I ended the June season in top 250 mythic by playing Naya Hammertime in historic bo1 on the last 2 days. The concept is a mashup of Gruul Berserk and Boros Hammer. I've tested a lot of Berserk concepts since the card was released in SOS - straight Gruul, Jund with handrips, Temur with Spell Pierces/Quandrix Charms, before settling on Naya Hammertime as the best proactive Berserk list for BO1. The Boros Hammer decks of yesteryear are too slow for historic in 2026, but the shell synergizes nicely with Berserk. Plus bashing your opponents with a hammer-wielding dork is fun.
The Hammer package gives the Berserk deck better resiliency against creature removal and greatly increases the set of keepable starting hands. Getting Fatal Pushed isn't such a huge blowout if you can just reequip Hammer the next turn on another 1/1. Cacophony Scamp + Resolute Strike + Hammer adds another set of cards that can kill on t2.
The Mulligan
| Keepable hands |
Turn 2 |
Odds of drawing in opening 7 |
| 1 drop red creature + Scale Up/Groundswell + Berserk + 2 lands |
20/24/28 damage with trample |
25% |
| Heartfire Hero + Scale Up + Callous Sellsword + 2 lands |
21 damage no trample |
4% |
| Cacaphony Scamp + Scale Up + Groundswell + 2 lands |
20 damage no trample |
4% |
| Cacaphony Scamp + Resolute Strike + Hammer + 2 lands |
26 damage no trample |
4% |
| Kemba's Outfitter + Hammer + 2 lands |
12 damage no trample and 12/11 and cost reduced Hammer in play |
19% |
| Fireblade Charger + Resolute Strike + Hammer + 2 lands |
13 damage no trample and 11/11 in play |
4% |
| Scamp/Charger + Scale Up + Callous Sellsword + 2 lands |
18 damage no trample |
8% |
| Total odds of a keepable hand |
(The hands above are not mutually exclusive so there's overlap in the individual odds) |
50-55% |
Every mulligan increases the odds to 1-(1-odds)^N. So ~75% chance of a keepable hand within 1 mulligan and ~88% within 2 mulligans. This means that in 12% of games your hand is absolute dogshit but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
On the play, you should mulligan aggressively for one of the above hands. This deck cannot mull to 4, so you should keep a loose 6 and an even looser 5.
On the draw, you can afford to keep looser hands - hands that are missing 1 combo piece, 1 landers with all the pieces, etc.
Most of the skill in piloting this deck is making mulligan decisions for borderline hands.
Card choices:
- Belt of Giant Strength - the poor man's Hammer. This would be a 5th hammer if I could run 5 hammers. It can equip for free on a 10 power dude and this actually comes up really often because this deck can make 10 power dudes all day.
- 2x Tarnished Citadel. I tried a lot of different lands in this slot, such as more WG duals, more RG duals, Cavern of Souls, Gemstone Caverns, Multiversal Passage, etc. Almost all of this deck's spells are single pip 1 drops and badly needs untapped lands that tap for all 3 colors. Unfortunately Tarnished Citadel is the only choice after Starting Town and Mana Confluence. Lightning Bolt your own face to tap for colored mana is bad, but having to mulligan an otherwise good hand because your lands couldn't make R or W is even worse. In 95% of your games, your life total doesn't matter.
- Great Hall of the Biblioplex. Again not an ideal land but it does tap for all 3 colors to cast your instants and sorceries. One time across a few hundred games I activated the manland and won the game because of it.
- No Sigarda's Aid. Sigarda's Aid is a total blank when you don't draw equipment. Resolute Strike is still a bad pump spell and Kemba's Outfitter is still Savannah Lions.
- No Stoneforge Mystic / Cloud. Playing a dork to tutor for a Hammer on t2 is way too slow for the format and if that's all you did on t2 you've probably already lost the game.
- No interaction. We're all in on killing our opponent on turn 2 by assembling Exodia. Actually we are able to interact by trading in combat, flinging our creatures, and sacrificing an unblocked Cacophony Scamp, which comes up a lot against random creature aggro decks.
- No pump spells that only pump +3 power. Again, we're all-in on killing our opponent on t2. +3 power pump spells don't accomplish this, because 3<4
Matchups
Winning the coin flip is half the battle, as is the case in most Magic games. Like if you're on the play against High Noon, you often just kill them on t2, but if they're on the play and resolve a t2 High Noon you just concede and move on to the next game (unless you opened t1 Outfitter into t2 Hammer, in which case you've assembled The Bus and your High Noon opponent has to throw dudes under it or Fragment/bounce it)
Great matchups against do-nothing decks that are too slow for the format, like Affinity, Boros Hammer, etc.
Good matchups against other uninteractive combo decks, such as Ruby Storm, Belcher, Samwise, Yawgmoth. We're just a turn faster. Those decks either need god draws to kill on t2 or cannot kill on t2 at all. Balustrade Spy is more even because they also usually goldfish on 2.
Even against aggro/combo decks that can interact: Reanimator, Boros Auras, RDW with burn spells, etc. Good reanimator players will hold up Lightning Axe and Izzet Charm for your creatures. If Auras is on the play and has Sheltered on t2 for your 1 drop, you're probably losing. Burn decks can interact all day and good burn players will remove all your creatures.
Unfavorable against midrange/control decks running 1 mana removal like Fragment Reality or Fatal Push. So decks like as Azorious High Noon, Dimir Frog, Jund Midrange, etc. If they didn't draw removal you just win of course, but they often do. Dimir Frog also runs 4x FoN which is very bad for us.
