The Banhammer was a Wynncraft alliance of June 2016, the first of two anti-HackForums blocs opened within three weeks of each other. Its thread — carrying the guild subforum's Alliance prefix and titled "The Banhammer (anti-hax)" — was posted on 8 June 2016 by Mr_Robin_Hood^[1], and proposed one universal non-aggression pact so that smaller guilds could hold land against a guild then holding 94 territories.^[2] It belongs to the early guild era.

History

The opening post set out both the grievance and the mechanism: Hax held 94 territories and was too strong for any single guild, so the guilds should unite in one alliance whose members would not attack each other, letting weaker guilds hold land.^[2] Guild owners were asked to open a forum conversation with Mr_Robin_Hood and would then be "added to a special alliance conversation" — the alliance's only recorded organ.^[2] An attached poll ran from "yes hax is ruining the guild experience for me" to "no you are just salty and mad"; its results were visible only to voters and were never published.^[3] The thread was also renamed on the evening it was posted; its earlier title is not known.^[4]

The response from the HackForums side was immediate. "Wtf is this NATO you cant take down mother russia," Shawarma replied the same afternoon. "I will not stop till every inch of wynncraft is mine or my allies, my allies will attack you or be attacked if they revolt."^[5] Defenders argued the thread was simple resentment: "viva hax and screw all the haters. If you cant get and hold land, dont hate on those who can", wrote qqcora, who described the rival Astrafterí Affinity alliance as "the alliance i created" and said it "has over 10 guilds, and every single one of them would back hax up".^[6][7] Mr_Robin_Hood answered that the alliance was not aimed at the guild's members: "it was never intended to hate on HAX i know they are a hard working and honourfull guild. its just that i think the smaller guilds could really benifit from an alliance because of how strong hax is right now."^[8] Cybersoap707, who had founded the Morsus Mihi alliance a month earlier^[9], offered the only coordination scheme anyone proposed: "If we get big enough, I think I might calculate and distribute territory areas equally to each guild in which they target any Hax Territories."^[10]

The mid-June reversal

Within ten days the thread's participants were reporting that HackForums had collapsed on the map. "As of now Hax has ONE territory," wrote WhettoWen, a member of the Hax-allied guild UltimateXeons, on 16 June^[11], and on 18 June: "Hax is dead. They own no territory."^[12] Buttless, a chief of World of Crafters, congratulated "everyone who participated in the alliance".^[13]

The cause was disputed at the time. Cybersoap707 credited two member guilds — "All the Credit goes to Mythic Zodiac and The Crafters, when my guild was ready to attack we encountered a glitch that prevented us from attacking, it was fixed recently when Hax was already destroyed" — then narrowed the claim next day: "When I said destroyed i meant that Hax was basically put out of power. They're still a very powerful guild and in the top 5, but don't have over 90 territories anymore."^[14][15] Goden credited a guild outside the alliance: "Nether's Ascent took over Hax recently... and they've been able to hold the map decently well."^[16] Yuno F Gasai of Imperial dismissed the episode: "So you took over for a couple of days, try to hold it forever now."^[17] By 23 September 2016 HackForums held 146 of the map's roughly 332 territories, more than at any point in June.^[18]

Membership

The opening post listed three member guilds — World of Crafters [WoC], The Wynn Guard [TwG] and MythicZodiac [MZS]^[2] — of which only WoC and TwG appear in the version of the post quoted on 8 June, so MythicZodiac joined during the thread's first days; the same early version carried a line, later removed, asking Hax members not to reply.^[19] On 20 June a poster added the tag "DragonSlayers [WkD]" beneath a quotation of the roster, but the opening post was never revised to include it.^[20] No further roster was published, and no leader other than Mr_Robin_Hood was ever named. Territory exchanges were not recorded until January 2018, long after the alliance's time.^[21]

Legacy

The thread went quiet after 29 June 2016, and no dissolution was ever announced.^[22] The next day a HackForums chief remarked in a different thread that "right now there is 2 anti hax alliances"^[23]; the Banhammer and The Separatists, posted eighteen days apart, appear to be the two. The community's verdict on such efforts was already settled before either began: "It didn't work, all those guilds no longer have any territory", an UltimateXeons member wrote of the previous attempts.^[24]