Halvar/Sword of the Realms (mostly sword of the realms)
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It's not a terribly focused decklist, but the main idea is to loop value creatures with Sword of the Realms, while using wipes to control the board. There are a few ways to win - grinding out enemies with repeated wipes, escalating value off a combination of the extra value cards, or simply going infinite with some sort of recursion loop (reveillark, karmic guide, griffin) although you'll still need some extra help to actually turn that into a win, so hopefully it's not too easy.
OP:
I really like Halvar, God of Battle // Sword of the Realms. As bad as it almost always is, mono-white equipment is always that underdog I never stop rooting for. And being able to run an equipment as your commander is a unique new twist.
Actually building him, though, is pretty tricky to think about.
So on the surface, both sides seem like they have overlapping synergies. Havlar cares about equipment, SotR IS an equipment. So it's just a normal mono-white equipment build that can play either side, right? But the more I think about it, the more I don't think that's true. Because the two sides can't usually appear at the same time, nor easily switch between the two, I don't think there's much motivation to build towards flexibility. No matter how you build, you're most likely going into the game with a plan to cast either Halvar or SotR, not picking one on the fly. I mean, maybe you could end up with a deck that usually wants SotR, but draws all equipment and no creatures and so plays Halvar, or the reverse and plays SotR. But aside from disaster scenarios, I think it makes the most sense to specialize in one side or the other.
So what do the two builds potentially look like?
Halvar does benefit from equipment, but I think he gets maximum benefit from auras. Cheap, cantrippy auras can maximize the benefit from his first ability, and he can set up auras to then move them later, for example to protect himself the turn he hits. The moving-around ability is really neat but seems difficult to exploit too much beyond that, and some minor advantages is moving stuff around on the fly to get maximum attack benefit. Playing out a Pentarch Ward or a Spectra Ward early, and then moving them onto Halvar seems neat, for example. Of course, strong equipment like swords, jitte, etc still make good sense, as do creatures with strong saboteur abilities to get maximum benefit from the double strike, though he could also work as a pure voltron pretty well.
SotR seems very different to me. As an equipment in a normal equipment deck it looks...fine. The boost is decent if unamazing, the recur ability is nice but kinda slow for a deck that wants to be fast. But where it does grow some legs is in two ways - first, it has some potential shenanigans with ETBs, as a way to keep retriggering them, and second, it does excellently with board wipes, especially when used in conjunction with the first thing. Set up some ETB dork as an attacker/blocker, swing, if it dies just replay and re-equip, and then when your opponents go wide, you go boom.
Perusing the most popular ETB/LTB/die triggers on EDHrec, we've got:
- solemn simulacrum
- sun titan
- mentor of the meek
- meteor golem
- karmic guide
- myr battlesphere
- duplicant
- knight of the white orchid
- reveillark
- wurmcoil engine
- myr retriever
- soul warden
- metallic mimic
- recruiter of the guard
- stoneforge mystic
- god-eternal oketra
- suture priest
- pilgrim's eye
- felidar guardian
- wall of omens
- fiend hunter
Anyway, beyond strong ETBs, we'd want a lot of creature-wipes (or at least non-artifact wipes), and some sac outlets to trigger ETBs more often than just through normal creature death and wipe death.
Those are my thoughts so far. Any suggestions or additions appreciated!
