Community

I'm pleased for having an insightful and objective analysis about Equipment and I agree in both points: equipment can have a counterproductive effect on the game if left unchecked but Living Weapons, while risky, are quite OK.

I hate to admit it but I do dislike equipment too. As the one who plays it, it still needs another creature to equip, and once it is in play upgrading any creature you cast is an obligatory procedure without having to think about it; as the opponent, I hate being occasionally owned by a Sword or a Loxodon Warhammer that just wins the game by itself (making the creature wielding it irrelevant, just as it was mentioned there), and even if I had the naturalize for it (something that I don't like to put on the SB) then the blowout for my opponents makes it too easy. I'm probably biased because I have played against a bunch of novice players whose only good card in their deck is the rare equipment but yeah, equipment for me is "win big or lose big" without any gray area where the fun is.

As for Standard, I can't hide my disappointment especially because the set was full of constructed promising card, but as tournaments show Standard has degenerated in a reign of Caw - go where 6 top slots and mirror matchups in the finals are the rule rather than the exception. It is interesting to note that the Swords have generated that exact scenario of creature stats being irrelevant and Squadron hawk being the best card solely for being 4 equippable bodies on a single card. Thus, I have to choose "bad" when I was really looking forward to choosing "good" this time.

This was an awesome, concise article about equipment and I thought it was great.

The equipment would be perfectly okay and safe in an old environment when MAGIC was not about creature combat mostly. In the modern environment, where it's mostly all about winning with creatures equipment is a very powerful tool.
I really don't like the modern face of magic: I really enjoyed stack interactions more than creature combat, creatures are more interesting for their abilities, rather than figures in bottom right corner, and my opinion is that equipments mostly should give the creatures new abilities, rather than pumping the body. Although not a good card outside limited,  Heavy Arbalest is a nice example of such equipment. Swords wouldn't be THAT strong without this +2/+2, even if they had a better trigger on them.

I liked this article.  It did a nice job discussing equipment.  I have always had trouble with equipment because it remains on the board when a creature dies and can be equipped on the next creature that comes out, making and endless cycle of threats.

This was a good article. I assume you mostly talk about limited w/r/t living weapon and equipment in general. In constructed I control what creatures are equipped so if I want +2/+2 on a flier, I just put a sword on a hawk. There are more efficient ways to give a fatty flying too.

I really liked seeing your logic behind making cards that, as you stated, appear rather pointless. I think you were stating these cards are costed the way they are for limited, and if so, do you just not care no one will want them for constructed? Limited is nice and all, but a year from now cards get played because people want them in their decks. Balanced for limited means never played again after the draft. It also means any copy opened not for a draft is useless.