I'm pretty sure that you have 64 cards in your deck. It says that the deck only has 10 artifacts, but I count 14 (20 if you include the Skirges and Citadels).
I agree that the deck is lacking in decent, cheap equipment. Infiltration Lens and O-Naginata aren't that good, and even when they are okay, they're only played as a 1-2 of. The swords are great, but they're super clunky. I was actually considering playing a couple of Darksteel Axes. Yes, it's really inefficient when compared to Bonesplitter. However, Affinity is one of the most popular decks, and when Affinity gets played, so too does artifact hate. The majority of artifact hate comes in the form of destroy effects (with the exception of Stony Silence), and Axe gets around all of those.
In regards to the board, have you considered replacing Rest in Peace with Relic? Before, it could be argued that the effect was worth sacrificing the card draw from Outfitter, but now, it non-bos with seven of your cards, eight if you decide to replace the Firewalkers.
Saving Grace doesn't really work against Storm, unfortunately. Since the damage is divided among all the grapes, it will save you from damage equal to the enchanted creature's toughness, the creature will die in between spells due to state-based actions, and then the rest will hit you.
Crook will have to compete with Relic and RiP. It's pretty expensive compared to Relic and doesn't draw a card, but that targeting is really nice, and unlike RiP, it doesn't hurt our own cards.
I don't think that Adorned Pouncer can ever replace Kor Duelist in the deck. You can't set up 6 damage on turn two with Pouncer, and the Eternalize is way too slow to be relevant against Burn or Dredge. As for Sacred Cat, you have the same problem of losing a lot of your explosive potential. However, as you noted, the embalm is much easier to achieve, and the lifelink does actually help against aggro decks. Still, I'm certain that if you want it in your maindeck, Kor Duelist is not the card that you should take out.
I don't like it as a turn two play, since it makes any removal on the opponent's part really hard to recover from. I was thinking that it was better off as a Leatherback Baloth that sacrifices our turn four to cement our board presence with a threatening body and mana held up for a protection spell. It's kind of like Greenbelt Rampager in the mana aspect, though Rhonas's Last Stand is much bigger and doesn't need an early mana investment if we want to jam it turn three and still have that one mana available in case of removal.
EDIT: Here's the card Forcekin was referring to:
When ~ enters the battlefield, choose target creature. You may give that creature +x/+x until end of turn, where X is "Reshaping Khenra"'s power.
Eternalize 4GG
It seems nice, but IMO the Eternalize ability is too expensive to ever be relevant.
I like to play around with white-weenie/equipment concepts and two of my favorite combos have not been mentioned, mind you it adds to cost of the deck: 1. Add 2-3 Aether Vial and a combination of your choosing of 3-4 Taj-Nar Swordsmith and/or Ranger of Eos depending on how you're looking to finish the game.
A second card that drastically changes what you can do is Serra Ascendant. This is a card that is just as comfortable in this deck as it is in Sisters with some slight considerations for life gain.
Turning the deck into a more midrange style deck that tries to out attrition opponents with the constant threat of equipment could be a good idea, though I'm pretty sure just adding land would be better than Aether Vial if we go with Ranger.
As for Serra Ascendant, the card feels kind of... win more? The soul sisters don't really fit in this deck, so lifelink is probably our best option. Ascendant would need 10+ damage to activate, and that point we're already winning. It is really good at ending board stalls, however, so I could see adding some in a Ranger version of the deck. I have no idea how to actually go about building that, though.
Has anyone tried Grafted Wargear or Cranial Plating maybe to replace the Sword? I am thinking because the Sword is a late game card to by then the plating would have lots of beef up or even the wargear
PorousBoat has tested Cranial Plating and found it underwhelming. This deck really only gets about 3-4 artifacts out on average, and that's just not a high enough payoff compared to the swords.
I've tried out Grafted Wargear before. It actually did pretty well: It's pretty bursty, and the sacrifice clause didn't come up all that often. However, it does end up being a pile of stats that can't be abused by Paladin or Steelshaper a lot of the time.
Shattering Spree is better than By Force in the sideboard, since all of your lands tap for red. Also, Mogg War Marshal seems nice here, though I'm not sure what I'd remove for it (probably the Ember Haulers?)
They're not finishers (well, Mortarpod can be one). We don't really need much in the way of finishers since our deck does a lot of damage and takes longer than other aggro decks to run out of steam (card draw and equipments). Reach cards would be nice, but the swords are too expensive to run as a playset and white doesn't have access to direct damage.
You should remove the Godsends and one each of the Swords in favor of three Flayer Husk and two Mortarpod (you'd have to cut one more card, probably a Vault Skirge or Auriok Steelshaper?). 18 lands aren't enough to run six 3-drops, and the synergy that Husk and Pod have with our equipments matter cards are just too good to pass up.
I like the cat in a split with Kor Firewalker. It's lighter on the manabase and curves well into a T2 Bonesplitter.
I don't really see many situations where Resolve would be better than Strength of Arms. I would probably play it if the cycling cost was zero, but as it is, two mana is just too clunky for make up for its narrowness.
As for Dusk, I'm don't think that it's worth playing in our deck.
It's expensive. It's pretty hard to reach four mana with this deck, and it's even more challenging to get to five.
Dusk will kill our own equipped creatures most of the time, preventing us from taking full advantage of the board wipe.
Dawn doesn't return our creatures to the board. As I said before, it's gonna take a while to get to five mana. Having to spend an additional turn actually playing our creatures doesn't help things.
I think that Mouth is too overcosted to justify playing it over Baloth or Elder. The card draw will probably take up an entire turn in addition to only being good if we already have a threatening board, which is difficult when our turn 3 play is a 3/3. Lifecrafter's Beastiary is probably a better CA engine, and it still doesn't really see play.
It just seems like a worse version of Surrak, the Hunt Caller, and that doesn't see play. I guess it works better than Surrak when paired with undying, but Geist is the only one that is regularly used.
There was some discussion about the croc on the last page, at post #5375.
Unfortunately, undying doesn't reset when a creature dies from -1/-1 counters.
Dark Ascension FAQ:
If a creature with undying that has a +1/+1 counter on it receives enough -1/-1 counters to cause it to be destroyed by lethal damage or put into its owner's graveyard for having 0 or less toughness, undying won't trigger and the card won't return to the battlefield. That's because undying checks the creature's existence just before it leaves the battlefield, and it still has all those counters on it at that point.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/print.asp?ID=3096
I agree that the deck is lacking in decent, cheap equipment. Infiltration Lens and O-Naginata aren't that good, and even when they are okay, they're only played as a 1-2 of. The swords are great, but they're super clunky. I was actually considering playing a couple of Darksteel Axes. Yes, it's really inefficient when compared to Bonesplitter. However, Affinity is one of the most popular decks, and when Affinity gets played, so too does artifact hate. The majority of artifact hate comes in the form of destroy effects (with the exception of Stony Silence), and Axe gets around all of those.
In regards to the board, have you considered replacing Rest in Peace with Relic? Before, it could be argued that the effect was worth sacrificing the card draw from Outfitter, but now, it non-bos with seven of your cards, eight if you decide to replace the Firewalkers.
Crook will have to compete with Relic and RiP. It's pretty expensive compared to Relic and doesn't draw a card, but that targeting is really nice, and unlike RiP, it doesn't hurt our own cards.
EDIT: Here's the card Forcekin was referring to:
When ~ enters the battlefield, choose target creature. You may give that creature +x/+x until end of turn, where X is "Reshaping Khenra"'s power.
Eternalize 4GG
It seems nice, but IMO the Eternalize ability is too expensive to ever be relevant.
Turning the deck into a more midrange style deck that tries to out attrition opponents with the constant threat of equipment could be a good idea, though I'm pretty sure just adding land would be better than Aether Vial if we go with Ranger.
As for Serra Ascendant, the card feels kind of... win more? The soul sisters don't really fit in this deck, so lifelink is probably our best option. Ascendant would need 10+ damage to activate, and that point we're already winning. It is really good at ending board stalls, however, so I could see adding some in a Ranger version of the deck. I have no idea how to actually go about building that, though.
PorousBoat has tested Cranial Plating and found it underwhelming. This deck really only gets about 3-4 artifacts out on average, and that's just not a high enough payoff compared to the swords.
I've tried out Grafted Wargear before. It actually did pretty well: It's pretty bursty, and the sacrifice clause didn't come up all that often. However, it does end up being a pile of stats that can't be abused by Paladin or Steelshaper a lot of the time.
I don't really see many situations where Resolve would be better than Strength of Arms. I would probably play it if the cycling cost was zero, but as it is, two mana is just too clunky for make up for its narrowness.
As for Dusk, I'm don't think that it's worth playing in our deck.
There was some discussion about the croc on the last page, at post #5375.
Dark Ascension FAQ:
If a creature with undying that has a +1/+1 counter on it receives enough -1/-1 counters to cause it to be destroyed by lethal damage or put into its owner's graveyard for having 0 or less toughness, undying won't trigger and the card won't return to the battlefield. That's because undying checks the creature's existence just before it leaves the battlefield, and it still has all those counters on it at that point.
But yeah, the synergy is still pretty strong.