By Jeremy Rose
Welcome back to Foxy Gaming’s Best of EDH series! We will be going through the top card, by card type, in each color and colorless when appropriate. This is our final entry in the series, and it will be discussing artifacts, specifically Equipment. To see our previous entry, which discussed non-equipment artifacts, click here!
DISCLAIMER: This list is based on Foxy Gaming’s playgroup and the cards we see, run in our decks, and get donked by week in and week out. Our playgroup tends to play in the six to eight range on the power level scale, so keep that in mind as we go through our list. If you and your playgroup see different cards or value some differently than we do, we would love to hear about it so please leave a comment letting us know what you think!
Skullclamp
The best thing you can do in Magic is draw cards and this cheap equipment will do that at a premium rate – and you don’t even have to be in blue! Skullclamp says draw two cards on it and that’s just about the only thing you need to know about it to understand how good it is, but there is absolutely more. Skullclamp only lets you draw two cards when the creature it’s equipped to dies, which sounds like a downside at first. However, any aristocrat style deck that actively seeks to kill its own creatures is a match made in heaven for this card. Equipping to something you want to have die anyway, killing it (either with the Clamp’s -1 or through other means), then benefitting off of all the dies triggers is everything those decks want to be doing in a game of Magic.
Another notable facet of this card is that sneaky +1/-1. I can’t count the number of times a player new to Skullclamp sees that it’s a -1 to toughness instead of a +1, and therein lies Skullclamp’s power. Equipping to an X/1, like all the 1/1 tokens that get churned out in many Commander games, draws two cards for a one mana equip cost. Being able to ‘clamp’ multiple X/1 creatures in a turn makes for some really explosive turns where you draw ten cards and maybe even get a bunch of death triggers. Skullclamp is banned in a number of formats and the reason gets to be pretty apparent when you play against it in Commander.
Sword of Feast and Famine
The entire ‘Sword of’ series is well known for being very powerful equipment in numerous formats, but perhaps the best one in EDH is Sword of Feast and Famine. This sword starts off by giving the equipped creature protection from two of the most relevant colors in the Commander format. The odds of having a creature with this equipped getting in unblocked are relatively high compared to the other swords and dealing damage to a player is key to this equipment being powerful.
Once the damage has been dealt, this sword really gets to show off its power. Making an opponent discard a card is fine, but it’s nothing to get really excited about and is not the reason to play this card. Untapping all your lands, however, can be nuts. Doubling the productivity of your mana every turn is a sure-fire way to put yourself firmly ahead in a Commander game. Spending more mana than your opponents over the course of a game will generally lead to you winning more games of Magic and this artifact will certainly help you do that.
Additionally, the inherent benefit of this card being colorless means that non-green decks get access to the ability to untap lands regularly. This card is going to shine in pretty much any deck that even remotely plans on attacking at regular intervals.
Sunforger
Possibly the best card in Boros colors (maybe not after Lorehold has its say, but we’ll see), Sunforger is an absolute house of a card. Being able to tutor up and cast the best instant in your deck for almost any given situation is incredibly useful and not seen very often in red and white. Adding an additional four power to your creature is also not an irrelevant part of this already impressive equipment.
Sunforger tends to be at its best when played defensively. Being able to swing out with your creatures or play out your best spells while only leaving two mana up is big game for a Boros deck and can singlehandedly win games for you. Defensive cards like Teferi’s Protection, Settle the Wreckage, Deflecting Palm, Boros Charm, Swords to Plowshares, and Path to Exile are all cards that Boros decks will be most likely be playing anyway and Sunforger makes them all that much better by allowing them to come out of nowhere and save the day. Repeatedly doing this every turn can really swing a game in your favor.
Umezawa’s Jitte
One of the more notorious equipment in Magic, and not just for the pronunciation of its name, Jitte truly does it all. The three different abilities that can be used by removing a charge counter from Jitte have a number of effects on the game and make it something the rest of the table has to consider going forward.
Giving the equipped creature +2/+2 (and possibly +4/+4 if both counters are removed) makes combat math a lot more difficult and really puts the pressure on any creatures unfortunate enough to block it. Additionally, Jitte can function as a removal spell with its ability to give a creature -1/-1 (or -2/-2 if both counters are removed) which can get rid of some seriously problematic creatures and furthers the difficulty of combat math. The life gain ability of Jitte is not going to be super relevant in Commander but may come up sometimes and be a helpful thing to have access to.
There are a couple more things to consider with Umezawa’s Jitte that make it even more versatile and dynamic. Firstly, it only asks that the creature deal combat damage, not specifically combat damage to a player. Any kind of combat damage will do, so blocked or unblocked damage will put those charge counters on Jitte (even better with double strike as that adds a separate instance of combat damage). Second thing of note is that Jitte does not have to be equipped to a creature to activate its second and third ability, it only needs to have charge counters to remove. These little things might not seem like much, but they add even more power to a card that already supplies so much versatility.
Lightning Greaves
Greaves is a very well-known Commander staple and for good reason. EDH is a format that tends to promote decks and strategies that revolve around one creature and that creature is often integral to the deck’s success. Lightning Greaves is an inexpensive way to protect your most valuable asset and will stick around even if your opponents do find a way to deal with the creature it’s equipped to. In the case of it being equipped to a commander, should the commander get removed, Greaves will be eagerly awaiting the commander’s return and will be ready to get protecting once again.
Not to be forgotten, Lightning Greaves also gives its equipped creature haste which can be extremely helpful for commanders that need to attack or tap in order to get the deck rolling. The zero mana equip cost grants the ability to do the ‘Greaves Dance’ and equip your creatures as they come into play to give them haste, then shift the Greaves back to the card you want to protect the most. For its low mana investment, Greaves does a lot of work and, since it’s colorless, should probably make its way into just about every deck.
Honorable Mention: Sword of the Animist
While not as powerful as the rest of the cards on this list, Sword of the Animist is one of my favorite Magic cards and I am happy to put it into many of my non-green decks. It’s not super expensive to get onto the battlefield or equip (same cost as Jitte) and it does grant a +1/+1 boost to the equipped creature. The big deal with this card is that on attack, notably not damage, you essentially get to cast a free Rampant Growth. For decks without access to green ramp, this card can really be a life saver and fix colors as well as accelerate the game plan of the deck.
Only requiring an attack is also nice because there are going to be very few decks that are incapable of attacking a couple times in the early game to ramp up on lands. This is not the flashiest or most powerful include but the utility to grant some ramp to decks that desperately need to keep up can make this card a huge deal.
This concludes the second part of Foxy Proxys’ list of best artifacts in Commander! What equipment do you and your playgroup think fit on this list? What equipment do you think we highly overrated? Let us know in the comment section below!
Thank you to everyone who has followed this series and interacted with these articles on our website, Reddit, and our social media pages. As always, the support is much appreciated and I can’t wait to jump into our future projects coming up!
Jeremy Rose is a relatively new Magic player, having only started in Battle for Zendikar. When he's not being a filthy, filthy blue player, he enjoys jamming fun games with his friends. He's also a lifelong martial artist and a professionally employed teacher. He sometimes paints minis adequately. Find out more about him on his Twitter @jermytrose.
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