Astor, Bearer of Blades
WRLegendary Creature — Human Warrior

Astor, Bearer of Blades

Mana value4EDHREC#4,656

The Commander

When Astor enters, look at the top seven cards of your library. You may reveal an Equipment or Vehicle card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Equipment you control have equip {1}.

Vehicles you control have crew 1.

Guide

Gameplan

Astor cheapens your toys: every Equipment costs {1} to equip and every Vehicle crews with just power 1, letting you suit up a threat and swing fast or flood the board with crewed Vehicles. You ramp into a hefty equipment/vehicle base, use Astor's ETB to dig for your best piece, then turn a single creature into a hyper-mobile beater or assemble a Vehicle army. Win by reattaching and re-equipping across multiple bodies to grind value and connect for lethal commander damage or wide swings.

Strengths

  • Drastically reduces equip and crew costs, freeing mana for double-spelling and reattaching equipment every turn
  • ETB card selection digs seven deep to find your key Equipment or Vehicle
  • Boros has premium equipment tutors and combat support like Stoneforge Mystic and Puresteel Paladin
  • Crew 1 lets even token Vehicles attack with minimal board investment

Weaknesses

  • Heavily commander-dependent; without Astor the deck plays at full equip/crew costs
  • Equipment voltron strategies fold to a single removal spell or board wipe on the equipped creature
  • Light on card advantage and interaction outside of equipment payoffs
  • Vulnerable to artifact removal and Stony Silence / Collector Ouphe effects

Key Cards

  • Sigarda's AidFlash and free equip turns Astor's discount into instant-speed attach-and-ambush combat tricks.
  • Puresteel PaladinWith three artifacts equip becomes free and it draws a card off every equipment cast.
  • Stoneforge MysticTutors your best Equipment to hand and cheats it into play, a perfect fit for the toolbox.
  • Ardenn, Intrepid ArchaeologistMoves multiple equipment for free each turn, multiplying Astor's reattachment value.
  • Smuggler's CopterCrews for 1 under Astor, loots, and is a resilient evasive threat that survives wraths.

Upgrade Path

Add the Sword cycle (Fire and Ice, Feast and Famine, War and Peace) for protection and value, plus free-equip enablers like Sigarda's Aid and Ardenn to weaponize Astor's discount. Improve consistency with tutors (Stoneforge Mystic, Steelshaper's Gift, Open the Armory) and resilience via Hammer of Nazahn or indestructible-granting gear. Trim narrow Vehicles for premium ones like Smuggler's Copter and Skysovereign, and add ramp like Sword of the Animist to power out your threats faster.

Core Cards

The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.

Win Conditions

  • Commander damage via a stacked, evasive equipped creature
  • Wide attacks from crewed Vehicles plus equipped tokens
  • Grinding repeated combat value with Swords of X and Y triggers

Archetypes

  • Equipment VoltronCheap equip costs let you stack swords and buffs onto one creature for fast commander-damage kills.
  • Vehicles AggroCrew 1 turns your fleet of Vehicles into an efficient, board-wipe-resistant attacking force.
  • Boros Aggro MidrangeAstor provides selection and a mana-efficient combat plan to go wide and tall simultaneously.

Combos

No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.

Related Commanders

Same color identity (RW), by popularity.

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