For the record I think bodyguard and savior are just okay. Mom is the clear best. Skrelv and giver are both solid. We'll see how many I find slots for, lots of competition.
As far as equipment, since I can't seem to stop thinking about it, I think I'm off the Komainu Battle Armor. I think my first instinct was correct. Late-game it's going to be hard to punch through to make it happen, and early-game we don't know enough about how the game will play out to commit to constantly goading someone. Not to mention it's annoying and will likely draw removal quickly, from either effected party. That brings us down to the desired 8, woohoo.
Surprisingly I think I'm also off SoFaI and back onto Mask of Memory instead. Primarily because it fits better into the 2-3-4 curveout. The evasion is nice but I think the buff makes it more likely that people will take chump blocks and take us more seriously as a threat. Also the pinging can draw ire pretty easily as well, depending how it's used. Mask is just a straightforward draw engine, no frills. I could even see an argument for Infiltration Lens potentially, though it doesn't exploit our double strike.
I did do some thinking on 1-drops and fast mana. Protection guys are obviously in high consideration. esper sentinel is obviously amazing though somewhat counterproductive with our goal of emptying our hand, but I guess filtering is also good. Wayfarer (and Expedition Map) will depend on how important utility lands end up being. Ragavan seems like a really good mana ramp and/or backup - the dash option makes him harder to interact with in the late game as well. Welder sounds cool but I think I'm off it - we're not tutoring into the graveyard so running it out turn 1 seems kinda pointless, anyone who wants to blow up our equipment will blow up the welder first. Beamtown beatstick I've gone back and forth on - it's a decent equipment that does fit into the 1 spot, but I'm not sure if it does enough.
Other 1-drops I've been thinking about:
Probably don't need extra grave hate with the lion sash tutorable? sigarda's sounds great in theory but I'm not sure many of our equipment benefit all that much from it. Not sure how highly to value haste - normally it'd be kinda mid because it's too expensive to recast a commander and equip in the same turn. But since we preload the commander tax onto the adventure, it means we can plausibly do a lot of equipping the turn we cast Kellan's actual body. And ofc they're great with bitterthorn.
And fast mana:
I think the suspend stuff is probably too slow, but I like most of the other stuff. Not sure how I feel about lotus - it's great for getting Kellan out T2 with a tutor, and it does fit nicely into a curve if we're going for Mask of Memory. But it doesn't help with a bitterthorn curve or a jitte curve. And it might be a brick late.
Amber is still decent but somewhat amusingly weak here since it doesn't generate white for protective spells or good removal. Probably the worst of the remaining fast mana at least. vault lets us T2 commander or bitterthorn, chrome mox, mox diamond, and gemstone accelerate us permanently by a turn, ofc sol ring and mana crypt are givens - though sol ring can't accelerate the commander or bitterthorn any faster than normal, tragically.
