of the Machines, Training Grounds, Urza, Lord High Artificer, Ashnod’s Altar, Tangleroot, and three spare mana. How this goes infinite is left as an exercise to the reader.

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186: Glaive of the Guildpact: 312 Decks

The awkward thing about Glaive of the Guildpact is that it can be very powerful when you have the Guildgates to support it. +4 or +5 power with minor evasion can make anything a good threat, and in Magical Christmasland, this can be 9-12 power with some Vesuva and Thespian's Stage. Even if it does cost three to Equip, it would still be worth it in decks that care about damage.

The problem is that Gates is not that deck. Maze’s End is the primary win condition for Gates, and it's about as far about caring about life totals as you can get. A lot of the backup win conditions are either Landfall cards, like Scute Swarm, or big mana cards, like Villainous Wealth, combined with Zendikar Resurgent or the like. There's not really anything for Glaive of the Guildpact to do. It's what our editor would call a trap card. It’s really only good in a Gates deck, but it also does not fit in a Gates deck in any way.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: I think you could build a variant of Gates that wanted Glaive, but it would be a very strange deck.

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185: Skyblinder Staff: 317 Decks

Quick question: who on Earth, Ravnica, Dalmasca, or Viridian Forest decided this should cost three to Equip? At first glance, you may have thought this was a Silhana Ledgewalker card, but no, read it again. This cards makes it so flying creatures can’t block your dorks; ground creatures can still eat your dorks all day long! In theory, what you’ll want to do with this card is put it on a flying creature since it would make them unblockable, but isn't the point of flying creatures that they're going to be mostly unblockable anyway? What a nothing mechanic.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: This honestly should in, like, the bottom 20 Equipment. It's baaaaaaaaaaaad.

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184: Butcher's Cleaver: 321 Decks

I spent a lot of time theorizing about Butcher's Cleaver and what decks with Human commanders want lifelink, like Greven, Predator Captain, but after I did all that, I said “wow. That’s a lot of work to play a bad Loxodon Warhammer,” so I wrote this down and moved on.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Then I realized I didn’t have an overplayed section, so I kept the past introspective bit going so I didn’t have to write another joke.

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183: Ogre's Cleaver: 328 Decks

Woah-Nelly! This is even more of a stupid show of aggression than Barbed Battlegear. Unfortunately, this one doesn't do anything for me. Equip five is just a million years away. Imagine paying five to Equip that and getting got by Disenchant. I think that's about as close as you could get to a Mind Crush in real life. Even the Equip all decks like Balan, Wandering Knight don’t seem to make this one work. Feels pretty win more in the end, but not in a funny way.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Although, if you do play this against me, I would deeply respect you.

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182: Leering Emblem: 338 Decks

Joey, our resident Feather, the Redeemed evangel, has already gushed about this card in Feather since she tends to be very Voltron-esque, and also has a bunch of cheap stuff like Defiant Strike that she wants to cast every single turn. Leering Emblem is the perfect intersection between those two ideas.

It's the perfect intersection for a lot of decks honestly. Basically everything said for Feather applies to Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, too. Doesn't take much to make Shu Yun lethal with Emblem attached to him. Some commanders that I don't see on this page, but also line up really well for Emblem are Kykar, Wind’s Fury and Elsha of the Infinite. They both have the potential to play like traditional spellslinger, but then also can also randomly storm off and attack for 16.

The more I look at Leering Emblem, the more I think it's criminally underplayed. I wouldn't play it in the hardcore spellslinger decks, or the hardcore Voltron decks, but if you're the type of person that eats Lasagna French Fries, then Leering Emblem is the type of card you want to help your Voltron and Spellslinger elements stick together.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Underplayed: One other secret hiding on this cards page, though? Infect. Oh, yeahhhhhhhh.

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181: Marauder's Axe: 345 Decks

It's literally my job to theorize why things see play, and I have no idea why Marauder’s Axe is seeing play. I cannot fathom why four mana to give a creature two power is this high. Last reprint was in Jumpstart, there's no synergies of any kind that I can find with it. I got nothing. I guess I just failed my life. That's a bummer.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Seriously, if you know why this is so high, please tell me.

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180: Unscythe, Killer of Kings: 348 Decks

Sigh

Wizards, walk me through your thought process when creating this card. You wanted to make a three-color Equipment. You came up with one of the most metal names you could possibly give the card: Unscythe, Killer of Kings! You then decided to give it one of the trickiest but awesome mana costs possible, and you got this giant art that looks like it’s straight from a 90's magazine for 12-year-olds. You have the perfect recipe to make the coolest dang Equipment ever.

And then when everything was set up to make this card a slam-dunk, you decided to just give up on the card text. "Oh, it gives some random buff and then has some text about making Zombies when it deals damage to creatures. Whatever." You took a card with an incredible allure of power to it, but then didn't actually give it anything to justify the allure. I'm both mad and disappointed.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: I’m as close to the target audience for this as you can get. If I’m not into this, I doubt anyone is.

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179: Angelic Armaments: 351 Decks

Angelic Armaments is an excellent example of the Equip cost butchering the card. Most of the time, you’re gonna cast your three- or four-mana commander, then the turn after that you’re gonna play Armaments, but oh, wait, you lack the four mana to Equip, so you pass the turn. Then next turn, you pay the four mana to Equip, and your opponent Paths your commander. Well, now you’re toast because you have to spend five or six mana to recast your commander, and then another four to Equip. You’ve spent over 20 mana just to make this card do anything!

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Even Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist can’t justify the effort to make this work.

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178: Mortarpod: 356 Decks

This is a very expensive sacrifice outlet. You wanna play this, you’re gonna need some major synergy. Koll, the Forgemaster, I guess? Even then, I’m not thrilled.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Overplayed: Although on the bright side, this is by far the best of the Living Weapon arts. It's nothing more than a weird spider. Pretty tame, honestly.

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177: Malefic Scythe: 362 Decks

"Whenever Equipped creature dies", you say? Okay, how many creatures have to die before this is worth playing in an Aristocrats deck? Four? Five? That's not bad but it's... tricky. If this were free to Equip, I’m totally into it, but the mana just makes it so slow.

On the other hand, I can totally imagine getting smashed by this card in Ghoulcaller Gisa, as it turns any Zombie into a 7/7. I’m very torn. It’s not an Equipment card, or a bog standard aggro card, but in an aristocrats deck, I think it could be good… maybe?

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: I'll be interested to see if anyone has any experience playing with or against this.

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176: Giant's Skewer: 362 Decks

Anyone up for Food? I mean, Food was busted In Standard, but that was mainly off the back of four Oko, Thief of Crowns being monumentally busted. Scaling to Commander a mechanic whose sole purpose is just to gain life? That's a tough sell.

As I write this, Gyome, Master Chef just got spoiled, so there's technically a commander for Food, but there’s only 20 or so other cards that make Food, and a lot of them are, uh, not great. Even if you can convince yourself that Bartered Cow is a good Magic card that is worthy of being cast off of Sol Ring, a lot of the payoffs for Food are just random Standard fodder, like Feasting Troll King and Giant Opportunity. Savvy Hunter and Wicked Wolf are slightly better, but they need more Food than you can ever realistically generate off even the good Food cards, like Witch’s Oven.

However, while there is no direct payoff for Food itself, there are a lot of general artifact token payoffs. Marionette Master does not need a lot of Food to go off. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer will love making all the Food into something more threatening. Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest will get you a little more than just a couple life. All of these cards do make the Food much more potent, but the few Food cards that are worth playing still require playing a bunch of other bad cards to make it work.

In other words, Food joins the Treasure, Clue, and Thopter decks as another bad artifact tribe, and I have a soft spot for all of those, so yeah, I'm jamming this.

Over, Under, or Just Right? Just Right: There might be a deck that plays the best cards of all the bad artifact token tribes, but it certainly wouldn’t be playing Giant's Skewer.

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There are Giants Baking Pieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Uh, outro. What did you think about this batch? I honestly thought there were some legit interesting toys here. Did I miss a combo for SIlverskin Armor? Have you built a Food deck before? Let me know somewhere on the internet! Until next week, brew something fun!