Masterwork of Ingenuity: Standard Boros Equipment

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

To revive Standard, starting this year Wizards of the Coast changed the card pool to three years, attracting players back to Magic’s most fundamental constructed format. I commend the official effort, but the high prices of certain cards from older sets are undoubtedly a major obstacle for new players on a limited budget. So I’d like to recommend a Boros Equipment deck that is affordable to build and can perform excellently with just commons and uncommons.

Beginner Experience: The $8 Starter Version

Decklist link

The deck is built around a series of For Mirrodin! Equipment that come with their own tokens, led by Bladehold War-Whip. These Equipment bring a body along and normally act like ordinary creatures. When the opponent removes them or trades creatures, the Equipment stays on the battlefield waiting for the next creature to pick it up, and the War-Whip’s additional equip cost reduction lets Equipment quickly attach to other creatures, so your creatures keep stacking in strength as the game goes on until the opponent’s creature defenses are completely crushed.

Rabbit Battery, Kor Halberd, Hexgold Halberd, Bladehold War-Whip, and Hexgold Hoverwings grant various keyword abilities to create combat advantages, Citizen’s Crowbar handles artifacts and enchantments, and Thran Power Suit provides stat boosts and ward, so even a 1/1 Citizen becomes an unstoppable war god in the late game. Even if you don’t draw Thran Power Suit, Oxidda Finisher, with affinity for Equipment, has the 7/5 trampling body to end the game anyway. As for removal, Rebel Salvo, with affinity for Equipment, a long reach, and flexible cost, is naturally the removal mainstay, supplemented by Cooped Up to handle targets burn can’t deal with.

Since the core components of Boros Equipment are almost all low to mid rarity, even the starter version costing only $8 can deliver strong punch, but its staying power and mana base are not that solid, so for players whose wallets aren’t so tight, I recommend starting with the budget version.

Stepping Up: The $19 Budget Version

Decklist link

Since the starter version already has enough power, the budget version’s first job is to stabilize the mana base. We add Battlefield Forge and Restless Bivouac to reduce color-screw risk so the deck runs stably. Next is strengthening staying power, swapping in Mirrex, Astor, Bearer of Blades, and Kemba, Kha Enduring to reinforce it.

Astor, Bearer of Blades not only fetches an Equipment card from the top seven cards of your library to offset its own card disadvantage when it enters, but its 1-less equip cost for Equipment fits perfectly with the 1-less from Bladehold War-Whip, making your creatures swap gear as smoothly as flowing water. Kemba, Kha Enduring maintains your board presence by automatically attaching Equipment on entering and when creating Cats. When your creatures get swept away, the endless Mites from Mirrex are your best backup.

What does it look like in action? See the budget version demo video below:

Armed and Armored: The $114 Deluxe Version

Decklist link

For readers who have played the budget version, found it interesting, and want to power it up further, here is the deluxe version I use myself, for your reference. The deluxe version puts in all the top-tier pieces in the Standard card pool: Nahiri, Forged in Fury, which offers both a body and card advantage; The Wandering Emperor, which combines offense and defense; Sword of Once and Future, which hoses the meta-dominant blue-black color pair; and Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, who can adventure to fetch the key Equipment or Aura and can adventure again by casting an instant or sorcery from the graveyard via Sword of Once and Future, giving the deck a higher level of play.

Opening the Way: Sideboard Strategy

No deck can handle every matchup with its main deck alone, and this Boros Equipment is no exception. Here are three cards you might encounter as examples to explain sideboard strategy:

1. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Since Boros Equipment mainly relies on noncreature Equipment to support its creature count, it becomes very clumsy against Thalia’s tax effect, especially when the opponent plays Thalia on turn 2 on the play, which is almost a dead game. Under Thalia’s cover, Humans or legendary decks hiding behind her can expand steadily and completely suppress Boros Equipment with numbers or size.
To deal with these situations, we need cheap or uninterruptible ways to remove Thalia, such as Lithomantic Barrage, which punishes white and blue creatures and planeswalkers, Werefox Bodyguard, which flashes in to hold a creature, and board wipes for when the opponent spreads out, such as the efficient Brotherhood’s End and Sunfall, which leaves an Incubator token after sweeping, clearing the opponent’s advantage and pulling the board back.

However, against white-based Thalia decks, besides answers to Thalia you also need to consider the “counter-counter” measures the opponent might bring in from the sideboard. For example, mono-white Humans may have Invasion of Gobakhan // Lightshield Array and Extraction Specialist; and when using Brotherhood’s End to clear the board, watch out for cards like Surge of Salvation that the opponent may have.

2. Phyrexian Obliterator / Phyrexian Vindicator

Boros Equipment is a deck focused on creature combat, with burn as its main removal, so it suffers terribly against Phyrexian Obliterator and Phyrexian Vindicator, commonly known as the black-and-white duo, and needs extra ways to deal with them. Besides the Ossification and The Wandering Emperor in the main deck, the sideboard can add instant-speed removal such as Destroy Evil and Fateful Absence, so they can no longer block the way. Among them, Destroy Evil can also answer the flash ambush of the Domain deck’s Leyline Binding, and in the current Standard environment it is more valuable than Fateful Absence.

3. Farewell

Although a token-based structure can keep Equipment around for staying power against traditional sweepers, against Farewell, which exiles everything, there’s nothing to play. What do we do when Boros, with no counterspells or discard, faces this kind of opponent? We can delay Farewell’s timing, such as with Curse of Silence; remove it from the opponent’s deck in advance, such as with The Stone Brain; or use planeswalkers that Farewell can’t handle as a source of staying power, such as Archangel Elspeth, Elspeth Resplendent, Jaya, Fiery Negotiator, or even The Eternal Wanderer as a backup plan.

Thoughts Overflowing: Infinite Possibilities

Besides the cards mentioned in this article, the Standard card pool still has many Equipment-related components worth developing, such as Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden, Dragonwing Glider, Sword of Forge and Frontier, Cloudsteel Kirin, and Nahiri’s Resolve, and most components cost under $1. If you’re a reader who likes Equipment strategies, please try plenty of variations and play out a style of your own.

Worth discussing is that the protection from red on Sword of Forge and Frontier is a double-edged sword. Although it makes your creatures immune to burn removal and lets you break through red decks’ defenses, it also means red Equipment can’t be equipped. You can try it in a suitable meta, but remember that if you use it, you’ll also have to adjust the number of red Equipment in the main deck.