Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome back to Modern. The format has stabilized quite a bit since the banning of Fury and Beans, and the top dogs of the format right now look to be Temur Rhinos, Rakdos Scam, Izzet Murktide, with Amulet being the runner-up.
I will say that I am still quite happy with the Yawgmoth matchup right now. Between 3 Totems, 4 Solitude, 4 Surge, and even a couple Skills post-board, it means we have what I feel to be a favorable matchup at this point....
2024-02-02 00:21:03 +0000 UTC
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Key Cards: Sigarda’s Aid, Urza’s Saga, Surge of Salvation, Forge Anew
Problem Cards: Grief + Rebirth Effect, Blood Moon, Kolaghan’s Command. Post-board: Engineered Explosives, Hidetsugu Consumes All (HCA), Brotherhood’s End
Key Points/Objectives:
- Grind them out, mitigate the effect of the scam with Saga Constructs
- Without Blood Moon, it is incredibly d...
2024-01-24 14:55:36 +0000 UTC
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Key Cards: Aid/Paladin, Urza’s Saga, Kaldra, Post-board: Surge, Drannith
Problem Cards: Subtlety, Force of Negation, Tishana’s Tidebinder, Flame of Anor, Leyline Binding & T3feri (in 4C) Post-board: Force of Vigor, Blood Moon, various sweepers like Brotherhood’s End
Objectives:
- Game 1, your entire plan is to get a hammer (and maybe a Spear) on a creature. Onc...
2024-01-10 14:52:16 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome back to Modern, the home of Amulet and Yawgmoth *insert vomit emoji*. The bad news is that Amulet and Yawgmoth are 2 of the top decks. The good news is that we are also seeing Rhinos, Tron, Rakdos Scam, and Murktide have a resurgence.
I will say that I am still quite happy with the Yawgmoth matchup right now. Between 3 Totems, 4 Solitude, and 4 Surge post-board, it means we have what I feel to be a favorable matchup at this point. I went ...
2024-01-05 18:40:52 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome back to a NEW (and less angry) Modern! Beans and Scam are dead thanks to WotC banning Up the Beanstalk and Fury, so the entire meta is likely to shift! While there have been varying takes on it, Dom Harvey put it like this:
2023-12-05 20:48:32 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone, and thank you for the support this weekend while I had a really unbelievable run at Star City Games Pittsburgh. While I couldn't pull of the trifecta, I did manage to secure 2 trophies for myself :)
SCG's Tweet for Reference
SCG-winning list
I have since ...
2023-11-15 02:42:07 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome back to Modern! Despite the Beans being on the rise, I’m relatively happy with where we are at! Scam, Rhinos, and Tron continue to be good matchups, and Yawg/Titan are still a pain. That’s basically the meta in a snapshot! I’ve been seeing less and less of Living End both online and in paper, so I have 2 fairly different SBs this month to account for this.
*** As usual, make sure to adjust your mid-match decisions based on the specifics of a...
2023-11-01 20:38:50 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome back to Modern! I’ve seen a ton of people doing well with the list that I posted to Twitter in September, and I’m really happy to see everyone spiking their RCQs!
The meta has definitely shifted since last month’s update. We are seeing a lot more 4C, Titan, and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron Decks. As such, we’ve adopted the 75 to account for this shift.
*** As usual, make sure to adjust your mid-match decisions based on the specifics of a...
2023-10-02 15:56:19 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome to Wilds of Eldraine Modern! We started off well with a top 8 finish at SCG Columbus this past weekend!
With how the meta is continuing to shape, I'm quite happy to be on Hammer. I would be unsurprised for most popular decks in meta to be Scam, Rhinos, Tron, UB Control, Burn, and Murktide. This past weekend I played against Rhinos 4 times, Tron 3 times, and Scam 3 times, with a few other decks splashing in there.
*** As usual, make sure to a...
2023-09-05 19:28:30 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new post-Pro Tour: Lord of the Rings modern!
Looking at the meta here, we see some interesting data points, but the big takeaway is that if this meta holds, it is actually well-positioned for hammer. After all, I’m happy facing Scam, Rhinos, Tron, UB Control, Burn, Murktide, and Breach. Couple that with the poor perfo...
2023-08-01 13:39:09 +0000 UTC
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Me: "Can we just play Elesh Norn in the SB?"
"LOL, can you just play strict proctor?" *light chuckling commences*
"Wait... maybe we can just do that..."
3+ hours of testing vs 4-Color, and that's how I landed here:
2023-07-18 20:15:58 +0000 UTC
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I will say, I thought The One Ring was a good card, but I didn’t think it would be “break the entire meta” good.
Delighted Halfling is also really good in Yawgmoth and other Ring decks.
I was also skeptical of how good the new land cyclers would be in Living End. Turns out they are *incredibly* good.
This is all pretty bad news, and I would like to say “Thanks LotR, I hate it here.”
As such, The One Ring, Delighted Halfling, and Living End...
2023-07-03 21:07:11 +0000 UTC
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Unfortunately, I don’t believe that we can afford to play both Solitude AND have the mana work with a splash color. You can definitely make it work, but if you want the requisite 11+ blue sources, you have to make some real concessions in how you build your mana; you effectively have to go up to 23 lands, cut all the canopy lands, and cut at least 1 Inkmoth. The Emeria’s Calls, coupled with the necessity of a fetch/shock manabase means that you WILL lose close games due to the amount of d...
2023-07-03 21:06:57 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome to yet another month filled with Bonking.
All hail and/or fear The One Ring!!! It's Sauron’s world and we are just living in it.
As an attempt to adapt, I am currently tooling around with multiple variants, so the SB guide will be less tested than usual.
***I say this every month, but this is *especially important this month*, as the meta is very much in flux.*** As usual, make sure to adjust your mid-match decisions...
2023-07-03 21:06:45 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone, I got to play with Forge Anew for the first time this weekend at the Apex Gaming 5K (they broadcast all their events on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/apexgaming) and I made the top 8! Based on the number of questions I received on Twitter, I decided to go ahead and make a post going over my deckbuilding choices, so here we are.
Decklist: 2023-06-19 16:47:04 +0000 UTC
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Hello hello hello everyone, and welcome to yet another lovely month to be playing Hammer.
***As a quick note, I have simply not been playing much "stock" hammer as of late, so I will not be updating that version. If you have any specific questions, I'm happy to answer those, so feel free to reach out!
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!
2023-06-13 20:25:48 +0000 UTC
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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.
2023-06-13 00:29:37 +0000 UTC
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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<...
2023-05-07 18:42:34 +0000 UTC
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Surge of Salvation is, frankly put, absurd.
But you probably already know that, and you're here to either find new uses for it, see what it does that you might've missed, or potentially disagree with me that it's good, and that you should keep playing Blacksmith's Skill instead.
Don't get me wrong, I love me some BSS (I won my first major tournament with Hammer thanks to the 4x BSS in t...
2023-04-05 19:02:06 +0000 UTC
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I've got 3 words for you, fellow Hammer-lovers: Surge. Of. Salvation.
I'll hit you with the updated lists, but first we have to discuss the card that is on everyone's mind. There is a lot to discuss here, so I'll be tackling it in a separate piece this week. For those interesting in the tl;dr:
Surge of Salvation is the best combat trick/counterspell you c...
2023-04-05 13:10:05 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone! While I don't usually update mid-month, I wanted to give everyone the most up-to-date decklist and SB guide coming off of my Hunter Burton Memorial Open win. Feel free to ask any questions below!
Decklist
SB Guide
2023-03-23 02:21:46 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone! I am currently moving across the country so this won't be incredibly in-depth, but I wanted to touch on the basics and some of the high points of the build. Additionally, I'll be adding the updated DL and SB guide to patron-only post!
Going into an open modern event, I expect to play against the following (ordered by frequency I expect to see it):
Murktide, Creativity, Hammer, Scam, Rhinos, Burn, 4C Midrange, Yawg, and Titan. While the modern format obviously co...
2023-03-23 02:13:24 +0000 UTC
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After last month where I gave y'all 4 potential lists, I couldn't just give you the stock list and be happy, could I? As such, I'm got both a "Stock" UW Mite (UWg) list which has been tested and is very solid, as well as a an updated Solitude list (calling it "Lonely Hammer" for now) with a SB guide included. I haven't gotten to focus test with the new build as much as I'd like, so take that SB guide with a grain of salt and adjust accordingly.
While I've tried a lot of things to beat ...
2023-03-02 23:27:11 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone, got a bit of a treat for you this month! Not one, but FOUR updated lists for February. The first list will be what I would play right now, and the other 3 are variants that I will try with Nahiri, the Unforgiving.
After making that video with Travis, I got to thinking "why not just play mono white main, and then splash U and G in the sb?" which is where I've landed. I think the WW, UW stock, and Wg haywire builds are all good and defensible, but this is what I would play r...
2023-02-01 19:03:12 +0000 UTC
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Key Cards: Aid/Paladin, Urza’s Saga, Kaldra, Post-board: Blacksmith’s Skill, Lavinia
Problem Cards: Fury, Brazen Borrower, Leyline Binding & T3feri (in 4C) Post-board: Force of Vigor, Blood Moon
Objectives:
- Game 1, your entire plan is to get a hammer (and maybe a Spear) on a creature. Once it’s there, their only outs are Brazen Borrower and slowing you down w...
2023-01-14 16:28:48 +0000 UTC
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Key Cards: Sigarda’s Aid, Urza’s Saga, Sanctifier (post-board)
Problem Cards: Fury/Grief + Rebirth Effect, Blood Moon, Kolaghan’s Command. Post-board: Engineered Explosives, Hidetsugu Consumes All (HCA)
Objectives:
- Grind them out, mitigate the effect of the scam with Saga Constructs
- Without Blood Moon, it is incredibly difficult for them to overpower an ...
2023-01-14 16:28:42 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone, coming back at you in 2023! With the meta settling a bit, I have updated the list to account for it. I am happy with where it is at, and you can see it in action in my recent video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPZpr9NBMUM&t=2815s.
While you can certainly run a mono white list, I am a big supporter of the UW list, and I think the splash for Haywire Mite in the SB is...
2023-01-09 01:33:51 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone, got something special for you this month! With BRO out and the Pioneer format largely behind me, I have been able to jam a ton of experiments alongside my testing partners to help narrow in on what I feel are an optimal list (the list I would play in an event) and something a bit spicier (the Intent list). While both lists are good, the resiliency provided by the UW list is where you want to be in the current meta. Additionally, Haywire mite gives you answers to format staples.
2022-12-03 23:40:01 +0000 UTC
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Key Cards: Blacksmith’s Skill, Spell Pierce, Gingerbrute, Urza’s Saga
Problem Cards: Prismari Command, Fire//Ice, Force of Vigor/Nature’s Claim, Wrenn & Six, Boseiju,
***If a white splash, T3feri and Leyline Binding as well.
Objectives/Key Strategic Points:
- Establish which version you are battling. There are 2 main configurations:
2022-11-11 14:09:01 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone, here is the updated Hammer list effective 11/8/22. You'll notice some small changes from last month, which I will cover below. I expect a slight downtick in ETBs, but the increase in various RB/x decks (Jund, Jund Saga, Rakdos Scam) pushed me in a couple directions
Of course, 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!
SB Guide: 2022-11-09 03:59:06 +0000 UTC
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