Equipment, Control and Copied Text

The unit is the Top-Most Card. While Equipment is attached, its Effect Text is added to the unit’s Rules Text and its Might bonus modifies the unit’s Might. Several Equipment can contribute to the same unit; an Equipment can attach to only one card at a time.

The Equipment’s own printed Rules Text becomes inactive, except for the specific attachment-related exceptions. Its Effect Text would be inactive while unattached. Text granted or added to the Equipment is a separate case: it can remain active. Inactive text still exists for effects checking which keywords a card has.

In text supplied to a unit, “I” and “me” describe the unit using that ability. An explicit reference to “this” or to the Equipment’s name can identify the Equipment instead.

Example - Guardian Angel Its supplied replacement ability (an effect that changes what would happen) protects the unit from dying by killing Guardian Angel instead, then heals, exhausts and recalls the unit. Those instructions concern two separate cards: the named Equipment is killed, while the unit receives the other actions. Do not send both cards to the trash merely because they share a physical stack.

If an opponent gains control of your equipped unit, you still control its Equipment unless an effect changes that too. The bonus and supplied text continue while attached. A supplied ability belongs to the unit that has it; keeping control of the Equipment does not make you the controller of that unit’s abilities.

Readying or exhausting one card does not ready or exhaust the other. Stunning or empowering the unit likewise does not give its Equipment that status. Attached Equipment can still be targeted as gear. Treating it as untargetable or as part of the unit would lose these independent properties.

Playing ordinary Equipment does not attach it. Equip is an activated ability: you choose to use it by paying its cost. Its target is a unit you control, and you must follow its timing restrictions. Paying the cost is not the attachment event. The ability attaches when it resolves.

While printed Equip text is inactive on an attached card, you cannot simply activate it to move the Equipment elsewhere. Weaponmaster has a specific exception allowing necessary text and changes to costs to be consulted. An effect may also instruct attachment directly. Attaching to a different unit detaches from the former one; instructing attachment to the same unit does nothing and does not refresh copied abilities.

The current Vendetta FAQ gives an ordered sequence. Svellsongur attaches first, then copies the equipped unit’s text into its Effect Text. Shady Spectacles attaches first, then chooses another friendly unit and makes the equipped unit a copy. These are not simultaneous events.

Example - An attachment trigger Attach Svellsongur to Aphelios. The newly copied attachment ability cannot see the attachment that already happened, so it does not add a second trigger for that event. Likewise, making a unit an Aphelios copy with Shady Spectacles happens too late for the new ability to trigger from that attachment.

With Shady Spectacles, copying an Empowered unit does not give the unit receiving the text that status. That unit keeps its own temporary modifications and statuses.

The FAQ’s Sand Soldier example uses a copied Azir, Ascendent ability. After activating that ability, detach the Spectacles, then reattach them and copy the same Azir again: the copied text contains a fresh copy of the ability, which can be activated again. The Sand Soldier remains the same unit throughout. Svellsongur similarly creates fresh copied text after a genuine detach and reattach. This does not grant a free detach action or waive the new ability’s costs and timing.

Attached cards share the unit’s location. When the unit moves or is Recalled, they follow it. The Equipment’s location change with the unit is not itself a Move. You cannot move attached Equipment separately.

Attaching from a different location also relocates the Equipment without moving it or readying it. Detaching removes the supplied text and bonus, but leaves the Equipment at the unit’s location. Keep its existing ready or exhausted state.

If the unit dies or otherwise leaves the board, its attached cards detach and stay where it left. With several attachments, the unit’s controller chooses their detachment order, including relevant effects caused by detaching.

Example - Equipment controlled by another player An opponent controls a unit carrying your Equipment at a battlefield. The unit dies. Your Equipment detaches there; it does not follow the unit to the trash. At the next Cleanup, unattached non-unit gear at that battlefield is Recalled to its own controller’s Base: yours. Recall does not itself ready the gear. If the unit was merely Recalled to Base, however, the Equipment would have followed while still attached.

If an attached Equipment becomes a unit, detach it immediately. Units cannot be attached to other objects. You can activate its Equip ability or choose it with Weaponmaster, but it cannot attach while it remains a unit. If a gear-unit later stops being a unit, its other attached non-unit Equipment stays attached; Might bonuses no longer affect it while it has no Might. Deploy does not give it a free move from Base back to a battlefield.