LIMIT BREAK on the curve.

Opening hands

Seven cards from this build. Commanders start in the command zone. In multiplayer Commander, the first mulligan is free. For later mulligans, draw seven again; once you keep, put one card on the bottom for each mulligan beyond the free one.

KeepShow the seven

• Forest
• Plains
• Command Tower
• Nature's Lore
• Sram, Senior Edificer
• Robe of Stars
• Steelshaper's Gift

T1 Plains can cast Gift; T2 Forest casts Lore; T3 Tower supports Sram and Equipment development. Ensure an Equipment is on the battlefield before Cloud enters, and leave Robe mana when removal matters.

BorderlineShow the seven

• Forest
• Plains
• Arcane Signet
• Sram, Senior Edificer
• Buster Sword
• Robe of Stars
• Berserk

T2 Signet is castable and fixes red, but missing land three delays Cloud and equip/protection mana. At a slow table this can develop; against fast pressure use the free mulligan for a third land.

MulliganShow the seven

• Forest
• Arcane Signet
• Hammer of Nazahn
• Kaldra Compleat
• Hellkite Tyrant
• Embercleave
• Full Throttle

One land cannot cast the two-mana Signet without another resource. The expensive Equipment and finishers do not justify keeping.

Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER strategy guide

Pace and examples. Turn windows below are author estimates and illustrative sequences, not measured multiplayer results or guarantees. A first opponent eliminated is not a whole-table win. In multiplayer the first mulligan is free; later mulligans follow the London procedure. The commander starts in the command zone, outside the seven-card examples.

Cloud is a NayaNaya = red/green/white. The three colors this deck plays in. voltron commander whose entire job is to die holding a sword. Read his text once:

• Haste. He attacks the turn he lands.
• ETB: attach up to one Equipment you control to him. Free, but only once, only on entry.
• Combat: whenever he attacks, draw a card for each equipped attacking creature you control. If Cloud has power 7 or greater, also make two Treasure tokens.

So the ETB free-equip is a one-time staple. Every other equipment after the first has to be hard-equipped, cheated in with ETBShort for 'enters the battlefield'. Any triggered ability that fires when a permanent enters play is an ETB trigger. auto-attach (Hammer of Nazahn, Sigarda’s Aid), or free-equipped through a separate engine (Puresteel Paladin, Stonehewer Giant, Forge Anew). Balan, Wandering Knight is not on that list: his {1}{W} activation attaches every Equipment you control to Balan himself, pulling the whole stack off Cloud, so he is a pivot carrier when Cloud is gone, not a way to load Cloud, and his damage is normal damage, not commander damage. Treat the ETB attach as your priority stat-stick: usually Hammer of Nazahn (indestructible while equipped) or Buster Sword (+3/+2 plus a draw and a free spell when he connects). The deck is built so the next swords stack fast. The B4 build plays a faster curve than the B3 page, and the rest of this guide reflects that.

You don’t pick a wincon at sleeves-on. You pick it at the point of attack, based on what’s already on board. In B4 the wincons are repositioned around the faster curve.

Win conditions

Wincon 1 · Voltron one-shot (primary)

Cloud + 3 to 5 stacked equipment, swing into the player most vulnerable to this commander-damage attack after accounting for blockers and interaction. Sword of Feast and Famine + Embercleave + Buster Sword + Shadowspear is the textbook line. Embercleave’s cost reductionA spell that costs less when conditions are met. Embercleave costs 1 less per attacking creature you control. plus double strike turns Cloud into an 11-power double striker = 22 commander damageDamage dealt by a commander tracks separately. 21 commander damage from a single source kills a player regardless of life total. in one swing, past the 21 threshold. With Mana Vault opening the curve, this often lands turn 4 or 5. Reyav, Master Smith covers the double strike from the board for two mana: any equipped attacker, Cloud included, gains it on the swing. One timing catch: Reyav checks at declare attackers, so the creature must already be equipped when it attacks; an Equipment flashed in after declaration (Mithril Coat, or a sword under Sigarda’s Aid) misses Reyav’s trigger that combat, though Halvar’s static anthem still catches it. Embercleave is the exception either way, because it brings its own double strike. But without Embercleave’s +1/+1 that same stack stops at 10 power, 20 damage, one short of the commander-damage kill, so bank an Umezawa’s Jitte counter or a Slayers’ Stronghold pump before you promise the one-swing line. Backup line: Aettir and Priwen sets Cloud’s base power and toughness to your life total, a one-swing kill at a healthy life total even without the full sword stack. Price it honestly first: {6} to cast plus {5} to equip, and the payoff scales with a life total this deck spends on shocklands, Sylvan Library, Mana Vault pings, and The One Ring’s burden counters. When the board says grind, Helm of the Host makes a non-legendary hasty copy of Cloud each combat, each copy attaching an Equipment as it enters and drawing when it swings.

Wincon 2 · Triple combat via Full Throttle

Full Throttle costs {4}{R}{R} and gives two extra combat phases this turn. Three swings, three sets of damage triggers, three sets of card draws and Treasures. Even more potent with the B4 curve: you arrive on T5 with Tithe Treasures stacked from T3 onward, so paying six for Full Throttle is trivial and the kill swing has the equipment density to convert. Pick the right attack order and you can take two opponents in a turn.

Wincon 3 · Treasure snowball

Smothering Tithe (GC (Game Changer)) on turn 3 means every opponent draw they do not pay {2} for makes you a Treasure. By turn 5 you’re cracking 6-8 of them on Jeska’s Will (GC (Game Changer)) for a red mana per card in a target opponent’s hand and a flood of impulse cards. Crop Rotation (GC (Game Changer)) plugs in here too: instant-speed land tutor finds Slayers’ Stronghold to give Cloud haste mid-turn after a recast, Command Beacon for the tax dodge, or an extra utility land while the Treasure pile grows. Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire is a draw-step card, not a Crop Rotation target: its channel is a discard from hand, and a tutored land on the battlefield can never be discarded. Professional Face-Breaker turns Treasures into impulse drawExile a card, you may play it until end of turn. Treats the exiled card like a one-shot draw.. The Treasures also count toward Hellkite Tyrant.

Wincon 4 · Hellkite Tyrant artifacts

Hellkite Tyrant wins the game at upkeep if you control 20 artifacts. Treasures count. Mana Vault counts. Even so, the build has 24 artifact cards total, so 20 on the battlefield still leans on a real Tithe Treasure pile: a long-game backstop, not a plan you chase. The half that comes up in real games is the theft clause: when the 6/5 flier connects, you gain control of every artifact that player controls. This is the line when the table racks up answers to your commander but leaves your enchantments alone.

The T2-T3 burst

Not a wincon you go looking for, but the math is on the page: T1 land + Sol Ring + Mana Vault banks five colorless for turn 2. What it cannot bank is color: Cloud is {2}{R}{G}{W}, and two lands only ever make two mana, so no pair of lands covers R, G, and W on its own. The burst usually buys a T2 engine (Tithe off the Vault mana, or Stoneforge tutoring a sword to hand) and a T3 Cloud with protection mana up. The cleanest honest T2 Cloud in this base runs through Mossfire Valley: T1 untapped white source + Vault, T2 Mossfire Valley, tap Vault for {C}{C}{C}, feed {1} into the filter for {R}{G}, white land for {W}: {2}{R}{G}{W} exactly. The pod will not love either version. Use sparingly, and only at tables that asked for Bracket 4 at rule-zero.

Cloud, Midgar Mercenary (different card, not the commander) is a cheap {W}{W} 2/1 second copy of the gameplan. He tutors any Equipment from your library on ETB. His second clause reads ‘As long as Cloud is equipped, if a triggered ability of Cloud or an Equipment attached to it triggers, that ability triggers an additional time’. The doubling only applies to Equipment attached to this Cloud (Midgar Mercenary), not to your commander Cloud or to other creatures. He’s a second Cloud body. If your commander gets countered, exiled, or eats Swords twice in a row and the recast cost is unbearable, this is the line that keeps the game on rails. Cloud, Planet’s Champion is the third Cloud body: a {3}{R}{W} 4/4 with double strike and indestructible on your turn while equipped, and equip abilities targeting him cost {2} less. When the commander is taxed out, Planet’s Champion carries the same sword stack and hits twice as hard.

The doubling matters when you load Midgar himself with swords: Sword of Feast and Famine untaps your lands twice on connect; Sword of Fire and Ice pings twice and draws twice; Umezawa’s Jitte banks four charge counters on a connect instead of two. The trigger doubling does NOT affect Equipment attached to your commander Cloud.

Snap keep

Two-to-three lands + ramp + a body. The classic opener: Sol Ring or a 2-mana ramp piece (Arcane Signet, Nature’s Lore) plus Esper Sentinel or Stoneforge Mystic on the play.

Mana Vault in opening hand + 2 lands. The signature Bracket 4 line: T1 Vault, T2 rock or sword, T3 Cloud with mana up (T2 only if one of the lands is Mossfire Valley and the other makes white). Snap keep at Bracket 4 tables.

Crop Rotation in opener with at least one land in hand to sac. Crop Rotation costs G and sacrifices a land you control to put any land from your library onto the battlefield. Command Beacon and Slayers’ Stronghold enter untapped and are usable the moment they land; Jungle Shrine and Path of Ancestry enter tapped like always. A basic Forest in the opener is the cheapest sac target; a tapped dual is fine if you don’t need its untapped color this turn.

Smothering Tithe in hand and turn-3 mana to land it. Tithe (GC (Game Changer)) is more important than Cloud most games. If you can untap with it on T3, keep almost anything.

Sylvan Library. Draws 2 extra per turn, paying 4 life per kept card. Free if you don’t keep extras. Snap.

Free-equip enabler in hand. Sigarda’s Aid, Puresteel Paladin, or Forge Anew lined up before T4 lets you stack equipment without paying equip costs all game.

Ship back

Mana Vault with no payload behind it. Cloud is always castable from the command zone, so judge the Vault on the rest of the hand: lands that cover his colors on time, an equipment for his ETB attach, or an engine piece worth powering out. If the burst deploys nothing ahead of schedule, Vault locks up mana long-term and turns into a self-inflicted clock.

Mana Vault but every land in the hand enters tapped. The Vault burst dies on arrival: the rocks make colorless and the lands make nothing on time, so the early-Cloud line never materializes. Most of the time, mull. You can keep it against a slow pod, but a 7-card alternative is usually better.

One land without a complete castable acceleration sequence. A two-mana rock cannot be cast from one ordinary land; it is not an exception. Even Ring needs colored follow-up and sufficient lands to justify keeping.

All five+ CMC. The deck wins through curving into Cloud, not through topdecks.

All interaction, no threats. Two removal spells and zero creatures is a losing hand here. You can’t stop them all and you have nothing to apply pressure with.

No equipment, no ramp, no draw. Cloud is always on time from the command zone; judge the opener on the kit around him. A hand with no sword to attach, no rock to accelerate, and no engine to refill casts a naked 4/4 with haste that eats the first removal spell.

Turn plan

The Colossus Hammer shortcut

The fastest kill on the page skips the full stack. Colossus Hammer is +10/+10 for {1}, and every free-attach effect in the deck sidesteps its equip {8}: Cloud’s own ETB attach, Puresteel Paladin’s metalcraft, Sigarda’s Aid, Hammer of Nazahn’s enter trigger, Stonehewer Giant, Forge Anew’s free first equip. Cloud holding the Hammer alone is a 14/14, past his own 7-power Treasure threshold, and with Reyav’s double strike or Halvar’s anthem that is 28 commander damage in one swing off a one-mana equipment.

Ultima Weapon is the same idea at the top of the curve: +7/+7 makes Cloud an 11/11 by itself, and its attack trigger, destroy target creature an opponent controls, is the deck’s only repeatable removal that says destroy. Four other repeatables kill without the word: Umezawa’s Jitte spends a charge counter for -1/-1, Sword of Fire and Ice pings 2 on connect, Kaldra Compleat exiles any creature it damages in combat, and Nazgûl Battle-Mace grants deathtouch, so the equipped creature kills whatever it damages. Equip {7} drops to {5} on Cloud, Planet’s Champion, and attached to Cloud, Midgar Mercenary the trigger fires twice for two destroys per attack.

Sword protection lines

Sword of Feast and Famine grants Cloud protection from black and green. That means: black or green creatures cannot block Cloud, black or green spells or abilities targeting Cloud fizzle, black and green combat damage to Cloud is prevented. Sword of Fire and Ice covers red and blue with the same three effects. Pick the sword whose colors match the blockers you actually face at the table. Color choice matters more than raw stats on the kill turn.

The swords’ protection is meta-dependent evasion. The unconditional package is Spirit Mantle and Trailblazer’s Boots: Mantle grants protection from creatures, so nothing can block Cloud at all, and the Boots grant nonbasic landwalk, near-unblockable in Commander manabases. Mantle is also the deck’s only Aura, so an enchanted Cloud turns on Halvar’s anthem and Reyav’s trigger without a single Equipment.

Halvar kill math

Halvar’s anthem applies in any combat to any equipped or enchanted creature you control. On a B4 curve with Mana Vault accelerating into a T3 Halvar:

• Cloud 4 / 4 + Buster Sword +3 / +2 = 7 / 6
• Halvar’s anthem: Cloud has double strike (no Embercleave needed)
• 7 power double strike = 14 commander damage in one swing
• Add Sword of F and F: 9 / 8 double strike = 18 commander damage
• Add Sword of Fire and Ice too: 11 / 10 double strike = 22 commander damage, past the 21 threshold

The B4 kill turn used to lean on Embercleave for the double strike. With Halvar in play the anthem covers it, so three swords of raw power (Buster Sword, Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Fire and Ice) end a player in one swing.

Mana Vault tempo math

Mana Vault costs {1} and taps for {C}{C}{C}. It does not untap during your untap step. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay {4} to untap it; if it is still tapped at the beginning of your draw step, it deals 1 damage to you. Other artifacts untap normally. The trade is straightforward: three colorless now, then a tapped Vault until you untap it. Almost always worth it if you have a stat-stick in hand and Cloud lined up. Pay the {4} on a later upkeep when you can spare the mana, rather than cutting into the next turn’s Tithe or commander play.

Berserk math

Berserk at instant speed doubles Cloud’s power for the turn and grants trample. A 6-power Cloud becomes 12 power double strike on the swing trigger. Even Cloud bare with one stat-stick becomes lethal: 7 power + Berserk + double strike = 28 trampling damage. Berserk also reads ‘at the beginning of the next end step, destroy that creature if it attacked this turn.’ Cloud dies after the swing unless he is indestructible (Hammer of Nazahn equipped saves him). Sword of the Realms attached to Cloud returns him from grave to hand, if you decline the state-based move to the command zone, so the Berserk swing is survivable with the right equipment online.

Dominion Bracelet math

The Dominion Bracelet gives the equipped creature +1/+1 and a Mindslaver-style activated ability that costs {15} minus the equipped creature’s power, with activation exiling the Bracelet. At Cloud’s 7 power, the activation costs {8} (sorcery speed only, and it still uses the stack, so opponents can respond). At 15+ power, it’s free. Activating exiles Bracelet, so this is a one-shot play, not repeatable. Sequence: load Cloud with stat sticks to push power to 15 if you want it free, then a sorcery-speed activation on your main phase to seize target opponent’s next turn. Use the Mindslaver turn to set up your kill: tap their blockers, cast their counterspells on their own boardwipes, kill their commander, then untap and one-shot them.

Crop Rotation tempo lines

Crop Rotation costs G, sacrifices a land you control, and puts any land from your library onto the battlefield. Command Beacon and Slayers’ Stronghold both enter untapped; Jungle Shrine and Path of Ancestry still enter tapped. Two B4-specific lines worth memorizing:

• Mid-combat Command Beacon. Cloud gets countered, killed, or exiled. He lands in the graveyard or in exile first, and the state-based action then lets you move him to the command zone (CR 903.9a). Take the move. A state-based action does not use the stack (CR 704.1), so there is nothing to respond to: cast Crop Rotation once you have priority again, sac a basic, find Command Beacon. Next main phase, tap and sacrifice Command Beacon to put Cloud directly from the command zone to your hand. No commander tax. Recast next turn for the original 5 mana, not 7. This is the strict tempo win the other brackets do not get. Note: this works whether the original answer was a counterspell (a countered Cloud is put into his owner’s graveyard, CR 701.6a), a destroy (graveyard) or an exile (exile), because the state-based move is offered from both zones. Only a bounce to hand or library is a true replacement effect (CR 903.9b).
• Slayers’ Stronghold + 2/+0. Hold Crop Rotation. Attack with Cloud + a stat-stick. On declare-attackers, pop Crop Rotation finding Slayers’ Stronghold and activate it right there: {R}{W}, tap, target creature gets +2/+0 and gains vigilance and haste until end of turn, with no timing restriction on the activation. Mid-combat you are buying the pump and vigilance; haste granted after attackers are declared adds nothing to that combat. The haste mode is the main-phase version of the play: Crop-Rotation Stronghold into play, recast Cloud or a fresh threat, activate Stronghold, swing the same turn.

The One Ring window

The One Ring (GC (Game Changer)) is the sixth disclosed Game Changer and the one with a timing puzzle. Three rules for it:

• Cast Ring on the turn whose following opponent turns need protection. Its cast-trigger protection ends as your next turn begins. A Ring cast the turn before an all-in attack therefore does not cover the opponent turns after that attack. Ring protects you, not Cloud, and the condition is that you cast it, not specifically from hand. Budget independent protection for the commander.
• Tap it when the cards improve your next decisions. Each activation adds a burden counter, then draws that many cards. You need not wait for an empty hand; weigh additional options against the next upkeep’s life loss and mana needed to deploy them.
• Respect the burden bill. You lose 1 life per burden counter at each of your upkeeps, and the counters never come off. There is no fixed safe activation ceiling: compare the next upkeep bill, your life and opponents’ threats. Your own overloaded Vandalblast affects opponents’ artifacts only.

When the protection turn and the draw engine compete, protection wins: cast it the turn you go all-in and let the draws come later. A resolved kill beats two extra cards.

Full Throttle math

Two extra combat phases on the turn it resolves. Three swings, three rounds of damage triggers, three rounds of card draw + Treasures. Cloud at 7 power across three combats = 21 commander damage exactly. Lethal on a single target without any pump spell. Two combats are usually enough if Embercleave is in the mix. In B4 this turn often arrives on T5, sometimes T4 with a Vault-and-tutor opener.

Two riders the math above leaves out. Tifa, Martial Artist can add a fourth combat or more: whenever one or more creatures you control with power 7 or greater deal combat damage to a player, she untaps all your creatures. Each trigger during the first combat phase of your turn adds another combat. Double strike or hits on different players can give multiple triggers in that first combat; later combats still untap the team but add no further combats, so Tifa alone does not loop. And Nahiri, Forged in Fury exiles the top card for every equipped attacker in every one of those combats, letting you play it that turn and casting any Equipment she reveals for free mid-kill-turn.

The Halvar pivot

Halvar is a modal double-faced card. You pick the face at cast time. The card does not flip on the battlefield. Cast as Halvar, he stays Halvar. Cast as Sword of the Realms, it stays a sword. You get one face per game in B4: the deck is singleton, and B3’s Unfinished Business recursion was traded away for The One Ring, so pick the face at cast time and live with it.

When to cast the front face (Halvar, God of Battle, {2}{W}{W})

• You have Cloud or another equipped creature in play and want to close. Halvar’s anthem applies the moment he enters: any equipped or enchanted creature you control gets double strike, both your turn and your opponents’ turns.
• You want a free reattach mid-combat. Halvar’s begin-combat trigger moves an Aura or Equipment from one of your creatures to another at no cost. Slide Buster Sword off Sram onto Cloud before declare attackers. Move Hammer of Nazahn onto a fresh body if Cloud is going to die anyway.
• You want a backup voltron body. Halvar himself is a 4 / 4 that can wear swords. He is a second commander-ish threat that does not get hit by commander tax.

When to cast the back face (Sword of the Realms, {1}{W})

• You need a cheap protection equipment now. +2/+0, vigilance, and a dies-return-to-hand trigger for 2 mana. Among the best 2-CMC equipment in the format for this archetype.
• You are about to recast Cloud and want a tax dodge online. Put Sword of the Realms in play first and equip it onto Cloud once he lands; it returns only the creature it is attached to, so it does nothing for Cloud while it sits on another body and nothing at all against exile. If Cloud then dies wearing it, decline the state-based move to the command zone (CR 903.9a) so he stays in the graveyard, the sword triggers, and he returns to your hand. Recast next turn for the original 5 mana instead of 7.

The exile trap

Sword of the Realms returns an equipped creature only when it dies, so it does not trigger from exile or phasing. Mithril Coat grants indestructible: it stops destruction and lethal damage, not an opponent’s Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, or Farewell. Use Robe of Stars or Clever Concealment before those effects resolve when their conditions and mana are available. Command Beacon recovers Cloud from the command zone after you put him there; it does not prevent removal. An opponent’s Out of Time phases creatures out rather than exiling them, so that event does not offer a commander move to the command zone and Beacon cannot retrieve a phased-out Cloud.

Interaction with Hammer of Nazahn, Kaldra Compleat, Mithril Coat

These three make a creature indestructible, so it cannot be destroyed and is not destroyed by lethal damage (CR 702.12b). Sword of the Realms’ dies trigger therefore never fires off destruction or lethal damage. It still fires off a sacrifice, and off a -X/-X effect that drops toughness to 0 (CR 704.5f), because both put the creature into the graveyard. Equip Sword of the Realms to a creature that is NOT also wearing one of those. Use indestructible to prevent the death; use Sword of the Realms as the “if he dies anyway, he comes back” backstop.

Recasting Halvar into the other face

If your Halvar front face eats removal, the only route back to the sword is recasting the card from your hand. The graveyard does not offer the choice: a modal DFC there has only its front face’s characteristics, so the card is Halvar, God of Battle, a creature card, whichever face you cast, and Forge Anew (return target Equipment card) can never target it.

Common mistakes

Protection priority

1. Robe of Stars. {1}{W}, repeatable, phases outA phased-out permanent is treated as though it doesn't exist while phased out. It returns at its controller's next untap step. the equipped creature (and whatever else is attached to it). Self-target only: to save a different creature, re-equip Robe first (equip {1}, sorcery speed; instant speed on your turn under Forge Anew, and Halvar’s begin-combat trigger moves it for free). When Cloud’s wearing Robe he survives Wrath of God, Cyclonic Rift, Farewell, exile, theft, and targeted removal (not counterspells; a spell on the stack has no Robe attached). The best protection card in the deck because Cloud is the target.
2. Lightning Greaves. Shroud + haste, 0 to equip. Move Greaves to another legal creature for zero before targeting Cloud with another equip ability, then move them back. Shroud stops your own targeting while Greaves remain attached; moving them requires another legal carrier and normal equip timing.
3. Sword of the Realms (back face of Halvar). +2/+0, vigilance, equip {1}{W}, dies-return-to-hand on the equipped creature. Skips commander tax on Cloud entirely. Does not save against exile.
4. Hammer of Nazahn. ETB attaches to a target creature. Equipped creature is indestructible. Pairs with Robe of Stars: indestructible body and a phase-out button.
5. Clever Concealment. Instant-speed phase-out for your permanents. Best response to a board wipe. Hold mana up on the kill turn.

Crop Rotation as resilience

A B4-only tool the other brackets don’t get: Crop Rotation into Command Beacon at instant speed. If Cloud gets countered, killed, or exiled, he lands in the graveyard or in exile, and the state-based action then lets you move him to the command zone (CR 903.9a). Hold priority, cast Crop Rotation, sac any land, find Command Beacon. Next opportunity, tap and sacrifice Command Beacon to put Cloud directly from the command zone to your hand with no commander tax. Recast next turn for the original 5 mana, not 7. The line collapses the commander-tax punishment that ordinarily kills a voltron deck after the second removal spell, and it does it on the same turn the removal happened. Worth holding Crop Rotation for this purpose rather than firing it for tempo if the table is removal-heavy.

Recursion

Forge Anew does three jobs. The free first equip is the one everyone reads, and it also lets you activate equip abilities at instant speed on your turn. The third is the one people miss: when Forge Anew enters, it returns a target Equipment card from your graveyard to the battlefield. The sword comes back unattached, and the free first equip moves it onto a body the same turn. If a sword eats removal, replay Forge Anew (Enlightened Tutor finds it) and bring it back.

Forge Anew is not the only layer. Cid, Freeflier Pilot returns any Equipment card from your graveyard to hand for {2} and a tap, repeatable, and discounts every Equipment spell you cast by {1}. Danitha Capashen, Paragon discounts Aura and Equipment spells by another {1}. Two cost reducers plus a repeatable regrowth is the difference between casting one sword a turn and two.

Samut’s blocking line

Samut, Voice of Dissent can stand Cloud back up after he attacks, but it is not automatic: the untap is an activated ability, {W} plus tapping Samut, targeting another creature, so it costs a white each time and fires once per untap of Samut. Pay it after combat and Cloud blocks on the way back. Combined with Shadowspear (trample + lifelink + strips hexproof and indestructible), Cloud attacks, comes home, gains life, and blocks the counter-swing. The full “attack and live through the next turn” sequence needs Samut on board with {W} open.

Tokens to bring

If you’re sleeving up before a session, throw these in:

• Treasure (10+). Smothering Tithe, Professional Face-Breaker, and Cloud’s 7+ power trigger. Jeska’s Will adds red mana directly, not tokens. You will run out otherwise.
• Germ (1). Kaldra Compleat’s living weapon.
• 3/3 Elephant (1). Generous Gift gives the target’s controller one.

Equipment timing checklist

Sram rewards casting an Aura, Equipment or Vehicle; Aid attaches entering Equipment; Cloud attaches once on entry; attack triggers and combat-damage triggers happen later and have different conditions. Puresteel needs metalcraft, Forge Anew makes only the first equip activation each turn free and permits instant-speed equip only on your turn, and ordinary equip is sorcery speed. Jeska’s Will produces red mana, not Treasure tokens. Protection also stops your own colored targeting: Sword of Feast and Famine gives protection from green, so cast Berserk before that protection applies or use another legal line. Choose attack targets using commander-damage history, blockers, open interaction and the next turn’s retaliation.