Equipment

Game terms · beginner

Equipment is an artifact subtype that attaches to a creature you control and improves it, and survives that creature's death.

An Equipment can be attached to a creature and can't legally be attached to anything that isn't a creature. [301.5]
The creature it is attached to is the equipped creature. [301.5a]
Equipment spells are cast like other artifact spells and enter the battlefield unattached. The equip keyword ability is what attaches one to a creature you control. [301.5b]
An ability referring to "equipped creature" means whatever the permanent is attached to, even when that permanent isn't itself an Equipment. [301.5f]

Control of the creature matters only when the equip ability is activated and when it resolves. Equip is sorcery-speed because of its own keyword rules, not because of the Equipment type.
An Equipment that is also a creature can't equip a creature unless it has reconfigure. An Equipment that loses the Equipment subtype can't equip. An Equipment can't equip itself. [301.5c]
An Equipment attached to an illegal or nonexistent permanent becomes unattached but stays on the battlefield. Unlike an Aura, it does not fall off into the graveyard. [301.5c]
The Equipment's controller and the equipped creature's controller need not be the same, and changing control of one does not change control of the other. [301.5d]
An effect that would put an Equipment onto the battlefield attached to something it can't equip puts it onto the battlefield unattached instead. [301.5e]

[301.5] [301.5a] [301.5b] [301.5c] [301.5d] [301.5e] [301.5f]

Comprehensive Rules