LotR: Hammer Review

As many of you may know, a new set absolutely dripping in flavor is dropping this week! But is it dripping in playables for everyone's favorite combo deck? Well, here are my thoughts on the cards! I will also put my personal rating next to the card as a quick reference.

As a quick clarification, here is the lens that I review cards through:

1. What problem does this card solve?

2. What do we cut for this card?

Forge Anew - Play It.

What problem does this card solve?

• It adds redundancy in another equipper, but is much closer to Puresteel Paladin than Kor Outfitter - This is a free equip EVERY turn rather than just once, and is much more resilient than a 2/2
• It actively complements our other equippers. With Paladin, we can move all equipment at instant speed on our turn. With Aid we can respond to the aid trigger by equipping again. If OP chooses to burn your creature in response to the aid trigger, you can equip it again for free with Forge Anew on your turn

What do we cut for this card?

• It’s a strict improvement to Kor Outfitter, and with increased combo density, we can likely trim a protection spell to make more room.
• 3 mana isn’t ideal, but 2W is very manageable to do in the deck as supplemental equippers.

Oh wait... that isn't the whole card! Here is the rest of it for posterity:

You may have noticed that I blurred out the first line of text in the card; that's because I want to be very clear: the first line of text on this card has no bearing on my evaluation of it, and the first line of text is just a bonus. That first line of text has seemingly misdirected people to believing that this is a sideboard card.

Let me say it: "This is not a sideboard card. This is going into the 60."

That ability to rebuy equipment is certainly nice in post-board games where your opponents are more likely to have destroy/discard for your equipment, but it is almost certainly not the reason that I am so excited to try this card out.

I could absolutely be wrong and 3 mana could be too much, but my gut tells me that this is a great addition to the deck.

Oh... and it pitches to Solitude in the worst case.

Verdict: Card slots into the main, with exact numbers TBD.

Boromir, Warden of the Tower - Nope

Boromir is a phenomenal card in the SB as a hatebear... for 2 mana. At 3 mana he is simply too expensive and slow to do what you need him to in Hammer.

His most obvious implications are against Cascade and Wraths. We don't have a big problem with wraths (generally), but all the cascade spells cost 3... and so does he. Being too slow in at least half of your games (the ones where you're on the draw) is just too big a downside.

Verdict: play Drannith or Lavinia instead.

Samwise the Stouthearted - Nope

Sam is a fantastic character... and pretty poor in Hammer.

-He doesn't really solve any problem that the deck currently has. He doesn't address any specific problems, he is a pretty weak body for the cost, and he can be very hard to time. Holding up 2 mana in Hammer is already very hard, but put timing restrictions on a card's usefulness, and I'm off it.

-The most common use-case I've seen proposed for this card is rebuying Urza's Saga when it dies. That seems great, until you realize that if your plan is to cast Sam to rebuy Saga, that means you are likely in a scenario where you are neither making a construct, nor are you equipping a hammer. If that's the case to make this card good, I'd rather just mulligan my hand.

-If the card he re-bought came into play, I'd be about it. Unfortunately, it just goes back to your hand.

Verdict: Nope.

Reprieve- It's probably fine

This card is really interesting. Remand is pretty wildly unplayable in modern, but White obviously didn't have access to this effect. It is very good against cascade and any pitch elemental, but holding up 2 mana reactively is often a losing line.

Even against Creativity, they can just go for it again the following turn.

What do we cut for this card? We would likely have to cut hate cards for Cascade or Creativity, neither of which sound appealing.

Verdict: I won't be playing it, but it does have a unique angle.

Lost to Legend - Probably not

This card is actually really interesting. It's primary use is that it is flexible "removal" that can tuck any walker (T3f & W6), any artifact (Chalice or Kaldra), as well as random legendary creatures like Yawgmoth and Asmo. If you tuck the card in response to a fetch, it also means that you effectively remove the card from play entirely.

The card is unique, but it would require testing to see how good it actually is. The use against both T3f and Chalice are certainly things to keep in mind though, as those are very relevant targets.

Verdict: This is the card I'm the most unsure about, and might snag a couple copies to play in the SB for specific matchups.

Frodo, Determined hero - WOOOW WotC, Who Hurt You?

This card is obviously pretty unplayable in Hammer, but I had to call out how badly WotC had to make sure that we could never equip a Hammer to Frodo by specifying "mana value 2 or 3".

Verdict: Come on WotC, jusst because he has a dagger doesn't mean you need to dagger US!!

All the Equipment - Nope

Verdict: They are all cool but mostly worse than what already exists in Modern

Stone of Erech - Pick up one and never play it

This card is better than Relic and Soul-Guide Lantern against exactly Yawg and Scam since it shuts off the recursion, but I'd almost rather play Grafdigger's cage against either one, and honestly I'd rather just not register any of them in my 75. The 2 mana to activate this card is the nail in the coffin for me.

Verdict: You can play 1 in the SB if you want.

Minas Tirith - Nope

Coming in tapped every turn in this deck is a big nope.The lands are already strapped for space.

Verdict: Nope, this isn’t making the cut

Ultimately, I believe that Forge Anew will be a new staple for the deck in some number, Lost to Legend and Reprieve are both interesting, and everything else is *very* unlikely to make the cut in Hammer.

Cheers!