Early game is largely focused on setting up the board. Equipment are often very costly to play and equip, so casting ramp effects have a strong priority in the first few turns. A Mana Rock, ramp creature, and Ancient Tomb can enable Halvar  to be cast early.

Sword of Hearth and Home, Sword of Forge and Frontier, and Sword of the Animist are land ramp engines that continuously keep the mana flowing. As Equipment, they are easily tutorable and can dig me out of mana screw or to keep pace with any Green mages at the table.

Angel of the Ruins sets up a next land drop when cycled. Mistveil Plains is the go-to target to cycle for unless I need the untapped Basic.

Esper Sentinel and Loran of the Third Path are card draw engines that function early game, which also helps with consistent land drops.

This deck features an extensive removal package and a number of disruptive effects to hinder my opponents.

I try to leave mana open for removal every turn for kill spells. Keeping a Plains open for Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares is easy in most scenarios. Having spare mana left for Generous Gift or Heliod's Intervention can be tricky if I need the mana for other cards, especially early game or if I'm a bit mana-screwed.

Equipment Voltron is a 'Go Big' playstyle, focusing on a single threat. Aggro strategies, especially Token decks, get overwhelming by their sheer numbers, and I have little to defend against them in combat. Creature sweepers keep the aggro decks in check when they have too many creatures to ignore. Heavy sweepers  are the ultimate reset button for dire situations when opponents have developed their boards too far or I'm greatly falling behind. Such sweepers may seem counterintuitive as they also hit my Equipment, but I don't mind. This deck likely runs better on minimal resources than my opponents', and I'll rebuild faster than they can.

Esper Sentinel taxes my opponents spells, giving me card draw if they don't pay up. Grand Abolisher keeps my turn to myself, deterring counterspells and any interaction that could stop Halvar's  assault.

Mana Tithe can catch an opponent off-guard when they tap out for a major spell, especially their Commander.

Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist & Puresteel Paladin

Creatures that provide free equipping.

• Ardenn suits himself up or another threat when my combat begins. He can also be an early threat if my opening hand is slow.

• Puresteel Paladin grants equip 0 to my Equipment when metalcraft is achieved. It's also a card draw engine, causing my Equipment to cantrip.

Danitha Capashen

A Dominarian Knight that possesses a collection of keywords and highly supportive abilities. Perfect back-up threats, especially when wielding a Sword or a P/T booster.

• Danitha, Benalia's Hope cheats an Equipment into play and auto-equips it to her, either from my hand or the grave. I can toss the Equipment she brought in to Halvar  if I need to.

• Danitha Capashen, Paragon is a cheaper creature that reduces the cost of Equipment spells. A great option for an early-game threat.

Kemba, Kha Enduring

An alternative threat that can go-wide on her own with an army of equipped Cats.

Leonin Abunas & Bronze Guardian

Creatures that safeguard my Equipment from targeted removal.

• Abunas is the best available, granting hexproof to all of my artifacts.

• Guardian has ward and grants it to my artifacts, forcing opponents to have additional mana available for their removal to work. Guardian is also an effective back-up threat with its own double strike and scaled power.

Stoneforge Mystic & Stonehewer Giant

Creatures that tutor for Equipment.

• Stoneforge Mystic can cheat an Equipment onto the battlefield for only two mana, circumventing high mana costs and dodging countermagic.

• Stonehewer Giant is the best creatures the 99. Tutoring up my best Equipment directly onto the field every turn is backbreaking. I tend to favour Argentum Armor as the first Equipment to grab.

Land Ramp

Knight of the White Orchid & Loyal Warhound

Land ramp effects on bodies. As long as I'm not going first, they'll function perfectly fine early-game to develop my board. I tend to grab Mistveil Plains with the Knight unless I need the untapped Basic.

I use these cards instead of loading up on too many 2mv Mana Rocks. A mix of different ramp sources avoids complete blowouts from mass artifact removal.

Land Fetch

Angel of the Ruins

I use it in lieu of other Basic land tutors, such as Land Tax and Gift of Estates. Those type of cards tend to become dead very quickly while a creature still has the potential to be a back-up Equipment wielder. It also pair very well with Sword of Light and Shadow to give a steady stream of land drops or to bring it back to cast it for the ETB trigger.

Weathered Wayfarer

A repeatable land tutor. Keeps me from falling behind on land drops and sets up my board with utility lands.

If played on Turn 1, it can grab Ancient Tomb to cast Halvar  early.

Removal

Angel of the Ruins

When it doesn't need to be cycled for a land drop, I can use to exile two of my opponents' toys.

Loran of the Third Path

Provides artifact/enchantment removal when she enters.

Repeatable with Sword of Hearth and Home.

Realm-Cloaked Giant

A creature that sweeps the board on its Adventure, then waits in exile when its strength is required.

I can also cast the Giant normally if I need the body right away.

Disruption

Esper Sentinel

A mini-Rhystic Study on a body, taxing each opponent's first noncreature spell every turn or I draw a card. The cost is dependent on the Sentinel's power, which can be increased with Equipment.

Grand Abolisher

Keeps my turns free from my opponents' shenanigans. Their countermagic is kept at bay and their instant-speed interaction is useless in stopping Halvar's  assault.

Danitha, Benalia's Hope

A Dominarian Knight that possesses a collection of keywords and highly supportive abilities.

Her ETB trigger is capable of returning a fallen Equipment back into the game.

Serra Paragon & Sun Titan

Recursion engines for permanents within 3mv, taking advantage of a well-stocked graveyard.

• Sun Titan can create a card draw engine with Mind Stone.

• Serra Paragon's exile trigger can be worked around by flickering recurred creatures or by tucking cards before they're gone.

Protectors

Creatures that can grant protections to my threats and important utility creatures, preventing my opponents from destroying them with kill spells.

• Mother of Runes can target itself, forcing opponents to 'double tap' it to fully remove it.

• Devoted Caretaker can target any of my permanents, protecting my Equipment from targeted removal as well as creatures.

• Skrelv, Defector Mite benefits from the deck's artifact support. It also has and grants toxic, but the toxic count is far too low to be a reliable alternative win-con.

Lion Sash

An Equipment creature that picks apart the grave to boost itself or whatever is wielding it.

Loran of the Third Path

Once she's finished destroying something with her ETB trigger, she provides a steady stream of card draw.

Recruiter of the Guard

A tutor for small creatures. This deck has a variety of utility creatures to choose from.

Serra Ascendant

The Scourge of Turn 1

Purely a back-up threat without any utility. I've dialed back on creatures that don't do anything beyond attack in this deck, but Ascendant has persisted due to its unique nature as a 6/6 flying lifelinker for a single .

If I happen to have it early-game, I'll immediately choose the Auxilliary Path and cast Sword of the Realms  to support it.

The Mirran and Allied Swords are the best Equipment that Halvar   could ever wield. A single Sword's P/T boost push his damage to two-shot range, and their protections give him evasion to dodge blockers and prevent kill spells from taking him down. On top of that, they provide tremendous value with their triggered abilities, which are doubled by Halvar  granting himself double strike when equipped.

When Halvar  is out, I will prioritize using any available Swords to maximize his effectiveness.

Sword of Feast and Famine

Untapping lands opens up mana to cast additional creatures, use utility lands more than once in a turn cycle, or have mana available for instants. The repeated discard demolishes my opponents' hands.

Sword of Fire and Ice

This Sword is one of the go-to card draw engines of the deck. The 2 damage from its trigger can be used to pick off utility creatures and poke Planeswalkers.

Sword of Forge and Frontier

A Sword that offers both card draw and ramp.

Sword of Hearth and Home

A dual land ramp and creature flicker engine.

This deck doesn't have that many creatures with ETB triggers to get a lot use out of the flicker ability, but the few creatures that do can generate immense value.

Sword of Light and Shadow

A Sword that provides creature recursion and lifegain.

The recursion keeps important utility creatures on board and gives me additional uses of specific abilities only usable when the creature is in my hand. The lifegain is small, but can still buffer my life total from light assaults or offset the damage from Mana Crypt and Ancient Tomb.

Protection from White and Black together are noteworthy, as they shut down killspells of the top creature removal colours.

Sword of Sinew and Steel

The Removal Sword, shattering artifacts and slaughtering Planeswalkers.

Equipment that offer the same fundamental power boost and evasion that the Mirran & Allied Swords do, and give Halvar  the same two-turn clock.

Commander's Plate

A Sword-like Equipment providing a larger P/T boost and broader protections.

Sword of Vengeance

A power boost and a collection of keywords.

This Equipment is especially effective when wielded by a creature with already high power.

These Equipment offer larger P/T boosts, enabling Halvar  to one-shot opponents or for alternative threats to keep up with everyone's high life totals.

Argentum Armor

I see it as an indispensable staple of Equipment strategies despite its unwieldy costs. The ultimate payoff for the multitude of ways to circumvent the costs of Equipment. Nothing beats what it offers when at a discounted price.

Blackblade Reforged

A legendary blade that provides a P/T boost based on the number of lands I control. When I have to rely on alternative threats, this is one of the better Equipment to use to take large chunks out of my opponents' life totals.

Inquisitor's Flail

This deck's damage doubler. A cheap and easy way to increase a creature's damage output. The equipped creature will also take double combat damage, but first strike, double strike,  indestructible, or evasion can dodge this issue.

I'm using this Equipment instead of Fireshrieker, since Halvar  naturally has double strike and hands it out like candy.

Kaldra Compleat

A living weapon, allowing it to take either role of boosting a threat or being a threat. It also gains Halvar's  double strike automatically and can be attached to him immediately with his triggered ability.

As a combination of the Kaldra Set, it's a nigh-unstoppable killing machine, untouchable by the most common removal and nearly anything that could block it won't stick a round for a second bout.

Equipment that focus more on beneficial abilities instead of raw power.

Sword of the Realms  

The other half of my Commander.

In situations where casting Halvar  isn't the optimal play, I will use this instead and focus on keeping an important alternative threat on the table."

Hammer of Nazahn

A well-rounded package providing a power boost, indestructible, and "snap-on" equipping.

Darksteel Plate was used before the Hammer bumped it out of the deck. There's no room for both.

Lion Sash

An Equipment creature that picks apart the grave to boost itself or whatever is wielding it.

The Sash can potentially become a Powerhouse if the 'yards are well stocked.

Shadowspear

A mini-Loxodon Warhammer, providing trample and haste.

It's also able to strip hexproof and indestructible form my opponents' permanents, allowing my removal to tag problems they would otherwise miss.

Strength-Testing Hammer

A cheap card draw engine, dependent on having the highest power

Can be a substantial power boost on its own so long as I have fortunate die rolls.

Swiftfoot Boots

A very handy Equipment providing hexproof and haste. An Equiment Votron deck shouldn't go without it.

Sword of the Animist

An Equipment that grabs a basic Plains every attack. This continuously builds my mana, eases any missed land drops, and sets up Emeria, the Sky Ruin. I see it more as a Mana Rock than a proper Equipment.

Mana Rocks

Sol Ring & Mana Crypt

Powerful Mana Rocks providing a substantial bump in mana for minimal costs.

• Sol Ring is the among best Mana Rocks, a staple so ubiquitous it's seen as a symbol of the format. Intentionally excluding it from your deck is a disservice.

• Mana Crypt is ssentially a second Sol Ring. I wouldn't recommend hunting it down if you don't already own one. It's not worth its price tag, especially with the non-zero percent chance of it killing you. And yes, I have died to my own Crypt. Fun times.

Arcane Signet & Mind Stone

2mv Mana Rocks.

• Arcane Signet is an efficient Mana Rock offering coloured mana without any detriments.

• Mind Stone can be popped for a card when it's no longer useful. It also creates a card draw engine with Sun Titan.

Land Fetch

Expedition Map

Grabs one of the many utility lands this deck uses for whatever the situation calls for.

If played on Turn 1, it can grab Ancient Tomb to cast Halvar  early.

Sensei's Divining Top

A three-card hand extension. Helps dig for needed cards.

Steelshaper's Gift & Open the Armory

Cheap and efficient Equipment tutors. The core of any Equipment Voltron deck.

Enlightened Tutor

A broader Tutor that can select any artifact or enchantment. Although, I almost always stick with an Equipment.

If it's in my opening hand, I may use it to get Mana Crypt and play Halvar  very early. Sensei's Divining Top can give me the tutored card right away when cast during my turn.

Path to Exile & Swords to Plowshares

White's premium kill spells, exiling any problem creature for a single .

Winds of Abandon

This removal option can be either a kill spell or a full asymmetrical sweeper. Giving opponents a handful of Basics is a lot better than staring down the creatures that get exiled.

Heliod's Intervention

A flexible artifact/enchantment removal spell, capable of popping a few toys or a full asymmetrical sweep.

I don't see myself ever using the lifegain mode outside of dire situations.

Generous Gift

A catch-all removal spell that targets anything that ails me, leaving behind a relatively non-treatening creature token.

Austere Command

A modal spell that adapts to any board state.

Since this deck doesn't use enchantments, I use the 'Destroy all enchantments' mode as a free choice if I don't want to destroy every creature or wish to preserve my Equipment.

Farewell

A modal sweeper that exiles most permanent types and can purge the 'yards.

Cast Off

A creature sweeper that leaves behind a vigilant 7/7 on standby in exile. It also conveniently spares Giants.

Ondu Inversion  

A heavy sweeper that resides in a land slot. If I draw it early or don't need it, I can play the land side instead.

Emeria's Call  

A spell that creates emergency bodies and protects my creatures from removal for a turn cycle.

Mana Tithe & Lapse of Certainty

White counterspells to give this deck some interaction with the Stack.

• Mana Tithe punishes opponents for completely tapping out on a key spell. It's effectiveness falls off quickly as the game progresses, but can still snag a taxed Commander or a killspell cast with leftover mana.

• Lapse of Certainty puts the countered spell on top of its owner's library, not only delaying the spell but also botching that player's next draw.

Sejiri Shelter  

A simple protection spell that resides in a land slot. Handy for saving Halvar  or a key utility creature from a killspell.

Teferi's Protection

A potent spell that spares my board from destruction.

Poison is one of the most annoying and hated mechanics in the game. Having your life total effectively be at 10 with no proper counterplay puts players on edge. Cards bearing the infect keyword and the egregious offenders, allowing poison kills to be feasible in this format.

This deck has access to two major cards with infect: Grafted Exoskeleton and Inkmoth Nexus.

• This deck used cardInkmoth Nexus in its early days, used solely as a back-up win-con. There was significant distain in every game I had it out, and victory with it personally felt hollow. I took it out in 2015 when I needed space for another utility land.

• I've never bothered with Exoskeleton. Inkmoth Nexus was more than enough enough poison for me. An Equipment offering infect would devolve the deck into achieving poison kills instead of the Commander Damage kills its meant to achieve.

Skrelv, Defector Mite doesn't change my stance on poison. Although he deals out poison counters, his toxic value is too low for it to be a potential win-con. He will only be used to protect my creatures from targeted effects and to bypass blockers. That's it. My opponents getting the odd poison counter isn't going to make a difference.

Poison won't ever be a significant part of this deck anymore. It sours games and places a unwelcome stigma to anything is appears in.

I heavily dislike this style ramp that's been given to White. The purpose of ramp is to create a resource advantage over your opponents. Catch-up ramp doesn't do that. It can only ever bring you at parity with the opponents that ramp, and never give that advantage for yourself.

Ramp that's tied to an opponent's actions causes another problem. Without a Green opponent at the table or their land ramp being played on time, you end up with cards that can't do anything outside of correcting missed land drops. And catch-up ramp is completely ineffective against the opponents that develop their mana with Rocks.

Despite my animosity, this deck does have a few catch-up cards:

• Knight of the White Orchid and Loyal Warhound are hallmarks of what catch-up ramp should be: hyper efficient. If I'm going to use ramp that has this kind of restriction, it should at the very least be on cards that are "undercosted." The card:Knight of the White Orchid|Knight| isn't even restricted to Basics, and land enters in untapped if I chose to grab one.

• Weathered Wayfarer is a hard land tutor as long as I'm behind. While it's not an actual ramp effect, getting a different utility land every turn this easily is its own advantage. And I can still be up mana if I want to.

White doesn't even need to rely on catch-up ramp to alleviate its mana troubles. Sword of Hearth and Home and Sword of the Animist are effective tools at at providing unrestricted land ramp. Catch-up ramp will never come close to providing an unrestricted Rampant Growth every single turn.

I don't like these effects in Commander. They'll only give me the win if I have an overwhelming board advantage. Otherwise, I'm either kingmaking or turning the game into an utter mess. I'm not interested in having my deck getting ostracized.

I don't run all nine Swords because they're not all equal in strength. I value each Sword based on what their triggers offer, and I have no desire to use a Sword that doesn't provide anything relevant. There's a finite amount of space for Equipment in this deck. I can't shove everything in without forethought.

I've heard the argument that the Swords can be used "just for the protections." Sword of Light and Shadow is the only Sword I believe this idea applies to, and only because pro-White/Black shuts out the top creature removal colours. However, this deck is still using Sword of Light and Shadow for its triggered ability.

Sword of Body and Mind

Milling is a terrible win-con in Commander. Multiple opponents with 99-card decks is a harsh order for such a strategy. With this Sword, it would take about 9 hits to deck a single opponent. Dealing the regular 40 damage is a much faster kill.

Sword of War and Peace

The weakest of the Swords just by its underwhelming trigger. Neither impacts the board nor generates any tangible value. Lifegain and additional damage are provided by other Equipment in better, more consistent quantities.

Sword of Truth and Justice

This Sword is a proliferate engine. Nothing more. Without a sufficient focus on counters, it doesn't do anything. The +1/+1 counters it comes with isn't enough on its own.

The Kaldra Set

The original motivation for building this deck.

Unfortunately, they've been heavily antiquated over the years, and I had to drop them. Equipment have gotten much better since their release way back with the debut of the subtype itself. Getting the whole set out at once is also too inconsistent and an inefficient use of tutors. The compleat package that's now available also stifles any chance of the original set coming back.

Batterskull

Kaldra Compleat has become the go-to living weapon. An indestructible monster is a better threat than a bulky lifelinker.

Colossus Hammer

Even with cards in the 99 that can circumvent equip costs, having a Commander capable of doing so made the Hammer more manageable and consistent. Halvar  doesn't have this luxury.

Why the Hammer isn't in the while the similarly unwieldy Argentum Armor remains is due to the latter's attack trigger. The Armor has a more satisfying payoff for putting up with its high costs.

Darksteel Plate

Hammer of Nazahn took over its spot for having a much larger application beyond indestructible.

There's no space for both.

Fireshrieker

A Commander  that naturally has double strike and can give it to other creatures makes Equipment that offer it awkward. Instead, Inquisitor's Flail is used as this deck's damage doubler.

Masterwork of Ingenuity

Only two Equipment in this deck are worth copying: Argentum Armor and Inquisitor's Flail. The Armor's +6/+6 boost and removal trigger are potent things to double up on, and dual-wielding Flails quadruples the wielder's damage output.

The Mirran and Allied Swords run into massive diminishing returns when copied. Protections don't stack, and the second +2/+2 boost doesn't affect Halvar's  clock.

Doubling a Sword's trigger sounds great on paper, but in practice you'll end up with a plethora of other issues. crowded hand, extra mana going to waste, removal overkill without enough targets, and too many cards being exiled being exiled at once.

Copying your own Sword is essentially a waste of a clone in the long run, especially with a Commander  that already doubles their triggers to begin with. The rest of my Equipment don't fare any better. It's more meager P/T boosts, keywords that don't stack, and Legendary weapons that can't be copied at all.

Clones are only as powerful as what you can copy, and this deck doesn't provide that much to work with.

Creatures

Sram, Senior Edificer

With White getting proper card draw, cantrip engines have become less desirable. What hurts him the most is that he doesn't have a secondary function to give him a purpose outside of drawing cards.

Enchantments

Sigarda's Aid

This card has the issue of not having another function once my Equipment are already in play. This is especially a problem when drawn late after my hand is spent of its Equipment.

I'm intentionally keeping the amount of Mana Rocks in this deck at an absolute minimum, instead focusing more on land ramp. Equipment decks will naturally incentivize heavier use of artifact hate, and non-Equipment artifacts will frequently end up as collateral damage. This deck also has a good number of sweepers  that will ruin all attempts to build mana this way.

The four Mana Rocks I have currently are as far as I want to go.

Jeweled Lotus

This fast mana source only works if your Commander can put a strangehold on the entire table when it's out. Otherwise, you're wasting both your time and space in your deck.

Casting Halvar  early without the ability to follow up with an Equipment is beyond pointless, and only leaves him exposed for nothing.

Inspiring Statuary

It can only affect 25 of the 67 nonland cards this deck has. About 37%. Why would I add a Mana Rock that can only be used to cast less than half of my spells?

Regardless, its inability to make Equipment spells cheaper is an instant deal-breaker.

Banishing Light et al

I'm not a huge fan of removal that's easily reversible. Simple Naturalize effects or one of my own sweepers   will give opponents their cards back.

Land Tax

It was in this deck at the beginning, but I disliked waiting for an upkeep trigger and needed something more immediate. It also wasn't the best card to draw late-game.

Angel of the Ruins has taken up its role at providing land drops while also having late-game relevance.

Smothering Tithe

I added it to the deck when it was first released, but eventually dropped it. The three Equipment land ramp engines collectively make it feel superfluous.

Day of Judgment & Wrath of God

Simple creature sweepers like these are outclassed by newer options that have additional benefits.

Return to Dust

Heliod's Intervention took over its spot by being a stronger and more flexible removal spell.