Hammer Update 6/4/2025

Update 6/17/25: Added my SB configuration from Apex. I've linked it next to the decklist

Hello everyone, and welcome to the June update for Hammer! Final Fantasy is dropping, so I’ll also touch on both the relevant cards for us, as well as the big change coming down the pipe for us.

Over the past month, we’ve seen the meta flatten out quite a bit. While we see a lot of the same decks (Boros, Prowess, Titan, Belcher, Dimir Frog, Storm, Eldrazi, and Orzhov), we have seen the Neobrand deck pop up quite a bit more, as well as Domain Zoo. With that in mind we will likely want to keep the configuration a bit more open and less targeted towards Boros. 

Additionally, there is one big change coming with the release of Final Fantasy aside from the cards coming out: the Saga rule change (found here)

“We're making a small but impactful rules update with this release. With the advent of Saga creatures, it's much easier to get into a situation where a Saga on the battlefield loses all of its abilities but is still a Saga enchantment. The result of this interaction was previously unintuitive to many players: since that Saga had no chapter abilities, the game defined the "greatest number among its chapter abilities" as zero, and no matter how many lore counters that Saga had on it, it would be sacrificed as a state-based action once it wasn't the source of a chapter ability on the stack (usually right away).

Starting with the release of Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY, we're updating the rules: If a Saga has no chapter abilities, it won't be subject to the state-based action that would cause it to be sacrificed due to how many lore counters it has. Similarly, it won't be subject to the turn-based action that adds a lore counter to each Saga you control at the beginning of your first main phase each turn. For example, if your Summon: Bahamut with one lore counter on it loses all abilities because someone attaches Observed Stasis to it, it'll won't gain lore counters via the turn-based action until it has chapter abilities again (probably because you removed the Observed Stasis somehow.)”

But what does that mean for us? The tl;dr is the following:

Urza’s Saga won’t be “destroyed” by Blood Moon effects (Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, Harbinger of the Seas). It will keep any abilities it gained before the Moon effect entered the battlefield. If Saga enters the battlefield after a Moon effect, it will enter with a counter, but its Chapter 1 ability will not trigger.
This means that if you have a Saga on chapter 2, you will be able to make a construct every turn until the Moon leaves the battlefield and it gets its third counter, causing it to be sacrificed***.

This means that Magus gets much better for us to play in the sideboard, and can be brought in in more matchups (at least experimentally).

Regarding the Final Fantasy set, the only cards that I think are worth remotely considering are
Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, Zack Fair, and Raubahn, Bull of Ala Mhigo.



Cloud is a fairly easy add. He is a slightly tougher-to-cast Stoneforge Mystic. We were already playing Gifts, so clearly we are looking for more of that effect. Additionally, his second line of text is actually relevant if you get Lavaspur Boots or Cutter attached to him to get additional Ward triggers or Flurry Monks.
Zack Fair is fine, but despite his ability to move an attached equipment around, I find other 1-mana options like Sentinel or Giver of Runes. He may be worth revisiting, but I won’t be trying him out too much, despite the flavor of playing him with Cloud.
Raubahn is what I call “bait”. He is technically an equipper, but he only triggers when he attacks, and he lacks haste or meaningful protection. Ward - Pay 2 life is just not relevant text in 2025 Modern. I could be misevaluating the Bull, but that is my initial take. 

With that said, I am excited about both the addition of Cloud and the Saga rules change, the real boon is that I think with the additional white creatures, Flare of Fortitude becomes much more reasonable to cast as long as we add Sentinels as well to get us to 14 nontoken white creatures.



While Flare’s main benefit is its ability to hard counter Wrath of the Skies and Meltdown effects, it also doubles as a way to fog decks that race us back like Boros, Domain, Prowess, etc. It also does a solid Surge impression by enabling the protected Inkmoth kills.

With all that said, here are the 2 configurations I’m looking at. I will be adding a sideboard guide once I’ve had the chance to really play around with the new builds. 

Magus-Heavy Hammer
Hammer ft. Flares

SB Configuration for CloudFlare

Notes on current configurations:

The Magus-Heavy build plays very similarly to last month’s build. It is heavy on 0’s to maximize turn 1 Saga, turn 2 Constructs as additional pressure. It is also slightly better at turning on Opal quickly, so it is better at sticking Magus on turn 1 or 2.

The Flare build is better into a more fair meta since the overall card quality is higher, but you sacrifice a bit of speed for access to Sentinels and Flares.

-Manabase - Note that I added a third Inkmoth as a 21st land. Inkmoth has felt better again now that it is able to kill against other fair decks early, and I found that having access to more lands helped increase the range of keepable hands. I may also consider cutting the Surveil land for another basic plains since I have found fewer opportunities to Surveil. 

-2 Cori-Steel Cutter - Cutters have felt incredible in the deck and enable you to attack matchups in a fundamentally different way, which largely mitigates spot removal. While I’ve enjoyed the card quite a bit, I have found grabbing a third and/or fourth copy to be a trap against decks like Boros, where they can often still go over the top of you with Bombardment/Ajani if you wait around too much with slower equipment.

-0 Dragonfire Blade - The more I played around with this card, the less impressed I became. The +2/+2 is fairly irrelevant, and the “hexproof” simply didn’t matter as much as I had hoped due to the work that went into equipping it. I felt I was almost always better off grabbing one of my other 3+ equipment options.

-0 Magnetic Theft - As I had said in the past, this card was where I was least confident. The more I played with it, the less excited I was to play with it, and wanted an alternate equipper that was a bit more resilient. Forge Anew was were I landed, and it has continued to impress as a 9th equipper that plays exceptionally well with both Paladin and Aid. Additionally, the ability to recur a Cutter against grindy decks, or bring a Hammer back against a Chalice can absolutely win the game.

-Magus of the Moon - This was an absolute beating against Amulet already, and now we get to experiment bringing it in against any deck with sketchy mana where Saga shines (Frog, UW control, Goryo’s). This is all theory-crafting, but I’m excited to play Magus in matchups where we otherwise struggled without our Sagas.

-4 Consign to Memory - Nothing really new to add from last month. Consign is the best card against Eldrazi, and it also has quite a bit of game against Belcher, Cascade decks, and even Storm (if they are playing the new Dragon with storm). It can take a positive matchup like Eldrazi and make it heavily favored, or even give us game against Amulet. The card is very flexible, and quite powerful. I will note that Consign is less important against Amulet since we have added Magus of the Moon, but it is still nice to have in all the other spots I list above.

-3 Flare of Fortitude - I discuss this above, but the ability to stop both Wrath of the Skies/Meltdown as well as counter combo turns out of Belcher, Storm, etc. I believe it will shine most against decks that you want a protection effect against that also MAY have access to Wrath effects (Boros, Domain, Orzhov, Prowess). Note that when you bring it in you should not trim any of your white creatures even if you would historically, and you cut the Ornithopters instead of Sentinels. 

-2 Drannith Magistrate - Drannith just covers a lot of nonsense at the moment. Kethis Combo, Jeskai Ascendancy, and Storm are still seeing a rise in popularity. ***Note that I cut the Dranniths from the Flare list, and that’s because Flare will often cover a lot of the same things such as Storm combo turns while we still have Consigns for Living End as well.

-2 Spell Pierce - Pierce is a nice option against a lot of decks where Surge doesn’t quite do the job. It plays nicely in counterwars (Frog), and will often tag Wrath even into the mid game. It’s also nice to have against Prowess, Mill, and more niche decks (like creativity).

-Grafdigger’s Cage - Cage is a tutorable hate piece off of saga which plays reasonably against any Emry deck, most storm configurations, and provides a good amount of utility against decks that leverage Green Sun’s Zenith and Graveyard backup plans (like Creativity having Persist as a backup) 

-Pithing Needle  - Needle is a flexible tool against many decks, is tutorable off Saga, and contributes to metalcraft for Opal, Paladin, and grows constructs. Similarly to my thoughts on Pierce, I especially like flexible tools such as Needle to cover a wide variety of opposition that I may not have anticipated. It is also an essential tool against Belcher. Quick hit list against the top decks:

-Energy: Bombardment, Ajani

-Eldrazi: Karn, Boseiju, Mite, Worldbreaker

-Frog: Frog, EE

-Belcher: Belcher, Tameshi

TL;DR I am very excited to get access to Cloud and see if Flare does enough to warrant mitigating our ability to turn 1 Saga. Cheers!