How many equipment until free-equip effects are worth it?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on July 3, 2025, 2:51 a.m. by Optimator
I'm throwing together a Shinra-themed deck with Elena, Turk Recruit and Reno and Rude as rule-0 partners. Here's the prototype decklist (I doubt the details are particularly important for this discussion per se): Shinra Conflict Resolution
As a way to help the commanders do anything, and to trigger Elena's historic-matters ability, I'm thinking of adding a good amount of equipment. Not enough to make it like a full-on equipment deck, nor to make the deck a Voltron deck.
That said, I wanna check everyone's gut:
How many equipment would you run before cards that free-equip, like Sigarda's Aid, Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist, Forge Anew, Bruenor Battlehammer, etc seem like good inclusions?
Conventional wisdom for Equipment decks seems like 18-25 equipments makes it a true Equipment deck.
Would running, say... twelve Equipments warrant free equipers? Ten? Fourteen? Sixteen? Nine?
I know it depends on the equip-cost of all the equipment and the curve and all that. I'm just testing the waters as to where y'all would draw the line if you had to throw out a number.
Thanks!
I tend to think of my decks in sets of 14, and I have a friend who thinks in sets of 10
7 x 14 = 98 so if I want to help guarantee I get something in my opening hand (ramp, card draw, removal) then I should be running at least 14 of that type of card. Then there will likely only be one more in the next seven cards. With less than 14 equipments you may never even see one the whole game in some cases
My fiend figures you'll have at least 3 draws in a normal game before things get wild and if you're running 10 of a specific theme you should see one in the first three turns.
Food for thought
DreadKhan says... #2
I think it depends on what gear you're planning to equip, if your equip costs are generally insignificant then you can just pay them and save the card slots, but if you run stuff that's more than 2 mana to equip (or has a more exotic equip cost) you might enjoy stuff like Ardenn. I think my deck has 10 equipment and 3 free equip sources, though each of those equipment synergy cards does other useful stuff. I think if you ignore the big hammer my deck has 9 equipment averaging to 2 mana to equip. As for how useful they prove, I have found that free equip costs can be incredibly swingy, letting you do stuff a turn or more early can be huge. If you draw multiples of the effect and have no equipment it can suck, so I'm sure with 3 synergy pieces I could benefit from more than 10 equipment.
July 3, 2025 8:34 a.m.