Grip of Phyresis

Steal effects in blue usually target the thing on the battlefield that matters: a creature, a planeswalker, the bomb. This one carves out a stranger niche by taking only the gear, then solving the rules problem its own theft creates. Equipment is meaningless without a host, so the spell manufactures one on the spot: a 0/0 Phyrexian Germ that exists purely to wear what you just took. That token dies instantly to state-based actions unless the Equipment it carries grants enough toughness to keep it alive, which is the wager built into the cast. Steal a Batterskull and you walk away with a 4/4 vigilant lifelinker the moment it resolves; steal a Loxodon Warhammer or a pair of boots, which add power but no toughness, and the Germ falls off immediately. But the theft is permanent regardless of what the Germ does: you keep control of the Equipment, and once you have a creature of your own, you can pay the equip cost and arm it normally. The flavor of Phyrexian compleation, grafting living tissue onto a borrowed weapon, is doing real mechanical work rather than sitting as set dressing. The mandatory Germ clause elevates this beyond a plain control-magic effect on an artifact: the spell does not just take the object, it forces the object to spawn a body and then asks whether that body can survive the attachment. Either way, the weapon is yours.