Arm for Battle precon upgrade guide

The most expensive card in this box is a one-mana enchantment, and it only helps on the way in.

Wyleth, Soul of Steel costs {1}{R}{W} for a 2/2 with trample that draws a card for each Aura and Equipment attached to it whenever it attacks. Commander Legends hands him fourteen Equipment and five Auras to wear, plus one enchantment to put them on with. That enchantment is Sigarda's Aid, which carries about $18 of the box’s price tag on its own, more than any other card in it, and which attaches an Equipment free the moment that Equipment enters the battlefield. Once. My fourteen swaps cost about $44, and most of them are about the second time.

What are the best Arm for Battle upgrades?

1. Puresteel Paladin ($2.78). Every Equipment you control has equip {0} while you control three or more artifacts, and the box already ships sixteen. It also draws a card whenever an Equipment enters, and there are seventeen of those after the swaps.
2. Colossus Hammer ($2.33). Plus ten power and ten toughness on a creature that has trample printed on it. Its equip cost is {8}, which this deck never pays.
3. Bruenor Battlehammer ($1.47). The first equip you activate each turn costs nothing, and every creature you control gets +2/+0 for each Equipment attached to it.
4. Battlefield Forge, Inspiring Vantage, Clifftop Retreat and Needleverge Pathway (about $6.50 for all four). Four red-white lands that make mana the turn they arrive, in place of four that do not.
5. Halvar, God of Battle ($23.03). Moves a piece of gear for free at the beginning of every combat, yours and everyone else's, and hands anything equipped or enchanted double strike. This is the expensive one, and the list works without it.
6. Mask of Memory (37 cents). Two more cards every time Wyleth connects, on top of the ones Wyleth draws himself.

The other eight adds and the full list of what leaves are below.

Sigarda's Aid pays the bill once, and Wyleth is a 2/2

Sigarda's Aid attaches an Equipment free the moment that Equipment enters the battlefield. That is a real answer to equip costs, and it covers exactly one attachment per card. Wyleth is a 2/2 for three mana in a format where everyone owns removal, so the interesting question is not what the first suit-up costs. It is what the second one costs.

Here is the bill. Six of the fourteen Equipment in the box equip for {1}: Bonesplitter, Explorer's Scope, Ring of Thune, Ring of Valkas, Swiftfoot Boots and Haunted Cloak. Fireshrieker asks {2}. The other seven ask {3} or more. Blackblade Reforged is {3} onto a legendary creature and {7} onto anything else, Mask of Avacyn, Loxodon Warhammer, Sunforger and Sword of Vengeance are all {3}, and Blazing Sunsteel and Hero's Blade are {4}.

So Wyleth comes back for five mana once the commander tax lands, and the second card he draws costs another three on top of that. That is the shape of this deck's bad turns.

One card in the box understands the problem perfectly. Hero's Blade attaches itself free whenever a legendary creature you control enters, which is every single time you recast your commander. Its equip cost of {4} is a number you never look at.

Danitha Capashen, Paragon reads like the other half of the fix and is not. She makes Aura and Equipment spells cost {1} less to cast. Equip is an activated ability on a permanent that is already on the battlefield, so she never touches it.

The box does answer the equip bill, with the slowest card that could have

Brass Squire taps to attach an Equipment to a creature for free, as often as once a turn. It costs three mana, it arrives summoning sick, and the body is a 1/4 that is not attacking anybody. The right idea at the worst available rate, and the first of my cuts.

Puresteel Paladin does the same job for two mana and does it to every Equipment at once. Metalcraft wants three artifacts and the box runs sixteen before I add a single one, so in practice the condition reads as on from the turn your second piece of gear resolves. The draw clause is not a bonus either. With seventeen Equipment in the upgraded list, that is a second Sram stapled to a 2/2 body.

Bruenor Battlehammer covers the rest. One free equip per turn is the exact rhythm of a deck that keeps losing its commander and rebuilding, and the +2/+0 applies for each Equipment on each creature, so a Wyleth wearing three things is +6/+0 before any of the three does its own job. Halvar goes further and moves a piece at every combat rather than once a turn, including combats that are not yours.

Two cheap Equipment come in to be moved around. Colossus Hammer's equip cost of {8} is both the joke and the point. After these swaps it has three separate free rides: Sigarda's Aid attaches it when it enters, Puresteel Paladin makes its equip cost nothing, and Bruenor makes the first equip each turn free. Grafted Wargear costs 34 cents, equips for {0} with no condition at all, and gives +3/+2. Its drawback is that you sacrifice the creature if the Wargear ever becomes unattached, which on a commander is a real risk and a rare one, because the only thing that moves it is you.

That also settles Blazing Sunsteel, at about $15 the second most expensive card in the box, and an equip {4} card in a guide complaining about equip costs. It stays. Puresteel Paladin makes it equip {0}, and a piece of gear that fires damage dealt to Wyleth back at any target is a genuine reason for the table to go and attack somebody else.

Two cards I left off on price. Shadowspear costs about $35 and its headline is trample, which Wyleth already has printed on him. What you would actually be buying is lifelink and the ability to strip hexproof off an opponent's permanents. Both are worth having and neither is worth eighty percent of the rest of this list put together. Steelshaper's Gift is about $10.74 to tutor an Equipment for one mana, and it cannot find Sigarda's Aid, because Sigarda's Aid is an enchantment rather than an Aura. Open the Armory costs $3.30 and finds either card type. If you are buying in order, take the four lands and Puresteel Paladin first, and leave Halvar for last.

Eight of the fourteen cuts are lands

Ten of the box's forty lands enter tapped with no condition attached, in a deck that wants a three-mana commander down on turn three and a card off him on turn four.

Rupture Spire and Transguild Promenade are the two worst cards in the deck. Each enters tapped and then sacrifices itself unless you pay {1}, which is the price of fixing five colours, charged to a deck that plays two. Boros Guildgate, Wind-Scarred Crag, Stone Quarry and Boros Garrison are the plain ones, and not one of them buys anything for the turn it costs.

Memorial to War and Encroaching Wastes are a different problem. Both are colourless in a deck whose commander needs {1}{R}{W} and whose Sunforger wants {R}{W} held up, and both ask four or five mana to destroy a single land. Encroaching Wastes at least enters untapped, which is why it survived my first pass and not my second.

Three taplands stay. Forgotten Cave and Secluded Steppe cycle for one mana, which turns a bad draw on turn eight into a real card. Myriad Landscape turns two mana into two basics, and in a box whose entire ramp package is Sol Ring and Boros Signet, that counts.

The six spell cuts are shorter. Martial Coup destroys all other creatures when X is five or more, and all other includes the 2/2 currently holding your hand. White Sun's Zenith makes X 2/2 Cats at instant speed. A board of small bodies is a plan, and it is not this one, which asks for a single creature that is enormous. Comet Storm and Wild Ricochet both cost four or more and both want double red, which the next section is about to describe as the one resource getting tighter. Word of Seizing is five mana to borrow a creature until end of turn. And Brass Squire, as above.

Response // Resurgence looked like a cut on cost and is not one. Its combined mana value of seven is what you get for adding both halves together. Response is two hybrid mana for five damage to an attacking or blocking creature, castable off white sources alone, and Resurgence is an extra combat phase, which on a geared commander is a second full draw trigger.

Half the creatures are Human and nothing in the box cares

Six of the twelve creatures are Human. That looks like a typal plan for about as long as it takes to check what pays it off, which is nothing. Not one card in the box asks you to choose a creature type, and none rewards you for sharing one. Which matters, because five cards that are easy to cut on that logic are among the best things in the deck.

Sram, Senior Edificer is a Dwarf Advisor and the second best card here. He draws a card whenever you cast an Aura, Equipment or Vehicle spell, and the upgraded list runs twenty-two of those. Kor Cartographer is a Kor Scout and Oreskos Explorer is a Cat Scout, and between them they are most of how this deck finds lands.

Tiana, Ship's Caretaker is an Angel Artificer, and she is the specific answer to the thing that makes an Aura deck frightening. When an Aura or Equipment you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you get the card back at the beginning of the next end step. Wyleth dying while wearing three cards is the worst thing that happens in an ordinary game of this deck, and Tiana turns it from a four-for-one into a lost turn. Flickerwisp is an Elemental, and a 3/1 flier for three that can wear gear and exile a blocker until end of turn is not a filler slot either.

What moved, including the one number that got worse

Unconditional taplands fall from ten to three. Untapped lands go up from 30 to 31 even though the land count drops from 40 to 36, which is the whole point of the eight land cuts. Two of the four new lands are conditional rather than flatly untapped. Inspiring Vantage is untapped for as long as you hold two or fewer other lands, which covers your first three turns, and Clifftop Retreat wants a Mountain or a Plains, of which this deck runs 23.

Ramp goes from 2 sources to 4 and card draw from 4 to 6, both still under where a Commander deck usually sits, and both counts deliberately ignore the commander, who is the actual draw engine. Average mana value falls from 2.68 to 2.62, and the creature count rises from 12 to 14.

Red is the number that got worse. Red sources drop from 19 to 18, which puts a single red pip by turn two at 81.2% against the 90% the pip math asks for. Six lands that made red left and four arrived, and that is the arithmetic. What makes it survivable is that the demand fell at the same time. Nine cards in the box wanted double red by turn three and six do now, because Comet Storm, Word of Seizing and Wild Ricochet were three of the nine. White is unchanged at 23 sources and 89% for a single pip. If you want the last of it, Sacred Foundry is the land to buy, and its price moves enough week to week that hovering it is more honest than a figure I type today.

Board wipes go from two to one, which is under where the counts want a deck to sit and is the right call here anyway. This deck's board is usually one creature wearing its hand, so a symmetrical wipe costs it more than it costs anybody else. The one that stays is Winds of Rath, which destroys every creature that is not enchanted. Put any of the five Auras on Wyleth first and it stops being symmetrical.

The bracket floor does not move. No Game Changers in the box, none on my list, so by the card pool it draws from this is still a Bracket 1 deck.

The upgraded decklist

The full 100 after all fourteen swaps. Hover any name to see the card, and the printings are the ones the box shipped.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

FAQ

Is Arm for Battle any good before you change anything?

It is one of the more coherent Commander Legends decks and one of the slowest. Every piece of the plan is present: a commander who draws on attack, nineteen Auras and Equipment to attach to him, an enchantment that attaches Equipment free, and a sword that re-attaches itself to legendary creatures. What the box left out is the mana to run any of it. Ten of the forty lands enter tapped, and Sol Ring and Boros Signet are the whole ramp package, so the first four turns are usually a land and a two-drop.

What do the fourteen upgrades cost?

About $43.50 at market for the default printings, and $23.03 of that is Halvar, God of Battle. The other thirteen come to roughly $20.50 together, and four of those are lands. If you are buying in pieces, the four lands and Puresteel Paladin move the deck most per dollar, and Halvar is the one to leave until last.

Do I need Sigarda's Aid for Colossus Hammer to work?

No, which matters, because Sigarda's Aid is the single most expensive card in the box and nothing in red and white tutors for it. After these swaps the Hammer has three separate ways onto a creature. Sigarda's Aid attaches it as it enters, Puresteel Paladin drops its equip cost to nothing while you control three artifacts, and Bruenor Battlehammer makes the first equip you activate each turn free.

What bracket does the upgraded list sit in?

The floor is Bracket 1 before and after, because neither the box nor my adds contain a card from the Game Changers list and nothing here is a two-card combo. Be aware that the floor is the lowest bracket a list can honestly claim, not a description of how it plays. A Wyleth wearing three Equipment kills a player with commander damage quickly, so Bracket 2 is the fairer thing to say out loud at a table. Run the finished list through the bracket checker if you change more than I did.

Could Halvar or Bruenor lead this deck instead of Wyleth?

Both are legal and neither should. Halvar is mono-white, so putting him in the command zone deletes Boros Charm, Sunforger, Blazing Sunsteel and the rest of the red half. Bruenor is red and white and gives you a free equip every turn from the command zone, which is genuinely more resilient, and he draws you nothing. Wyleth's attack trigger is the reason this pile of Equipment is a deck rather than a collection.

Wyleth keeps dying. What actually helps?

The box's answers are Swiftfoot Boots, Mask of Avacyn and Timely Ward, and Timely Ward is the best of them because you may cast it as though it had flash when it targets a commander. Hero's Blade re-suits Wyleth free every time you recast him, and Tiana, Ship's Caretaker hands back whatever fell off. The card people reach for here is Lightning Greaves, and it is wrong in this deck: shroud means you cannot target your own commander with any of the five Auras. For 40 cents, Balan, Wandering Knight is the cheapest insurance on the list, a second body that can pull every Equipment you control onto itself.