Hammer Update 1/15/2025

Hello everyone, and welcome to a January update for Hammer! With the Regional Championships fast approaching and the metagame solidifying, I wanted to drop my most recent list and sideboard guide. 

Note that you can absolutely splash blue as well, and I would recommend checking out the list from my 5-0 video here. With that said, this is the list I think is best-positioned at the moment:

Boros Hammer

Sideboard Guide

If you want to splash blue, I think it would be mostly for spell pierce, as that card tends to shine in the Frog matchup most. Consign is also a great card, but I found that I was most often countering Kozilek’s Command out of Eldrazi, and Surge does a fantastic job of covering the most important part of that card for us.

Splashes - I think you can absolutely splash blue in addition to, or potentially in place of, the red. The main advantages of Red are Pyroclasm effects as well as having both sides of Wear//Tear. Fervent Champion is also a great card, but you may notice that it is missing from my current configuration. Blue gets you mostly countermagic as well as access to tools like Lavinia and Kappa Cannoneer. While there are good arguments for these, I currently like the red splash the most.

Notably, I find that the most popular decks right now are Boros, Frog, Breach Combo, and Eldrazi Ramp. Against Boros, the Pyroclasm effects can absolutely swing the matchup, and Tear really shines since they have a bunch of enchantments we can tag on the cheap. Against Frog, I think we lose when their answers line up perfectly paired with a fast clock. That said, if you get used to navigating their countermagic, the matchup gets notably favorable for us. Do your best to not get cheesed by Harbinger of the Seas. Against Breach Combo, Wear/Tear is big game, and we can often do a great job pressuring their fairly limited interaction. Finally, against Eldrazi, if you can have a fast clock coupled with Surge, the match is good. 

All of this is a long way of saying “I think red is better than blue right now because pyroclasm and wear/tear are the big cards you care about having access to.”

Notes on current configuration:

-No Fervent Champions - Champion is good, don’t get me wrong. You can definitely play it. My primary reasons for cutting it are as follows: 1. He takes up a lot of slots. 4 slots for another beater is a ton of room in our list that is already tight on space. 2. He Incentivizes you to fetch red early and often. Our mana is much better when we can function entirely off basic plains game 1, and avoiding Moon/Harbinger effects is a marked upside. Having access to more copies of things like Surge and Forge Anew are nice bonuses. That said, I can certainly see a world where Javier returns to the deck in the near future.

-No Reality Chip - Frankly, I think this card is a trap. While it can certainly shine, I found it to be a solid option, I don’t believe that it performs well enough in enough spots to warrant its spot in the deck. It is reasonable, but I am personally not a fan. I think as the meta has shifted back to more interaction, chip’s ability to overperform has been diminished.

-4 Surge of Salvation - Surge is honestly just very good right now. There has been a huge uptick in spot removal and Boros is back on top. Surge stopping spot removal is obviously huge, but Force of Vigor has also seen an uptick. Breach has fairly limited interaction for us, and being able to stop a Haywire Mite from killing a key permanent is often game-winning. Additionally, the card acts as a time walk against Belcher activations. Even against Eldrazi, I found that I cared way more about countering Worldbreaker/Mycospawn/Emrakul cast triggers than I did about stopping the body, so it does a good Consign impression. Additionally, stopping K Command from exiling your creatures is often the make-or-break moment.Also important note is that Surge gets better post-board when you bring in hate pieces like Needle and RIP. Finally, the ability to surge prior to activating an Inkmoth nexus to get a kill against an on-board bombardment is huge game. The card is wildly flexible, and there’s a reason you see me bringing in every copy post-board against just about every deck.
***Bonus fun fact: If you surge first, you can Pyroclasm and it won’t damage any of your little dudes.

-Nettlecyst - Cyst continues to overperform, and does a great job presenting a fair threat that you can grab with SFM. As I’ve said recently, it has gotten a lot better post-opal for a few reasons: 1. We have more cheap artifacts than before, so it is often bigger than it used to be. 2. It is a huge threat when paired with Axe even by themselves. 3. Having access to a threat that doesn’t require Aid/Paladin to be a threat is really important against decks like Frog. 4. Against the decks that cast Stony Silence (like Boros), having a chunky body that doesn’t need to activate is quite important.

-3 Pyroclasm - First, let me say that you can absolutely play Whipflare in this slot instead if you’d like. They are basically the same card. I mostly prefer Clasm because it can tag Haywire Mite and small constructs, but if you are more concerned about sweeping your Sentinels/Thopters, then Whipflare is a fine choice.

Now with that out of the way, Pyroclasm is very good in the Boros Energy and Yawg matchups. Not a lot of complexity here, just that killing a bunch of small creatures is good there.  

-2 Wear//Tear - Honestly, you could probably play this card in a mono-white build and simply play a few sunbaked canyon for the potential upside of having Wear. Tear is the relevant piece here, and it has game against most decks. Boros, Breach, Eldrazi, and Amulet are all quite susceptible to this interaction, and I am happy to have at least 2 copies. 

-2 Rest in Peace - Completely shutting off most of Breach’s utility in addition to stopping their combo is huge. Additionally, making it effectively impossible to cast Oculus/Murktide against Frog, and being the best graveyard hate in the format means I’m happy to play at least a couple copies. I don’t think Sanctifier does enough in this slot, so we are at ol reliable RIP. 

**I also think that this is worth experimenting with as a tool against Boros since it both shuts off Phlage as well as makes it impossible for Ajani to flip (since tokens and cards get exiled, nothing “dies” to trigger him)

-2 Strict Proctor - These are definitely the cards I am least confident in, and they can definitely be replaced by other options. I think the WB Sewers matchup is pretty terrible, but between a million Solitudes/hate pieces and Wrath of the Skies, I’m inclined to just board in Surges and try to go as fast as possible, and accept the matchup is terrible.

Thank you again for all the support, and I’ll keep working on Hammer. Good luck in your RCs for everyone going!