Strandwalker

The +2/+4 split is the clearest design statement on the card: nearly all the value is in the toughness, and the gift of reach confirms the intent. This is not a sword you bolt onto an evasive attacker to close a game; it is a wall that builds itself, conjuring a 0/0 Germ and immediately turning it into a 2/4 that can block fliers and trade in the air the turn it arrives. Living weapon solves the structural dead-hand problem Equipment carried since its invention (a sword with no creature to wield it just sits there), but most cards built on the mechanic point the resulting body at the red zone. This one points it at the ground. Skinwing and Bonehoard chase aggression and scaling; the work here is absorption, a defensive body that needs no cooperation from the rest of the board to function. The five mana to cast and the equip to relocate it are the limits that keep that convenience honest: the Germ is fragile, and a single removal spell on the token leaves the Equipment bare until you can afford to re-attach it. That vulnerability is the trade you accept for a creature you never had to draw, and it is why living weapon plays best when you leave the Germ where it lands rather than treating the Equipment as a transferable upgrade.