Deck and SB guide, effective 5/7/23

Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome to a new lovely month to be playing Hammer. My stock build is identical to last month, but there have been some small tweaks to the Lonely build that I'll discuss below.

As usual, make sure to adjust your mid-match decisions based on the specifics of any list you face and use this as a guideline, rather than a hard and fast rule!

Lonely Surging Hammer

Stock UWg Hammer

SB Guide

Current Lonely Deck Configuration Notes:

-2 Giver, 3 Surge - This has felt like a strong protection package in the main. Giver protecting through a T3f has also come up more as that card has seen an uptick in popularity.

-1 Paradise Mantle - Mantle continues to be the best it's ever been, probably even more than with Chip. Being able to more reasonably hard cast Solitude or Emeria's Call with a Paladin in play is incredibly powerful. That's basically all you need to know.

-4 Drannith - Without Pierce, your combo matchups get a bit dicier. Additionally, with the removal of Moonlight, and the uptick of Rhinos, Drannith has gained a lot more relevance as a 4-of in the sideboard.

-0 Moonlight, 2 Orvar - Card used to be busted against Creativity. With the advent and popularity of Teferi, Time Raveler in Creativity, the plan against the deck has had to change. If we can no longer reliably be reactive, the plan needs to change to be more proactive. Instead of the moonlights, we have added a couple Orvars to enable the "just kill em" plan more reliably, and am overall boarding more lightly vs Creativity.

-No "fair" equipment (cyst/sword) - Frankly, the fair plan is so middling that it isn't really worth the slots IMO. Additionally, the upticks in Leyline Binding and Prismatic ending make me like these plans even less than before.

-2 Sanctifier: Card is very good against exactly 1 popular deck (Scam), and even then those decks are adopting more ways to kill her. I'm only bringing in more than 1 copy against Scam, and that matchup is otherwise fine, especially with the adoption of Surge. This is honestly the number 1 card I'm looking to cut entirely, so feel free to remove the Sanctifiers for something else in your metagame.

Echoing last month, if you want to spike and are willing to put in a bit more work to tweak your play patterns/pacing, Solitude will reward you. Surge of Salvation has been a huge upgrade for the deck, and the meta is quite welcoming for this build of Hammer.