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The Coat of Harms [w/ Primer]

Commander / EDH Aggro Bracket 2 Equip Knights Multiplayer RBW (Mardu)

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Lands (37)

Card Draw (14)

Tutor (6)

Knights (24)

"Enablers" (14)

Interaction (10)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale

Equipment (21)

Mana (13)

Board Wipes (2)

Sideboard

Other (6)

Like Fire Emblem in Micro Scale

This decklist aims to assemble a density of equipment and stack it across your choice of 1-2 knights, rather than relying solely on the Commander like Voltron strategies do. Because of that gameplan, this deck wins through insurmountable advantage and multiple turns of combat, like a much more aggressive version of Commander's "Midrange" decks. If the table refuses to remove one of your key pieces or to destroy your equipment, you can turn a stack of equipment into a likely win over 2-3 turns of massive attacks. Even if your remaining opponents remove the equipment bearer, you may have gained enough momentum and to keep up the combat grind and win later.

Power Brackets are a thing now! Woah! This deck has no game changers (not even a Sol Ring), and I've intentionally designed it to win gradually. (The goal of a telegraphed win-con is why the deck lacks famous equipment like Colossus Hammer, and why it intentionally avoids a voltron strategy.) Opponents will see that you've assembled 3-4 equipment and should know that they still have a few turns to stop you, but only a few. Thus, this deck fits the definition of a Power Bracket 2 deck, which is exactly what I want it to do, but it has some small dislcaimers. The decklist contains some strong cards like Umezawa's Jitte, Shadowspear, fetch lands, and an entire suite of Equipment tutors. But to be frank, Jitte is the main card that I actively warn people about before starting a game. Shadowspear tends to be fine, fetch lands just equate to untapped mana, and restrictive tutors do not have nearly the same power as universal tutors, especially since this deck intentionally lacks any instant win-cons to tutor for every game. I favor a "toolbox" approach, where every piece of equipment has a particular situaton that it shines it more than the others. I'm picking different equipment basically every time I cast a tutor, and all of them still require me to make a few turns of attacks to make meaningful things happen. So, I have some confidence in saying that I've designed this deck for Bracket 2. For every game I've dominated with a massive attack that gains 36 life, I've also been completely trounced by my friend playing the Mordor precon, the Henzie precon, or even a stranger playing a Duskmourn precon. It might have some higher card quality and tighter card choices, but I'm not currently confident that its gameplan would equal other decks' speed if I placed it higher into Bracket 3.

I would call this list my specialest little baby. I've worked on it near constantly over literal years now, improving greatly as a Commander player and in my understanding of the format as a whole through the process of re-tooling this deck. So, I've done my best to write that knowledge into a primer below, particularly highlighting the rationale behind card choices and how I use them in-game.

Thanks for stopping by the list, and happy brewing!

As I said, this deck seeks to stack a large number of equipment on a creature or two and make repeatable, large attacks. Commander damage knockouts remain feasible if you want to go for them. However, by not committing to Voltron from the start, I've created play patterns that I find more enjoyable by being more fair to the table, AND I feel like we get to abuse one of the hidden strengths of equipment: resiliency. If Gwyn’s functions as just an enabler (cheating equip costs) and as a card draw engine, then the table frequently has to choose between removing my actual threat OR disrupting my ability to make them. Even if Gwyn leaves, other knights already on the board will still be carrying a stack of equipment, ready to threaten most of an opponent's lifetotal. Although, if my opponents choose instead to remove the threat, Gwyn sits around to keep drawing cards to find the next knight to slam down and gear up.

In my personal experience, the deck patiently builds up a board until turns 5-7. (Turns 5-7 is usually whenever you cast Gwyn, which varies due to mana acceleration speeding you up or other factors slowing you down.) Any attacks you make in the early game are mostly done to trigger any utility cards that you drew, such as Diamond Pick-Axe. By turn 5 or 6, you will frequently have some combination of: 1-2 Knights, 1-2 equipment, and maybe a mana rock. From there, you can either cast Gwyn to suit up those 1-2 knights and start drawing cards from bigger attacks, or you can manually equip your gear and spend your leftover mana to develop your board for another turn. Once you've started suiting up, the deck ramps up significantly in damage, so get ready to take some heat from the table in return. Over those couple turns, you might even be looking to take someone out, but that depends on how explosively the combination of equipment you drew/tutored for can perform.

Opponents will, at minimum, prepare for Gwyn being your equipment bearer, often by holding up removal or Fog-like effects to stop commander damage knockouts. This is why I often choose to bide my time and develop my board for an extra turn instead of playing Gwyn the moment I hit 6 mana. You can cast a knight, who will have an entire turn cycle to get over their summoning sickness, before casting Gwyn next turn as a way to equip (and draw cards). Tapping out to cast Gwyn, only for her to get removed immediately, sets you behind the table with probably not enough time to catch up before someone else pops off beyond the entire table. In fact, tapping out to cast Gwyn multiple turns in a row is the worst play pattern this deck can fall into. Instead, you usually want to wear people down with a series of evasive knights that hit hard, who gain you tons of life with lifelink and trigger Gwyn to keep your hand full of gas. Again, the deck excels at resiliency. It might be aggressive, but it has a bit of setup that, in exchange, makes it grind out longer games with even the value-focused decks.

Conqueror's Flail is perhaps the only card in the list that can ensure those risky, all-or-nothing attacks by forcing opponents to use their tricks before you ever commit to attacks. In every other case though, free equip costs let you move equipment to any of your remaining blockers during your 2nd Main Phase. If you see that an opponent has a lot of mana in colors like Red or they just generally have a massive board, I would suggest holding back extra creatures to take your equipment after combat. (A lot can go wrong! A little patience and caution in those latter turns will keep you in the game.) Or, you can gamble that they don't have removal by using Gwyn as your blocker, since her Vigilance will always keep her available for that job. Most of the time, play around your opponents having removal in hand. Sometimes, you'll even need to hold off on developing your board to instead hold up mana for interaction. Opponents with lots of mana and/or synergy pieces could be ready for a turn so explosive that it kills you, and interaction is your only lifeline.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I keep referencing this deck's ability to "grind." It manages to thrive in a longer game where it can stack lots of equipment, because that equates to escalating damage. Any lifelink turns that high damage into cushion to keep you safe, and Gwyn's triggers keep you full of gas to replace any knights that die or to stack on even more equipment. Free equips also make replacing a bearer extra easy and quick. Some cards (like Gwyn herself) even have Vigilance to perform defense at the same time that they attack for triggers. And as a final boon, this deck can also gain card advantage from a few recusion effects, and it has a few alternatives to cheating equip costs. In other words, even removing my key pieces might not be enough to stop the deck's endless grind. (Those alternative cards are listed in "Enablers.") Still, losing Gwyn can be quite a tempo-loss due to the high mana cost needed to recast her. She is the sole creature worth protecting, since she lets every other knight in the deck immediately pass the torch of equipment-ownership, keeping up the deck's pace of attacks.

The equipment tutors also add a bit of flexibility to any particular game. Probability states that you will draw only one, but I designed the equipment package to contain a variety of utility and to cover deck weaknesses. Sometimes you're in a combat-heavy pod and need Loxodon Warhammer to win the tug-of-war between everybody's lifetotals. Sometimes, you reach for the trusty Umezawa's Jitte to both keep the tokens deck from crushing you AND to provide a win-condition through hoarding charge counters for +2/+2 boosts. And sometimes, you fetch Heirloom Blade, because you realize you sat down with one or more control decks who loaded themselves up with removal. These restricted tutors provide a fun dimension to deckbuilding as I explore how to make equipment function on their own while still adding utility to the toolbox. But, the tutors also add lots of strategic fun by asking me to make those game-by-game analyses, especially since my deck has moved away from explosive, combo-like equipment with each iteration. When I no longer have a "win button," tutors stop being the boring cards that only ever find the deck's win button.

However, by its choice in Commander and strategy, the deck contains a couple inherent flaws. Gwyn's high mana cost of 6 takes time to reach, because using early turns to play my out my low mana-curve of knights and equipment tends to be more meaningful setup than excessive ramp. (Mana acceleration is always powerful in Commander with the right timing, but in an aggro deck, it takes more specific timing than other strategies to benefit, so I'm encouraged to run only the lowest cost mana rocks. I'll cast maybe one mana rock and then move on because I didn't draw any others or don't have time to cast them.) As an equipment deck, I also have to find both a creature and an equipment before my strategy comes online. While probability states that 1/4 cards should a knight or an equipment/tutor, meaning we get one of each in our opening hand and initial draw, luck continues to be a factor. It's important to smooth out that luck with digging effects, but the commander can't be around in the early game to do that herself. So, I chose to include utility knights and equipment that can do it while she isn't around. Any utility equipment, as well as unassuming cards like Ambitious Farmhand   andAcclaimed Contender, have really pulled their weight in the past to make the deck function. And of course, the equipment tutors help with consistency too. In a hand that's lacking lands or lacking any equipment besides the tutor, you can burn the tutor for a utility equipment that generates mana or draws cards (respectively). Remember though, this risk reveals to your opponents that you needed that piece. Cutthroat players or people who are liberal with their interaction will happily remove your Sword of the Animist or whatever other choice of card you went for.

Since I've tried to tune the deck around those flaws, the strategy's more fundamental weaknesses tend to be defense against larger armies of creatures and (in my design) a slight lack of ramp. Let's talk about that first weakness. Like many aggro decks, its skill-testing moments come in prudently evaluating how to split your equipment and how many creatures to hold back. Vigilance doesn't appear all the time (outside of Gwyn), since the many knights who have Vigilance were excluded from the list for lacking other usefulness. (Although, I'll discuss my creature criteria later in the "Knights" section of “Roles to Play.") With an average of only 2-3 knights on board at a time, including the Commander, Gwyn might be the sole creature left untapped to block, unless you show restraint. These decisions hinge on how you think your opponents will respond to you. As I stated, moving equipment around to your blockers might dissuade an opponent from attacking you, though keeping equipment stacked on your tapped attacker means people can’t remove Gwyn AND your current bearer with just single-target removal. If your opponents have a large board or might have an explosive turn, greedily attacking for Gwyn triggers and leaving only her to defend might be a risk that an opponent will instantly punish. But even if my Sword of Vengeance keeps an extra knight untapped, a small force of 1-2 blockers can’t intercept an entire army of tokens. Without a board wipe in hand, rely on Lifelink to keep yourself alive as you race opponents that go wide. But more than that, consider the speed of everyone's decks when you make these decisions. If you're moving faster than everyone else, then we're happy to make attacks and reap all the triggers, but as soon as other decks start coming online, you need to play with extra caution and not tunnel vision on the idea of racing the other players.

Let's discuss that other weakness. I have a lot of cards in the "Mana" category to help reach Gwyn's mana cost of 6, but only 6 of those are specifically mana rocks. While I describe this like it is some kind of unusual weakness, aggro decks intentionally choose to run low amounts of mana rocks, because their gameplan is designed around taking aggressive actions in those early turns. . I might only cast one mana rock to get going fast, whereas most of the other "Mana" cards are about helping me hit land drops/move up my curve at the same time that I develop my board. Anecdotally (from my recent games), the deck will have sufficient mana, barring bad luck. So, a "lack of ramp" just means that this deck isn't meant to sprint out of the gate with lots of true mana acceleration. I intentionally chose to do this over the deck's iterations, because a lot of the deck's slots already got filled up balancing the number of knights against the number of available equipment. I would prefer the deck to consistenly function rather than (sometimes) go fast, so I choose lots of knights and equipment that also perform the deck's utility needs in order to compress the deck's roles. (This was my excuse back in the day to splurge for cards like Cavalier of Dawn to be my removal and whatnot.) This culminates in a deck that should more regularly perform its gameplan, and coincidentally, it creates a sort of setup period of 5-6 turns before it starts truly playing that helps keep the deck closer to that Bracket 2 range.

As a final note, opponents can most effectively shut down the strategy by destroying equipment. The loss of Gwyn can set you back harshly on mana, but if a stack of equipment stuck to another knight before she left, you’re at least granted a window to keep up the aggression before you either replay Gwyn or lose the creature. Inclusions like Sevinne's Reclamation exist as contingencies to artifact destruction and give you at least one way to stay in the game, if you have some luck in digging for it.

How powerful is the deck?

I've probably beaten this topic to death already. Its pivotal and game-winning moments occur on turns 7 and later. The strategy requires at least one creature, which can be Commander Gwyn herself, combined with 3+ equipment. Even after assembling 4+ cards for this win condition, it takes more than one turn of combat to move against the whole table. So, while I could theoretically get a knockout by turn 8 or 9, I am expecting the deck to take longer to definitively get its win. This doesn't even mention that one of my core engine pieces (the commander) is 6 Mana, or that I need specific types of cards to assemble an engine or full win-con. Being an equipment strategy increases the amount of card types I have to juggle in deck construction to make it function. This was not an easy deck to build, especially since I wanted it to contain some particular, powerful cards while still being transparent about when/how it wins.

Of course, if you’re still ever concerned about playing with a table, the bottom line is that you can always give people a pitch about the deck. For me, that ends up sounding like:

“This deck wants to stack equipment to repeatedly make some big attacks. I'm the kind of player who will interact, I’ve got equipment tutors (in a 'toolbox' way), and I’ve got some cards in here like Shadowspear, Jitte, and fetch lands. This deck should play fair with Bracket 2 or Bracket 3 decks, but I'm aiming for Bracket 2.”

I've created short blurbs about all of this deck’s categories. I will not individually discuss every card except for the equipment, which received their own section called, “The Coat of Harms.” Here, I’ll cover the logic behind each category, alongside any other notes that I think would help someone analyze my category tags and understand the deckbuilding decisions.

Lands

This deck is dominantly White, but I put heavy demands on my manabase by alternating on curve between multicolored spells and double-pipped spells. So, I compensated by adding the white pairings of dual lands from several cycles, while I excluded most Rakdos options. (I'll always have access to white, while still checking off the one or two pips I need of my off-colors.) I also spent the majority of my personal "tapped-land card slot budget" on Dominaria’s and Kaldheim’s tap-duals with land subtypes. Thus with several tap lands already in and my pip demands pushing out colorless lands, I ended up reducing my utility lands to only what I thought was the most impactful for the deck. But by trying to keep a spread of basics and those tap-duals with subtypes, I could add check lands, Castle Locthwain, and some Modern Horizons 3 lands (e.g. Monumental Henge), while still counting on them to enter untapped just like my Battlebond lands and pain lands. Past that, the addition of the fetch lands was mostly because I added in Sevinne's Reclamation, but it works nicely with my many non-basic lands that have subtypes.

Beyond getting one mana of each color, notable benchmarks for pips and what you can cast off them include:

Knights

In descending order, knights have to meet one or more of 3 criteria to make the cut in this deck:

  1. Bear equipment well through keywords. This can be Double Strike, Trample, and especially evasion keywords like Flying and Menace.
  2. Offer some kind of utility to justify their inclusion. This is going to be all the Knights in this list that also function as removal, card draw, or ramp.
  3. Perform some kind of immediate function with haste or an "enters" trigger, because an aggro deck still values speed. I would not add a knight from this category alone, but it boosts an option that’s weaker in the other areas. Examples include Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, who provides immediate card selection through his “when you attack” trigger, and the few remaining Haste creatures like Sunrise Cavalier. Plenty of other Knights have "enters" abilities, but their effects fall mostly under utility already.

Mana

My need to include lots of knights AND equipment takes up a lot of slots, so I have little spare space to be stingy about only using mana rocks and land ramp. Rather than fill this category with only ramp, I included a number of things that give me mana in any way, especially if the card itself remains “on-theme” to the strategy of knights and equipment. Ambitious Farmhand   puts a land drop into my hand and easily flips into a knight once Gwyn hits the field, or Diamond Pick-Axe is an equipment that makes Treasures. Even cards that help me dig will help me find lands, but those have their own category up next.

Card Draw

All of these cards help me dig in some way, especially for equipment, while Gwyn is unavailable in the Command Zone. Castle Locthwain is obviously not a card advantage engine driven by synergy, but it has been a helpful failsafe for bad luck games, where I need just one piece of equipment, one land, or one equipment bearer before my hand to starts functioning. As many inclusions as possible are trying to stay “on-theme” as knights or equipment, with the notable exception of Kayla's Reconstruction for its density of possible hits in my deck’s curve and its ability to put those cards straight into play. (As of Final Fantasy, Kayla’s Reconstruction hits 40 cards—15 Knights and 25 Artifacts—but as I mention in the tips at the end, I would not recommend an X value higher than 2.)

Tutors

I already advocated for specifically equipment tutors in my section about the deck's game plan. Online commander discourse made me fear that tutors would take the fun away from my deck and sour a casual table, but I have found this sentiment to be more contextual than that. Restricted/conditional tutors add a fun deckbuilding challenge, and as along as your deck isn't using it to search for an instantly winning combo piece, then you aren't necessarily killing your variance. Some decks might need a core piece for their gameplan, like Astral Slide in a cycling deck or Heartless Summoning in that one guy's Acererak deck, but the presence of such tutors means you can start to include one-off cards as situational tech. You start building a "toolbox" of utility that the tutors let you search through. It's skill-testing and engaging to analyze which of my (currently) 21 equipment best handles the situation, because my answer changes every single game and maybe even turn by turn.

This list averages to 2-3 equipment that share functions (e.g. Trample, card draw, lifegain, combat stat boosts, etc.), but a lot of them still offer unique traits instead of being completely interchangeable. Consider what you REALLY need for your current state, though if you’re ever feeling lost about how to tutor, the “Coat of Harms” section should help with analyzing what I use my equipment for and when you might want them. You usually only get one, so take some time to deliberate what single card will put you in the game. As I said before, maybe you just need that one utility equipment to smooth over mana or to start digging for other equipment. Maybe you need Dragoon's Lance to get your first body on the field, or an Heirloom Blade to survive in a removal-heavy environment. Perhaps you need the lifegain, and so on. These exist as your one lifeline to make the deck pop in a game where it might otherwise struggle. I added them because it adds consistency and some strategic fun while piloting it.

Interaction

This category includes cards like Reprieve, but most of the category is removal that targets nonland permanents at instant speed. A card like Bedevil got cut because of my personal struggles with enchantments, and a card like Vindicate never made it in because I finally came to value holding up mana for instant speed interaction. If you’re smart enough to recognize when an opponent has a lot of mana and/or presence on board and thus might play something game ending on their turn, holding up mana for even just Reprieve or Unexpectedly Absent can buy you the one turn you need to launch a killing attack. Similar to tutors, probability states that you will usually get 1-2 pieces of interaction, no more. So make them count, whether proactively or reactively. I'd particularly encourage you to not just look at who has the scariest board, but whose STRATEGIES are the best against yours. I can fight other combat and creature decks with the right equipment, so I've focused my removal on hitting other permanent types in weird ways. Dinosaurs or dragons might scare me, but my gameplan doesn't stop an Academy Manufactor from drowning me out in advantage without outright killing the player.

“Enablers”

The only category tentatively named. It refers to inclusions that cover deck weaknesses. Balan, Wandering Knight and Fighter Class provide alternative ways to cheat equip costs if Gwyn returns to the Command Zone, so that I can maintain pressure on my opponents. Opponents still love to remove Gwyn, since her supportive functions are still key to the deck's continuing synergy. So, other enablers can protect her from being removed, such as Werefox Bodyguard or the classic pair of boots. A clever player can cast even Unexpectedly Absent X=0 on their own stuff to save it from removal. Manually equipping Conqueror's Flail to a creature before Gwyn hits the board can also protect her from instant speed interaction while she equips the whole team. However, I still consider the few cards that offer recursion to be the true “enablers” of the deck, as destroying equipment is the most significant counterplay to this strategy.

Board Wipes

I run a lower amount of board wipes these days, and despite their high mana costs, I chose these two specifically because they can remove enemy enchantments, which have historically given me a lot of headache. Like I described in the section on Interaction, this deck can handle other creature-based and combat-based strategies, but it doesn't naturally interact with noncreature types like enchantments. Ruinous Ultimatum can obviously function as a finishing card too since it's completely asymmetrical, but Austere Command is much easier to cast and still provides a lot of flexibility in how your own board is affected.

Let's discuss the key cards of the deck: the equipment themselves. Each performs a general role in the deck but often has unique qualities that give them a specific purpose compared to other equipment in this list. In that way, the equipment are like a "toolbox" of varying effects, and you'll have to rely on tutors to get the particular tool you need for each game and to create pairings that maximize your current board state. Hopefully, highlighting each's qualities below will help you understand why I would tutor for one or the other.

Although, in an attempt to minimize inconsistency, I still need my combat equipment to have impact if individually drawn. Somewhere along the way, I developed loose criteria for equipment:

  1. Provides any amount of a stat boost.
  2. Provides a meaningful combat keyword.
  3. Casts cheaply while equipping for more.

I describe these qualities as “loose,” because I notice that I’ve bent my rules and made exceptions for equipment more frequently than the knights. Even so, they fall into some categories of providing utility, a combat boost, and/or a finisher to more definitively end the game. As my revisions made this deck more gradual in its combat-based wins, finisher equipment have become cards that provide repeatable and sometimes growing effects. If left unchecked, they can help secure my victory by pushing my advantage beyond what's reasonable for my opponents to address.

  • Bloodforged Battle-Axe

I previously talked myself out of adding this card, because I feared that its play patterns were too greedy and inconsistent. Why take time to build up a threat when other equipment have immediate damage? I underestimated the speed of Bloodforged Battle-Axe, because in practice, it immediately reaches that threshold of being out of hand. If I'm already taking 3 turns of combat to win, then I require only three or so copies of Bloodforged Battle-Axe before a knight deals 10+ damage per turn and threatens lethal over those several attacks. Due to Double Strike and each copy of Bloodforged Battle-Axe triggering independently, I can exceed those numbers immediately. Moments like that make this axe an extremely powerful, snowballing finisher.

  • Diamond Pick-Axe

A utility equipment, intended to generate mana but still providing a stat boost. Compared to similar equipment (e.g. Beamtown Beatstick), Diamond Pick-Axe creates the treasure as an attack trigger, which means even if the creature can’t get through, the needed mana is guaranteed. As a bonus, Indestructible will keep the pickaxe around after most board wipes, retaining an equipment for triggers and a source of extra mana to help recast your hand. If you need to tutor for mana reasons early on, Indestructible makes it a much safer target than Sword of the Animist, even if consumable treasures are less appealing than extra lands.

  • Shadowspear

A combat equipment, famous in many formats. Providing a stat boost, Trample, and Lifelink makes it an excellent equipment for the deck already, but the extra ability to remove Hexproof and Indestructible offers an entirely unique situational utility. Loxodon Warhammer provides the same keywords with a larger boost if you need to gain as much life as possible, but Shadowspear offers those benefits at a cheaper cost, with some added utility. A very safe choice for a tutor if you don't know what you need yet, but not necessarily the most individually impactful on every game state.

  • Tarrian's Soulcleaver

While Tarrian's Soulcleaver looks like my combat equipment, it seems to have potential as a finisher too, simply through its ability to create a growing threat. There's some self-synergy with the few cards in this deck that make treasures, but the ability to potentially go even "taller" when I'm staring down my opponents' boards of token creatures and treausres has me leaving it in the decklist to give it a shot. As a bonus in its favor, it also gives a keyword!

  • Vorpal Sword

An interesting case, because I feel like I mostly use it as a combat equipment, but obviously, it's still a finisher equipment. It can be a nice addition to a stack of combat equipment through its +2 power (especially when contrasted against its incredibly cheap casting cost) and its ability to combo Deathtouch with Trample. Of course, it could also knock out an extra player on its own, but unlike other finishers, its heavy demand for Black mana limits how quickly you can both cast it and use it. Even if I cast it later in the game, it usually needs to sit around for a turn or two before I have a board state to use it, which gives scared players a chance to remove it. On other hand, this telegraphed gameplay loop is probably better for the deck's design goals than an instant kill. Regardless, Vorpal Sword provides a surefire answer to lifegain decks and can enable a naturally evasive knight (someone other than your main bearer) to squeeze in a 2nd Knockout in a single turn.

  • Conqueror's Flail

Another unique case, given its use in combat, but this one's most powerful usage comes from its utility. With Gwyn present, it provides significant +3 boosts to its bearer, but the flail’s purpose is to block opponents’ interaction during vital turns. Equipping it early can protect Gwyn from instant speed removal while she equips the team, but further, it's the only effect in the deck that baits out fogs and last minute removal before you ever commit to a crucial attack. No other equipment in the deck can block my opponent's interaction for my whole team.

  • Dragoon Lance

For the first time ever, Knights have received access to a combination creature-equipment card! This means this deck has its first ever truly tutorable creature. Now, +1 power and flying on offense is still a pretty good combat equipment. It fits my criteria, after all. However, cheap equipment options for flying existed before this card already, so I've listed it as utility, because it shines much more for its niche of being a way you can tutor up an early equipment bearer when you have no creatures in hand or on board. The fact that it basically functions as a pre-equipped knight and two-power flyer is very good and unique from the perspective of evaluating creatures too. This is a subtle card, but one I'm excited for because it has such a perfect home in this deck that it would probably struggle to find in any other.

  • Mask of Memory

A staple utility equipment here to draw cards. It offers the most card selection in our deck, but it obviously requires an evasive knight to reliably get triggers. Not a bad tutor choice if you have no other equipment or tutors and are hoping that knights like Skyhunter Skirmisher can dig you into some more equipment.

  • Lightning Greaves

Another classic Commander equipment. Obviously, the utility it provides is protecting Gwyn. After taking these boots out for a while, I realized that Gwyn remained a magnet for removal, due to still serving a pivotal role as an enabler and as my primary card draw engine. While the Shroud frustrated me in the past, it became less of an issue when Gwyn stopped using other equipment in the first place. Her 5/5 body and Menace make it very easy to find attacks, even if she's unboosted by any equipment.

  • Poet's Quill

Perhaps the best utility equipment in this deck. It brings interaction, mana fixing, or even some old-fashioned digging—with the concession that your table lets you have a sideboard for Lesson cards. Drach'Nyen sits in the sideboard as a replacement option for Poet's Quill if people don't feel like changing the rules. However, I've started experimenting with leaving Poet's Quill in anyway. It checks all of my criteria, providing a small stat boost AND a keyword (Lifelink specifically is good), and since my Commander and other cards take care of overall card advantage, the one-use rummage effect might still be meaningul card selection. Plus, we have some incidental discard syngergies and recursion that play nicely with the rummage. Playing with no Lessons means the deck loses tutorable removal, but I'm willing to try it before I ever consider replacing Poet's Quill with some other "removal equipment."

  • Rogue's Gloves

The last of our utility equipment that draws cards. It’s not as powerful as Mask of Memory, but effects that mimic it are still in demand and quite useful paired with the right knights. Even drawing one extra card per turn will maintain your hand size as you cast one spell per turn, so in a slower game, it lets you develop your board non-stop and still have gas for the late-game.

  • Swiftfoot Boots

My other pair of boots, equally here to protect our Commander. Hexproof makes moving equipment on and off Gwyn rather easy, while Gwyn's free equips also mean that any knight could benefit from some emergency Haste. For those reasons, Swiftfoot Boots is better on Gwyn specifically, but Lightning Greaves can be great for the whole team.

  • Sword of the Animist

Obviously, this sword repeatedly accelerates my mana. Its reasonable cast and equip costs, especially considering that it offers a +1/+1 stat boost, offer a nice long-term plan if your early turns are plagued by a lack of lands. However, in contrast to Diamond Pick-Axe, this card does not protect itself, and the sword's infamy has earned its share of removal at the tables I've brought it to. It's a staple for mana acceleration, but that means people will be wise to its power.

  • Everflame, Heroes' Legacy

While The Irencrag provides utility in the early game as a mana rock, the equipment part of the card provides nothing but a combat boost. However, I know from running Plate Armor in the past that a +3/+3 bonus is a large one, even without any combat keywords. The timing also works out well: it provides the mana to cast Gwyn and transforms after I do so, just in time to contribute to my "post-Gwyn go-mode." Even in the worst case scenario, it becomes an equipment to start drawing cards from Gwyn triggers. An all-around unsung hero of equipment decks.

  • Umezawa's Jitte

The all-in-one package of equipment. No other equipment in this deck shares its utility of keeping small creatures in check, and yet, it can still provide constant, powerful combat boosts. However, if I've learned anything from my fighting game background, representing and bluffing an option is just as powerful as actually using that option. In other words: hoard your charge counters. If an opponent fears losing a small, important creature to Jitte's -1/-1 debuffs and thus never plays it in the first place, then you benefit without ever actually spending the charge counters. This lets you start building up counters overtime to use at the last, most critical moment. That might mean nuking some creatures and gaining life before your Jitte gets destroyed, but that can also mean spending it all on +2/+2 boosts to obliterate someone's lifetotal. So, Jitte provides incredible board control against small creatures AND still functions as a finisher/snowballing win-con. You don't even have to commit to using your Jitte counters on attack until your opponent declares blocks. You almost always have the last laugh; it's a hard card for your opponents to play against. The most common danger will be an opponent trying to remove the equipment bearer right as you spend your counters, causing Jitte to fall off with no counters left. Use Conqueror's Flail, Reprieve, or even just pay attention to who is tapped out if you're trying to secure such a committal attack. Finally, remember that you get two charge counters on First Strike damage before you proceed to normal damage. You can spend those counters to get tricky before the normal damage step, and if you have Forge Anew (or less relevantly, Balan, Wandering Knight) with a First Strike creature, you can also move Jitte to another creature in between the damage steps to ensure that it gets two triggers per combat. It's an equipment that performs excellently, even individually, and it has so many tricks to play with.

  • Heirloom Blade

Much like Bloodforged Battle-Axe, I severely underestimated this card. Its utility can single-handedly keep this deck functioning in a high removal environment, as it keeps your hand loaded with whatever equipment bearer you need, right as you need it. This isn't even mentioning its large combat boost, or the fact that it has the cheapest equip cost in the deck, making it easy to manually equip several times while Gwyn isn't around. Especially due to that low equip cost, you can have successful games with nothing but an Heirloom Blade for several turns. Ancedotally, some of its recent performances amaze me that I ever cut it in the first place.

  • Mask of Griselbrand

For a long time, I kept this card out due to its lack of a stat boost. However, it fits this deck as another kind of enabler. Flying and Lifelink make for easy attacks, especially since the lifegain can help negate any crackbacks. That lifeagin and its death trigger also makes it an outstanding flying blocker, simply because nobody will want to attack into it and outright benefit you. But, that death trigger also brings its subtlest benefit: deterring removal. While it doesn't truly "protect" whatever wears it, Mask of Griselbrand can reward you for what was supposed to be an opponent's good decision, and even if it only triggers once, that might be enough to refill your hand for the rest of the game.

  • Loxodon Warhammer

Perhaps the strongest combat equipment in the deck. Its lack of a toughness boost can make attacks risky, but even if your opponent tries to trade up, the Trample and Lifelink create a large life swing in your favor. Because opponents don't feel like they gain much from that trade, many of them don't even choose to take the trade. Sometimes you can predict that and attack with impunity, but that's dependent on your own judgement and your read on how the other players at your table think. I often reach for Loxodon Warhammer first when I tutor for Trample or when I need as much life as possible, but don’t forget to evaluate if you should instead grab Shadowspear for its activated ability or Sword of Vengeance for its variety of keywords besides Trample.

  • Maul of the Skyclaves

One of three equipment in the deck to grant Flying, with this one granting the largest stat boost and an extra combat keyword. (Keep that in mind if you need evasion and have a tutor in hand.) A +2/+2 stat boost and First Strike already protect the equipped creature very well while attacking, but Flying further lets you disregard grounded creatures. So, it's very annoying for opponents to beat a creature wielding the Maul. In that way, it performs well on both offense and defense, and its "enters" trigger lets you use it early too. Its only con is the equip cost, leaving you completely reliant on Gwyn to move it around after you cast it, since it is rarely effective to pay 4 mana (including colored pips) for a single equip.

  • Sword of Vengeance

The all-in-one of my combat equipment. First Strike and its +2 power boost protect the bearer during combat, while Vigilance keeps them available for defense. The Trample and Haste on top of that are just extra benefit, but very valuable bonuses too. Syr Gwyn, a Sword of Vengeance on the board, and 7 Knights in hand is probably enough to play a game of Commander. (Winning that game might be another matter, but who knows? This Sword puts in incredible work.)

  • Argentum Armor

I used to have my reservations about running repeatable removal like this card and Vona, Butcher of Magan. However, if my opponents lack the removal to get Argentum Armor off the field, then they were likely to die anyway without completely outpacing me in a race. In that way, Argentum Armor represents a finisher for the deck, where if it goes unanswered for more than two turn cycles, I will have likely won the game more immediately through an ever growing gap in board presence. I will inevitably pick away anything that could stop me, giving me a victory by default if they weren't already likely to be dead through combat damage. When I cast Argentum Armor, I'm announcing to the table that I want to end the game. I might literally, verbally say that too.

This section exists for a bit of silly fun and to talk about Eldraine.

Inspired by this Isshin list doing the same, I added this place to talk about Gwyn's (non-existent) lore! No information specifically about Gwyn exists past her card. However, my search for such lore brought me to the Planeswalker's Guide to Eldraine, which contains enough info on the independent castles and their orders to speculate.

From her color identity and some other hints within the card, Gwyn has presumably received knighthood from the castles of Embereth, Ardenvale, and potentially Locthwain as well. To support this, her visual design contains qualities from all three communities:

  • The segmented pieces of her legs and shoulder armor match Lochthwain’s knights.
  • The ruby breastplate and red-white cloth across her steed match some other Knights from the Burning Yard, in addition to a diamond emblem on the breastplate that evokes Embereth’s crest.
  • And while more subtle, her white and gold-trimmed cape, as well as her circular brooch (evoking Ardenvale’s crest), are only seen in knights of the white castle Ardenvale.

Gwyn might have first been a knight of Embereth. Her lack of a shield and the flames around her sword attest to this most strongly, but pushing into conjecture, it could explain her choice of mounted melee combat and her flavor text’s mention of martial renown. The Eldraine lore article mentions the former as a type of competition held in the Burning Yard’s tournament grounds, and it makes sense that she could be known for her skill and style if she had earned such fame at the endless tournament.

Perhaps she did not earn her fame from the tournament, and “Ashvale” is a great battle where Gwyn demonstrated heroism and made her name known. Maybe instead, “Ashvale” is the name of the small hamlet she hails from that shares a region with Embereth (which would explain the similarity in naming scheme). It all remains conjecture. We don't know if Gwyn serves on Emebreth’s council of leadership, or even if she perished with the fall of the courts in the Phyrexian invasion. Details of “Ashvale” and any concrete stories of Gwyn’s life are completely unknown.

Confidently, I can at least posit that she is knight of Embereth and a skilled one at that.

Here's a list of miscellaneous tips that I've accumulated as I played with the deck! Although, I’m going to end up repeating a little bit of information written above that I find important.

With mulligans, obviously keep 3-4 Lands. Look for 1 Equipment or a Tutor card, because even if you get some bad draws on your turns, eventually casting Gwyn with one equipment ready will let you draw cards with her triggers and get something meager going. Utility equipment are great keeps since they grant advantage in the early game before Gwyn is out, but your attacks grow difficult without any combat equipment or natural evasion on your knight. Past that baseline goal: Mana Rocks OR Knights playable on turns 2 and 3 make the hand extremely good. The former lets you consistently get to Gwyn and the latter lets you more quickly develop your board instead of waiting to do so on turns after you cast Gwyn. Wherever you can help it, it's good to already have a knight or two on board before you cast Gwyn so that opponents are less tempted to remove Gwyn instantly.

Try to save your tutors if you already have a piece of equipment. Tutors are your sole lifelines when you desperately need something specific. Whatever equipment you already have might be fine to compete against your opponent's strategies, so your mana could go towards further developing your board and pulling ahead. This is what it means for tutors to be "tempo minus," if any of you are unfamiliar with the concept of tempo. It takes mana to cast a tutor, so that mana is no longer developing your board to dig you out of a disadvantageous state or to build your own advantage. However, tutors can still make themselves worthwhile through the simple power of having the exact card you need. Maybe you have a Maul of the Skyclaves that already boosts your combat, but you need to search for Shadowspear as the cheapest source of Lifelink to keep you alive at a precarious lifetotal. I might need Conqueror's Flail to secure my risky play, a Lifelink equipment to grind out an even match, or a Trample equipment to push damage through. While there is intentional overlap in my equipment's roles, meaning you can theoretically draw into something you need, each still offers enough unique qualities, that recklessly using a tutor might throw away any opportunity to get whatever specific piece you need most.

Don’t neglect to level up Fighter Class, if more pressing matters don’t demand your mana. While Level 2 can keep this deck moving fast in Gwyn's absence, Level 3 in particular lets every spare knight force a creature to block them, pulling your opponent’s potential blockers away from your main equipment bearer.

This tip repeats some information from other sections. As a rule of thumb, as the game winds on and your opponents come online, you should be willing to be more passive and bide your time. Eventually, you will have to care about defense and how recklessly you're attacking, so evaluate how much mana and board presence your opponents have before you tap all your creatures for attacks. An opponent in Red might have Haste creatures and burn spells that could threaten you with just high mana and no board. In those situations, spreading out your equipment and attacking with an extra creature (for Gwyn triggers) might get you killed. Hold back an extra blocker or two instead. If you correctly called that the Red opponent was about to pop off, they're now more likely to point that power at your other opponents too. In a different sceario, you might be playing against an extremely fair +1/+1 counters deck that doesn’t have lots of explosive tricks, but if they have multiple creatures on board, leaving Gwyn alone to block (because of her Vigilance) still leaves you very vulnerable to removal and to eating a massive attack. The further the game progresses, the more valuable it can be to attack with only your main equipment bearer, so that you can leave behind other knights to deter enemy attacks. You could use Gwyn to shuffle equipment over to your blockers, but doing so is a trade-off. Moving your equipment to blockers means that, if an opponent has removal, they can eliminate your blocker AND force your equipment to fall off at the same time. Leaving the equipment stack on your tapped attacker bets on you staying alive and untapping with them later to make something even bigger happen. Sometimes, the right play might even be to not attack at all, because people really don't like attacking into your 10-power creature with Lifelink and First Strike.

When discarding to effects in the deck (Olivia, Mobilized for War, Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, Mask of Memory, etc.) or for other reasons, value lines that give flexibilty. Any equipment somehow lingering in your hand should be kept, since the strategy hinges on their use, but removal and tutors also tend to be valuable in almost all board states. It obviously hurts to discard a board wipe too, since there’s only two in the deck. So, as long as you already have a knight or two (and Gwyn) on the battlefield, the safest choice is often to discard any extra knights from your hand. Although, lands can be a second choice for discards if you have more than one land in your hand. Keeping your next land drop in hand actually tends to be more valuable than keeping your only knight, since even with no other creatures, you'll always have Gwyn to bear equipment. Discarding low-cost knights and lands can also setup nicely for the deck's recursion, like Sevinne's Reclamation, to use them anyway.

When casting Kayla's Reconstruction, keep in mind that only 1 in 3 of the deck's cards are legal choices. Probability says that you should have 1-2 choices in the 7, so I don't recommend making X greater than 2. Even then, you will sometimes whiff.

For now, that’s all the specific tips I can think of, but I will always edit this section to add more if I learn anything valuable. I’ll leave one last reminder that Umezawa's Jitte has a lot of tricks to pull around first strike damage and normal damage steps, which I discuss a couple of in its blurb in the “Coat of Harms” section.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Bonus Update — Final (Fantasy) Revision 2 — May 16, 2025
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Cleaned up the primer, and completely rewrote some sections to explain its performance in terms of our new power brackets system!

Also, I stand by referring to my previous version as the "Final Revision." I've been very happy with this deck, and I consider my quest to "fix it" complete. So, despite plenty of new Knights and Equipment coming out, I haven't felt the need to make room for any of them. Well... almost any of them. Then Final Fantasy spoiler season started.

Battle Angels of Tyr --> Adelbert Steiner

This might seem wild. Battle Angels is not at all a bad card, but I've gotten to play with it a lot, and I've found that you don't have as much control over triggering it as you might expect. While you can use equipment to help force it through against specific players, the play patterns still don't match up: if you're behind because you lack equipment, then it struggles to get through on its own and draw the cards you need. If you're ahead of the table due to lots of equipment and can more easily push its damage through, then you don't need its utility effects. That example even assumes that you aren't so far ahead that you fail the ability's condition outright. So, Battle Angels isn't actually achieving its intended role as a utility creature. In the past four games I've cast it, it succesfully triggered (and actually got me something) once over each game, but it only ever gained life. I originally was going to put a different Final Fantasy card, Freya Crescent, here. Freya would still fly and could still theoretically provide mana utility at a more consistent rate. BUT, I know from experience with Paradise Mantle that I don't often have an excess of creatures to be tapping some of them for mana. Then Steiner got spoiled too, and I had to think and test a little more. I decided to try Steiner here. A knight with no natural evasion or utility fails my usual criteria, but both of his abilities remain very relevant. Lifelink has already been proven to work in my particular brew of the deck by offsetting Gwyn triggers and other pings, by keeping my lifetotal high for Twinblade Paladin, and by naturally keeping me alive after my aggression exposes me to opponent's attacks. Steiner's second ability is a first for this deck for being an escalating threat like my finisher equipment, except on a creature body. Even better, it doesn't change the play patterns of the deck to use him as a finisher, because I'm still just hoarding equipment. And as a final huge bonus in his favor: when I tested the card, I realized that, because he doesn't need the equipment to be attached to him, my equipment can be attached to a different bearer and Steiner can be a secondary threat at no cost. This means he still pulls his weight while laying-low to dodge removal, until I get to the end of the game and am ready to go all-in on Steiner to try and end the game. Additionally, Steiner being a low mana cost card matters for this deck's recursion and for cards like Kayla's Reconstruction.

Eowyn, Fearless Knight --> Squall, SeeD Mercenary

Because this deck often wins more gradually through a resource grind, you can think of it as a control deck in a "Who's the Beatdown" evaluation. As the theory goes: you use your removal early to survive to the midgame and on, where your deck's superior resource efficieny and card quality will eventually take command of the game. Yet still, I'm removing this bit of interaction. Eowyn suffers from the same issue that Swords and Path did, which is being creature-only in a deck that needs to its interaction to kill noncreature stuff. The protection gave me the potential to go for big attacks with Gwyn and Eowyn, but not only have I moved away from surprise kills, I also have colored equipment that fall off when my creatures gain protection! (And even if I wanted to play closer to the "Who's the beatdown" theory, I would probably need to rely on cheaper, faster removal than a 4-mana creatuer with a restriction on targeting.) Leon will be a far better combat creature—since he matches my squad of other 4-mana, 3-power Double Strikers—but he also provides repeatable recursion, which when it matters, is one of the most powerful effects for this deck and contritbues to that long-term grind gameplan.

Sigiled Sword of Valeron --> Dragoon's Lance

I can explain this change much easier. Sigiled Sword of Valeron was already such an iffy inclusion. It's not that powerful as a combat equipment, and it didn't even correctly perform its utility as a "tutorable creature" without already having one in play, such as Syr Gwyn. So, it's practical function overlapped too much with Heirloom Blade. Some of the few otther use cases, such as needing extra blockers, were still dampened by this deck's access to Lifelink for that same sense of safety and further dampened by the fact that the token comes in attacking, leaving it vulnerable to dying to blocks. I am instantly replacing it with Dragoon's Lance, which does the "tutorable creature" job correctly AND provides evasion with its keyword.

Nomad Outpost --> Shattered Landscape

Getting my land types is much more valuable for this decklist than having access to all pips simultaneously, due to the way I've set up the rest of the manabase. This makes check lands come in untapped more frequently, and it still finds me whatever individual color I'm missing or that I need a second source of. I actually made this change a while back, but I hadn't updated the decklist to reflect it just yet.

Final Revision — Holy Mother of Changelogs! — July 21, 2024
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Quick Change — Heirloom Blade — Jan. 18, 2024
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3rd Revision — Embracing its Casual Nature — Jan. 9, 2024
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Quick Change — Fabled Passage — Dec. 8, 2023
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2nd Revision — Taking My Boots Off + Primer — Nov. 28, 2023
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Quick Change — +1 Tutor for Mana Reasons — Aug. 1, 2023
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1st Revision — More Mana and More Creatures — July 26, 2023
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