No matter what format of Magic The Gathering you play, you'll probably be eyeing up at least one piece of equipment. These artifacts can attach to creatures to give them small boosts right the way through to massive, game-ending effects, and they can be tough for your opponents to deal with.
There are over 350 different equipment cards in the game (as of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty), so which ones are the best? Here are the top equipment pieces you'll want to play.
10 Vorpal Sword
On its own, Vorpal Sword doesn't do too much. Costing just one black to cast and two more to equip, it gives the equipped creature +2/+0 and deathtouch.
It's the activated ability that's terrifying: once that's been activated for five generic and three black, any player dealt combat damage by the equipped creature immediately loses the game. There aren't a lot of immediate-loss cards in the current Standard, and in other formats, there are many unblockable creatures to make this a nasty card to come up against.
9 Battlemage's Bracers
Commander 2021 did many great things for Lorehold, or Boros (white/red), and one of those was the introduction of Battlemage's Bracers. Costing two generic and one red, and an equip cost of two, it gives haste. More importantly, you can also pay one generic to copy one of the creature's activated abilities. This makes Battlemager's Bracers a cheaper, more focused Rings of Brighthearth.
The reason Battlemage's Braces is on this list over Illusionist's Bracers, which does the same thing, is colourless, and is free, is because Battlemage's Braces gives your creature haste. That means you can use activated abilities that require a tap straight away – Heartless Hidetsugu, for example, can be slammed onto the table and fire off damage equal to three-quarters of the table's life total in a single turn.
8 Helm of the Host
Any card that can help you skirt the Legend rule is worthwhile, but Helm of the Host then takes it further by copying the creature for you. Costing four to cast and five to equip, at the beginning of combat on your turn you make a non-legendary copy of the equipped creature and gives it haste.
There are wholesome ways to use Helm of the Host – like copying a Nadaar, Selfless Paladin to help venture through a dungeon quicker – but it's also a potent combo tool. Equip it to a Godo, Bandit Warlord and you'll have infinite combat steps, or you can equip it to a Timestream Navigator for unlimited extra turns.
7 Lion Sash
A brand new card from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, Lion Sash is one of the set's handful of Reconfigure permanents that can swap between a creature and an equipment artifact. That alone makes it a powerful card, as having equipment be a creature before you pay to attach it to something else gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility.
But Lion Sash's activated ability is something else. Pay one white mana and you can exile any card from any graveyard. If it was a permanent, you put a +1/+1 counter on Lion Sash. If Lion Sash is attached to a creature, that creature gets +1/+1 for each counter on Lion Sash.
Scavenging Ooze is already a popular card in multiple formats, and Lion Sash can be more easily tutored out of your deck thanks to it being both a creature and an artifact. Even without Scavenging Ooze's lifegain potential, this is a brilliant mono-white mana sink that fits into loads of decks.
6 Embercleave
The scourge of Throne of Eldraine's time in Standard, Embercleave is technically costs four generic and two red. It attaches to a target creature for free when it enters the battlefield, and gives them +1/+1, double strike, and trample.
Embercleave only technically costs that much because of its ability: it costs one less for each attacking creature you control. Combine that with flash, and it effectively becomes an equipment-based combat trick. Hard to predict and even harder to play against, Embercleave was an absolute nightmare in Standard. Now that it's rotated out it's become less commonly seen, but it's still a great card.
5 Blackblade Reforged
Land is the most fundamental resource in Magic, which means almost any deck is going to be focused on getting as much of it out as they possibly can. This fact about the game is why Blackblade Reforged, an equipment that gives the equipped creature +1/+1 for each land you control, is so good.
Creatures that scale based on the number of lands you have, like Beanstalk Giant or Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, get massive by the end of a game and often become that deck's win condition. Taking that ability and putting it onto your Commander or any other creature is ridiculous.
Blackblade Reforged is just a good, wholesome equipment spell compared to some of the equipment on this list. It doesn't really combo with anything, it just does big damage – something everybody can appreciate.
4 Sword of the Animist
There are loads of swords in Magic, and many of them are incredible – Sinew and Steel, Hearth and Home, Feast and Famine, the list goes on. But none of them are quite as powerful as Sword of the Animist. Sword of the Animist costs two mana and costs two to equip. Whenever the equipped creature attacks, you can search your library for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped.
Depending on the colour, ramping can be pretty tough, which makes the colourless Sword of the Animist so appealing. It's great for landfall decks that constantly throw lands out, and it's great for slower decks that just need to ensure they get some kind of ramp each turn.
More importantly, Sword of the Animist triggers on attack, which puts it miles ahead of the other swords. Your creature doesn't need to connect to get the land, it just needs to swing. Double it up with a Wulfgar of Icewind Dale or an Isshin, Two Heavens as One and it gets saucy fast.
3 Kaldra Compleat
Batterskull used to be considered one of the best equipment pieces in the game, and then Kaldra Compleat came along and blew it out of the water.
Kaldra Compleat might cost seven mana to cast, and seven more to equip, but it also has Living Weapon, so it comes pre-equipped to a Phyrexian Germ token when it enters the battlefield. It gives that germ, or whatever else you equip it to, +5/+5, first strike, trample, indestructible, and haste. To top it all off, any creature dealt damage by the equipped creature will be exiled. When Kaldra Compleat drops, everybody else knows exactly who their main enemy is.
2 Skullclamp
One of the key players in any Aristocrats deck, Skullclamp gives the equipped creature +1/-1. Then, when the creature dies, you can draw two cards. Lowering your own creatures' toughness may sound counterintuitive, but it's an incredible way to set off those death triggers and draw lots and lots of cards.
For example, a Skullclamp and an Ashnod's Altar in a Locust God deck can give you infinite card draw, infinite mana, and infinite tokens. With Auriok Steelshaper, Kill the Forgemaster and any one or zero-cost creature it can be infinite card draw. There are so many ways to completely break Skullclamp that it had to be banned in Modern and Legacy, but you can still use and abuse it in Vintage and Commander.
1 Swiftfoot Boots
Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves are two of the most commonly-played equipment cards in the entire Commander format, thanks to the protect they give to your Commander. They're both so similar that featuring both on this list would have been redundant, so only the good ol' Swifty-Bs are here.
The reason for that is simple: the hexproof from the Swiftfoot Boots is more flexible than the shroud from the Lightning Greaves. With Shroud, you're prevented from interacting with your own creature – you can't target them with anything, which can backfire depending on the deck. Hexproof, on the other hand, only stops your opponents from targetting the equipped creature, meaning you're free to play as many combat tricks or buffing spells as you like.
Cheap, and a fantastic way to keep your Commander on the battlefield for longer, even if you've got no other artifacts in your deck, it can be a good move to put a Swiftfoot boots in there somewhere.