Equipment quickies

[kirbysdl]

I'm coming back to magic after a few years away, and am considering adding some equipment to my casual white weenie deck.  After reading the comprehensive rulebook, some things are still unclear to me.  Confirmation would be greatly appreciated!

1. I have a critter with equipped Equipment.  The critter dies (say to combat damage) and the Equipment detaches and sits around in play until it's attached to another critter.

2. Artifacts' continuous effects are no longer affected by whether or not the artifact is tapped.  If someone taps my Equipment with a Twiddle, any continuous effects it might have are unaffected, i.e. they are still active as if the Equipment were untapped.

EDIT: 3: Unless I have a card that specifically allows it, I can't arbitrarily choose to unequip equipment, right?  In other words, equipment stays equipped until some unequip effect occurs or the creature is killed.

4. If an equipped token phases out, it leaves the game, and any equipment remains out of game for the remainder of the game.  If a non-token creature with equipment is removed with Swords to Plowshares, does the equipment fall off and stay in play, as in question 1 above?  In both cases the critter is leaving game, though it seems equipment follows the equipped creature when the creature phases out, so that might cause a difference in resolution.

I thought I had more, but I guess that's it (for now!).  Thanks!

[UR]

1. Yes.

2. Yes. Unless the artifact specifically states that it's effect is turned off by tapping it (Howling Mine for instance).

3. Yes. You can move it to another creature, but a creature can't let go of it for some reason.

[Clariax]

If the equipped creature leaves play for any reason other than phasing, regardless of what zone it goes to, the equipment stays in play unattached.

Phasing works considerably different.  If a creature phases out, all equipment and auras on that creature phase out as well.  This is called phasing out indirectly.  When a permanent phases out indirectly, it's tied to whatever it was attached to in play and will phase in with that permanent.  If that permanent never phases back in, due to ceasing to exist because it's a token, then the auras and equipment that were attached to it will not phase back in either.  Note that this is different than being in the removed from game zone.

[kirbysdl]

5. Thanks!  I've got one more.  We all know that if I bolt a White Knight in response to a Holy Strength targeting the Knight, the Knight dies and the Holy Strength fizzles, thus going into the graveyard. 

What if I bolt the Knight in response to a Sword of Fire and Ice equipping that Knight?  The Knight dies as before, but what happens to the Sword?  Stays in play, or goes to graveyard cause the target is lost?  Thanks!

EDIT: 6. Guess it's two more.  This is a more generic sort of situation I think... two 2/2 Grizzly Bears have a fight, one is equipped with Banshee's Blade.  They deal their 2 combat damage to each other.  By the time the Equipment sends the charge counter in to toughen up the equipped bear, he's already gone to bear heaven.  Thus the equipped bear dies because adding the counter is done after the damage already resolves and kills the bear, right?

[Clariax]

If the target of the equip ability is not legal on resolution, the ability is countered.  As such the equipment stays in play, and if it's already attached to some creature, it stays attached to that creature.  The countered equip ability does nothing.




Banshee's Blade triggers when damage resolves.  State-based effects are checked before the trigger goes on the stack, so the Bear is long dead by the time the blade gets its charge counters