Cloud Makes Mono White Equipments So Fun in EDH!

Intro

Hey friends, it’s Tomer, and this month I want to share with you the latest iteration of my Equipment Commander deck, now led by Cloud, Midgar Mercenary!

So for context: I am a big fan of the Equipment archetype in Commander with a particular nostalgia for the Sword of X and Y cycle and my “signature cards” the original Kaldra cards (Helm of Kaldra, Sword of Kaldra, Shield of Kaldra). I built a Boros Equipment deck back in 2020 to run those cards and it’s always been a favorite of mine that I play and update regularly.

But now Cloud has arrived and it’s love at first sight: double triggers for all equipment is just so cool! And it etb tutors an equipment, all for just two mana! It’s like if Stoneforge Mystic and Panharmonicon had a powercrept baby! He really makes the Swords shine: now Sword of Fire and Ice draws 2 and shocks twice! But even better: if you smack someone with Sword of Hearth and home, you land ramp twice (they enter untapped!), then you can blink Cloud once, tutor another equipment, and use those ramped lands to re-equip Cloud!

I love this card so much that I’ve ditched Red to go pure Mono White with Cloud at the helm and while it pains me to put my Sunforger into my binder I think the tradeoff is well worth it! Cloud oozes value and the fact that he’s only two mana and tutors on etb means his greatest strength is just how consistent and resilient he is! By the way, this is why I enjoy Cloud, Midgar Mercenary over his much more popular version Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER – while the latter is undeniably strong since it gives you haste + free equip + draw + mana just for casting the commander AND gives you access to three colors, it can struggle in removal-heavy metas where its 5mv can be punished. Meanwhile Cloud, Midgar Mercenary already did his job the moment his ETB trigger resolves, and 2mv means he can be recast once or twice no problem!

Alright, let’s give a rundown on the cool stuff Cloud can do. As always I start with the most important things in Commander: ramp and draw!

Let’s start with ramp: obviously there’s the classic Buster Sword that was literally designed for Cloud to tutor up, it’s basically ramp + draw rolled into one. Then we’ve got land ramp with Sword of Hearth and Home, Sword of Forge and Frontier, Sword of the Animist, and Bitterthorn, Nissa's Animus. All of these land ramp twice when equipped to Cloud, basically an Explosive Vegetation each swing. Sword of Hearth and Home and Sword Forge and Frontier are the best here, though Hearth and Home’s pro-white is a double-edged sword in this deck because it means we can’t target Cloud ourselves with white sources, so for example if Cloud has pro-white we can’t target him with Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist. It’s still worth running but it’s something to keep in mind!

The Aetherspark is another solid inclusion since merely activating its equip ability on Cloud and hitting someone means you’re at 10 loyalty and can generate 10 mana next turn! Or just draw cards instead. Cid, Freeflier Pilot and Codsworth, Handy Helper are great in any Equipment deck like this one, with the former also providing some graveyard recursion and the latter protecting Cloud too. Same goes for Dowsing Dagger, it has no synergy with Cloud but spending four mana to get a land that taps for three is just great value.

I’m also a big believer in the power of catch-up ramp in Mono White. I run less of them here because they are non-bos with the land-ramping equipments but I still run the strongest options: Knight of the White Orchid is essentially a white Three Visits attached to a solid body and Archaeomancer's Map is just nuts if you’ve got a Green player at the table with you. It’s not ramp but Land Tax also goes into all my White decks without Green in them, it’s ridiculous card advantage for one mana. To make these catch-up cards more consistent I also run Arid Archway, Guildless Commons, and Lotus Field, which I find their upside worth the cost of entering tapped. These lands also get even better when you pair them with Pip-Boy 3000 and Lost Jitte! Pip-Boy 3000 is a ridiculous Magic card in general, but then paired with Cloud you can untap four lands per swing, and then if one of them is a Lotus Field yeeeesh!

There’s some Cloud-friendly treasure generating equipment too: Sword of Wealth and Power, Goldvein Pick, Prying Blade. These are significantly worse than the previous options but still viable when Cloud doubles the treasure output of them. I currently have them in my own list but I could see cutting them.

Now also very important in Equipment decks are equip reducers: equip costs add up fast, and cards that let you ignore paying for equip costs can end up saving you more mana per turn than traditional ramp spells! Hammer of Nazahn and Sigarda’s Aid both let you attach equipment for free when they etb while providing other utility, both stellar. Puresteel Paladin is the single best card in an Equipment deck, it’s draw plus unlimited free equips, absurd! Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist, Codsworth, Handy Helper, Forge Anew are the other ones I run, they all offer solid utility while also giving equip reductions.

Now for draw we’ve got some delicious options: Mask of Memory is a classic, but with Cloud is draw 4 discard 2! Adaptive Omnitool is another great one here, we’re running 37 artifacts so on average we’re going to see 2 artifacts each trigger. A card that way more people should be running is Strength-Testing Hammer, on average it’s pumping the equipped creature by 3.5 each trigger and then drawing you a card, that’s kinda ridiculous! Then of course there’s the Swords we mentioned already like Sword of Fire and Ice, the Paladin, Sram, Senior Edificer, the usual good stuff!

Equipments aren’t that great at removing things: Sword of Fire and Ice can pick off small creatures, Sword of Sinew and Steel is great at removing artifacts and planeswalkers, Lion Sash keeps graveyard decks honest, and my personal favorite is Argentum Armor which yes has a high mana cost but when we have all those equip reducers it’s often pay 6 mana double Vindicate each swing with Cloud and get +6/+6! Beyond those though not much appealing equipments that blow stuff up.

Thankfully we’re in White which is the best color at blowing up stuff! This is a Voltron deck so I run four wipes that keep our commander alive: Promise of Loyalty, Single Combat, Slash the Ranks, and Final Showdown. The latter is super flexible, all modes are terrific, and instant speed too! For spot removal I’m running normal stuff Swords to Plowshares, Dispatch, Generous Gift, and my favorite tech card Abolish which is severely underrated in any Mono White deck that draws lots of cards but especially good when paired with Land Tax and Archaeomancer's Map.

Last but not least is protection: while it’s not the end of the world if Cloud dies it’s certainly not ideal, mostly because re-equipping him is a pain. All the Swords have built-in protection which is great, but on top of that there’s Commander's Plate and Thran Power Suit to make targeting Cloud even more difficult, and indestructible with Hammer of Nazahn and for me personally it’s Shield of Kaldra because it’s iconic but if you want something more powerful just run Mithril Coat. I’m also running Flare of Fortitude as a way to protect the entire board and also doubling as a fog, and honestly I don’t mind sac’ing Cloud to do so.

The best protection in a world where Farewell exists, however, is phasing: not only does it protect you from literally all forms of removal including exile, but if you phase out Cloud you also phase out everything equipped to him too. This is why Robe of Stars is so good, because all equipment attached to Cloud will also survive the Farewell when phased out. Talon Gates of Madara is amazing for the same reason, and I also run Galadriel’s Dismissal because it can be used defensively but also offensively as a fog. Of course if you want to protect the entire board Clever Concealment and Teferi’s Protection exist too! The ONLY downside to phasing is that it removes Cloud from combat that turn, so if you’re swinging for lethal and someone Swords Cloud you’ll much rather have hexproof over phasing. Therefore a mix of both is good!

The last fun protection card I highly recommend is Conqueror's Flail: a Grand Abolisher that we can tutor up is just good and makes those stinky Control players sweat. It lets you get around counterspells, fogs, or other blowouts and you can swing out stress-free!

Alright, that about covers all of it! Here’s my deck list: keep in mind that I don’t run any game changers, I don’t run Sol Ring, and I must run Helm of Kaldra, Sword of Kaldra, and Shield of Kaldra since it’s my brand. If I was running Sol Ring + GCs I’d take out Prying Blade and Goldvein Pick first, then Sword of Wealth and Power / Rogue’s Gloves and that would be Sol Ring + 3 GCs for Bracket 3. Then if you don’t love the Kaldra pieces like I do you could swap Helm of Kaldra for Sword of Vengeance, Shield of Kaldra for Mithril Coat, and Sword of Kaldra for Colossus Hammer.

Wait one LAST thing! The reason why there’s 28 basics is because I generally want to cast Cloud on turn 2 and he’s WW cost, and according to Frank Karsten you need 30 untapped white sources on turn 2 in order to pull that off 90% of the time (yes, he accounts for Commander rules of free mulligan and extra card drawn). So while there’s a thousand cool utility lands that enter tapped or tap for colorless that I’d like to try out in the deck, I don’t run them because I’m trying to be a responsible gamer. If you aren’t aiming for T2 Cloud every game though then the math becomes different!

Okay NOW here is my list:

Thanks for reading everyone! By the way, if you’re waiting for me to cover a specific topic or even a commander, you can request in the comments section!