Much Abrew: Hammer Time, Axe Time (Modern)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! Today, we're continuing our trek through new Modern by playing an updated version of one of my all-time favorite decks: Hammer Time! Hammer Time went from a Budget Magic deck right after the release of Core Set 2020 to best deck in Modern for a while to more or less unplayable thanks to power creep and bannings. Thanks to the return of Mox Opal and the printing of Leyline Axe, Hammer Time just might be back! How big of a deal are Mox Opal and Leyline Axe to Hammer Time? Is the deck back in 2025 Modern? Let's find out!
Much Abrew: Hammer Time, Axe Time
Wrap-Up
Well, that went well! We ended up going 5-0 in our Hammer Time league, even managing to take down our new archenemy Boros Energy along the way! Not only did the new and improved fastest-ever build of Hammer Time feel good, but it also felt very good!
Most of the deck's plan is the same as last time we played Hammer Time: try to get Colossus Hammer on a creature as quickly as possible with the help of Puresteel Paladin and Sigarda's Aid to cheat on its high equip cost. So, rather than rehashing the deck's nuts and bolts, let's talk a bit about the three big new additions.
Honestly, our first new addition is the least impactful in Kappa Cannoneer. While the ward 4 is nice, Kappa Cannoneer felt pretty medium to me in general, and we sideboarded it out fairly often. It's not that it's bad—thanks to all of our cheap artifacts, we can get it on the battlefield pretty quickly, and the potential to be unblockable is a nice way to get through blockers. But it generally felt like a flex slot that could be improved with other options, depending on the meta.
The two big new additions to the deck in Mox Opal and Leyline Axe work incredibly well together but are also solid standalone cards. Mox Opal's purpose is to speed up the deck, potentially turning Turn 3 kills into Turn 2 kills. Since our deck is already stocked full of cheap artifacts, we can turn on metalcraft pretty quickly, possibly on Turn 1, which leads to some incredibly explosive starts. Meanwhile, Leyline Axe shocked me. The card is absurd in the deck, to the point where we might need to change the name to Axe Time. It turns out that the combination of double strike and trample works really well with Colossus Hammer, letting us turn any creature into a one-shot kill, often even through blockers. But Leyline Axe is also good without Hammer (see: our last match with the triple–Leyline Axe draw). As I mentioned before, both cards also synergize, with Leyline Axe being a free artifact on Turn 0 to turn on Mox Opal and the extra mana from Mox Opal letting us equip Leyline Axe early in the game. Honestly, I think these cards are the primary reasons why Hammer Time might be good again. It's hard to overstate their importance.
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
