The recent Modern bans and unbans have completely shaken up the format. Considering many MTG players wrote off the format entirely before the bans occurred, Wizards has certainly reinvigorated the format’s player base. Four cards were unbanned in the Modern format, and each may revive strategies from past eras of the Modern metagame.
Among the four unbans, Mox Opal has seen the strongest reactions. This card may singlehandedly revive dead archetypes, while also empowering existing ones. Having spiked in price to over $150, Mox Opal is already having a major impact on Modern.
As suspected, one of the many archetypes that Mox Opal has brought back from the dead is Hammertime. What players may not expect, however, is that this deck has also been greatly empowered by a new beginning-of-the-game effect. As a result, this deck is now looking seriously explosive.
Hammertime and Leyline Axe
Hammertime is a classic Modern deck. The strategy involves using effects that ignore the equip cost of Colossus Hammer to quickly deal massive amounts of damage. This is traditionally done by using Puresteel Paladin and Sigarda’s Aid. Both of these effects bypass Colossus Hammer’s massive equip 8 cost. This allows you to start giving creatures +10/+10 buffs as early as turn one.
While turn one was a tall order before the unbanning of Mox Opal, it’s now a realistic play pattern. This deck traditionally runs lots of artifacts including Colossus Hammer, Shadowspear, Lavaspur Boots, and Esper Sentinel. That said, the deck rarely runs more than one copy of equipment that isn’t Colossus Hammer thanks to a ton of search effects like Stoneforge Mystic and Urza’s Saga. With that in mind, there aren’t a ton of artifacts in the deck to enable Metalcraft consistently.
Enter Leyline Axe, an innovation from MTGO user Ohara. This beginning-of-the-game artifact solves a few problems. Alongside enabling the Metalcraft effects of Mox Opal and Puresteel Paladin, Leyline Axe gives your creatures Double Strike and Trample. This means any creature equipped with a Leyline Axe and a Colossus Hammer immediately represents lethal damage. Considering that the entire deck is built around cheating equip costs, the Equip 3 is not a big deal.
Even in games where you don’t start with Leyline Axe, the card is very easy to get into play. Stoneforge Mystic can both search for and cheat this card in. Sigarda’s Aid can equip the card at instant speed, which makes even chump-blocking creatures in combat a dangerous affair.
More New Tricks
As if Mox Opal wasn’t an exciting enough addition on its own, Hammertime got even more new toys throughout 2024. While it’s easy to forget the set is Modern legal, Assassin’s Creed offered new support for Hammertime. Allowing you to buff an attacking creature, and move your equipment about, Battlefield Improvisation is a great card for this archetype.
While equipping a Colossus Hammer and a Leyline Axe is going to end games more often than not, Battlefield Improvisation also allows you to move a Colossus Hammer from a blocked creature to an unblocked one. This is particularly dangerous alongside Inkmoth Nexus. This land can turn into a Flying 1/1 with Infect, which means an equipped Colossus Hammer instantly threatens lethal damage.
Should you be looking to win in this way, you’ll have to remember that Colossus Hammer removes flying. As a result, you’ll have to move the hammer around with Battlefield Improvisation after blockers are declared.
Notably, this play pattern technically isn’t anything new, as Sigarda’s Aid enabled this line, albeit from your hand. Now that Battlefield Improvisation achieves this with Colossus Hammers in play, however, it’s all the more consistent.
A Fusion of Strategies?
Some Hammertime players are starting to use Affinity payoffs like Kappa Cannoneer in their decks. Considering that Mox Opal creates a clear synergy between the two strategies, this does make a lot of sense. Should you be stranded with a ton of unusable equipment in play, Kappa Cannoneer presents another finisher to close out the game. To make things sweeter, this creature cannot be blocked if an artifact enters play during the turn. This makes connecting with an equipped Kappa Cannoneer incredibly easy.
If being unblockable weren’t good enough, Kappa Cannoneer is also very difficult to remove. Thanks to its Ward 4, targeted removal is not a very effective way of removing the Turtle Warrior. Paying four extra mana, especially at the speed that Hammertime is trying to win the game, is extremely difficult.
Finally, Kappa Cannoneer patches up some weaknesses that the Hammertime deck may experience. Sideboard cards like Engineered Explosives and Meltdown threaten to blow the deck out at any given opportunity. Kappa Cannoneer’s exceptionally high mana value gives it some insulation against these types of sideboard cards.
Lots of Excitement
The revival of nostalgic archetypes like Hammertime and Splinter Twin combo has a lot of ‘retired’ Modern players coming back to give the format another try. Sadly, Mox Opals, in particular, are now very hard to acquire at the moment, thanks to their obscene price spike.
Ultimately, it’s tough to know what’s good in Modern right now. It’s safe to say the format is in flux and a lot of players are taking advantage by playing their favorite archetypes, regardless of how good they are. Modern, in general, feels way more powerful now that the banlist changes have come and gone, so it will take some time for players to figure out what is viable.
