Hammer Update 5/5/2025

Hello everyone, and welcome to the May update for Hammer! 

Underworld Breach is long gone, and the format has had some time to shake out. It’s looking like the top decks we want to focus on are Boros Energy (by a large margin), Eldrazi, Dimir Frogtide, Prowess, Ruby Storm, Amulet Titan (gross), and Belcher (both Blue and Red variants are popping up, though I would classify them as different decks). 

With that all in mind, how do our matchups feel? I have felt good into Boros, Eldrazi, Frog, and Belcher. Prowess and Ruby Storm have felt about even (maybe slightly favorable), and Titan is bad as always, though we’ve got some tricks up our sleeve for that one now). 

The biggest impact from Tarkir: Dragonstorm is clear at this point: Cori-Steel Cutter. After I decided that the Leyline Axe build is largely solved and saw Andrea Mengucci’s build, I was intrigued to iterate on it. You can see my league here. After playing some more with the build, I am largely happy to end up with the current list:

Steel Cutter Hammer

Sideboard Guide
As I’ve covered in the past, when adding cards I like to consider a few pieces, but namely “What problems does this card solve?”. General power level and how smoothly it synergizes with the existing shell are also key pieces I like to evaluate. So with that said, let’s take a look at the 4 notable cards:

Cori-Steel Cutter - It is markedly easier to double spell in Hammer than I initially considered. SFM and Gift are both effectively 2 spells in 1 card as a start. Additionally, having a bunch of 0 mana spells helps maximize our chance to trigger Cutter. Additional instances of trample and haste are nice additions to the archetype as well. Sometimes we also run into the issue of our creatures dying, so creating bodies for “free” also helps address that. Cutter also plays very nicely wish Sigarda’s Aid since it can both act as surprise trample/haste as well as enabling the following line: You can cast a spell and then cast Colossus Hammer with no creatures in play. This will trigger Cutter and create a monk. Hammer will then resolve and Aid will trigger, allowing you to attach it to the monk and attack with a 12/12 haste + trampling creature. 

Cutter also helps supplement our Saga constructs as backup “fair” plans, and punishes our opponents for overloading on spot removal to address Sigarda’s Aid and Paladin. Cutter also plays well against stony silence effects, and even reasonably against wrath of the skies due to its higher mana value and ability to rebuild post-wrath.

While Cutter is great, I’m unsure about the full 4 copies since we have access to both SFM and Gift. That’s how I ended up on 3 copies, though I am not 100% confident in that number.

Dragonfire Blade - This is definitely the card that I have the least confidence in, especially since it has some matchups where it’s mostly blank (eldrazi, combo decks, etc). That said, it can be a powerful tool to grab with Saga/SFM/Gift, and acting as a protection spell with Aid/Theft is enough for me to keep giving it a spin.

Magnetic Theft - This is definitely a card that I have poo-poo’ed the most in the past, and it took some very specific reasons for me to give it an honest try. Firstly, we have a red splash anyway for cutter. Secondly, the cheap spell increases your chances to trigger Cutter. Thirdly, it plays very nicely with Dragonfire Blade. While Mengu was originally playing 4 copies, I have found flooding on equippers to be pretty brutal. Theft is easily worse than Aid/Paladin, and is both cheaper and more flexible than Battlefield Improvisation. This is another card that we could replace with BI or Forge Anew, but I think it play an interesting role at the moment.

Oh, and the ability to steal an opposing Cutter sounds very appealing to me.

Magus of the Moon - “But we have Saga in our deck!” Yeah yeah I know. Magus nuking our Sagas isn’t my favorite interaction, but Magus is also one of the best cards in the format against Amulet and some other random greedy piles. The addition of Mox makes playing Magus a bit easier, and the little hatebear even carries a hammer (unlike Blood Moon). This won’t be a card you bring in for matchups where our Sagas shine, even when Magus does a good job hosing them (Dimir Frogtide is a good example of a deck that fits this profile)

Why play Cutter Hammer over Leyline Hammer?

Ultimately, my thoughts on this are explosiveness vs. consistency. Between Leyline Axe and Battlefield Improvisations, the Leyline build is optimized to maximize the turn 2 kills. The Cutter build is slightly slower, but also never suffers from the reality of “drawing Leyline Axe after your opening hand.” The Cutter build is also going to have better fair game due to Cutters complementing your Construct plan. Both are reasonable, but I am leaning towards the Cutter build at the moment.

Notes on current configuration:

-4 Memnite over Sentinel - While Sentinel is slightly more interesting with the uptick in prowess, I am still quite low on the card (unfortunately). Of the decks I listed at the top, it is only reasonable against Boros and good against Dimir. It is quite bad against most other decks. Thus, I value the 0-mana cost of Memnite in the build

-4 Sigarda’s Aid - As I mentioned above, Aid plays quite well with Blade and Cutter. Additionally, without Leyline Axe in the deck, Aid is the better option than Battlefield Improvisations, so we are back to old reliable.

-2/2 Surge of Salvation split - Surge is definitely my favorite option as maindeck protection/interaction, but I don’t want to dilute the deck game 1 with too much air. Have a couple of these in the main is a nice way to have some protection without flooding on the effect.

-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.

-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, and Drannith does a ton of work against all 3 of these.

-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

Cheers, and enjoy hitting for huge chunks of damage!