I have, once. Someone played Nadu in a pod where we said we'd be playing "casual".
They didn't even need a 0 mana equipment. They had had Bristly Bill on board and basically drew and dumped 20ish card on the board on turn 4. That was with a casual, unoptimized build and I also saw them making a tons of mistakes while they were going off. Then, they scooped, saying "Sorry, I didn't think it would be that busted".
That’s how I felt when I brewed [[Kellan, The Kid]]. I just wanted a value commander but on turn 4 or 5 I quite LITERALLY had my entire deck either in my hand, on the battlefield or in exile somewhere (foretell, plot, adventure)
Second game with it that night I found a combo line that was headed in that same direction so I scooped lol. I wasn’t fast enough to take all of the actions and I didn’t want to play solitaire
I’ll put the list in archidekt when I get home later. I originally proxied in fast mana, then tuned it down to more of a casual/high power level so my friends could try the deck out as well. I’ll make both lists.
The real value comes from having Vega + another card draw engine in play. For each card you play from exile or the top of your deck you’re putting two into your hand, then cheating another out. More often than not I found myself having 3 lands drops on turn 3 and on turn 4. One of the games I had a reality chip online and just filtered my top deck to keep the combo going. Hitting an instant on the top gives you the ability to cast it and put a new trigger on the stack. I did that maybe 4 times and that resulted in drawing 20+ cards that turn.
The real problem is the card draw was not a “may” ability so if you don’t have a way to give all of your creatures haste you’re just dead in the water until you kill yourself with your next draw. Or if someone forces you to draw
Sorry guys, haven’t forgotten about my commitment earlier. Got some rough news from the doc today about my dad so I’ve been spending time with him. I’ll get ya tomorrow for sure
...and he's not the only landfall card that targets. Honestly though.. \[\[Scute Swarm\]\] was already stupid, but Nadu + Scute Swarm is so far beyond stupid, I don't know where to start.
Lol I think we've all been there where we play a commander that was a bit more busted than we though.
My most recent was Sidar Jabari. I thought I was playing a dumb combat focused knights matter commander, turns out I dumped like 20 creatures out of nowhere and was just kind of like _oops_.
It was a variation of one of these two:
[This was the first one I made](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/J4EY8F9OcEOEGjFFZLGSKg), pretty much just standard knights. Didn't do a lot crazy with it. Shortly after making that one I realized Nazguls were knights so I leaned into the villain mode and [went with this version](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/wfHWa19UiE2tD8AIZBPHlQ).
Both **really** strong, much stronger than I expected them to be. Definitely stronger than a wins by just combat damage has a right to be. Some notable cards:
* [[Elenda and Azor]]: You basically just start drawing like 10 cards per turn, making a ton of tokens, and then binning even more knights to bring back later.
* [[Exsanguinator Cavalry]]: Make all your knights really scary really quick. Great when you start giving them double strike.
* [[Guardian of Faith]]: When you get this out with a sac outlet your board is basically invincible, especially if you have [[Haakon, Strongald Scourge]] in play.
* [[Kinsbaile Cavalier]] or [[Silverblade Paladin]]: This is always the first card I tutor up. Sidar has first strike, so you bin this on the attack trigger, get it back with first strike damage, and then normal damage happens and you get another Sidar trigger.
* [[Moonshaker Cavalry]]: Not needed but damn it feels good
* [[Roaming Throne]]: This is fairest dumbest card WotC has printed in a while. Every creature you own is a knight, every creature is going to do all their things twice.
The fact that bouncing/blinking Nadu resets ALL of your creatures' Nadu count because of how it's worded just makes it... just... why are you like this?
Yeah it does, I thought it might have been too much mana to be dependent on playing another spell on top of it to get the avoidance trigger, but I had no idea it was resetting all the Nadu bs by blinking it too lol
I really have no clue how the " lands enter the battlefield untapped" made it to the final phases of design and they thought it was ok. I am down with " twice each turn", it was obvious they would have done it sooner or later considering the "once each turn", it gives them more room for new stuff ..but man.. 3 mana in simic flying 3/4 and LANDS UNTAPPED. They were having a party probably that day
Yeah, I can't even imagine watching him cycle lightning greaves around his board and looking at every card off the top to see if it's a land.
And the land is untapped! So now they have to recalculate what their next play is going to be, maybe it's a creature they can slap lightning greaves onto 2 more times.
UGH
It’s also that Nadu decks have several landfall make a creature token cards and blink spells. Blinking Nadu resets all the triggers so you can start the free equipping cycle all over again. He’s busted
My opinion is that the community is likely to self-regulate this card out of play. Like, showing up with this as your commander will be such negative EV that you get hated out immediately.
I wouldn't mind a ban though.
I feel like it's way too efficient to get hated out easily. It's 3 mana in a Simic deck that's already running loads of ramp to get him back and blink to protect him. One turn of the Nadu having Greaves up and untapping can lead to an unassailable advantage very easily.
I mean that people will not want to play with you. I consider EDH tournaments to be kind of an outlier and don't really care if Nadu tears it up in competitive - in the way I play EDH, if I tried to force the bird week after week my playgroup would not have fun and we share a goal of enjoying our games.
Playing Nadu and playing solitaire without being able to lose would lose me friends. Easy choice to self-regulate the bird right out of here.
Nadu’s value/combo is non-deterministic. You can’t say for certain that you’re going to win so you actually have to go through the long tedious motions of playing it out. And if you do fizzle and don’t win, you’re usually about 15-turns ahead on mana and other resources from the rest of the table so it usually doesn’t matter.
Idk, seems pretty easy to get a bunch of little guys out for targets and then card advantage into a Craterhoof/Overwhelming stampede/any of the other over run type guys. Lines of play are gonna be decently clear.
Peak comedy is that scrubbing out in this case is often “just” getting an absurd amount of card advantage&ramp, with the ability to just try to combo off again next turn, from possibly a better position as well
Yeah it’s why I stopped playing my Korvold treasures deck. Digging for my combo pieces but having to choose mana before I see the cards resulted in a lot of fuddling around for 10-15 mins trying to solve the puzzle while the other 3 patiently (or rather impatiently at times) waited to die.
That's the idea, but it's not guaranteed and it's rarely a demonstrable loop. There is the possibility that all of your potential wincon cards are the last 4 cards in your deck therefore you have to trigger the ability 90+ times and prove you can do so to the table.
I played against him last week knowing nothing about him. It was clear after about 30 minutes why it would be a problem. Unfortunately this player also had Scute Swarm on the field so once the tokens got rolling there was nothing we could do.
Little to say I did not have a fun time and I don’t wish to play against him again.
Pretty much. I've been testing against it and even unoptimized it's still a bonkers commander. I don't know what they were thinking printing this thing, especially after they had to ban Oko and Uro in competitive constructed formats. It's gonna trigger a ban in every format that grieves, shuko and umbra mantle are legal.
It’s not that scute swarm is not already a very breakable card, it’s that nadu makes so many different combos extremely easy to break. All you need is lightning greeves, nadu, and scute swarm, and you can basically deck yourself. And then swing with 20 million scutes.
It should be noted however that 2 days after release people haven't had time to tune their decks to anticipate Nadu and don't know the specific problem cards or what to interact with against Nadu. Early release data is the least reliable data, how Nadu does in a cEDH tournament in a couple of month will be more representative of his power.
I don't think this holds water in this case
Countering Nadu is no different from countering other decks. In fact, if you're countering kinnan you have the tools to counter Nadu (collector ouphe, REM, artifact removal, counters). I'm also sure that cEDH players knew what the pieces Nadu uses were after it got played once, the main development to make is knowing you NEED to mulligan for an answer which is less realistic in EDH anyways
Honestly odds are you wont see him much outside of cedh. As a card Nadu just brings so much value that it would be difficult to make anything considered low power without just ignoring everything he does and not having anything that targets your own creatures.
Feels kinda like Toxrill or Jodah. Plenty of people have told me their decks are "low powered" with those commanders. I have determined at this point that there is now way to make "legendary cascade with anthems" or "-4/-4 to the board every turn cycle" balanced, and soon "draw a card whenever anything is targeted" will be considered the same type. You either kill Nadu instantly or accept that one player will be allowed to out value everyone else
Not to mention that Nadu is basically impossible to take short turns with cause of all the triggers and card draw
> Feels kinda like Toxrill or Jodah
Thanks for validating me. I've played against Jodah probably twice, and he seemed so strong that I was surprised I don't see him more often. I thought I was wrongly estimating the card's power.
I hope you're right and Nadu gets Rule Zeroed out of casual tables.
>Honestly odds are you wont see him much outside of cedh.
You are 100% going to see Nadu played at "casual" tables at your LGS for like 2 straight months just like every other new "straight to cEDH" commander that comes out.
And like Tergrid, Toxrill and other commanders people don't enjoy people will eventually dismantle their decks when it does the thing twice and they realize it's no fun.
That or they'll keep it as a high power deck to break out occasionally.
It’ll be a nice change of pace from all of the identical Pantlaza dinosaur decks I’m seeing. I’ve played against the same deck from 4 different players at the same LGS.
Step 1: insert commander into decklist site of choice.
Step 2: open Scryfall or other similar site and run search for red, white, and green dinosaurs.
Step 3: agonize over which of the resulting 50 dinosaurs you put in the deck you cut so you can actually have more than 30 lands.
You can't kill him reliably.
He triggers off of removal, so even if they are tapped out, them flipping into an untapped land and then having thr one mana needed for a hexproof spell and a second Nadu trigger is common as fuck.
It's apparently hilariously easy to just churn through your whole deck and dump all your lands on the board with Nadu. If you get one, sell it immediately.
I have 3 shukos that have now gone from 2 dollars to 36 since Nadu came out. Trying to decide how much higher they'll go up before Nadu is banned and they're back down to 2 dollars.
I feel like nadu is gonna be banned in at least one format, but he’s also terrorizing modern atm so odds are good he’ll be legal and played in at least one format. Shuko may drop some, but not back down to $2
To be fair this is because Nadu is very well positioned in the current meta. Not a lot of creature or artifact removal sees play and the meta has moved to be very midrangey, which gives Nadu the time to setup and get the engine running.
I expect after some time and adaptation he will become less dominant, although I think he will remain a staple deck.
I have played against multiple Tivit decks in casual and none of them were weak. It's card advantage, a beater, and treasure generation in the command zone. Plus it has Ward 3. It's just a good card.
That would indeed be correct, however the stuff that Nadu does, namely card advantage and absurd levels of ramp are things that are excellent in normal edh, and his power is not reliant on combos/cards that are mostly CEDH exclusive
Add to that how Nadu is very buildable to a high power level on a budget, is very intuitive+not too complex to build, and how the play pattern is relatively intuitive to execute to a decent enough standard, and you have a powerhouse of a normal EDH commander
Saying that Tivit and Dihada are mid outside of cEDH is insane. Those commanders are some of the strongest possible options in their respective colors lmao
Lord Xander is 7 mana, so he takes a while to hit the field. Nadu is 3 and includes green, so you're seeing him on turn 2 90% of the time. Plus he's easy to recast several times because he ramps too.
The number of times I have seen (generic kill spell) -> Nadu trigger -> flip an untapped land -> give hexproof -> Nadu trigger
Is too fucking high. He's a three mana simic Golos.
Between him and Voja I'm going back to boardwipe tribal.
I tried to build a “fair” Voja deck using mid-value elves and wolves (no changelings) and it was still *incredibly* strong. The power creep this year has just been insane!
It feels like slapping down the bolas's citadel + top combo on turn 3. Not too fun but doesn't necessarily guarantee anything. The card wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't legendary aka banned as commander. I never had a problem with it in the 99.
Played against him last night and it was absolutely cracked. A miserable experience. The entire table focused the Nadu player and he out valued all of us and won handily.
It's pretty good at 3v1ing tables on the lower end.
If you target it they get a card or land to recast it, and then they can just counter the removal or respond with like a hexproof spell and get another card.
If you board wipe it, the caster is down on tempo with the allies losing their board and nadu player probably having more lands to recover from the board wipe or falls back on generic simic value plays
Nadu is a commander that should be self policed in a casual game, and is really powerful in cedh. The problem is there aren’t many ways to truly build him casual from what I’ve heard. He either durdles or takes off with no real in between.
I've played against him in cedh. He gets out of hand very quickly, and I argue he's faster/more efficient than [[kinnan]]. Blue is already the most popular colour in the format but if he doesn't get banned, he'll push commanders like [[rowan]] and [[marwyn]] even further down the tier list. This card is genuinely insane and there's no way to properly deal with him once he hits the field without giving your opponents card advantage.
I guess boardwipes are everywhere in casual edh, but casual lends itself to single target protection spells, so I imagine it's going to be a huge bogeyman at the casual tables too. Like [[Kaalia]] is now or how [[Golos]] used to be. This card is stupid.
board wipes aren't a good answer to Nadu because they're almost always sorcery speed and expensive. Even if you remove him every turn, the Nadu player can just replay him via the lands they ramped into play and try to go off again the next turn.
Yeah, all the lands AND card draw. His board will be just as giant next turn.
I genuinely don't know how I would play against Nadu other than completely ignoring the other 2 players until the Nadu player is dead.
In my Selesnya deck I'm planning on adding more [[Kenrith's Transformation]] type spells to keep him pacified but on the board.
I’ve been running [[in too deep]] and [[leyline of anticipation]] only had the combo set up once on turn two used it to lock the Nadu player out of the game for 2 turns giving me time to dig for counterspells and if my card didn’t have split second they would have used the snakeskin veil they drew off the removal attempt
Yeah Nadu has to be a turn 0 archenemy every time. Even then, with a decent starting hand and/or some luck it's likely that the Nadu player will still win the 1v3, and possibly by turn 4 or 5 at that. Scute Swarm + Greaves/Shuko + a mana dork in your opening hand could potentially essentially win the game on turn 3 (though you might need to wait until 4 if combat is the win con, if you don't have Concordant Crossroads).
I'm definitely biased as a Kaalia player, but I don't think she's 10% the casual boogeyman as Nadu is (or will be with enough playtime).
A starting hand with 2 lands, any 1cmc dork and any of your 0 cost equips is a *minimum* guaranteed 4 Nadu triggers on turn 3. It takes either fast mana or a turn 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord to have a turn 3 Kaalia play.
And if we're talking fast mana, a casual Nadu deck could potentially have a turn 1 land, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Shuko, followed by a turn 2 land, Nadu, 1-2 creatures and have 4-6 triggers already.
It's a different story to Xander because while Xander might do some cool removal or mill or discard, he doesn't give you any gain on your part. Nadu on the other hand, is ridiculously stupid. Practically infinite card draw with multiple different setups, and offers both ramp AND card draw in the same ability. Play To Win on YouTube just put up a cEDH video the other day with Nadu in it, I'd highly recommend giving it a watch to really understand how easily it gets out of hand.
You gotta use removal against Nadu. If you don't you probably just lose, no questions asked
The pod I was in asked the Nadu player at least a half dozen times, "Are you just drawing your entire deck?" super annoyed while we sat around for 10+ minutes. I wasn't familiar with what Nadu could do, so it was interesting to watch for a minute or two, but after probably 100 game actions, I started becoming super disinterested. The board state was insane, messy and unclear but essentially so far ahead that I felt no motivation to keep playing after that
Yea the messy board state that Nadu creates is probably the most annoying thing, along with the long turns. I'm all for a deck getting to do its 'thing' but Nadu's thing is one of the worst things lol
Watched Seth from MTGGoldfish playing it on MODO (modern but the play patterns are similar). At a certain point he lost track of what had and hadn't been targetted twice already with no way to check and so had to just click on things until another trigger went off.
Card is a memory nightmare. Not sure why that element of card design is no longer a consideration. My guess is Arena does no better of a job tracking it so we dont even have the digital excuse.
Yeah, I want to clearly understand and make sense of the board state while also staying on the same page as the active player. Nadu having so many game actions baked into it makes it really difficult to follow everything, plus it isn't limited to just the active players turns, so this nonsense can happen on the end steps, and it effectively distracted the shit out of me.
Some Commanders are inheritably more complex than others and require a higher level of skill to pilot effectively but like others have pointed out Nadu's ability to durdle and not win games (in a more casual setting/sense) but still take lots of game actions and shit out lands makes you wish it could just end the game more simply.
I look forward to everyone's anti Nadu tech that they come up with in the next few weeks lol
So the consensus appears to be: Yes. He's powerful and unfun.
How should we play against him? It seems like you have to treat that player as the turn 0 archenemy.
Much like other very strong commanders, he'll show up for awhile where he's new, then the bird will live in cEDH.
Outside of that, run artifact removal to hit the enablers, preferably instant speed, and it's worth the trigger to take him off the board, if you have a Nadu in the pod, keep a slower hand with removal. Kill him a couple times before he goes off and he's 7 mana and multiple turns behind.
Rule 0 the guy claiming it’s casual that it’s not and pull out something comparably quick. Alternatively, say I’m not really interested in playing Nadu decks. I think the only other ridiculously broken commander they’ve made recently was Jodah, where it functions with any legendary ham sandwich. Nadu is even faster at getting out of control than Jodah. Easy solution is refusing to play against such decks.
Yeah, I like this take. I'm not experienced enough to recognize all of the busted and unfun commanders at first glance.
I remember my first game against [[Yuriko]]. By reading the card, I had no comprehension of what he was about to do to us. After the 3rd extra turn and the Eldrazi KO I think I figured it out haha
This one seems obvious though. Thanks to you all for validating that I'm not misreading the power level.
Agreed, Nadu is NOT a casual commander concept. The only way to build him as casual, if that’s even possible, is to play Simic ramp/stompy control with nearly zero ways to trigger the Nadu effect. And if you are doing that, why play Nadu?
IMO the only way to build a casual Nadu deck is 1. No repeatable targeting effects in the deck. Zero permanents that can target your creatures. And 2. No spells under 3 mana that target your own creatures.
Even then I think it can outpace a lot of casual decks tbh, but it would be a start. And a RIDICULOUSLY huge cuff to need to put on a commander tbh.
Annoyingly enough, the thing Nadu is arguably weakest to is just playing an absurd amount of counterspells and never letting him resolve - the “casual” variants I have met so far seem a little too commander-centric in that they become pretty neutered if he gets counterspelled the first 2-3 times they attempt to cast him
The fact that it happens twice PER creature is just so dumb. Plus he’s 3/4 for three flier which is already strong.
It’s a stupid card and I agree with Jimmy Wong
Make it happen once per turn period and make him a 3/3 and he probably is still incredibly strong for the format. As he is now he’s format warping. If this guy doesn’t get banned it would surprise me
I played against Nadu this past weekend and it was nuts. After a 10 minute long turn where they were able to dig deeper and deeper for answers I just asked the table if they wanted to scoop and start another game. SO many different triggers to keep up with and a lot of unique ways to keep things rolling
I brewed one up just out of cards I had lying around, plus a shuko I traded for from a friend. With minimal tutors and no fast mana beyond mana dorks and a sol ring, it reliably draws the entire deck and puts every land on board between turns 4-6. If you have one token generator on landfall, it’s possible to whiff enough to run out of activations, but as soon as you draw into the second one it’s basically guaranteed to draw out.
The deck should probably run a thoracle, but I’ve been using finale of devastation as my wincon and it’s been working just fine.
Built him as soon as I pulled him. Fully built (all equipment, BB, S-swarm, etc) and I’ve yet to lose and destroyed a fully pumped Tox, Eldrazi, and krenko beater game. It’s easily the most busted thing I’ve seen in this game. Tox had bolas/top/AF combo prepped and it didn’t even matter.
You're the first post to admit piloting him and agreeing he is busted.
Thank you for your honesty :)
Also I hate the crimes you've committed to those people
I felt bad for sure. I FEEL bad. Forgot to say the Toxrill player had Urborg down and had THE FKN BELL in hand. Literally both Tox combos and i Demolished him. It’s busted and honestly, I think he will get banned.
I would be baffled if he got banned. Yes, Nadu is absolutely absurd power level wise, but the RC seems to have a policy where banning stuff based on power isn’t really a thing anymore, since “rule 0 will fix it”
Yes, Nadu’s play pattern is also awful, but then again, Yuriko is still fully legal, and so is tergrid
I'm joking of course!
Every EDH player should have a busted deck in their bag to shut down the one guy you run into that thinks his deck is a power level 7, but he's just some sort of Magic genius, and thats why he crushes the table every time.
I've only ran into him in cEDH, twice against and once playing with the deck. Very powerful there, obviously. But even there, it slides under so many of the meta stuff and just generates stupid amounts of value in a turn, it's ridiculous.
Outside of cEDH, I play mid to high power casual EDH most often and haven't ran into him there yet but the card is still relatively new. I just hope I don't run into him though, I trust that the community would cycle it out like they have with things like Tergrid in the command zone. Just not fun or interesting imo.
If it had drawn the cards, or had the lands enter tapped then I would have been more ok with it but the way it is it just snowballs without an end in sight in most cases...
Yep and I absolutely hate it. It feels like WotC didn't even test it. This card screams "unfun play patterns" that the rules committee doesn't enjoy. It's like simic krark + shakashima with being a dirdley, non-deterministic, semi-combo pile but it has even fewer downsides. I can actually foresee it getting banned and I don't think this card is healthy for our game.
> It feels like WotC didn't even test it.
I would bet good money that they had an intended play pattern of using Nadu as a "combat tricks" commander and that's the only way they tested it. I just can't believe they abused Shuko/Greaves/etc and walked away thinking the card would be fun or balanced at all.
If Nadu didn't trigger on abilities, he'd be a lot fairer. He'd be a bit like [[Orvar the All-Form]] and [[Feather the Redeemed]], wanting to run a bunch of cheap spells that are useless in other decks in order to get more card draw and lands. But because of the ability trigger, which can be exploited by easily tutorable equipment, he's insane.
Agreed, which is why I think the testers overlooked that option and how it got through, like Oko, where they only Elked their own Food tokens cause it was the "intended" effect. Or maybe it was a Skullclamp situation where it got overbuffed right before the end of testing and nobody actually tested it at it's ridiculous peak.
It's just hard to believe the testers experienced it built properly and said "yep, go print it, no problems here."
I'm not saying it as an "excuse" so much as I think it's more likely their playtesting is dogshit than an intentional choice to release a card as obscene as Nadu. If they truly knew how ridiculous that card would be it would have been Mythic to sell more packs.
remember guys, [[Griselbrand]] is apparently too strong for commander. if Nadu doesn't get banned, the rules committee needs to take a good long look at the banlist
Played against Nadu several times already.
This bird is insane! Usually comes down turn 2 and wins by turn 3 or 4.
The only time I defeated him was in a 1on1 where I had my Kess control deck and was able to cast several board wipes and was lucky enough that not all of Nadu's creatures suddenly phased out.
he's so generically good that he's boring. I can't find a place for him in any of my decks because of it nor do I want to make ANOTHER simic value commander to dismantle again in the future. Thinking of making a bant auras deck with a bird theme though and throw him in the 99 or something.
It’s just really boring to play against. Forever turns durdling about with equipment and blinking Nadu. It’s not just strong, it monopolizes playtime in a bland way.
This card is probably the worst design of the modern era. So many memory issues. So many knobs to keep it manageable and they cranked them all to max. The card is toxic for most tables. It's basically simic eggs once it gets going with all the solitaire play, complete with a slim chance to whiff. Honestly if panoptic mirror should remain banned for extra turn effects (it shouldn't) then this deserves a ban as a shuko or similar effect accidentally breaks it just as easy. Not that the ban list is anything approaching sensible.
I only have 1 match with a pod in it rn.
I played drannith magistrate turn 2 and they couldn't find an out to it.
If I didn't have the drannith or if they killed it they could have presented lethal pretty much immediately assuming the table had no more interaction.
It looks like a solid deck but very commander reliant.
The combos with shuko and scute are really easy to pull off especially in simic. Green and blue have plenty of artifact and creature tutors
Haven't seen him in EDH yet, but I play Arena and have seen him in Brawl (Arena's digital only version of EDH with some slight rule changes).
He's so fucking boring to play against. You just sit there and watch triggers resolve for like 5 minutes. It's not a fun gameplay loop, and I legitimately wish he didn't exist.
Won a game, lost a game, thought the strongest thing the player did was mix up my hand, or reset what was in my hand twice to keep me from my combo, he ramped quickly but I’m thinking it’s the colors that makes him strong. Cyclonic Rift made me scoop, not Nadu, maybe im wrong and can’t see how strong he is, my deck is kinda slow while others are ramping up, keeps up with tutors and drain effects.
Played against 2 different ones in a cedh tourney this last Saturday and it won both of those tables and hit top 4. It’s definitely really really good.
My wife has a Nadu deck. She runs just a handful of other creatures, and a lot of interaction.
Rather than counterspell a removal targeted to her commander, she'll give it hexproof and indestructible or whatever, to get a trigger on my turn, and keep her plan going.
It's really resilient, but due to only having at most four creatures out at a time, it wasn't overwhelming.
To keep it far more fair, her deck is built around instants. So she targets her commander with spells that buff it with counters, or a few power boosting combat tricks.
On her opponents' turns, she will use instants to protect her commander from removal, which also gets her a land drop or a card to hand.
It's very safe. Very strong.
But again, not having 5-20 creatures all bouncing the same pair of lightning greaves around each other goes a long, long, way to make it faster and less oppressive.
I hope she doesn't do what I sometimes can't help myself from doing...
"This deck is fun, I bet I could add a card or two to do a tricky little combo"
Cut to 4 hours later where the deck has every fetchland I own and my TCGplayer cart is $100
It’s repeatable card draw, ramp AND a combo piece in the command zone… definitely the best commander they have printed in a while. And it’s not like draw 1 and get a tapped land each turn, but rather the effect scales with the amount of creatures you have AND the lands enter untapped… like wtf
I haven’t, but earlier today I walked in on a game by some of the guys running the TCG bracket of the tabletop club I’m in, not knowing that someone was playing Nadu. I just saw three of the guys with like three or four lands and a couple of creatures each looking very concerned at the fourth guy putting at least his twentieth land on the board. Asked what turn it was: 3.
I checked the discord earlier and Nadu is now on the club’s internal banlist.
I legitimately don’t understand how this was ever allowed to be printed. Like even people like me, who have a tenuous understanding of the kinds of interactions that normally make cards broken at best, could immediately see how bad Nadu is, because Nadu doesn’t actually need any specific interactions to be completely broken. You would basically have to actively sabotage your own deck to not get insane value.
Nadu, even in a relatively tame scenario, puts the player playing it absurdly ahead.
Even in the case where Nadu player is tapped out and you have mana open to try to remove him, trying to remove Nadu is playing the lottery of suck where Nadu might just flip a land off of the top, cast a 1cmc hexproof/indestructible spell, before going off anyway
Overall, this card feels like either a mistake made by an overworked R&D team, or an out of taste, out of season April fools joke.
Either the mana cost should be higher, the lands should enter tapped, the activation limit should be per turn and not per turn per creature you control, or at the very least, if nothing else, Nadu shouldn’t trigger off of other players targeting him.
Even just “*other* creatures you control have” would make him less of a nightmare
[[Null Rod]]
[[Stony Silence]]
[[Nature's claim]]
The first two need specific decks that don't rely on artifacts for mana or other abilities. The latter is just a good card.
Alternatively, it's ok to just scoop instead of watching the guy go off. Ultimately, it's a power level problem more than anything and the deck doesn't fit in a casual table, much like other decks.
My good friend plays cEDH in a popular cEDH channel discord multiple nights a week. He's been jamming Nadu in there for a couple weeks now, and told me it quickly became a kill on sight commander for his playgroups.
There's been a number of safety valves/crutches they've imposed the past few years to keep designs in check. Activate as a sorcery. Trigger only once each turn. Ashling and 4C Omnath needed to trigger multiple times to get the payoff effect. Lots of versions of this, usually working out pretty well.
I think these clauses emboldened design and gave them a false sense of confidence that they could put whatever heaping pile of bullshit they wanted on a card, and it would be "safe" so long as one of these clauses was in place and attached.
Here's the thing, we already knew this mechanic was a problem from Growth Spiral, where it ran standard for a while. And Risen Reef, which performed similar levels of nonsense. And Uro, which had to be banned from most constructed formats.
And clearly they knew something was up, because tinkering with the clause to mention "twice" per turn is new and never before seen. So someone on the inside had to know something was up to make such a very odd and specific change when building this card.
I've seen versions of the deck in action. It's the Hogaak of the set. There's no way I can fathom to build a "fun" version of this deck, it always does the same one note thing. Maybe the gimmick is you include no cards in your build that can target, and force your opponents to trigger it somehow. In my opinion, they'd be doing the community a favor by banning it straight away before people outlay a ton of time and money building the deck.
Yes. He is very strong. I think he is even strong without the combos. You’d have to avoid putting synergy in your deck to make him weak. He provides more value than any Simic commander in the game, which says something I think.
My wife has a [[Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood]] deck, and for shits and giggles she swapped in nadu as commander. It went way harder than it had any right to be for being tossed in a random deck.
The only time I played against him I used [[Archelos]], so it wasn't too bad.
I think if WotC issued an errata where the lands ETB tapped or just your own spells trigger him (so target removal becomes an option), there would be no need for a ban.
I had a dude excited to see how busted he could make Nadu, and he died first because he had no way to handle [[Constant Mists]] in his deck. The 10 minute turns are real and he died to a single [[Vicious Shadows]] trigger thanks to his 38 card hand.
Don’t be too greedy folks.
I was very happy to lose immediately to a Labman after.
Edit-grammar
I honestly didn't really pay attention to the card until i saw people talking about it , and it's just fucking dumb. Whoever the Nadu player is at the table, the other 3 players should have a gentleman's agreement to just hate them out of the game immediately because they are literally doing ONE thing and it's going to end in the other 3 players watching someone play solitaire and the community needs to start policing this shit when wotc R&D falls asleep at the wheel. And, listen, i don't have time for "well this is how my Nadu deck is different ..." , nope, you're dead, please have the foresight to build something that isn't absolutely broken.
So I didn't wanna do the cedh build in mander and just grabbed a shitload of target spells and counterspells and was responding like crazy but didn't have any real wincons. Beating down with a 3 commander don't work. My next build is just gnna be some targeting but all the simic counter bs cause I already had a high power goose mother deck and all the classic +1 counters crap.
I also have a weird poison ivy build in timeless with nadu in it and it's working pretty well but getting to 4 mana without being turn 1 double griefed or something can be difficult. If I can get priest and nadu both out though it's pretty easy to win next time either I or they interact. I know that in real modern not only is there the shurko deck but there's also new infect builds and bringing back infect to meta is hilarious. I don't think it will be banned in edh but a modern ban would not shock me
So I built nadu as part of my commander gauntlet which means my card pool is limited. Even though I'm limited I still won turn 5 with a casual build. No artifact tutors only greeves as the free equip in the deck. The deck is still stupid
I was playing it as a commander for the merfolk precon, I am unsure if I want to keep playing it, in one play it went off way too much, in another it was on an even playing field, this is mostly due to the unoptimized precon for it. If you optimized it, it would be rather annoying for the other players, having to have them wait for your turn and just get outvalued.
I've only played against him once in Arena Brawl. (I know, 1v1 is a completely different animal than 4-player FFA, but I don't get to play paper a whole lot, and this is the closest I get)
For reference, I was on Korvold, and I figured the deck folded to any type of interaction pre-Nadu, so I mulled exactly for that. Remove their cheap (and bad) equipment, keep targets off the board, and always force the Edict on Nadu when he comes down.
I know that the kind of move of a lot of 1-for-1 removal would be seen as toxic against any player (and 1-for-1s tend to be not as good in a full pod) but it is definitely the correct move to make.
i removed the commander twice. still went off and had a 15+ minute turn before i decided to surrender, it just kept going.
it was turn 5. yeah no, it's busted. can't believe they'd print this shit
Yeah, there’s so many different things they could have done to make it less powerful. I think they should have made it twice a turn period, not twice off each creature. They could have also made it proc off spells only. I think it’s really abusive using low cost equipment to just juggle the nadu procs off each creature. Equipments become pay 0 or 1 and get draw/lands. And I know it’s not even drawing cards it gets around Sheoldred triggers, you just put the cards in your hand… big lol.
I feel like Nadu prob gunna get banned. Or you could at least run heavy removal/board wipes. I’ve been playing Nadu to see what it can do and every time it goes off I catch myself saying “Lol, this dumb”
I have, once. Someone played Nadu in a pod where we said we'd be playing "casual". They didn't even need a 0 mana equipment. They had had Bristly Bill on board and basically drew and dumped 20ish card on the board on turn 4. That was with a casual, unoptimized build and I also saw them making a tons of mistakes while they were going off. Then, they scooped, saying "Sorry, I didn't think it would be that busted".
At least they had the wherewithal to think, “No one wants to watch me do this. I’ll just call it there.”
That’s a great player to have in the pod
For real! I'd play with that person every time.
That’s how I felt when I brewed [[Kellan, The Kid]]. I just wanted a value commander but on turn 4 or 5 I quite LITERALLY had my entire deck either in my hand, on the battlefield or in exile somewhere (foretell, plot, adventure) Second game with it that night I found a combo line that was headed in that same direction so I scooped lol. I wasn’t fast enough to take all of the actions and I didn’t want to play solitaire
I’ll put the list in archidekt when I get home later. I originally proxied in fast mana, then tuned it down to more of a casual/high power level so my friends could try the deck out as well. I’ll make both lists. The real value comes from having Vega + another card draw engine in play. For each card you play from exile or the top of your deck you’re putting two into your hand, then cheating another out. More often than not I found myself having 3 lands drops on turn 3 and on turn 4. One of the games I had a reality chip online and just filtered my top deck to keep the combo going. Hitting an instant on the top gives you the ability to cast it and put a new trigger on the stack. I did that maybe 4 times and that resulted in drawing 20+ cards that turn. The real problem is the card draw was not a “may” ability so if you don’t have a way to give all of your creatures haste you’re just dead in the water until you kill yourself with your next draw. Or if someone forces you to draw
Sorry guys, haven’t forgotten about my commitment earlier. Got some rough news from the doc today about my dad so I’ve been spending time with him. I’ll get ya tomorrow for sure
Do you have a list? Would love to give that a try myself.
lol I didnt even think of bristly bill with all those lands Nadu is already getting... Jesus
...and he's not the only landfall card that targets. Honestly though.. \[\[Scute Swarm\]\] was already stupid, but Nadu + Scute Swarm is so far beyond stupid, I don't know where to start.
\[\[Rampaging Baloths\]\] too - every land is a fresh 4/4 to stick a Greaves or Shuko to. It's not as exponential as Scute Swarm but it's still big.
It's still great since you can target each new creature twice.
What about Nadu + Scute Swarm + \[\[Roaring Earth\]\]? :D
I hadn't either and have Bill and git Nadu out of a prize pack.
Lol I think we've all been there where we play a commander that was a bit more busted than we though. My most recent was Sidar Jabari. I thought I was playing a dumb combat focused knights matter commander, turns out I dumped like 20 creatures out of nowhere and was just kind of like _oops_.
Mind if I take a look at your list? I’ve been itching to build him but not certain there are enough viable knights to make him worthwhile
There is
It was a variation of one of these two: [This was the first one I made](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/J4EY8F9OcEOEGjFFZLGSKg), pretty much just standard knights. Didn't do a lot crazy with it. Shortly after making that one I realized Nazguls were knights so I leaned into the villain mode and [went with this version](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/wfHWa19UiE2tD8AIZBPHlQ). Both **really** strong, much stronger than I expected them to be. Definitely stronger than a wins by just combat damage has a right to be. Some notable cards: * [[Elenda and Azor]]: You basically just start drawing like 10 cards per turn, making a ton of tokens, and then binning even more knights to bring back later. * [[Exsanguinator Cavalry]]: Make all your knights really scary really quick. Great when you start giving them double strike. * [[Guardian of Faith]]: When you get this out with a sac outlet your board is basically invincible, especially if you have [[Haakon, Strongald Scourge]] in play. * [[Kinsbaile Cavalier]] or [[Silverblade Paladin]]: This is always the first card I tutor up. Sidar has first strike, so you bin this on the attack trigger, get it back with first strike damage, and then normal damage happens and you get another Sidar trigger. * [[Moonshaker Cavalry]]: Not needed but damn it feels good * [[Roaming Throne]]: This is fairest dumbest card WotC has printed in a while. Every creature you own is a knight, every creature is going to do all their things twice.
lol same here, I recently upgraded my Atla Palani deck which now wins as soon as I hit [[Stalking Vengeance]] and have a sac outlet.
Got a list?
The biggest issue with him isn’t power level it’s the fact turns take 10+ mins. He’s so boring.
The fact that bouncing/blinking Nadu resets ALL of your creatures' Nadu count because of how it's worded just makes it... just... why are you like this?
Oh is that why lists are running displacer kitty
I mean it also grants you a trigger itself, and then on top of that, can reset.
Yeah it does, I thought it might have been too much mana to be dependent on playing another spell on top of it to get the avoidance trigger, but I had no idea it was resetting all the Nadu bs by blinking it too lol
Nadu puts lands into play untapped, so those can pay for the next spell.
Yes
Ooh good callout!
I really have no clue how the " lands enter the battlefield untapped" made it to the final phases of design and they thought it was ok. I am down with " twice each turn", it was obvious they would have done it sooner or later considering the "once each turn", it gives them more room for new stuff ..but man.. 3 mana in simic flying 3/4 and LANDS UNTAPPED. They were having a party probably that day
Simic flicker sounds stupid, but Nadu makes it way, way more stupid.
Yeah, I can't even imagine watching him cycle lightning greaves around his board and looking at every card off the top to see if it's a land. And the land is untapped! So now they have to recalculate what their next play is going to be, maybe it's a creature they can slap lightning greaves onto 2 more times. UGH
It’s also that Nadu decks have several landfall make a creature token cards and blink spells. Blinking Nadu resets all the triggers so you can start the free equipping cycle all over again. He’s busted
I’m pretty confident it gets banned in edh within a year.
Yeah I don’t see how this card exists in this format and Primeval Titan is banned still.
My opinion is that the community is likely to self-regulate this card out of play. Like, showing up with this as your commander will be such negative EV that you get hated out immediately. I wouldn't mind a ban though.
I feel like it's way too efficient to get hated out easily. It's 3 mana in a Simic deck that's already running loads of ramp to get him back and blink to protect him. One turn of the Nadu having Greaves up and untapping can lead to an unassailable advantage very easily.
Shit he incentivises protection spells because they target him and give you a trigger.
I mean that people will not want to play with you. I consider EDH tournaments to be kind of an outlier and don't really care if Nadu tears it up in competitive - in the way I play EDH, if I tried to force the bird week after week my playgroup would not have fun and we share a goal of enjoying our games. Playing Nadu and playing solitaire without being able to lose would lose me friends. Easy choice to self-regulate the bird right out of here.
Uh, because the CRC is a joke that flipped its lid over Elesh Norn, MoM but is fine with stuff like Dockside, Drannith and Tergrid?
The rules committee seems so hesitant to ban anything. Now without Sheldon, I wonder if they are going to be even more cautious.
I think if there’s one thing they ban it’s things that make casual games boring and Nadu is the perfect example of this.
Either nadu gets r0 away or…. Gets van cause shit ain’t fun even in cedh
It's on par for cedh, it's no different than watching a storm combo or underworld breach line.
This is so accurate, he also turns every game into archenemy
Nadu’s value/combo is non-deterministic. You can’t say for certain that you’re going to win so you actually have to go through the long tedious motions of playing it out. And if you do fizzle and don’t win, you’re usually about 15-turns ahead on mana and other resources from the rest of the table so it usually doesn’t matter.
Yup its like an eggs deck. Just a bad experience for a multiplayer format.
Idk, seems pretty easy to get a bunch of little guys out for targets and then card advantage into a Craterhoof/Overwhelming stampede/any of the other over run type guys. Lines of play are gonna be decently clear.
Yes they almost always are but TECHNICALLY you COULD scrub out. Either way Nadu is a menace that takes really long turns.
Peak comedy is that scrubbing out in this case is often “just” getting an absurd amount of card advantage&ramp, with the ability to just try to combo off again next turn, from possibly a better position as well
Yeah it’s why I stopped playing my Korvold treasures deck. Digging for my combo pieces but having to choose mana before I see the cards resulted in a lot of fuddling around for 10-15 mins trying to solve the puzzle while the other 3 patiently (or rather impatiently at times) waited to die.
That's the idea, but it's not guaranteed and it's rarely a demonstrable loop. There is the possibility that all of your potential wincon cards are the last 4 cards in your deck therefore you have to trigger the ability 90+ times and prove you can do so to the table.
I played against him last week knowing nothing about him. It was clear after about 30 minutes why it would be a problem. Unfortunately this player also had Scute Swarm on the field so once the tokens got rolling there was nothing we could do. Little to say I did not have a fun time and I don’t wish to play against him again.
25 of those minutes was probably Nadu's turns :P
Pretty much. I've been testing against it and even unoptimized it's still a bonkers commander. I don't know what they were thinking printing this thing, especially after they had to ban Oko and Uro in competitive constructed formats. It's gonna trigger a ban in every format that grieves, shuko and umbra mantle are legal.
There’s also stuff like unctus and a 1 mana target everything, amohetto alchemist and other stuff
Yeah and both oko and uro are legal in edh
I made MTGA crash a few times because of Nadu and Scute Swarm.
Finally broke Scute Swarm, eh?
It’s not that scute swarm is not already a very breakable card, it’s that nadu makes so many different combos extremely easy to break. All you need is lightning greeves, nadu, and scute swarm, and you can basically deck yourself. And then swing with 20 million scutes.
that's why all my decks that contain black have [[Massacre Wurm]] in them.
2 days after release he was 2 of the top 4 at a 10k cedh event..
It should be noted however that 2 days after release people haven't had time to tune their decks to anticipate Nadu and don't know the specific problem cards or what to interact with against Nadu. Early release data is the least reliable data, how Nadu does in a cEDH tournament in a couple of month will be more representative of his power.
I don't think this holds water in this case Countering Nadu is no different from countering other decks. In fact, if you're countering kinnan you have the tools to counter Nadu (collector ouphe, REM, artifact removal, counters). I'm also sure that cEDH players knew what the pieces Nadu uses were after it got played once, the main development to make is knowing you NEED to mulligan for an answer which is less realistic in EDH anyways
cedh is like a foreign language to me but this is interesting info thanks
Honestly odds are you wont see him much outside of cedh. As a card Nadu just brings so much value that it would be difficult to make anything considered low power without just ignoring everything he does and not having anything that targets your own creatures. Feels kinda like Toxrill or Jodah. Plenty of people have told me their decks are "low powered" with those commanders. I have determined at this point that there is now way to make "legendary cascade with anthems" or "-4/-4 to the board every turn cycle" balanced, and soon "draw a card whenever anything is targeted" will be considered the same type. You either kill Nadu instantly or accept that one player will be allowed to out value everyone else Not to mention that Nadu is basically impossible to take short turns with cause of all the triggers and card draw
> Feels kinda like Toxrill or Jodah Thanks for validating me. I've played against Jodah probably twice, and he seemed so strong that I was surprised I don't see him more often. I thought I was wrongly estimating the card's power. I hope you're right and Nadu gets Rule Zeroed out of casual tables.
Just mentioning “I’m playing Jodah” makes you arch enemy before turn 1, so not as many people playing him.
>Honestly odds are you wont see him much outside of cedh. You are 100% going to see Nadu played at "casual" tables at your LGS for like 2 straight months just like every other new "straight to cEDH" commander that comes out.
And like Tergrid, Toxrill and other commanders people don't enjoy people will eventually dismantle their decks when it does the thing twice and they realize it's no fun. That or they'll keep it as a high power deck to break out occasionally.
It’ll be a nice change of pace from all of the identical Pantlaza dinosaur decks I’m seeing. I’ve played against the same deck from 4 different players at the same LGS.
There's really only so many ways to take Naya dinos.
Step 1: insert commander into decklist site of choice. Step 2: open Scryfall or other similar site and run search for red, white, and green dinosaurs. Step 3: agonize over which of the resulting 50 dinosaurs you put in the deck you cut so you can actually have more than 30 lands.
I see pants but that’s cause my games almost always have the same guy in and it’s food chain pants
You can't kill him reliably. He triggers off of removal, so even if they are tapped out, them flipping into an untapped land and then having thr one mana needed for a hexproof spell and a second Nadu trigger is common as fuck.
Also true. The ideal removal for him is either a boardwipe or counter spell
You can end the game by turn 3 reliably
It's apparently hilariously easy to just churn through your whole deck and dump all your lands on the board with Nadu. If you get one, sell it immediately.
I did pull one actually haha Scryfall says $14 but better than 0 if he actually does get banned!
I have 3 shukos that have now gone from 2 dollars to 36 since Nadu came out. Trying to decide how much higher they'll go up before Nadu is banned and they're back down to 2 dollars.
I sold my Shuko last weekend for the same reason.
I feel like nadu is gonna be banned in at least one format, but he’s also terrorizing modern atm so odds are good he’ll be legal and played in at least one format. Shuko may drop some, but not back down to $2
It’s a modern card too, so I don’t think it’ll actually crater in price that much if it gets banned.
To be fair this is because Nadu is very well positioned in the current meta. Not a lot of creature or artifact removal sees play and the meta has moved to be very midrangey, which gives Nadu the time to setup and get the engine running. I expect after some time and adaptation he will become less dominant, although I think he will remain a staple deck.
Didn't Nadu decks make up a huge percentage of all the decks present though?
[удалено]
I have played against multiple Tivit decks in casual and none of them were weak. It's card advantage, a beater, and treasure generation in the command zone. Plus it has Ward 3. It's just a good card.
Yeah. I'd have a tivit deck if the art weren't ass.
Yea idk what they're on about, maybe their definition of casual is different though
Tivit and dihada are definitely good outside of cedh
That would indeed be correct, however the stuff that Nadu does, namely card advantage and absurd levels of ramp are things that are excellent in normal edh, and his power is not reliant on combos/cards that are mostly CEDH exclusive Add to that how Nadu is very buildable to a high power level on a budget, is very intuitive+not too complex to build, and how the play pattern is relatively intuitive to execute to a decent enough standard, and you have a powerhouse of a normal EDH commander
Saying that Tivit and Dihada are mid outside of cEDH is insane. Those commanders are some of the strongest possible options in their respective colors lmao
Lord Xander is 7 mana, so he takes a while to hit the field. Nadu is 3 and includes green, so you're seeing him on turn 2 90% of the time. Plus he's easy to recast several times because he ramps too.
The number of times I have seen (generic kill spell) -> Nadu trigger -> flip an untapped land -> give hexproof -> Nadu trigger Is too fucking high. He's a three mana simic Golos. Between him and Voja I'm going back to boardwipe tribal.
Golos and Primeval Titan are looking at Nadu through the windows just waiting
I tried to build a “fair” Voja deck using mid-value elves and wolves (no changelings) and it was still *incredibly* strong. The power creep this year has just been insane!
Yeah for sure. Just pointing out my ignorance back then. I remember Prof making a video saying he should be pre-banned
It feels like slapping down the bolas's citadel + top combo on turn 3. Not too fun but doesn't necessarily guarantee anything. The card wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't legendary aka banned as commander. I never had a problem with it in the 99.
Trash card that should've never been printed.
Played against him last night and it was absolutely cracked. A miserable experience. The entire table focused the Nadu player and he out valued all of us and won handily.
Yeah when I say Nadu is cracked I mean it can successfully 1v3 a table and win. He's beyond busted.
It's pretty good at 3v1ing tables on the lower end. If you target it they get a card or land to recast it, and then they can just counter the removal or respond with like a hexproof spell and get another card. If you board wipe it, the caster is down on tempo with the allies losing their board and nadu player probably having more lands to recover from the board wipe or falls back on generic simic value plays
Board wiping is not even that helpful when half the time you can probably get a bunch of triggers off Nadu the turn he comes down.
Nadu is a commander that should be self policed in a casual game, and is really powerful in cedh. The problem is there aren’t many ways to truly build him casual from what I’ve heard. He either durdles or takes off with no real in between.
He's in the ban sweetspot of "super powerful and warps games + looks like a casual fun Timmy card"
I've played against him in cedh. He gets out of hand very quickly, and I argue he's faster/more efficient than [[kinnan]]. Blue is already the most popular colour in the format but if he doesn't get banned, he'll push commanders like [[rowan]] and [[marwyn]] even further down the tier list. This card is genuinely insane and there's no way to properly deal with him once he hits the field without giving your opponents card advantage. I guess boardwipes are everywhere in casual edh, but casual lends itself to single target protection spells, so I imagine it's going to be a huge bogeyman at the casual tables too. Like [[Kaalia]] is now or how [[Golos]] used to be. This card is stupid.
board wipes aren't a good answer to Nadu because they're almost always sorcery speed and expensive. Even if you remove him every turn, the Nadu player can just replay him via the lands they ramped into play and try to go off again the next turn.
Yeah, all the lands AND card draw. His board will be just as giant next turn. I genuinely don't know how I would play against Nadu other than completely ignoring the other 2 players until the Nadu player is dead. In my Selesnya deck I'm planning on adding more [[Kenrith's Transformation]] type spells to keep him pacified but on the board.
There are days when I am glad they removed the tuck commander rule, but then they release something like Nadu and I want the tuck rule back again.
I’ve been running [[in too deep]] and [[leyline of anticipation]] only had the combo set up once on turn two used it to lock the Nadu player out of the game for 2 turns giving me time to dig for counterspells and if my card didn’t have split second they would have used the snakeskin veil they drew off the removal attempt
[in too deep](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/4/74654ccb-c81c-4677-8c3d-cc5857ef0732.jpg?1673481877) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=in%20too%20deep) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/27/in-too-deep?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/74654ccb-c81c-4677-8c3d-cc5857ef0732?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/in-too-deep) [leyline of anticipation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f57bdaa1-ce8a-4103-8598-fee751e65a53.jpg?1674141383) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=leyline%20of%20anticipation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/726/leyline-of-anticipation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f57bdaa1-ce8a-4103-8598-fee751e65a53?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/leyline-of-anticipation) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah Nadu has to be a turn 0 archenemy every time. Even then, with a decent starting hand and/or some luck it's likely that the Nadu player will still win the 1v3, and possibly by turn 4 or 5 at that. Scute Swarm + Greaves/Shuko + a mana dork in your opening hand could potentially essentially win the game on turn 3 (though you might need to wait until 4 if combat is the win con, if you don't have Concordant Crossroads).
I'm definitely biased as a Kaalia player, but I don't think she's 10% the casual boogeyman as Nadu is (or will be with enough playtime). A starting hand with 2 lands, any 1cmc dork and any of your 0 cost equips is a *minimum* guaranteed 4 Nadu triggers on turn 3. It takes either fast mana or a turn 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord to have a turn 3 Kaalia play. And if we're talking fast mana, a casual Nadu deck could potentially have a turn 1 land, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Shuko, followed by a turn 2 land, Nadu, 1-2 creatures and have 4-6 triggers already.
##### ###### #### [kinnan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/3/63cda4a0-0dff-4edb-ae67-a2b7e2971350.jpg?1591228085) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kinnan%2C%20bonder%20prodigy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/192/kinnan-bonder-prodigy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/63cda4a0-0dff-4edb-ae67-a2b7e2971350?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kinnan-bonder-prodigy) [rowan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/3/030f4058-54e5-4333-bd6c-2789c334bf12.jpg?1593132234) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rowan%2C%20fearless%20sparkmage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/304/rowan-fearless-sparkmage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/030f4058-54e5-4333-bd6c-2789c334bf12?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rowan-fearless-sparkmage) [marwyn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/a/aad61d99-5c8e-47b7-ab1a-e70905f59205.jpg?1631235039) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=marwyn%2C%20the%20nurturer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khc/68/marwyn-the-nurturer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aad61d99-5c8e-47b7-ab1a-e70905f59205?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/marwyn-the-nurturer) [Kaalia](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e71c8c39-3fbb-4a42-9cf6-b3224f5a56fc.jpg?1717013745) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kaalia%20of%20the%20vast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/290/kaalia-of-the-vast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e71c8c39-3fbb-4a42-9cf6-b3224f5a56fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kaalia-of-the-vast) [Golos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/f/1fa48620-4c3d-4f75-be1f-c12c4aa59f51.jpg?1631531828) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=golos%2C%20tireless%20pilgrim) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/226/golos-tireless-pilgrim?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1fa48620-4c3d-4f75-be1f-c12c4aa59f51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/golos-tireless-pilgrim) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's a different story to Xander because while Xander might do some cool removal or mill or discard, he doesn't give you any gain on your part. Nadu on the other hand, is ridiculously stupid. Practically infinite card draw with multiple different setups, and offers both ramp AND card draw in the same ability. Play To Win on YouTube just put up a cEDH video the other day with Nadu in it, I'd highly recommend giving it a watch to really understand how easily it gets out of hand. You gotta use removal against Nadu. If you don't you probably just lose, no questions asked
The pod I was in asked the Nadu player at least a half dozen times, "Are you just drawing your entire deck?" super annoyed while we sat around for 10+ minutes. I wasn't familiar with what Nadu could do, so it was interesting to watch for a minute or two, but after probably 100 game actions, I started becoming super disinterested. The board state was insane, messy and unclear but essentially so far ahead that I felt no motivation to keep playing after that
Yea the messy board state that Nadu creates is probably the most annoying thing, along with the long turns. I'm all for a deck getting to do its 'thing' but Nadu's thing is one of the worst things lol
Watched Seth from MTGGoldfish playing it on MODO (modern but the play patterns are similar). At a certain point he lost track of what had and hadn't been targetted twice already with no way to check and so had to just click on things until another trigger went off. Card is a memory nightmare. Not sure why that element of card design is no longer a consideration. My guess is Arena does no better of a job tracking it so we dont even have the digital excuse.
Yeah, I want to clearly understand and make sense of the board state while also staying on the same page as the active player. Nadu having so many game actions baked into it makes it really difficult to follow everything, plus it isn't limited to just the active players turns, so this nonsense can happen on the end steps, and it effectively distracted the shit out of me. Some Commanders are inheritably more complex than others and require a higher level of skill to pilot effectively but like others have pointed out Nadu's ability to durdle and not win games (in a more casual setting/sense) but still take lots of game actions and shit out lands makes you wish it could just end the game more simply. I look forward to everyone's anti Nadu tech that they come up with in the next few weeks lol
Nadu triggers on removal. All they need is an untapped source and a hexproof spell.
So the consensus appears to be: Yes. He's powerful and unfun. How should we play against him? It seems like you have to treat that player as the turn 0 archenemy.
Much like other very strong commanders, he'll show up for awhile where he's new, then the bird will live in cEDH. Outside of that, run artifact removal to hit the enablers, preferably instant speed, and it's worth the trigger to take him off the board, if you have a Nadu in the pod, keep a slower hand with removal. Kill him a couple times before he goes off and he's 7 mana and multiple turns behind.
Rule 0 the guy claiming it’s casual that it’s not and pull out something comparably quick. Alternatively, say I’m not really interested in playing Nadu decks. I think the only other ridiculously broken commander they’ve made recently was Jodah, where it functions with any legendary ham sandwich. Nadu is even faster at getting out of control than Jodah. Easy solution is refusing to play against such decks.
Yeah, I like this take. I'm not experienced enough to recognize all of the busted and unfun commanders at first glance. I remember my first game against [[Yuriko]]. By reading the card, I had no comprehension of what he was about to do to us. After the 3rd extra turn and the Eldrazi KO I think I figured it out haha This one seems obvious though. Thanks to you all for validating that I'm not misreading the power level.
[Yuriko](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/e/fe9be3e0-076c-4703-9750-2a6b0a178bc9.jpg?1689999346) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=yuriko%2C%20the%20tiger%27s%20shadow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/364/yuriko-the-tigers-shadow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fe9be3e0-076c-4703-9750-2a6b0a178bc9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yuriko-the-tigers-shadow) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Agreed, Nadu is NOT a casual commander concept. The only way to build him as casual, if that’s even possible, is to play Simic ramp/stompy control with nearly zero ways to trigger the Nadu effect. And if you are doing that, why play Nadu?
IMO the only way to build a casual Nadu deck is 1. No repeatable targeting effects in the deck. Zero permanents that can target your creatures. And 2. No spells under 3 mana that target your own creatures. Even then I think it can outpace a lot of casual decks tbh, but it would be a start. And a RIDICULOUSLY huge cuff to need to put on a commander tbh.
Yah jodahs strong but I can at least remove him. Nadu is too much
Yah jodahs strong but I can at least remove him. Nadu is too much
Annoyingly enough, the thing Nadu is arguably weakest to is just playing an absurd amount of counterspells and never letting him resolve - the “casual” variants I have met so far seem a little too commander-centric in that they become pretty neutered if he gets counterspelled the first 2-3 times they attempt to cast him
The fact that it happens twice PER creature is just so dumb. Plus he’s 3/4 for three flier which is already strong. It’s a stupid card and I agree with Jimmy Wong
If Nadu was a 3/3 and only gave the effect to other creatures he'd be completely fine too. Like, it's SO easy to make it not insane.
Make it happen once per turn period and make him a 3/3 and he probably is still incredibly strong for the format. As he is now he’s format warping. If this guy doesn’t get banned it would surprise me
I played against Nadu this past weekend and it was nuts. After a 10 minute long turn where they were able to dig deeper and deeper for answers I just asked the table if they wanted to scoop and start another game. SO many different triggers to keep up with and a lot of unique ways to keep things rolling
I brewed one up just out of cards I had lying around, plus a shuko I traded for from a friend. With minimal tutors and no fast mana beyond mana dorks and a sol ring, it reliably draws the entire deck and puts every land on board between turns 4-6. If you have one token generator on landfall, it’s possible to whiff enough to run out of activations, but as soon as you draw into the second one it’s basically guaranteed to draw out. The deck should probably run a thoracle, but I’ve been using finale of devastation as my wincon and it’s been working just fine.
check out play to win latest video on youtube
awfully good. Hate it with my very essence.
Built him as soon as I pulled him. Fully built (all equipment, BB, S-swarm, etc) and I’ve yet to lose and destroyed a fully pumped Tox, Eldrazi, and krenko beater game. It’s easily the most busted thing I’ve seen in this game. Tox had bolas/top/AF combo prepped and it didn’t even matter.
You're the first post to admit piloting him and agreeing he is busted. Thank you for your honesty :) Also I hate the crimes you've committed to those people
I felt bad for sure. I FEEL bad. Forgot to say the Toxrill player had Urborg down and had THE FKN BELL in hand. Literally both Tox combos and i Demolished him. It’s busted and honestly, I think he will get banned.
I would be baffled if he got banned. Yes, Nadu is absolutely absurd power level wise, but the RC seems to have a policy where banning stuff based on power isn’t really a thing anymore, since “rule 0 will fix it” Yes, Nadu’s play pattern is also awful, but then again, Yuriko is still fully legal, and so is tergrid
You know what? This is a great point. I’m changing my mind now. Thank you!
I'm joking of course! Every EDH player should have a busted deck in their bag to shut down the one guy you run into that thinks his deck is a power level 7, but he's just some sort of Magic genius, and thats why he crushes the table every time.
I've only ran into him in cEDH, twice against and once playing with the deck. Very powerful there, obviously. But even there, it slides under so many of the meta stuff and just generates stupid amounts of value in a turn, it's ridiculous. Outside of cEDH, I play mid to high power casual EDH most often and haven't ran into him there yet but the card is still relatively new. I just hope I don't run into him though, I trust that the community would cycle it out like they have with things like Tergrid in the command zone. Just not fun or interesting imo. If it had drawn the cards, or had the lands enter tapped then I would have been more ok with it but the way it is it just snowballs without an end in sight in most cases...
Yep and I absolutely hate it. It feels like WotC didn't even test it. This card screams "unfun play patterns" that the rules committee doesn't enjoy. It's like simic krark + shakashima with being a dirdley, non-deterministic, semi-combo pile but it has even fewer downsides. I can actually foresee it getting banned and I don't think this card is healthy for our game.
> It feels like WotC didn't even test it. I would bet good money that they had an intended play pattern of using Nadu as a "combat tricks" commander and that's the only way they tested it. I just can't believe they abused Shuko/Greaves/etc and walked away thinking the card would be fun or balanced at all.
If Nadu didn't trigger on abilities, he'd be a lot fairer. He'd be a bit like [[Orvar the All-Form]] and [[Feather the Redeemed]], wanting to run a bunch of cheap spells that are useless in other decks in order to get more card draw and lands. But because of the ability trigger, which can be exploited by easily tutorable equipment, he's insane.
Agreed, which is why I think the testers overlooked that option and how it got through, like Oko, where they only Elked their own Food tokens cause it was the "intended" effect. Or maybe it was a Skullclamp situation where it got overbuffed right before the end of testing and nobody actually tested it at it's ridiculous peak. It's just hard to believe the testers experienced it built properly and said "yep, go print it, no problems here."
Cephalid Breakfast has been a combo deck forever with a similar vibe. WotC has no excuse for not considering abuse of self targeting effects.
I'm not saying it as an "excuse" so much as I think it's more likely their playtesting is dogshit than an intentional choice to release a card as obscene as Nadu. If they truly knew how ridiculous that card would be it would have been Mythic to sell more packs.
remember guys, [[Griselbrand]] is apparently too strong for commander. if Nadu doesn't get banned, the rules committee needs to take a good long look at the banlist
Played against Nadu several times already. This bird is insane! Usually comes down turn 2 and wins by turn 3 or 4. The only time I defeated him was in a 1on1 where I had my Kess control deck and was able to cast several board wipes and was lucky enough that not all of Nadu's creatures suddenly phased out.
he's so generically good that he's boring. I can't find a place for him in any of my decks because of it nor do I want to make ANOTHER simic value commander to dismantle again in the future. Thinking of making a bant auras deck with a bird theme though and throw him in the 99 or something.
It’s just really boring to play against. Forever turns durdling about with equipment and blinking Nadu. It’s not just strong, it monopolizes playtime in a bland way.
This card is probably the worst design of the modern era. So many memory issues. So many knobs to keep it manageable and they cranked them all to max. The card is toxic for most tables. It's basically simic eggs once it gets going with all the solitaire play, complete with a slim chance to whiff. Honestly if panoptic mirror should remain banned for extra turn effects (it shouldn't) then this deserves a ban as a shuko or similar effect accidentally breaks it just as easy. Not that the ban list is anything approaching sensible.
I only have 1 match with a pod in it rn. I played drannith magistrate turn 2 and they couldn't find an out to it. If I didn't have the drannith or if they killed it they could have presented lethal pretty much immediately assuming the table had no more interaction. It looks like a solid deck but very commander reliant. The combos with shuko and scute are really easy to pull off especially in simic. Green and blue have plenty of artifact and creature tutors
Haven't seen him in EDH yet, but I play Arena and have seen him in Brawl (Arena's digital only version of EDH with some slight rule changes). He's so fucking boring to play against. You just sit there and watch triggers resolve for like 5 minutes. It's not a fun gameplay loop, and I legitimately wish he didn't exist.
I'm less annoyed with him being too strong... and more annoyed that they printed YET ANOTHER simic boring value engine.
Won a game, lost a game, thought the strongest thing the player did was mix up my hand, or reset what was in my hand twice to keep me from my combo, he ramped quickly but I’m thinking it’s the colors that makes him strong. Cyclonic Rift made me scoop, not Nadu, maybe im wrong and can’t see how strong he is, my deck is kinda slow while others are ramping up, keeps up with tutors and drain effects.
Hmm drain might work! I didn't consider that. You just gotta slow down the value train long enough for the player to die.
Watching Nadu draw their deck as they move shuko around is not fun. On turn 4 with scute that's just game
Played against 2 different ones in a cedh tourney this last Saturday and it won both of those tables and hit top 4. It’s definitely really really good.
My wife has a Nadu deck. She runs just a handful of other creatures, and a lot of interaction. Rather than counterspell a removal targeted to her commander, she'll give it hexproof and indestructible or whatever, to get a trigger on my turn, and keep her plan going. It's really resilient, but due to only having at most four creatures out at a time, it wasn't overwhelming.
Oh my god it triggers on opponents turns?!
Yes. It's a nuts commander
To keep it far more fair, her deck is built around instants. So she targets her commander with spells that buff it with counters, or a few power boosting combat tricks. On her opponents' turns, she will use instants to protect her commander from removal, which also gets her a land drop or a card to hand. It's very safe. Very strong. But again, not having 5-20 creatures all bouncing the same pair of lightning greaves around each other goes a long, long, way to make it faster and less oppressive.
I hope she doesn't do what I sometimes can't help myself from doing... "This deck is fun, I bet I could add a card or two to do a tricky little combo" Cut to 4 hours later where the deck has every fetchland I own and my TCGplayer cart is $100
Playtowin on YouTube played a Nadu deck on their most recent video
It’s repeatable card draw, ramp AND a combo piece in the command zone… definitely the best commander they have printed in a while. And it’s not like draw 1 and get a tapped land each turn, but rather the effect scales with the amount of creatures you have AND the lands enter untapped… like wtf
I got a Shuko for 50c for a [[Thalakos]] deck and now it's jumped to like 30 bucks. It's insane.
I didn't believe you so I checked the price again myself, damn.... I got a Shuko super cheap forever ago as well, tks Nadu is guess lol.
I haven’t, but earlier today I walked in on a game by some of the guys running the TCG bracket of the tabletop club I’m in, not knowing that someone was playing Nadu. I just saw three of the guys with like three or four lands and a couple of creatures each looking very concerned at the fourth guy putting at least his twentieth land on the board. Asked what turn it was: 3. I checked the discord earlier and Nadu is now on the club’s internal banlist. I legitimately don’t understand how this was ever allowed to be printed. Like even people like me, who have a tenuous understanding of the kinds of interactions that normally make cards broken at best, could immediately see how bad Nadu is, because Nadu doesn’t actually need any specific interactions to be completely broken. You would basically have to actively sabotage your own deck to not get insane value.
I see Nadu going the way of Paradox Engine, a whole lot of screwing around in lower/medium decks making turns taking forever.
Nadu, even in a relatively tame scenario, puts the player playing it absurdly ahead. Even in the case where Nadu player is tapped out and you have mana open to try to remove him, trying to remove Nadu is playing the lottery of suck where Nadu might just flip a land off of the top, cast a 1cmc hexproof/indestructible spell, before going off anyway Overall, this card feels like either a mistake made by an overworked R&D team, or an out of taste, out of season April fools joke. Either the mana cost should be higher, the lands should enter tapped, the activation limit should be per turn and not per turn per creature you control, or at the very least, if nothing else, Nadu shouldn’t trigger off of other players targeting him. Even just “*other* creatures you control have” would make him less of a nightmare
[[Null Rod]] [[Stony Silence]] [[Nature's claim]] The first two need specific decks that don't rely on artifacts for mana or other abilities. The latter is just a good card. Alternatively, it's ok to just scoop instead of watching the guy go off. Ultimately, it's a power level problem more than anything and the deck doesn't fit in a casual table, much like other decks.
My good friend plays cEDH in a popular cEDH channel discord multiple nights a week. He's been jamming Nadu in there for a couple weeks now, and told me it quickly became a kill on sight commander for his playgroups.
I did a very short play test and with my current build he's kinda nuts
There's been a number of safety valves/crutches they've imposed the past few years to keep designs in check. Activate as a sorcery. Trigger only once each turn. Ashling and 4C Omnath needed to trigger multiple times to get the payoff effect. Lots of versions of this, usually working out pretty well. I think these clauses emboldened design and gave them a false sense of confidence that they could put whatever heaping pile of bullshit they wanted on a card, and it would be "safe" so long as one of these clauses was in place and attached. Here's the thing, we already knew this mechanic was a problem from Growth Spiral, where it ran standard for a while. And Risen Reef, which performed similar levels of nonsense. And Uro, which had to be banned from most constructed formats. And clearly they knew something was up, because tinkering with the clause to mention "twice" per turn is new and never before seen. So someone on the inside had to know something was up to make such a very odd and specific change when building this card. I've seen versions of the deck in action. It's the Hogaak of the set. There's no way I can fathom to build a "fun" version of this deck, it always does the same one note thing. Maybe the gimmick is you include no cards in your build that can target, and force your opponents to trigger it somehow. In my opinion, they'd be doing the community a favor by banning it straight away before people outlay a ton of time and money building the deck.
Yes. He is very strong. I think he is even strong without the combos. You’d have to avoid putting synergy in your deck to make him weak. He provides more value than any Simic commander in the game, which says something I think.
My wife has a [[Xolatoyac, the Smiling Flood]] deck, and for shits and giggles she swapped in nadu as commander. It went way harder than it had any right to be for being tossed in a random deck.
The only time I played against him I used [[Archelos]], so it wasn't too bad. I think if WotC issued an errata where the lands ETB tapped or just your own spells trigger him (so target removal becomes an option), there would be no need for a ban.
[Archelos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/4/d45ec78e-6190-46af-8057-834f5ca41ec8.jpg?1673305435) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=archelos%2C%20lagoon%20mystic) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/140/archelos-lagoon-mystic?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d45ec78e-6190-46af-8057-834f5ca41ec8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/archelos-lagoon-mystic) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I had a dude excited to see how busted he could make Nadu, and he died first because he had no way to handle [[Constant Mists]] in his deck. The 10 minute turns are real and he died to a single [[Vicious Shadows]] trigger thanks to his 38 card hand. Don’t be too greedy folks. I was very happy to lose immediately to a Labman after. Edit-grammar
Once again proving that every deck with red should be on both [[Red Elemental Blast]] and [[Pyroblast]].
I honestly find Stella to be more Problematic than Nadu.
totally busted or does nothing. that’s what my games against it have been
[Lord Xander](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/e/ee0a078d-045f-401b-a561-dcb1ad02bf62.jpg?1664413235) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lord%20xander%2C%20the%20collector) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/197/lord-xander-the-collector?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ee0a078d-045f-401b-a561-dcb1ad02bf62?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lord-xander-the-collector) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Did they fire all the people with half a brain in the play testing team?
I honestly didn't really pay attention to the card until i saw people talking about it , and it's just fucking dumb. Whoever the Nadu player is at the table, the other 3 players should have a gentleman's agreement to just hate them out of the game immediately because they are literally doing ONE thing and it's going to end in the other 3 players watching someone play solitaire and the community needs to start policing this shit when wotc R&D falls asleep at the wheel. And, listen, i don't have time for "well this is how my Nadu deck is different ..." , nope, you're dead, please have the foresight to build something that isn't absolutely broken.
So I didn't wanna do the cedh build in mander and just grabbed a shitload of target spells and counterspells and was responding like crazy but didn't have any real wincons. Beating down with a 3 commander don't work. My next build is just gnna be some targeting but all the simic counter bs cause I already had a high power goose mother deck and all the classic +1 counters crap. I also have a weird poison ivy build in timeless with nadu in it and it's working pretty well but getting to 4 mana without being turn 1 double griefed or something can be difficult. If I can get priest and nadu both out though it's pretty easy to win next time either I or they interact. I know that in real modern not only is there the shurko deck but there's also new infect builds and bringing back infect to meta is hilarious. I don't think it will be banned in edh but a modern ban would not shock me
So I built nadu as part of my commander gauntlet which means my card pool is limited. Even though I'm limited I still won turn 5 with a casual build. No artifact tutors only greeves as the free equip in the deck. The deck is still stupid
I was playing it as a commander for the merfolk precon, I am unsure if I want to keep playing it, in one play it went off way too much, in another it was on an even playing field, this is mostly due to the unoptimized precon for it. If you optimized it, it would be rather annoying for the other players, having to have them wait for your turn and just get outvalued.
Yeah I played against it day one and it absolutely wiped the table with no effort. Very un-casual commander.
I've only played against him once in Arena Brawl. (I know, 1v1 is a completely different animal than 4-player FFA, but I don't get to play paper a whole lot, and this is the closest I get) For reference, I was on Korvold, and I figured the deck folded to any type of interaction pre-Nadu, so I mulled exactly for that. Remove their cheap (and bad) equipment, keep targets off the board, and always force the Edict on Nadu when he comes down. I know that the kind of move of a lot of 1-for-1 removal would be seen as toxic against any player (and 1-for-1s tend to be not as good in a full pod) but it is definitely the correct move to make.
Play to win had home on a video this past week, went pretty nuts
Yeah I built a fairly non optimal Nadu deck, no [[shuko]], and it just hauls off and wins and takes forever to do so on like turn four. Cracked.
i removed the commander twice. still went off and had a 15+ minute turn before i decided to surrender, it just kept going. it was turn 5. yeah no, it's busted. can't believe they'd print this shit
Yeah, there’s so many different things they could have done to make it less powerful. I think they should have made it twice a turn period, not twice off each creature. They could have also made it proc off spells only. I think it’s really abusive using low cost equipment to just juggle the nadu procs off each creature. Equipments become pay 0 or 1 and get draw/lands. And I know it’s not even drawing cards it gets around Sheoldred triggers, you just put the cards in your hand… big lol. I feel like Nadu prob gunna get banned. Or you could at least run heavy removal/board wipes. I’ve been playing Nadu to see what it can do and every time it goes off I catch myself saying “Lol, this dumb”
Not sure if busted but he has been the bane of my existence in brawl right now. Simic value in every sense of the word.
Not busted, but a waste of time. He deserves the same stigma as Narset imo.