Top 10 Best Equipment for Cheap Evasive Commanders

Equipment cards are often relegated to Equipment decks in Commander. That shouldn’t stop you considering them for your other decks, though – especially when you have a cheap evasive Commander. Two and Three mana Commanders wear equipment well, and if they have Flying, Menace, Haste or First Strike, they can get easy repeatable value.

EQUIPMENT CARDS ARE GREAT FOR CHEAP EVASIVE COMMANDERS

Having a guaranteed creature at two or three mana every game means Equipment cards are always a good card to keep in your opening hand or mulligan. They’re most often colorless or sometimes require a single colored pip, so they’re easy to cast. What’s more, when you do lose the creature they’re attached to – or when you no longer have good attacks – you can simply move them to another creature to continue enjoying their buffs. 

Here are the Top Best 10 Equipment for Cheap Evasive Commanders.

10. LOST JITTE

Lost Jitte is super cheap to play and equip, costing two mana in total. Your options are pretty broad for how cheap it is – and most often you’ll be using the Untap target land mode. If you’re playing Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or another land that helps your mana production, this mode unlocks a lot of ramp.

The cool thing about Lost Jitte is that it keeps the charge counters, and you don’t need to have it equipped to activate the first two modes.

9. CONJURER’S MANTLE

If this card wasn’t in white, it would be way higher on the list. If you’re in a typal deck, Conjurer’s Mantle is your best friend. It allows you to dig deep for more creatures to play, and getting to choose from multiple means you get some agency over what you get – selecting a card is often better than just drawing a land, which is what makes Reconstruct History better than Harmonize most of the time. 

+1/+1 and Vigilance for a total three mana investment is also great. 

8. WINGED BOOTS

If your Commander already has Haste or Menace, then Winged Boots make it that much harder to block. Ward {4} isn’t quite Hexproof, but it may as well be, especially because it means players have to take a whole turn off to cast a Swords to Plowshares – and can’t cast a Beast Within until much later. 

Often, having Flying makes this better than straight up Hexproof, but being blue, it loses a few points as it’s a little more narrow.

7. SWIFTFOOT BOOTS / LIGHTNING GREAVES

This list wouldn’t be complete without the hyper efficient “no” to removal cards. In most cases where I expect to target my Commander with other spells or equipment, I take Swiftfoot Boots first. In decks where I might not deploy a wide board, or in which I play a lot of expensive top end creatures, Lightning Greaves sees more play. I just can’t be as excited to devote a deck slot to these as other cards in this list.

6. SWORD OF THE ANIMIST

Sword of the Animist is a classic for a reason. It’s a four mana Rampant Growth, but then if it sticks around, it becomes a zero or two mana Rampant Growth going forward. Just getting a few triggers off of this makes it well worth the price of admission, and if you can get it going as early as possible, you’re going to end up getting way more lands into play than even the green player. Or maybe you are the green player, and this is enabling your landfall shenanigans. Spicy. 

5. PIP-BOY 3000

Pip-Boy 3000 is nice and cheap at one mana to play and two to equip. You also get a real broad set of modes to choose from, and you don’t need to deal combat damage to get them. Looting is always nice, and sometimes growing the creature is correct. But most of the time, getting a mini-Feast and Famine by untapping two lands is exactly where you want to be. 

4. SWORD OF FORGE AND FRONTIER

Sword of Forge and Frontier has ascended in my estimations the longer I’ve played with it. While I don’t want it in decks that have a toolbox to tutor for – because impulse draw sucks in that kinda build – I think it’s really great in basically any other build. Extra land drops and seeing extra cards means you’ll carry through a lot of momentum. The protection, while not S-tier, gives you ways to dodge Blasphemous Act and attack into big green blockers.

3. SWORD OF HEARTH AND HOME

Sword of Hearth and Home is one of the best Equipment cards ever printed. It makes the cut here where Sword of Feast and Famine doesn’t – and that’s because the latter sword attracts way too much attention for your cheap and evasive Commander. With Hearth and Home, you get to end up ahead on board with a more relevant protection color in white (to stop pesky Path to Exile or a sneaky Swords to Plowshares). The extra land drops and EtBs make this sword a phenomenal choice.

2. DRAGONFIRE BLADE

This equipment dropped in Tarkir: Dragonstorm without much applause, but it’s actually a stellar choice that’s going under the radar right now. One mana to play and in a two or three color deck, {2} or as little as {1} mana to equip. The extra power and toughness gives you way more ability to attack and block without being blocked off, and the hexproof from monocolored protects you from the most played instant, sorcery and even creature EtB removal spells in the format. 

1. MASK OF MEMORY

I don’t need to be writing for Card Kingdom to tell you that card draw is King in Commander, but it really really is. Mask of Memory continues to be one of the best repeatable sources of card draw in the format. It can be played in basically any deck, and if you put even a little recursion into your build, you’re going to be able to capitalize on throwing cards into the yard.

A cheap and/or evasive Commander can help you draw your way to victory starting early in the game with Mask of Memory. 

END STEP

Cheap Commanders let you take advantage of many ways of accruing advantage, whether that be through EtBs or attacking. Equipment help you take advantage of attacking early in the game, and the ones listed today are in my opinion the best of what’s on offer to splash into decks that don’t care about Equipment otherwise.