Deck and Sideboard Guide 7/4/2024

Alright everyone, here we go. MH3 is here and Nadu is the most broken thing you can do. That’s very apparent. With that in mind, I’d like to note the following:

**If your express goal is to win events, you are giving up equity by not playing Nadu Combo. Just look at the results of Pro Tour MH3. The best players in the world tried everything they could think of and still couldn’t find a good deck against Nadu. As such, until at least something from that deck is banned, my genuine recommendation is to play that deck. I always try to be as honest as possible with y’all, so I felt not acknowledging that reality would be disingenuous and a bit scummy. That being said, I do still think Hammer is competitive, it just isn’t the current Hogaak/Eldrazi Winter/UrzaOko**

**We can all theorize about what will get banned from Nadu Combo, but until WotC actually makes a Ban announcement (please WotC, make an emergency ban), I will not worry about it. I will continue to provide you with the best possible Hammer list I can come up with! Once something changes, I will adjust accordingly.**

**You may also notice that the SB guide has fewer matches than it used to. That’s because there are fewer established decks out there right now. That said, if you keep running into decks, please feel free to ask and I’ll add sb recommendations as long as that archetype becomes prevalent/unified enough to warrant space**

With that out of the way, let’s talk Hammer since it’s still sick (even if it definitely plays Nadu now).

Decklist

Sideboard Guide

List I played at Apex 

Notes on current configuration:

-Nadu Package - 4 Birds and a pair of Clawed Gloves (1 Shuko) is all it takes to completely drown opponents in cards… and that’s the floor. Play bird, target something, and have Nadu get tagged by a removal spell gets you minimum 2 additional cards plus taxing their removal. 

The reality is that this card was a design mistake, and you can check out my videos on my YouTube Channel or Twitch to see the card in action. Card is busted and you should absolutely be playing 4, no questions asked. While you don’t technically have to play Shuko since Puresteel turns every equipment into an “equip: 0”, you absolutely should. I will touch on this later on, but the reality is that having the ability to threaten a potential game-ending mountain of advantage without requiring Aid, Hammer, or Saga is easily worth the cost of taking up 1 slot in your maindeck.

***Reasons Nadu plays well in Hammer (aside from having 9+ Shukos):

-Paladin + Boots + Mantle means that you are very likely to be able to play out your entire deck and attack for 40+ trample damage in the same turn. This is markedly easier to find than you’d expect, and is something you should get used to navigating.

-Opponents will typically try to kill your creatures with spot removal (especially in game 1). Nadu punishes them for this.

-Nadu can flip Sagas and/or Inkmoths to generate additional threats/value on top of what he already does.

-We have a LOT of ways to target our creatures without Shuko: Giver, Paying 1-2 mana to equip Boots, Mantle, or Spear.

-He rewards you for having multiple Sigarda’s Aids in play since they both generate triggers.

-Every equipment is a Shuko with Paladin in play.

-0 Sentinel - The reality is that the format is in a spot where Esper Sentinel taxing your Opponent simply doesn’t matter. Sentinel is at his best in a “fair” meta where a 1/1 that either force spikes your opponent or draws a couple cards is backbreaking (see the Izzet Murktide/4C control metagame). Sentinel is at his worst against decks that go way over the top, especially if they do so exceptionally fast. With Nadu combo, Ruby Storm, Eldrazi, Necrodominance being some of the most popular decks, Sentinel simply isn’t where you want to be.

-4 Giver - Givers on the other hand act as an early creature to pair with your drums, a way to tax removal spells, AND a way to trigger Nadu for free. Plus protecting Nadu is pretty unreasonably good. Giver does a solid job and serves a lot of roles for 1 white mana, so I’m happy to run at least 3.

-4 Drum, 1 Mantle - This is the highest number of “drum effects” I think I’ve ever played. That being said, the deck is hungrier for mana (and colored mana) than it has ever been. The ability to play a Nadu on turn 2, play Saga on turn 1 more consistently, and have the ability to more easily hold up interaction are all reasons that I’m happy to have 5 of this effect. 

-Mantle is also much stronger in this shell since it both plays will with “fair” Nadu by equipping for 1, but also enables you to churn through your entire deck thanks to Paladin. Additionally, having a colored source you can snag with Stoneforge to set up a Nadu turn can be big game.

-1 Steelshaper’s Gift - This is a great flex slot, and the fact that it play so nicely with both the classic “bonk” strategy as well as the Nadu strategy makes me very happy to have 1 copy.

-Haywire Mite - There relevant targets in basically every deck for this lil guy, so I’m very happy to have access to him. You could definitely swap him out for somethin in the SB, but I like having him as both a body since the floor is a bit higher. As a quick hit list, here are some of the most common targets in the newer decks:
-Nadu - Saga, Shuko

-Jeskai - Ring

-Eldrazi/Tron - Disruptor Flute, Map, Trinisphere, Ring

-Boros Energy - Static Prison

-Ruby Storm - Ruby Medallion, Static Prison

-Necro - Necrodominance, Ring

-Manabase - “But how can we play Bant mana Travis?” Well, the reality is that I have already played it in the past. While the mana is a bit more demanding than I’d like, the reality is that overwhelming benefits Nadu provides to us is more than worth the cost on the mana. I have found that by increasing the drum effects and tweaking the land numbers has made it quite manageable. Note that with the current configuration we have 10 Green lands (9 Fetches + 1 Temple Garden) and 11 Blue lands (9 Fetches + 2 Hallowed Fountains) You could absolutely cut a fetch for a second Garden, but I have found it to be unnecessary. I am a bit heavier on Blue than Green because there are very few turns you need 2 green mana in the same turn cycle, but there are definitely turns (especially post-board) where you might need multiple blue sources.

Sideboard

-2 Surge of Salvation - This is far and away the lowest number of Surges I’ve played since the card’s printing over a year ago, so you know there is a good reason. Unsurprisingly, that reason is Nadu. Who cares about protecting yourself from spot removal when you can just cram an extra 20+ cards down your opponent’s throat. Surge is still an important tool, but the removal in the format is a bit different than it used to be. The increase in sweepers, and decrease in discard means that Surge ain’t quite what it used to be. As such you don’t want to get flooded with em.

-2 Consign to Memory - Consign is an incredibly flexible card that is kind of an overlap between Surge and Pierce and covers a wide range of threats we face. Not only can it counter key triggers and colorless spells, but it’s ability to replicate means that it pushes through opposing countermagic. I dive deep into this card in my last update here if you’d like to see a bit more detail. That said, the card’s ability to counter Ruby Medallion, Storm Triggers, and Annihilator Triggers have also become much more relevant in the last month than I expected during my initial write-up.

-2 Sanctifier - This may be a bit surprising given I’m a known Sanctifier-hater, even cutting the card during Rakdos Scam’s heyday. With that said, between Necro, Ruby Storm, Goryo’s, Scam, and Red-Based fair decks like Prowess, Sanctifier more than earns her slots right now.

-3 Pithing Needle - In most matchups, you’ll only bring in one, but against decks like Nadu, you’ll be very happy to have 3. Naming Shuko (and boarding ours out) and Outrider does a ton of work to buy you the time to execute your own combo against Nadu, and I think that’s the best we can hope for. Additionally, with the removal of Cursed Totems, having extra needles is a nice option against the people still playing Yawgmoth.

-2 Suncleanser? - Suncleaner is a 4-toughness creature that stops all energy generation for as long as she’s in play. This shuts off Galvanic Discharge, makes Tune a joke, and Wrath of the Skies will only ever hit our 0s (saga is still the most breaking part, but we can beat that). Additionally, Suncleanser almost entirely shuts off Boros Energy. Post board we also have Givers, Surges, and/or Pierces to further protect the hatebear.
-Note that having 4 toughness means that she also survives Phlage, which is absolutely huge.

-Thassa’s Oracle??? - This is likely the most cuttable card from the sideboard, but having the ability to kill Amulet players through looping Rings after you Nadu combo is just too much for me to turn down. 

-Cryptic Coat - This card still plays really well in the fair matchups. That said, the card is pretty terrible against most of the unfair decks, which make up over ~50% of the meta. As such I like where this card resides at the moment. If your metagame is more fair, then I’d revisit moving it to the maindeck.

Some relevant questions I’ve gotten recently:

“What if Nadu gets banned, then what???” - See the above note. I’ll worry about it when we get there since the entire format would change.

“But Travis! How do we ever beat Wrath of the Skies???” - Wrath of the Skies is a very powerful card against us, no way around it. That said, your general plan should be to stagger your threats to force a wrath and then follow up with another wave of pressure/kill, or just deploy Nadu + Shuko and immediately rebuild. There are times where you simply won’t be able to beat Wrath, and that’s okay. Try to identify the spots where you can’t beat it, and ignore its existence. Post-board Suncleansers and Spell Pierces do a nice job of pushing back on it as well. 

-“What about Flare of Fortitude??” - This card is probably great against Wrath and other use cases, but the reality is that we only have 4 Giver, 4 SFM, and 4 Paladin to sacrifice to it. I touch on this card in MH3 Set Review, and while I acknowledge how powerful it is, I believe that this would require too much cost in deckbuilding to be worth it at the moment. That being said, if we were back to not playing Nadu, I could see revisiting this card as a way to fight Wraths since we could reconfigure around it. For now though, It’s a nope from me.

“How is our Ruby Storm Matchup” - Luckily the PT proved that Ruby Storm is pretty easily hated out if people want to, and had a dismal performance despite GOATs like Kai and Finkel playing the deck. Sanctifier nuking their yard coupled with Surges, Consigns, and a fast Hammer are a great recipe for success. This is an example of a matchup where the Nadu Hammer build gets to outshine the Nadu Combo simply due to the ability to cut the Nadu Combo entirely and still have a real gameplan.

With all that in mind, I hope you all enjoy Hammering. I will keep working on the deck since I have so much fun with it, and I’ve got my fingers crossed for an emergency ban to something in the Nadu Combo deck. Maybe by putting in the work on this update, it will encourage WotC to take action just to dagger me 🤣.