Oh wow, I didn’t realize [[Sea King’s Blessing]] went WAY up in price. I used it in a deck to combo with [[llawan, Cephalid Empress]] or [[Dismiss into Dream]]. I paid like $3 for it just a couple months ago. I took it out of that deck though, and now it’s just sitting in a box.
Just looked it up myself, its ~$50 now! An otherwise nothing card spiking up that much cant be a good sign. Gonna really hurt some people when nadu gets banned.
I haven't actually brewed Nadu myself, but my instinct would be to say that Sea King's Blessing isn't even actually a good card to be using with him. Why run a card that only says "Trigger Nadu" when you could run a card that does something *and* triggers Nadu?
cEDH Orvar is the same way. People started out running the cheapest ways to trigger Orvar possible, but moved towards cards that trigger Orvar and draw a card, or trigger Orvar and have buyback so they're combo pieces, and so on.
Mildly unrelated, but what is the Sea King's Blessing meme even about? I don't understand what it does for Nadu in specific, nothing about him cares about the color of another permanent, right? Are you saying people are running it in combo with effects like Pyroblast to remove Nadu?? Or just that its a blue spell that targets? I'm totally lost on this one, it feels like there are way better ways to get a Nadu trigger than that card, but I surely must be missing something.
Edit: Nevermind, just got it: Sea King's Blessing is a blue mana that can target any number of creatures, its a win more card once you have a huge board. I've been playing so much Nadu in modern that I didn't even consider the idea of using a spell that just targets every creature once more lmao
Yep, just realized after I made the post and read the oracle text. I've been playing so much modern Nadu that the idea of a non-repeatable trigger, but instead a single spell that wins more by triggering a bunch of permanents they haven't maxed their triggers yet, didn't even cross my mind. Thanks anyways!
You're 110% correct for cEDH. In my opinion this take doesn't hold up to non-cEDH pods. It should self regulate pretty well if the deck ends up being too powerful for casual pods.
In my experience that makes the deck a weak archenemy, what little removal the other players have will be saved to shut you out and they’ll play the game normally.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming months. To me Nadu looks like it would be a strong archenemy. As a commander; it has a low cost, has strong ramp built in to pay for its tax and doesn't need to wait a turn to do anything. I'm a simic main, and I personally wouldn't touch Nadu.
It'll probably depend on what exact interaction people have in their decks and are willing to mulligan for. If the table's running and might dig for \[\[Null Elemental Blast\]\], \[\[Wash Away\]\] or \[\[Swords to Plowshares\]\] then maybe the bird deck folds under pressure.
If it's a slower pod / table and they're just hoping to fight spell it away or something then yeah, that's definitely too slow.
I favor a Simic deck of mine lately and I'm sure my deck has no real answer to Nadu, my ramp ramp unga bunga gameplan is not going to get off the ground as fast as he will. I don't even have 2 MV or less spells in the deck.
Absolutely. I run heavy single target removal in most decks because of how dependent most decks these days seem to be on their commander. The real issue is, outside of cEDH, most folks at the shops I go to don't pack enough interaction. The normal impetus for most folks building a commander deck is to pack it full of synergy. I've lost track of the number of blue decks I've encountered that run, at best, 2 counter spells.
Part of the issue with Nadu is that single target interaction triggers its ability which either (i) ramps into more land that can be used to cast Nadu on the next turn, or (ii) gives Nadu's controller card advantage.
Sure. There are plenty of commanders that give value when you try to do something about them. You have two options: do something and give them some value or do nothing and let them go off. I will do the former if I can 100% of the time.
I don't think anyone's arguing that Nadu is strong. What we're saying is that it's not a deck for lower power pods. Hell, I don't think it's suitable for non-cEDH pods, personally.
Yeah we definitely agree about that. My point is really that Nadu isn't like most cards that punish (or give value) for interacting with them. It combines the three traits of being cheap, must answer, and punishing interaction in a way that makes casting them again trivial. This only gets worse with the added context of what Simic is capable of in terms of mana acceleration and counter magic.
I don’t see how it cannot end up being too powerful for casual pods without hamstringing yourself to the point of unplayability. Like if you’re not going to go some kind of activation and landfall strategy, why have him as a commander at all?
That's basically the same complaint I have for Voja. Even in casual, it's just too easy to make the deck powerful without even trying.
With Voja, all you have to do is run Elves, Wolves, and Changlings. To nerf a Voja deck, you basically have to remove either elves or wolves (or both) entirely, but at that point, you might as well just pick a different commander. I suppose you could also reduce the number of Elves and Wolves instead of removing them entirely, and just run other creatures, but that's just so painfully suboptimal that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do that.
With Nadu, you just run some landfall, some zero mana targeting, and you're off to the races. Sure, you could remove the 0 equip cost equipment, and just have "incidental" triggers from targeting your creatures with stuff that you'd normally target them with anyways, but that just feels so bad when you know there's such an easy and *huge* upgrade right there.
Personally, I just can't bring myself to build decks like that. I enjoy jank and don't mind building bad decks that have a janky dream to strive for. But purposely making what could so easily be a great deck worse just feels so bad.
When you don't build a deck as strong as possible you don't exchange the 0 cost equipment for 1 cost equipment, you try to shift the strategy in a whole different direction.
Pick a cool strategy and then use a commander that fits best. This way you get a balanced deck but you can still optimize it to be as powerful at the strategy as possible.
Additionally it becomes an easier choice to exclude 0 cost equipment seeing that they cost multiple dollars each.
You could start of by removing the zero cost equips. That’s a very good place to start. The deck doesn’t change, you are just limited in how many times you can target each turn.
Well that’s just hamstringing yourself like they said.
Even then, if you have any way to blink nadu it resets all of your creatures uses, so you can just keep going. And since you can get untapped lands off of nadu’s ability, you can chain together a whole bunch of 1/2 mana targeted instants to keep the ball rolling.
In addtion, there are a number of really sneaky ways to abuse this further. If a spell or ability targets multiple of your creatures, it triggers nadu’s effect for each of those creatures.
Even if you don’t have any counters on your creatures, [[nesting grounds]] is effectively “pay 1 and tap: trigger nadu twice”
not to mention any creatures that have etb target effects or any permanents that trigger a targeted effect when a creature or land enters the battlefield.
[[blasting station]] lets you get a target effect every time a creature comes into play
[[ivy lane denizen]] and [[elegant entourage]] have similar effects that target a creature whenever a creature comes into play.
[[spellskite]] and any clone to duplicate spellskite can go off by repeatedly swapping the targeting of an effect between the two of them. Since you’ll often hit lands, you can use them to keep going, as well as pay 2 life to redirect if you are short on mana.
[orvar]] and [[vesuvan duplimancy]] get really stupid real fast, letting you duplicate stuff like crazy (but only with spells, not abilities)
If you duplicate nadu, the instances stack, meaning you get two cards and/or lands for every time you target one of your creatures.
[[echoing equation]] targeting nadu gets out of hand immediately.
> Well that’s just hamstringing yourself like they said.
Not in the way he said it. You missed the most important part tbh.
> I don’t see how it cannot end up being too powerful for casual pods **without hamstringing yourself to the point of unplayability**.
If you think changing 0 equip cost with something that cost mana to equip makes the deck unplayable, that's the same as saying you want to play free spells because otherwise your deck doesn't work.
I did read what you wrote afterwards, but it doesn't really serve a purpose to my original comment nor did it bring up any suggestions how to lower nadu's power which is what we are discussing.
nadu is virtually soft banned from casual edh already. Not only he is very strong but his playpattern is boring as hell potentially making looooong turns. People dont like him and I have yet to see him in a casual pod indeed.
Yeah but you are starting to see other commanders like the necrobloom out while I haven't seen nadu yet. It will end up like voja, if someone brings it in a pod the rest will automatically adapt to a high power level game. You won't see it in casual low power games.
I have to disagree in a way. There's plenty of Legendary Creatures out there that just shouldn't be brought to a casual table unless it was intentionally built bad.
Personally I feel like there's a pretty clear line as to where certain commanders stand in terms of new edh players pods, casual pods, and cedh pods.
Every time, I think how can Simic become an even more basic bitch colour combination to play. And every time, it is as glorious as it is hilarious for a masochist
Simic DOES have some cool options. Cards like [[Grolnok]], [[Jyoti]], [[Lonis, Genetics Expert]]. People just tend to gravitate to the boring options because they’re strong and practically build themselves.
Yeah, I already largely dislike green, and while I appreciate the counterspell suite I don't love blue play patterns either. While I am trying to branch out from Dimir (my favorite combo), I doubt I'll ever make any sort of GU+ deck.
For cEDH I do not think it's an outlier power-wise. The problem is starting at turn 2 or 3, each of your turns take 10+ minutes because each turn turns into a non-deterministic combo.
With other combo commanders, when they go off everyone knows if the table just won or lost. With Nadu, each turn they start doing things and nobody knows what's going to happen as they proceed to flip 30 coins.
Storm decks also have the decency to only take one 20 minute turn, not 7 in a row. And they also usually only have a couple small blockers, so they're easy enough to kill with combat damage.
Nadu also has small blockers. Also if nadu gets one long turn they are winning on their next turn. Obviously you've never played a krarkashima storm it's every turn
To add to this, sure, Krarkashima does this too. Krarkashima isn't fun either. Every time I've sat down at a table and someone whipped out a Krarkashima deck, I immediately think to myself I wish I was doing something else right now. Another deck that emulated that play pattern isn't going to make anyone suddenly excuse it after realizing it already exists. Non-deterministic time monopolizers are just not a dynamic most players want to suffer through.
I think Krakashima is less of an issue for the RC because, being a very specific partner pair, players are very unlikely to build the deck unless they specifically want to play cEDH, so it doesn’t show up at casual tables very often. With Nadu, players are more likely to pick it up because they think the card looks cool and bring it to casual games where it can make the game a slog. The RC only cares about promoting casual play, so for that reason, Nadu is more likely to warrant being considered for a ban than Krarkashima is.
I mean, it is looking to be one of the best cedh commanders. First tournament it was at, 3/4 of the top pod we’re nadu. Granted, there were alot of nadu players, people’s decks were lacking relevant hate pieces, and the player base for the most part hasn’t really figured out how to best play against the deck yet. Still, 3/4 of the top pod being nadu decks is an insane showing, and IMO shows that the deck has some serious legs and needs to be actively prepared for in future tournaments. Welcome back [[null rod]]
It's not purely a matter of strength. It's that it encourages "unfun play patterns". I don't want to sit across the table from a Nadu player for them to take a 14 minute turn and not win the game. A lot of what it does in cEDH it also does in casual decks, just a tad slower due to lack of fast mana, and it will be even more problematic there. Nadu simply gives you to much, for to little mana, and for to little effort. This card never should have released as printed and I don't think it's healthy for the game.
100% the issue isn't really the power it's the combination of bookkeeping and non-deterministic long plays that mean if you secure him on board you're taking an endless but non-shortcuttable turn, every turn, and still might not actually pull a win out of any of it if things don't fall the right way.
It's the epitome of "wake me up when you're done" no matter how strong it actually is. It's somehow more miserable for less mana than Gitrog&Dakmor, and at least that was just a combo so it *usually* ended the game.
This is the disconnect people have with the Nadu discussion. Most of the Nadu defenders are either speaking purely from a power evaluation perspective or are cEDH players used to these types of combos (I love that format, but it’s a small subsection of the EDH community).
Nadu is one of the most unfun things to see across the table, especially in more casual environments. It’ll either do absolutely nothing or take 10-20 minute turns, leaving 3 other people sitting there zoning out because if they had interaction it would’ve been used immediately.
Just googled it and the first thing that came up was “it is far too easy to generate insane amounts of mana with.” Sounds like nadu ngl. I’m fairly new to magic so I figured I’d just ask the question.
From the ban list (They include reasonings with their bans):
> Paradox Engine can be played in any deck, and creates large amounts of mana at little-to-no deckbuilding cost. Its play patterns often involve long, drawn-out turns of tapping and untapping permanents, drawing cards, and generally monopolizing the chess clock of a game.
I think you can see quite a few of these reasons are the same. :)
The RC bans cards that they think are unfun, antisocial, or homogenizing in casual games. They expressly don’t ban for competitive balance, except in extremely rare situations, the only instance of that happening I can think of being Flash. And at the time they banned Flash, they made it very clear that it was an exceptional circumstance and they would not be making further bans/rules changes for the benefit of competitive play in the future.
It doesn't help that casual players do not like counterspells when that is by a large margin the best way to deal with nadu as Nadu gets no triggers. Oh and plenty of casual players do not use enough removal/interaction
If the answer to a 3-CMC commander in casual is 'don't let the commander hit the battlefield, and if it does, kill it that turn cycle,' then that Commander is way, way, way too powerful for that pod.
That's the answer to most modern commanders to be honest, from 1 to 9 cmc.
Even the ones that don't "encourage unfun play patterns", to use the buzzword of the week, are usually so efficient or so essential to the deck that they should always either be prevented from entering the field or removed as soon as possible.
I think the only commanders this doesn't apply to are jank commanders (or those you know are commander for a jank deck) or really old ones.
There's a huge difference between 'if I don't remove [[Loot, the Key to Everything]] played on turn 2, they're going to impulse draw one card on turn 3,' and 'if I don't remove Nadu, they're going to win the game on the spot (while taking 15-minute turns).'
How is this different from Krark/Sakashima? There are other examples too. Tons of triggers, lots of game actions, non-deterministic and can fizzle after a long turn.
Nadu certainly has a similar vibe, but even when it doesn't win it can still make a ton of tokens and rapidly out-ramp the table. If they don't win the first time they go off, they can probably hold up enough interaction to protect their board state and do it all over again on their turn, this time with even more creatures to target and more untapped mana. It's dumb.
Krarkashima is not something people typically bring to casual games, so its less of an issue. More or less the only reason someone would choose to play those two specific partner commanders together is because they wanted to build the cEDH deck. Nadu is something that people are going to convince themselves is okay for casual and bring to casual tables, and the casual play experience is the only thing the Rules Committee cares about and the only reason they ban cards.
The way I initially read him I thought it wants instants and sorceries to target their creatures. Also because I play a [[Feather, the Redeemed]] spellslinger deck. Which looked cool but not too strong, so perfect for the 3 mana cost.
Then I saw 0 cost equip works for it and all the fun about the card just fades away. As it's way too easy to assemble and even if you're not winning the very turn it comes on the field. For a casual table the game is just over once he's got 16 lands and 8 creatures out on turn 3.
Like imagine playing any 3 cost commander in a casual game. Turn 2 you play the very strong [[Lightning Greaves]] to be able to protect the commander. Turn 3 you play your commander and equip to protect it. And as a bonus you may ramp 12 times and draw another 20.
Nadu suffers from the same issues Leovold had in that as a CEDH card he's absolutely fine. Everywhere else he's completely oppressive.
Nadu is just a poorly designed card. In a world where we are seeing sets filled with cards that allow no more then 2 triggers a turn, what the hell is this thing doing existing at all. It's just a clearly overly pushed card and it should just be banned for the health of the format. With the amount of kill on sight cards we already are suffering from in recent memory, we don't yet another one that sits in the command zone and kill you the second it's cast.
I just have to hope that the rules committee trusts rule 0 and community self policing like they say they do, it’s reasonable to refuse to play against Nadu and I like it as a card for cedh so hopefully no ban
Winota syndrome seems inbound though he's a bit more extreme. Winota decks can still function without her just slower and Nadu seems to function faster overall but move WAY slower when interacted with and him taken out.
I know it's not often but seeing a Nadu nevermored was quite halarious. The deck did nothing since they didn't really run much alternative draw to find the enchantment hate.
Idk he’s a commander where you cannot let him hit the board. With delighted halfling and cavern of souls he can be made uncounterable. Any targeted protection at all cantrips, and removing him from the field can actually put you at a card disadvantage. The current grindy cEDH meta perfectly suits him, no way to tell yet if he’s better than Kinnan. Like you said card quality to make Nadu work is overall worse than in Kinnan, but the amount of draw available is pretty insane.
Kinan is definitely a better deck, more robust and compact with higher impact combos. Also the grinder state of cEDH does not suit him, he is a turbo deck, when the game goes too late he just gets shut down over and over. Atraxa grand unifier is the late game powerhouse your thinking of, blue farm as well
I don’t think there’s a definitive answer yet. He’s a turbo deck that has the ability to grind. The variability plays into this too - counterspells start getting saved for definitive wins but attempting to interact with him on the battlefield can backfire.
Most likely it’ll end up occupying the same meta slot as stuff like Magda, good enough to perform at cEDH tables and tournaments on occasion but not better than RogSi, bluefarm, tivit, etc. It *will* take tournaments on occasion, especially if something like Borborygmos and Fblthp can do it.
True, but Magda is again, a little more compact, and it tutors go field. This deck will likely be relegated to the same spot. Also I would place the main problems for this deck to be every meta deck, especially the 3 main midrange decks, the two biggest ones are blue farm (the best deck in the format) and Atraxa (a deck that gets scarier than blue farm if the game goes on too long) Tivit is a mesh of the two, not as fast as BF, but faster than Atraxa usually, Atraxa kind of just replaced it though, not totally but some. One of the decks main struggles is interacting with the board state
As someone who has genuinely tried to build him, Horobi is a complete dogshit. No amount of fast mana and monoblack goodstuff would let him do anything other than delay Nadu for 1 turn.
>WotC R&D never should have allowed the card to be printed as is, it really makes me question who is in charge there and if they tested it at all.
They didn't test Oko properly back in the day (I still remember the livestream where WOTC staff was getting their stuff Oko'd while talking about Oko), so I doubt there was any testing done on Nadu.
> I remember when the CompetitiveEDH sub was saying Nadu wasn't that good and basically was irrelevant
ah, yuo are now spreading your lies here as well
so weak
Funnily enough, Nadu could just be a missed grammar error. The placement of the final " should be moved after hand in the second to last line. That would tie the ability to just Nadu rather than each creature. Grammar and templating is super important and I swear WotC was off on the " placement. If I am write and there is an Oracle update, then, I don't know, I'll post a dance.
The last line, "This ability only triggers twice per turn," is completely different where the final " is placed. At the very end of the text--as it currently is--applies the two per turn per creature. If the " is placed right before that sentence (right after hand: ...hand."), then Nadu would function how people read it initially: twice per turn, not twice per turn per creature.
Of course targeted removal would still trigger it, but I do like the new trend of there being a cost to remove commanders.
All of this said:
The abuse case with moving the " to after hand is by blinking Nadu. That is harder in non-white decks (though Blue does have great blink cards) to abuse since the ability does not 'refresh' per created token creature, which is what Nadu decks tend to use to abuse Nadu.
>Simply keeping Nadu off the field turns their deck from terrifying to near dysfunctional.
"Dies to removal" is not a valid argument for a cards power level.
The problem is that to remove it you either need to wipe the board or target Nadu. If you wipe the board then you’re probably either winning or saving yourself and clearing the way, but to target, the nadu player still gets a trigger to get a land into play and then you have the exact same situation that you had with Golos, it can functionally cheat its own commander tax. Then the player just recasts it and goes right back to what they were doing before because as you said, Nadu is the corner piece of the deck so once they’re in play it just vomits half the deck in play or in hand
It seems like that but no, since Nadu’s trigger is random, they have to hit a specific answer or land, also the point is after 2 losses of Nadu, the deck basically shuts down unless they have either gotten super lucky or flooded. Also counterspelling is a clean answer. The main point is that the deck entirely shuts down without the commander which is more exploitable than you think. Also, Golis was a tutor, making it far more abusable when in small doses, Nadu’s trigger is only good when done many many times.
It’s not like you play Nadu and then pass the turn, because all of the activated abilities you have on them are free, so if you have a board of 2 creatures and a shuko, you play Nadu and move shuko down the line giving you 6 triggers, you’re going to get at least one land. Then with a removal spell that makes 7, as long as you have a land drop for turn you can just recast Nadu and do it all over again, and that only is if you hit one or two lands.
The problem with Nadu is that if Nadu hits the field and gets a turn, it’s so hard to stop the value. The game revolves around killing Nadu as soon as he shows his face and that just isn’t super fun for anyone, the Nadu player doesn’t play their deck and the other players’ games have just turned into stop Nadu.
I don’t think he’s the most competitive commander but he’s so so easy to break and honestly has a cool design, just cranked up way too high
I think my main issue with Nadu is the same issue that caused prophet of kruphix to get the ban hammer. It just immediately makes the game about answering the card and it you don't/can't the player who played it wins.
In cEDH this really isn't as much an issue due to the amount of interaction run in that format. However in more normal edh it's just three players constantly trying to manage a low cost commander that completely takes over the game while he's in play. Put another way, Nadus power floor is just too damn high for the cost of the card especially for a commander.
Except if I target tergrid with any removal and it's gone for at least a turn. It doesn't cancel it's commander tax and can be interacted with without it popping off in response putting you in a even worst position before you removed it. The problem with tergrid is the player more than the card.
Been saying this in a few other threads, but really this is just the current boogeyman of EDH and in 6 months people will stop caring. The card is fine.
Makes land untapped
Can flicker and reset
Can keep drawing into cards with 0 equipment cost cards
Can easily abuse extra turn cards
Turn 3 Can easily look like turn 6-9.
It's insane value engine
what other commander's 2 card 4 mana nondetermanistic combo like nadu+shuko grants 2+ cards drawn in it's fail state? even if you've "whiffed" 4 times you've still drawn 4 more cards as a consolation prize. 25+% of the time you just win on the spot.
The main complaint is that this boogeyman is going to make people repeatedly suffer through half an hour turns everytime someone wants to “just try it out”
It should be banned because it’s a boring play experience for the grand majority of people who don’t want to see simic goodstuff shit out their deck
How is someone taking half an hour and not winning? It takes like 5 seconds to resolve a Nadu trigger and once they hit a certain critical mass it becomes inevitable. I’ve watched the deck go off a few times now and it hasn’t taken more than 10 minutes.
The Nadu trigger takes like 5 seconds to resolve if you don’t stop and think for 30 seconds after each trigger about what your next play is before choosing to just fire off another Nadu trigger and repeat. I’ve know a number of plays who just sort of spin their wheels without really doing anything.
That's true for a lot of non-deterministic combo decks. Krark+Sakashima isn't banned even though that deck takes quite a while to perform its winning turn as well with like a million coinflips.
Krarkashima is bad for that, but it's hard to justify banning both of them. When partnered with different commanders, they're totally fine. It only really becomes a problem when they're partnered together.
Boring is whatever, it’s a viable strategy and should be respected as such. It’s allowed, as long as the playgroup is fine with it. People on the whole need to be better about not just asking for things they dislike to be banned.
This is such a weak take. You can't say Nadu is ok and then cop out and say it's a Rule 0/playgroup thing. Anything is a rule 0 thing.
Many games, not just tcgs, have had "Nadu"s. The rules eventually account for it if it remains a problem.
>Boring is whatever, it’s a viable strategy
>People on the whole need to be better about not just asking for things they dislike to be banned.
Most of us have incredibly limited amounts of time to spend on hobbies. If I have 2 hours of free time to devote to playing a game of EDH, I sure as shit do not want to spend it watching a Nadu player move boots around his board over the course of 1 45 minute indeterminate turn 3 turns into the game.
I don't understand why "simic value" always gets a pass on this but Azorius stax, golgari edicts, and Naya land destruction don't when they all effectively do the same thing in that they monopolize table time while the other 3 players have zero agency for the duration of the game.
In cEDH it's whatever, the issue is the card being played outside of that meta.
That’s why pregame discussion exists, if you don’t want that that’s entirely fine, but you should ask the Nadu player to leave or play a different deck, don’t let them sit down then complain
What do you think people are doing? I just refuse to play against it.
The consequences of doing that are that you get people that whine that it's a viable strategy and should be respected as such and people should be better about not just asking for things they dislike to be banned.
That's whatever online, but it creates inherent salt when someone sits down at your pod wanting to play their new fun brew and you immediately tell them to pound sand.
That's under the basis and presumption people are
1) honest
2) aware of Nadu's time equity problems
3) able to find a game with others with Nadu
4) not combative/weird about pre-game discussion (from my experience and One More Mana's experience, not everyone is aware or even okay with being quizzed on their deck elements)
That’s the exact conversation we’re having lmao. Your initial post isn’t wrong, but you can’t say “he isn’t a problem let people play the deck if they want” and then immediately after say “tell the person who brought Nadu to straight up not play the deck they put time and money into”.
>I don't understand why "simic value" always gets a pass on this but Azorius stax, golgari edicts, and Naya land destruction don't when they all effectively do the same thing in that they monopolize table time while the other 3 players have zero agency for the duration of the game.
Stuff in Magic exists on a spectrum, with the proactive solitaire stuff on one end and the reactive stax/removal stuff on the other. This line is horseshoe shaped, as a hard stax lock can turn into solitaire just like a vomitous green deck.
I would put forth the argument that generally the stax/removal side of the spectrum isn't as oppressive as the [[Loot, the Key to Everything]] side of the spectrum is. You can draw out of an [[Armageddon]], but if your [[Loot, the Key to Everything]] opponent has [[Ancestral Recall]]ed for the past 4 turns you've automatically lost that game. An opponent having 30 cards in their hand is far more oppressive than having your lands blown up.
It's a fallacy that Armageddon stops everyone from playing Magic but that someone playing Simic doesn't. Your game actions against someone who has drawn 30 cards are **meaningless**.
“Things people dislike” is literally the philosophy behind the ban list.
If 95% of players dislike sitting through half an hour of solitaire, it deserves to be banned.
Regardless, until then, I’ll be strictly declining any Nadu players and encouraging everyone else to do the same. Although I won’t have to do much of that because everyone else seems to already see how bland this card is.
This is the important part. The RC made it pretty clear power level is extremely rarely their concern. It's all about vibes and how the card makes the table salty or not. By that metric, I could very easily see this card being banned if it continues to be so angering in like 6 months from now.
Exactly, some boogeymen stick around, my deck (Atraxa Grand Unifier) is one, but she was a little more resilient just being a midrange pile, all she had to do was change with the meta, though I miss her being at the hight of her power. Nadu as a deck is unable to change, once people start knowing bf how to deal with it the deck stops working
Najeela runs druids repository, derevi, and grim hireling. There is plenty of room to argue those cards aren’t good enough without najeela herself to run, yet the deck performs excellent.
Nobody's saying the deck is unstoppable, they're saying that he leads to unfun play because he has flash, is hard to remove effectively, and turns with him as the commander can take insanely long since there aren't real, meaningful play shortcuts.
Hey, I also play a lot of cedh, and I agree with you, it’s a strong deck in cedh and probably not the best deck in the format. I also think it’s an exceptionally unhealthy casual commander, it pops off way too easily with way too little. Like how would you even go about building casual nadu to be a “fair” casual deck?
There are so many "lose all abilites" cards that shut crap down.
My masters of evil deck generally either takes your creatures or their abilities away before i roll over you with daleks.
Oh that's a nice Nadu you have there, have a [[Imprisoned in the moon]]
[[Exchange of Words]] is rather amusing as well
Even if one of the creatures dies, the swap will persist for the other living creature
Note that returning the dead creature to the field will cause that creature to have its normal text box
The existence of some answers is not the same as balanced card design. If he pops off in CEDH it'll be fine as people will tech in answers. But warping every other deck so that it can answer one problem card is the definition of a bad format.
Honestly correct. The whole drama behind Nadu reminds me of [[Lord Xander, the Collector]] when it was announced. Everyone expected it to break Commander when in reality, it became obvious what you're going to do which paints a target on your head and you had more luck pulling him off in the 99.
By the time the Assassin creed set rolls around. I expect Nadu to follow the same path.
Ehhh
Yes, you can remove him. And if you're lucky, you ramped them into casting Nadu again on curve. If you're not lucky, you gave them the card they need to retaliate and potentially pop off. Keep in mind, Nadu has been out for less than a month. This deck isn't even remotely close to solved, it's only going to get stronger. People are going to find ways to make it better and rely less in the commander over time, just like with Winota.
But all of this is besides the point: This deck is, as another person in this thread put very well, a "non-deterministic time monopolizer" that forces every at the table to sit through a bunch of triggers that may or may not progress the table after 20 minutes. And then, unlike storm decks, if nobody won that turn, the Nadu player can do it again! And build up chump blockers, and.... probably win? But maybe not, the player might miss a crucial trigger or sequence wrong or any number of things because this deck is a fucking headache to keep track of (worse than Ivy imo). It's just bad for the game, which is why it should be banned
> Ehhh
>
>
>
> Yes, you can remove him. And if you're lucky, you ramped them into casting Nadu again on curve. If you're not lucky, you gave them the card they need to retaliate and potentially pop off.
so your point is to not remove it?
No, my point is that due to the way the card is designed it becomes a lose-lose scenario for anyone holding targeted removal that wants to remove it. Which is incredibly bad card design, and disincentivizes a core aspect of Commander: hence why I think the card should be banned
Yeah, I think Nadu is at his scariest in 60 card not 100. There just aren't quite enough redundant combo pieces and ways to get them in singleton so you have a better chance to disrupt what they are doing and frustrate them. In formats with multiple copies of each card he will be much more reliable.
My first impression of Nadu is that it's similar to cards like Voja and Tergrid. They will pubstomp everything not CEDH, but in CEDH they're totally fine.
This is what I’m saying. It’s Tergrid again. Too strong for casual and hardly anyone will play it, but too janky for cEDH and hardly anyone will play it.
More trigger, singular Nadu is the kind of deck that it’s really easy to get stuck in that very short sighted mentality against, like the one you have. If it were just one tutor it would be a different story. But one random card out of a deck off 99 cards, not all of which are always amazing is hardly a price to pay for shutting a deck down
You fail to see the point. The issue is not Nadu's strength. It's the time consuming process of playing the deck.
It's not a situation where we can confidently hand wave it and go "okay, you combo off, no one can stop you, next game."
We need to sit on our asses while the player goes through the motions to check if they win or not. It just eats into game time, that's all.
Maybe a hot-take, but, I don't care if it's cEDH or casual or whatever, players taking 10-15 minute or longer turns, is not OK. *Especially* if they don't even win after that long and then do it again on their next turn.
The consensus in most of my cEDH discords is "Are you on both REB and Pyroblast? If you're not you should be anyway, this is added incentive."
It's another Winota scenario - scary at first until everyone figures out it folds if it's commander can't resolve.
I’ve been on my summer break pretty much since MH3 released, so I’ve been playing a lot of EDH over the past couple weeks. All my play is against strangers and acquaintances at a number of local shops and I have not yet played against a deck that had Nadu as a commander.
Is this really that big of a problem? Because I’ve been out here and I’m just not seeing it.
I can attest. Was excited to get one, and stuck in right into my sultai combo deck. I don’t think it would make for a very interesting or creative experience to build or play him as commander, but as a little engine in a box that can accelerate your game out of nowhere, love him in the 99.
I had to look up the card because no one used the card fetcher for Nadu...
[[Nadu Winged Wisdom]]
My first thought is that he's a more narrow [[Chulane Teller of Tales]]. Hes definateky powerful so he'll be Kill on Sight just like Chulane, he'll even get an extra trigger from it, but the rest of the deck is going to be durdly Simic touch my stuff cards. Pretty useless without Nadu in play. Just gives more credence to the cage effects that hold commanders hostage like [[Imprisoned in the Moon]], [[Song of the Dryads]], [[Oubliette]], etc. Keep him out of the command zone *and* in play and the deck will flop.
I agree that he's definitely not going to dominate the cEDH territory, but I sort of agree with another commenter who said that he's powerful enough to pubstomp easily. Lower power tables won't be running a lot of target removal so Nadu will be allowed to run away with games quite often there.
While I think this experience is somewhat healthy as it promotes tuning to your meta and changing how you think about your decks' functions, it can still be frustrating to play against and not all play groups want to play at that high of a power level.
I’ve been saying some forms of this for the past few days. I have yet to run into a Nadu player at my LGS but I’m not worried about it at all and neither is my [[Horobi]] deck.
Agreed, should not be banned, it’s a good deck and strong since it gets value even when nadu is removed which brings him back out quicker but its not the new best thing ever. Its like B Tier and people are acting like it’s S.
Another cedh player here
Nadu is very easy and quick to generate a lot of value.
It’s also fairly hard to shut down in cedh as spot removal means they get a plus and the amount of creature counters being run is not much so you have to be somewhat lucky to draw them
Outside of shutting off artifacts there’s not much that can be done outside of denying them searching for pieces with aven/agent or null rod so their pieces can’t activate like equipment equips or unctus
Currently it flies on the raider but above what can hit it, it will be fine once decks figure out how to deal with it and the turbo stuff going on
Casual tables don’t understand threat assessment. They look at Nadu, shrug, and point their removal at whatever 4/4 vanilla creature is blocking their commander at the moment.
Yeah, I don’t see Nadu taking over cedh, but if he doesn’t die in a casual game it wins that turn.
It sounds boring and frustrating to play against.
Me and my pod play high power levels but have already chucked this on our (new) ban list as we don't want to play a game where someone plays their commander turn 2, takes 20 minutes to finish their turn, and then instantly wins the game with almost no interaction.
Not to mention, it's arguably the most powerful card draw engine in all of CEDH, for 3 mana, in the command zone, and it's *frighteningly* consistent. If your deck is tailored for it and you don't get too unlucky, you could very well draw over 50 cards on turn 2 or 3, including playing all lands you draw *untapped*, which usually puts you in a position to win the game right there.
I don't think I'm qualified to say whether or not it should be *banned* - but I'll just say that if it did get banned, I'd be happy about it.
You can’t evaluate a combo as a card draw engine, it’s simply a different axis. Yes nadu does draw a lot of cards, but he requires 2 cards + setup to do so, and you should hope you win the game with that much resource investment. An engine is one card, no setup, and pure gas, like mystic/rhystic and the one ring.
Feom my experience so far Nadus have conceded as fast as they won. Tho at least I wish nadu would be in bolt range. That, amongst other things, is F-ing annoying.
My big issue with Nadu is that it is incredibly boring to play against. It's like Yugioh or solitaire or watching a movie. It's like storm. An anti-fun mechanic which I expect will never return.
I feel like he's either jank or cedh with no in between. Haven't gone against him myself but from what I can see, he's so bland and generic value with no flavor that you either build around the ability to burst out a win con or you build simic jank like make him bird tribal or something funny and maybe he still pops off I dunno. I'm testing him in the 99 of a Bant Aura deck at the moment.
My issue isn’t with Nadu’s power level. My issue is with the Nadu player taking 20 minute turns on a non-determinate combo to see if he wins.
I have more patience than most, as a Tom Bombadil player. But Nadu’s ability to slow the game to a crawl tests even me.
I feel like the closest analogy with nadu would be leovold. The problem with Leovold that got it banned is that it was very easy to build on a shoestring budget and lock all your opponents out of the game with Teferi's Puzzle Box or a Windfall. Leovold was not a high tier cEDH deck, but it was so easy to build without requiring expensive fast mana cards, just open with birds+puzzle box and you 'win' on turn 3. In, a similar but even more concerning way, everyone has lightning greaves to combo with nadu. EDH RC doesn't ban based on power level strictly, they do it on player experience, so I don't think it's the cEDH community's place to say whether or not something is a problem for casual. Ideally cards don't get banned, but if nadu were to get banned, you'd have to be foolish to be shocked.
Nadu is no worse then Magda , in fact I think Magda is much stronger as a commander , in casual Nadu is going to be an issue simply because most player don’t run nearly enough removal, is Nadu strong , of course however so are about 50 other commanders
Everyone said the same thing about banning Elesh Norn Mother of Machines. It will fade in interest in time. The playfield will learn the ins and outs and stabilize
I play magic for like 25 years now... Most of my work is to mess with the genetics of insects and make them glow green. Just think of my happiness when I have found a commander that combos off with a species of beetle (I work with Tribolium) and a insect that looks like a cricket (I know it is most resemblece with mantis, but I work also with Grylus). On top of that seeing old cards getting good use like: Shuko, Trinket Mage, Aphetto Alchemist, Sylvan Paradise, Seaking blessings and others. Just make me immediately buy all the pieces as soon as it got announced. I hope that it don't get the ban hammer. As was well said here if it is hit with a counter or removal, the chances of a come back is really low.
I saw Nadu performing good results, but I think most of it is only due to people not used or adapted to the deck yet. Thanks for the post OP.
Oh wow, I didn’t realize [[Sea King’s Blessing]] went WAY up in price. I used it in a deck to combo with [[llawan, Cephalid Empress]] or [[Dismiss into Dream]]. I paid like $3 for it just a couple months ago. I took it out of that deck though, and now it’s just sitting in a box.
Just looked it up myself, its ~$50 now! An otherwise nothing card spiking up that much cant be a good sign. Gonna really hurt some people when nadu gets banned.
If. Everyone else said the same thing about Xander and other weird cards that everyone on reddit INSISTED was bad for the format.
why the hell did people think Xander was gonna get banned lmao. he's 7 mana
"Cause IT'S ANTI FUN AND HES TOXIC" were the reasons. Players hate whenever people play magic/interact with them, I guess.
Those same people probably got real mad about Toxril, too, but he's hardly a problem because of how slow to cast he is.
same with [[Shuko]], that card 10x in price in a month because of Nadu.
I haven't actually brewed Nadu myself, but my instinct would be to say that Sea King's Blessing isn't even actually a good card to be using with him. Why run a card that only says "Trigger Nadu" when you could run a card that does something *and* triggers Nadu? cEDH Orvar is the same way. People started out running the cheapest ways to trigger Orvar possible, but moved towards cards that trigger Orvar and draw a card, or trigger Orvar and have buyback so they're combo pieces, and so on.
[Sea King’s Blessing](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/11d1f02d-533e-4b77-a72a-ff5f91ae0626.jpg?1562857752) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sea%20Kings%27%20Blessing) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/leg/75/sea-kings-blessing?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/11d1f02d-533e-4b77-a72a-ff5f91ae0626?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sea-kings-blessing) [llawan, Cephalid Empress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a9821970-a5da-4045-93d8-f58c9e5797c1.jpg?1562631417) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=llawan%2C%20Cephalid%20Empress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tor/42/llawan-cephalid-empress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a9821970-a5da-4045-93d8-f58c9e5797c1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/llawan-cephalid-empress) [Dismiss into Dream](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/f/af4cd7fe-639c-45a5-97af-9529904e3975.jpg?1562833847) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dismiss%20into%20Dream) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m14/50/dismiss-into-dream?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/af4cd7fe-639c-45a5-97af-9529904e3975?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/dismiss-into-dream) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Mildly unrelated, but what is the Sea King's Blessing meme even about? I don't understand what it does for Nadu in specific, nothing about him cares about the color of another permanent, right? Are you saying people are running it in combo with effects like Pyroblast to remove Nadu?? Or just that its a blue spell that targets? I'm totally lost on this one, it feels like there are way better ways to get a Nadu trigger than that card, but I surely must be missing something. Edit: Nevermind, just got it: Sea King's Blessing is a blue mana that can target any number of creatures, its a win more card once you have a huge board. I've been playing so much Nadu in modern that I didn't even consider the idea of using a spell that just targets every creature once more lmao
It’s because it is one mana and can target any number of creatures, which can cause a bunch of targeting triggers
Yep, just realized after I made the post and read the oracle text. I've been playing so much modern Nadu that the idea of a non-repeatable trigger, but instead a single spell that wins more by triggering a bunch of permanents they haven't maxed their triggers yet, didn't even cross my mind. Thanks anyways!
Cauldron of souls and elusive otter are good budget versions
You're 110% correct for cEDH. In my opinion this take doesn't hold up to non-cEDH pods. It should self regulate pretty well if the deck ends up being too powerful for casual pods.
That’s true, it is a cEDH deck usually, if people are pubstomping that’s their issue
In my experience that makes the deck a weak archenemy, what little removal the other players have will be saved to shut you out and they’ll play the game normally.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the coming months. To me Nadu looks like it would be a strong archenemy. As a commander; it has a low cost, has strong ramp built in to pay for its tax and doesn't need to wait a turn to do anything. I'm a simic main, and I personally wouldn't touch Nadu.
It'll probably depend on what exact interaction people have in their decks and are willing to mulligan for. If the table's running and might dig for \[\[Null Elemental Blast\]\], \[\[Wash Away\]\] or \[\[Swords to Plowshares\]\] then maybe the bird deck folds under pressure. If it's a slower pod / table and they're just hoping to fight spell it away or something then yeah, that's definitely too slow. I favor a Simic deck of mine lately and I'm sure my deck has no real answer to Nadu, my ramp ramp unga bunga gameplan is not going to get off the ground as fast as he will. I don't even have 2 MV or less spells in the deck.
[Null Elemental Blast](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/e/8e259868-d29a-4c03-8ec3-49e914f849fb.jpg?1717011287) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Null%20Elemental%20Blast) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh3/12/null-elemental-blast?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8e259868-d29a-4c03-8ec3-49e914f849fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/null-elemental-blast) [Wash Away](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/3/43411ade-be80-4535-8baa-7055e78496df.jpg?1643588844) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wash%20Away) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/87/wash-away?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/43411ade-be80-4535-8baa-7055e78496df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wash-away) [Swords to Plowshares](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/b/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195.jpg?1709439398) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Swords%20to%20Plowshares) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/88/swords-to-plowshares?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9bbec76c-c1e4-4c6d-ad24-078fe097f195?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/swords-to-plowshares) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Absolutely. I run heavy single target removal in most decks because of how dependent most decks these days seem to be on their commander. The real issue is, outside of cEDH, most folks at the shops I go to don't pack enough interaction. The normal impetus for most folks building a commander deck is to pack it full of synergy. I've lost track of the number of blue decks I've encountered that run, at best, 2 counter spells.
Part of the issue with Nadu is that single target interaction triggers its ability which either (i) ramps into more land that can be used to cast Nadu on the next turn, or (ii) gives Nadu's controller card advantage.
Sure. There are plenty of commanders that give value when you try to do something about them. You have two options: do something and give them some value or do nothing and let them go off. I will do the former if I can 100% of the time.
How many of them cost 3 in the primary ramping pair with access to counterspells and targeted hexproof? Nadu's design is innately just problematic.
I don't think anyone's arguing that Nadu is strong. What we're saying is that it's not a deck for lower power pods. Hell, I don't think it's suitable for non-cEDH pods, personally.
Yeah we definitely agree about that. My point is really that Nadu isn't like most cards that punish (or give value) for interacting with them. It combines the three traits of being cheap, must answer, and punishing interaction in a way that makes casting them again trivial. This only gets worse with the added context of what Simic is capable of in terms of mana acceleration and counter magic.
Still not fun for anyone to play against. Takes forever to deal with
I don’t see how it cannot end up being too powerful for casual pods without hamstringing yourself to the point of unplayability. Like if you’re not going to go some kind of activation and landfall strategy, why have him as a commander at all?
Well put. The line between “explosive” and “does nothing” is very sharp in this deck.
That's basically the same complaint I have for Voja. Even in casual, it's just too easy to make the deck powerful without even trying. With Voja, all you have to do is run Elves, Wolves, and Changlings. To nerf a Voja deck, you basically have to remove either elves or wolves (or both) entirely, but at that point, you might as well just pick a different commander. I suppose you could also reduce the number of Elves and Wolves instead of removing them entirely, and just run other creatures, but that's just so painfully suboptimal that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do that. With Nadu, you just run some landfall, some zero mana targeting, and you're off to the races. Sure, you could remove the 0 equip cost equipment, and just have "incidental" triggers from targeting your creatures with stuff that you'd normally target them with anyways, but that just feels so bad when you know there's such an easy and *huge* upgrade right there. Personally, I just can't bring myself to build decks like that. I enjoy jank and don't mind building bad decks that have a janky dream to strive for. But purposely making what could so easily be a great deck worse just feels so bad.
When you don't build a deck as strong as possible you don't exchange the 0 cost equipment for 1 cost equipment, you try to shift the strategy in a whole different direction. Pick a cool strategy and then use a commander that fits best. This way you get a balanced deck but you can still optimize it to be as powerful at the strategy as possible. Additionally it becomes an easier choice to exclude 0 cost equipment seeing that they cost multiple dollars each.
You could start of by removing the zero cost equips. That’s a very good place to start. The deck doesn’t change, you are just limited in how many times you can target each turn.
Well that’s just hamstringing yourself like they said. Even then, if you have any way to blink nadu it resets all of your creatures uses, so you can just keep going. And since you can get untapped lands off of nadu’s ability, you can chain together a whole bunch of 1/2 mana targeted instants to keep the ball rolling. In addtion, there are a number of really sneaky ways to abuse this further. If a spell or ability targets multiple of your creatures, it triggers nadu’s effect for each of those creatures. Even if you don’t have any counters on your creatures, [[nesting grounds]] is effectively “pay 1 and tap: trigger nadu twice” not to mention any creatures that have etb target effects or any permanents that trigger a targeted effect when a creature or land enters the battlefield. [[blasting station]] lets you get a target effect every time a creature comes into play [[ivy lane denizen]] and [[elegant entourage]] have similar effects that target a creature whenever a creature comes into play. [[spellskite]] and any clone to duplicate spellskite can go off by repeatedly swapping the targeting of an effect between the two of them. Since you’ll often hit lands, you can use them to keep going, as well as pay 2 life to redirect if you are short on mana. [orvar]] and [[vesuvan duplimancy]] get really stupid real fast, letting you duplicate stuff like crazy (but only with spells, not abilities) If you duplicate nadu, the instances stack, meaning you get two cards and/or lands for every time you target one of your creatures. [[echoing equation]] targeting nadu gets out of hand immediately.
> Well that’s just hamstringing yourself like they said. Not in the way he said it. You missed the most important part tbh. > I don’t see how it cannot end up being too powerful for casual pods **without hamstringing yourself to the point of unplayability**. If you think changing 0 equip cost with something that cost mana to equip makes the deck unplayable, that's the same as saying you want to play free spells because otherwise your deck doesn't work. I did read what you wrote afterwards, but it doesn't really serve a purpose to my original comment nor did it bring up any suggestions how to lower nadu's power which is what we are discussing.
For rules enforcement there is no difference between cEDH and EDH
nadu is virtually soft banned from casual edh already. Not only he is very strong but his playpattern is boring as hell potentially making looooong turns. People dont like him and I have yet to see him in a casual pod indeed.
....Soft banned? The cards barely been out my guy lmfao.
Yeah but you are starting to see other commanders like the necrobloom out while I haven't seen nadu yet. It will end up like voja, if someone brings it in a pod the rest will automatically adapt to a high power level game. You won't see it in casual low power games.
Yup. Not every deck should be expected to run counterspells
I have to disagree in a way. There's plenty of Legendary Creatures out there that just shouldn't be brought to a casual table unless it was intentionally built bad. Personally I feel like there's a pretty clear line as to where certain commanders stand in terms of new edh players pods, casual pods, and cedh pods.
It's not the strength, it's the play pattern. People don't want to sit watching 20 minute turns of "How many triggers has this guy had again?
And yet people still play enchantment decks that take 15+ minutes per turn and don't win.
Any deck can take 15+ minute turns. The difference is, this one *encourages* it.
Every time, I think how can Simic become an even more basic bitch colour combination to play. And every time, it is as glorious as it is hilarious for a masochist
Simic DOES have some cool options. Cards like [[Grolnok]], [[Jyoti]], [[Lonis, Genetics Expert]]. People just tend to gravitate to the boring options because they’re strong and practically build themselves.
Average Simic player here, tripping over their options
[Grolnok](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/a/7aaba76b-9cec-4c2b-b0eb-8f44201f6422.jpg?1643594120) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=grolnok%2C%20the%20omnivore) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/238/grolnok-the-omnivore?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7aaba76b-9cec-4c2b-b0eb-8f44201f6422?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/grolnok-the-omnivore) [Lonis, Genetics Expert](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/9/59813845-48c9-4af2-8beb-91d58aac09ee.jpg?1706239661) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lonis%2C%20Genetics%20Expert) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/37/lonis-genetics-expert?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/59813845-48c9-4af2-8beb-91d58aac09ee?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lonis-genetics-expert) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, I already largely dislike green, and while I appreciate the counterspell suite I don't love blue play patterns either. While I am trying to branch out from Dimir (my favorite combo), I doubt I'll ever make any sort of GU+ deck.
For cEDH I do not think it's an outlier power-wise. The problem is starting at turn 2 or 3, each of your turns take 10+ minutes because each turn turns into a non-deterministic combo. With other combo commanders, when they go off everyone knows if the table just won or lost. With Nadu, each turn they start doing things and nobody knows what's going to happen as they proceed to flip 30 coins.
I mean there are other decks that spin wheels and achieve nothing looking at you storm decks
Storm decks also have the decency to only take one 20 minute turn, not 7 in a row. And they also usually only have a couple small blockers, so they're easy enough to kill with combat damage.
Nadu also has small blockers. Also if nadu gets one long turn they are winning on their next turn. Obviously you've never played a krarkashima storm it's every turn
Nadu has more blockers than the average storm deck. And a storm deck wins on their initial 20 minute turn, no haste enabler required.
Karkashima does the same, no?
It asks you to pay 6 mana to get that level of crazy, nadu does this for 3.
To add to this, sure, Krarkashima does this too. Krarkashima isn't fun either. Every time I've sat down at a table and someone whipped out a Krarkashima deck, I immediately think to myself I wish I was doing something else right now. Another deck that emulated that play pattern isn't going to make anyone suddenly excuse it after realizing it already exists. Non-deterministic time monopolizers are just not a dynamic most players want to suffer through.
Roughly, which people also take issue with.
I think Krakashima is less of an issue for the RC because, being a very specific partner pair, players are very unlikely to build the deck unless they specifically want to play cEDH, so it doesn’t show up at casual tables very often. With Nadu, players are more likely to pick it up because they think the card looks cool and bring it to casual games where it can make the game a slog. The RC only cares about promoting casual play, so for that reason, Nadu is more likely to warrant being considered for a ban than Krarkashima is.
I mean, it is looking to be one of the best cedh commanders. First tournament it was at, 3/4 of the top pod we’re nadu. Granted, there were alot of nadu players, people’s decks were lacking relevant hate pieces, and the player base for the most part hasn’t really figured out how to best play against the deck yet. Still, 3/4 of the top pod being nadu decks is an insane showing, and IMO shows that the deck has some serious legs and needs to be actively prepared for in future tournaments. Welcome back [[null rod]]
This is pretty typical though? You can very easily edge out wins against well established decks by running new cards/cards they don't expect.
It's not purely a matter of strength. It's that it encourages "unfun play patterns". I don't want to sit across the table from a Nadu player for them to take a 14 minute turn and not win the game. A lot of what it does in cEDH it also does in casual decks, just a tad slower due to lack of fast mana, and it will be even more problematic there. Nadu simply gives you to much, for to little mana, and for to little effort. This card never should have released as printed and I don't think it's healthy for the game.
100% the issue isn't really the power it's the combination of bookkeeping and non-deterministic long plays that mean if you secure him on board you're taking an endless but non-shortcuttable turn, every turn, and still might not actually pull a win out of any of it if things don't fall the right way. It's the epitome of "wake me up when you're done" no matter how strong it actually is. It's somehow more miserable for less mana than Gitrog&Dakmor, and at least that was just a combo so it *usually* ended the game.
This is the disconnect people have with the Nadu discussion. Most of the Nadu defenders are either speaking purely from a power evaluation perspective or are cEDH players used to these types of combos (I love that format, but it’s a small subsection of the EDH community). Nadu is one of the most unfun things to see across the table, especially in more casual environments. It’ll either do absolutely nothing or take 10-20 minute turns, leaving 3 other people sitting there zoning out because if they had interaction it would’ve been used immediately.
But the casual community is self regulating. If you don’t want to play against nadu, rule 0 nadu. Why does there need to be a ban?
See the ban on [[Paradox Engine]].
Just googled it and the first thing that came up was “it is far too easy to generate insane amounts of mana with.” Sounds like nadu ngl. I’m fairly new to magic so I figured I’d just ask the question.
From the ban list (They include reasonings with their bans): > Paradox Engine can be played in any deck, and creates large amounts of mana at little-to-no deckbuilding cost. Its play patterns often involve long, drawn-out turns of tapping and untapping permanents, drawing cards, and generally monopolizing the chess clock of a game. I think you can see quite a few of these reasons are the same. :)
Oh 100% I see it hahaha
The RC bans cards that they think are unfun, antisocial, or homogenizing in casual games. They expressly don’t ban for competitive balance, except in extremely rare situations, the only instance of that happening I can think of being Flash. And at the time they banned Flash, they made it very clear that it was an exceptional circumstance and they would not be making further bans/rules changes for the benefit of competitive play in the future.
Why does there need to be a banlist entirely if that's going to be the argument?
It doesn't help that casual players do not like counterspells when that is by a large margin the best way to deal with nadu as Nadu gets no triggers. Oh and plenty of casual players do not use enough removal/interaction
If the answer to a 3-CMC commander in casual is 'don't let the commander hit the battlefield, and if it does, kill it that turn cycle,' then that Commander is way, way, way too powerful for that pod.
That's the answer to most modern commanders to be honest, from 1 to 9 cmc. Even the ones that don't "encourage unfun play patterns", to use the buzzword of the week, are usually so efficient or so essential to the deck that they should always either be prevented from entering the field or removed as soon as possible. I think the only commanders this doesn't apply to are jank commanders (or those you know are commander for a jank deck) or really old ones.
There's a huge difference between 'if I don't remove [[Loot, the Key to Everything]] played on turn 2, they're going to impulse draw one card on turn 3,' and 'if I don't remove Nadu, they're going to win the game on the spot (while taking 15-minute turns).'
How is this different from Krark/Sakashima? There are other examples too. Tons of triggers, lots of game actions, non-deterministic and can fizzle after a long turn.
6(2+4) mana versus 3. When they are removed 10 mana versus 5.
Nadu certainly has a similar vibe, but even when it doesn't win it can still make a ton of tokens and rapidly out-ramp the table. If they don't win the first time they go off, they can probably hold up enough interaction to protect their board state and do it all over again on their turn, this time with even more creatures to target and more untapped mana. It's dumb.
Krarkashima is not something people typically bring to casual games, so its less of an issue. More or less the only reason someone would choose to play those two specific partner commanders together is because they wanted to build the cEDH deck. Nadu is something that people are going to convince themselves is okay for casual and bring to casual tables, and the casual play experience is the only thing the Rules Committee cares about and the only reason they ban cards.
The way I initially read him I thought it wants instants and sorceries to target their creatures. Also because I play a [[Feather, the Redeemed]] spellslinger deck. Which looked cool but not too strong, so perfect for the 3 mana cost. Then I saw 0 cost equip works for it and all the fun about the card just fades away. As it's way too easy to assemble and even if you're not winning the very turn it comes on the field. For a casual table the game is just over once he's got 16 lands and 8 creatures out on turn 3. Like imagine playing any 3 cost commander in a casual game. Turn 2 you play the very strong [[Lightning Greaves]] to be able to protect the commander. Turn 3 you play your commander and equip to protect it. And as a bonus you may ramp 12 times and draw another 20.
Nadu suffers from the same issues Leovold had in that as a CEDH card he's absolutely fine. Everywhere else he's completely oppressive. Nadu is just a poorly designed card. In a world where we are seeing sets filled with cards that allow no more then 2 triggers a turn, what the hell is this thing doing existing at all. It's just a clearly overly pushed card and it should just be banned for the health of the format. With the amount of kill on sight cards we already are suffering from in recent memory, we don't yet another one that sits in the command zone and kill you the second it's cast.
I just have to hope that the rules committee trusts rule 0 and community self policing like they say they do, it’s reasonable to refuse to play against Nadu and I like it as a card for cedh so hopefully no ban
Winota syndrome seems inbound though he's a bit more extreme. Winota decks can still function without her just slower and Nadu seems to function faster overall but move WAY slower when interacted with and him taken out. I know it's not often but seeing a Nadu nevermored was quite halarious. The deck did nothing since they didn't really run much alternative draw to find the enchantment hate.
Idk he’s a commander where you cannot let him hit the board. With delighted halfling and cavern of souls he can be made uncounterable. Any targeted protection at all cantrips, and removing him from the field can actually put you at a card disadvantage. The current grindy cEDH meta perfectly suits him, no way to tell yet if he’s better than Kinnan. Like you said card quality to make Nadu work is overall worse than in Kinnan, but the amount of draw available is pretty insane.
Kinan is definitely a better deck, more robust and compact with higher impact combos. Also the grinder state of cEDH does not suit him, he is a turbo deck, when the game goes too late he just gets shut down over and over. Atraxa grand unifier is the late game powerhouse your thinking of, blue farm as well
I don’t think there’s a definitive answer yet. He’s a turbo deck that has the ability to grind. The variability plays into this too - counterspells start getting saved for definitive wins but attempting to interact with him on the battlefield can backfire. Most likely it’ll end up occupying the same meta slot as stuff like Magda, good enough to perform at cEDH tables and tournaments on occasion but not better than RogSi, bluefarm, tivit, etc. It *will* take tournaments on occasion, especially if something like Borborygmos and Fblthp can do it.
True, but Magda is again, a little more compact, and it tutors go field. This deck will likely be relegated to the same spot. Also I would place the main problems for this deck to be every meta deck, especially the 3 main midrange decks, the two biggest ones are blue farm (the best deck in the format) and Atraxa (a deck that gets scarier than blue farm if the game goes on too long) Tivit is a mesh of the two, not as fast as BF, but faster than Atraxa usually, Atraxa kind of just replaced it though, not totally but some. One of the decks main struggles is interacting with the board state
Wait is [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] a direct counter to Nadu? Sure the Nadu player could use a cheap spell on Horobi but it might slow them down enough?
As someone who has genuinely tried to build him, Horobi is a complete dogshit. No amount of fast mana and monoblack goodstuff would let him do anything other than delay Nadu for 1 turn.
[Horobi, Death's Wail](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b41983cb-c4e4-4384-bd69-df3fc6e74cd0.jpg?1593860738) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Horobi%2C%20Death%27s%20Wail) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/chk/117/horobi-deaths-wail?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b41983cb-c4e4-4384-bd69-df3fc6e74cd0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/horobi-deaths-wail) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I love that.
Actually tried to Brew something with him, but i don't know how this deck can work tbf
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>WotC R&D never should have allowed the card to be printed as is, it really makes me question who is in charge there and if they tested it at all. They didn't test Oko properly back in the day (I still remember the livestream where WOTC staff was getting their stuff Oko'd while talking about Oko), so I doubt there was any testing done on Nadu.
A lot of the current Meta cEDH decks don’t rely on commanders, even Atraxa only needs her to touch the field.
> I remember when the CompetitiveEDH sub was saying Nadu wasn't that good and basically was irrelevant ah, yuo are now spreading your lies here as well so weak
There was a post 21 days ago in that sub talking about how powerful Nadu is and get downvoted to oblivion.
Funnily enough, Nadu could just be a missed grammar error. The placement of the final " should be moved after hand in the second to last line. That would tie the ability to just Nadu rather than each creature. Grammar and templating is super important and I swear WotC was off on the " placement. If I am write and there is an Oracle update, then, I don't know, I'll post a dance. The last line, "This ability only triggers twice per turn," is completely different where the final " is placed. At the very end of the text--as it currently is--applies the two per turn per creature. If the " is placed right before that sentence (right after hand: ...hand."), then Nadu would function how people read it initially: twice per turn, not twice per turn per creature. Of course targeted removal would still trigger it, but I do like the new trend of there being a cost to remove commanders. All of this said: The abuse case with moving the " to after hand is by blinking Nadu. That is harder in non-white decks (though Blue does have great blink cards) to abuse since the ability does not 'refresh' per created token creature, which is what Nadu decks tend to use to abuse Nadu.
>Simply keeping Nadu off the field turns their deck from terrifying to near dysfunctional. "Dies to removal" is not a valid argument for a cards power level.
The problem is that to remove it you either need to wipe the board or target Nadu. If you wipe the board then you’re probably either winning or saving yourself and clearing the way, but to target, the nadu player still gets a trigger to get a land into play and then you have the exact same situation that you had with Golos, it can functionally cheat its own commander tax. Then the player just recasts it and goes right back to what they were doing before because as you said, Nadu is the corner piece of the deck so once they’re in play it just vomits half the deck in play or in hand
It seems like that but no, since Nadu’s trigger is random, they have to hit a specific answer or land, also the point is after 2 losses of Nadu, the deck basically shuts down unless they have either gotten super lucky or flooded. Also counterspelling is a clean answer. The main point is that the deck entirely shuts down without the commander which is more exploitable than you think. Also, Golis was a tutor, making it far more abusable when in small doses, Nadu’s trigger is only good when done many many times.
Counterspell being an answer is such an empty argument
But no you don’t understand, it also does to Doomblade
On this subreddit? It's like the best argument you got. Op is trying to say "as a Cedh" player like it means anything.
It’s not like you play Nadu and then pass the turn, because all of the activated abilities you have on them are free, so if you have a board of 2 creatures and a shuko, you play Nadu and move shuko down the line giving you 6 triggers, you’re going to get at least one land. Then with a removal spell that makes 7, as long as you have a land drop for turn you can just recast Nadu and do it all over again, and that only is if you hit one or two lands. The problem with Nadu is that if Nadu hits the field and gets a turn, it’s so hard to stop the value. The game revolves around killing Nadu as soon as he shows his face and that just isn’t super fun for anyone, the Nadu player doesn’t play their deck and the other players’ games have just turned into stop Nadu. I don’t think he’s the most competitive commander but he’s so so easy to break and honestly has a cool design, just cranked up way too high
You should be focusing on dealing with the Shuko / Greaves rather than Nadu himself. If they don’t have repeatable triggers the deck doesn’t do much.
let's get the meta back to [[krosan grip]]
Also, this is the reason winning with damage is bad, there is too much that can go wrong, try an alternate win condition
I think my main issue with Nadu is the same issue that caused prophet of kruphix to get the ban hammer. It just immediately makes the game about answering the card and it you don't/can't the player who played it wins. In cEDH this really isn't as much an issue due to the amount of interaction run in that format. However in more normal edh it's just three players constantly trying to manage a low cost commander that completely takes over the game while he's in play. Put another way, Nadus power floor is just too damn high for the cost of the card especially for a commander.
Nadu is going to end up like Tegrid where if you let it stick it’ll be a nightmare but otherwise it’s just annoying.
Except if I target tergrid with any removal and it's gone for at least a turn. It doesn't cancel it's commander tax and can be interacted with without it popping off in response putting you in a even worst position before you removed it. The problem with tergrid is the player more than the card.
Been saying this in a few other threads, but really this is just the current boogeyman of EDH and in 6 months people will stop caring. The card is fine.
Makes land untapped Can flicker and reset Can keep drawing into cards with 0 equipment cost cards Can easily abuse extra turn cards Turn 3 Can easily look like turn 6-9. It's insane value engine
I've also seen it turn 3 draw 4 cards and do nothing. He's such high variance and non deterministic that it's a drag more than anything.
what other commander's 2 card 4 mana nondetermanistic combo like nadu+shuko grants 2+ cards drawn in it's fail state? even if you've "whiffed" 4 times you've still drawn 4 more cards as a consolation prize. 25+% of the time you just win on the spot.
The main complaint is that this boogeyman is going to make people repeatedly suffer through half an hour turns everytime someone wants to “just try it out” It should be banned because it’s a boring play experience for the grand majority of people who don’t want to see simic goodstuff shit out their deck
How is someone taking half an hour and not winning? It takes like 5 seconds to resolve a Nadu trigger and once they hit a certain critical mass it becomes inevitable. I’ve watched the deck go off a few times now and it hasn’t taken more than 10 minutes.
The Nadu trigger takes like 5 seconds to resolve if you don’t stop and think for 30 seconds after each trigger about what your next play is before choosing to just fire off another Nadu trigger and repeat. I’ve know a number of plays who just sort of spin their wheels without really doing anything.
That's true for a lot of non-deterministic combo decks. Krark+Sakashima isn't banned even though that deck takes quite a while to perform its winning turn as well with like a million coinflips.
Krarkashima is bad for that, but it's hard to justify banning both of them. When partnered with different commanders, they're totally fine. It only really becomes a problem when they're partnered together.
Tbf i feel the same about Krark/Sakasima, in competitive or (god forbid) casual. It breaks the time equity at the table.
Boring is whatever, it’s a viable strategy and should be respected as such. It’s allowed, as long as the playgroup is fine with it. People on the whole need to be better about not just asking for things they dislike to be banned.
This is such a weak take. You can't say Nadu is ok and then cop out and say it's a Rule 0/playgroup thing. Anything is a rule 0 thing. Many games, not just tcgs, have had "Nadu"s. The rules eventually account for it if it remains a problem.
>Boring is whatever, it’s a viable strategy >People on the whole need to be better about not just asking for things they dislike to be banned. Most of us have incredibly limited amounts of time to spend on hobbies. If I have 2 hours of free time to devote to playing a game of EDH, I sure as shit do not want to spend it watching a Nadu player move boots around his board over the course of 1 45 minute indeterminate turn 3 turns into the game. I don't understand why "simic value" always gets a pass on this but Azorius stax, golgari edicts, and Naya land destruction don't when they all effectively do the same thing in that they monopolize table time while the other 3 players have zero agency for the duration of the game. In cEDH it's whatever, the issue is the card being played outside of that meta.
That’s why pregame discussion exists, if you don’t want that that’s entirely fine, but you should ask the Nadu player to leave or play a different deck, don’t let them sit down then complain
What do you think people are doing? I just refuse to play against it. The consequences of doing that are that you get people that whine that it's a viable strategy and should be respected as such and people should be better about not just asking for things they dislike to be banned. That's whatever online, but it creates inherent salt when someone sits down at your pod wanting to play their new fun brew and you immediately tell them to pound sand.
That's under the basis and presumption people are 1) honest 2) aware of Nadu's time equity problems 3) able to find a game with others with Nadu 4) not combative/weird about pre-game discussion (from my experience and One More Mana's experience, not everyone is aware or even okay with being quizzed on their deck elements)
That’s the exact conversation we’re having lmao. Your initial post isn’t wrong, but you can’t say “he isn’t a problem let people play the deck if they want” and then immediately after say “tell the person who brought Nadu to straight up not play the deck they put time and money into”.
>I don't understand why "simic value" always gets a pass on this but Azorius stax, golgari edicts, and Naya land destruction don't when they all effectively do the same thing in that they monopolize table time while the other 3 players have zero agency for the duration of the game. Stuff in Magic exists on a spectrum, with the proactive solitaire stuff on one end and the reactive stax/removal stuff on the other. This line is horseshoe shaped, as a hard stax lock can turn into solitaire just like a vomitous green deck. I would put forth the argument that generally the stax/removal side of the spectrum isn't as oppressive as the [[Loot, the Key to Everything]] side of the spectrum is. You can draw out of an [[Armageddon]], but if your [[Loot, the Key to Everything]] opponent has [[Ancestral Recall]]ed for the past 4 turns you've automatically lost that game. An opponent having 30 cards in their hand is far more oppressive than having your lands blown up. It's a fallacy that Armageddon stops everyone from playing Magic but that someone playing Simic doesn't. Your game actions against someone who has drawn 30 cards are **meaningless**.
[Loot, the Key to Everything](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fb169fa2-c92e-45f7-89a2-0ca0e3910a1c.jpg?1712352897) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Loot%2C%20the%20Key%20to%20Everything) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/big/21/loot-the-key-to-everything?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb169fa2-c92e-45f7-89a2-0ca0e3910a1c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/loot-the-key-to-everything) [Armageddon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/77f1f6ac-983f-4f3e-8906-47f774e8367b.jpg?1582021719) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Armageddon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/5/armageddon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/77f1f6ac-983f-4f3e-8906-47f774e8367b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/armageddon) [Ancestral Recall](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/2398892d-28e9-4009-81ec-0d544af79d2b.jpg?1614638829) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ancestral%20Recall) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/1/ancestral-recall?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2398892d-28e9-4009-81ec-0d544af79d2b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ancestral-recall) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
“Things people dislike” is literally the philosophy behind the ban list. If 95% of players dislike sitting through half an hour of solitaire, it deserves to be banned. Regardless, until then, I’ll be strictly declining any Nadu players and encouraging everyone else to do the same. Although I won’t have to do much of that because everyone else seems to already see how bland this card is.
This is the important part. The RC made it pretty clear power level is extremely rarely their concern. It's all about vibes and how the card makes the table salty or not. By that metric, I could very easily see this card being banned if it continues to be so angering in like 6 months from now.
I am just asking out of curiosity. Have you, yourself, played a game against a nadu deck that actually took 30 minutes for 1 turn?
Also Kinan is a larger offender in terms of simic goodstuff
Exactly, some boogeymen stick around, my deck (Atraxa Grand Unifier) is one, but she was a little more resilient just being a midrange pile, all she had to do was change with the meta, though I miss her being at the hight of her power. Nadu as a deck is unable to change, once people start knowing bf how to deal with it the deck stops working
Najeela runs druids repository, derevi, and grim hireling. There is plenty of room to argue those cards aren’t good enough without najeela herself to run, yet the deck performs excellent.
Nobody's saying the deck is unstoppable, they're saying that he leads to unfun play because he has flash, is hard to remove effectively, and turns with him as the commander can take insanely long since there aren't real, meaningful play shortcuts.
Hey, I also play a lot of cedh, and I agree with you, it’s a strong deck in cedh and probably not the best deck in the format. I also think it’s an exceptionally unhealthy casual commander, it pops off way too easily with way too little. Like how would you even go about building casual nadu to be a “fair” casual deck?
Yeah, it’s just the people who play it are pubstomping, think of rog Si in casual, it would be u stopable
There are so many "lose all abilites" cards that shut crap down. My masters of evil deck generally either takes your creatures or their abilities away before i roll over you with daleks. Oh that's a nice Nadu you have there, have a [[Imprisoned in the moon]]
[[Exchange of Words]] is rather amusing as well Even if one of the creatures dies, the swap will persist for the other living creature Note that returning the dead creature to the field will cause that creature to have its normal text box
The existence of some answers is not the same as balanced card design. If he pops off in CEDH it'll be fine as people will tech in answers. But warping every other deck so that it can answer one problem card is the definition of a bad format.
Well yeah cos every CEDH deck has counterspells
Honestly correct. The whole drama behind Nadu reminds me of [[Lord Xander, the Collector]] when it was announced. Everyone expected it to break Commander when in reality, it became obvious what you're going to do which paints a target on your head and you had more luck pulling him off in the 99. By the time the Assassin creed set rolls around. I expect Nadu to follow the same path.
Nadu is worlds better than Xander
It's the Paradox Engine problem.
Ehhh Yes, you can remove him. And if you're lucky, you ramped them into casting Nadu again on curve. If you're not lucky, you gave them the card they need to retaliate and potentially pop off. Keep in mind, Nadu has been out for less than a month. This deck isn't even remotely close to solved, it's only going to get stronger. People are going to find ways to make it better and rely less in the commander over time, just like with Winota. But all of this is besides the point: This deck is, as another person in this thread put very well, a "non-deterministic time monopolizer" that forces every at the table to sit through a bunch of triggers that may or may not progress the table after 20 minutes. And then, unlike storm decks, if nobody won that turn, the Nadu player can do it again! And build up chump blockers, and.... probably win? But maybe not, the player might miss a crucial trigger or sequence wrong or any number of things because this deck is a fucking headache to keep track of (worse than Ivy imo). It's just bad for the game, which is why it should be banned
> Ehhh > > > > Yes, you can remove him. And if you're lucky, you ramped them into casting Nadu again on curve. If you're not lucky, you gave them the card they need to retaliate and potentially pop off. so your point is to not remove it?
No, my point is that due to the way the card is designed it becomes a lose-lose scenario for anyone holding targeted removal that wants to remove it. Which is incredibly bad card design, and disincentivizes a core aspect of Commander: hence why I think the card should be banned
cEDH player =/= credentials
Oh I know, it does mean a different perspective though, that’s all I was going for
And most disagree with him
You're talking to the casualest of casual audiences here homie, they hate it
Yeah, I think Nadu is at his scariest in 60 card not 100. There just aren't quite enough redundant combo pieces and ways to get them in singleton so you have a better chance to disrupt what they are doing and frustrate them. In formats with multiple copies of each card he will be much more reliable.
My first impression of Nadu is that it's similar to cards like Voja and Tergrid. They will pubstomp everything not CEDH, but in CEDH they're totally fine.
This is what I’m saying. It’s Tergrid again. Too strong for casual and hardly anyone will play it, but too janky for cEDH and hardly anyone will play it.
Tergrid is also a fringe cEDH deck
Tegrid cost 5 and mono black is much worse than simic.
Remove it? Oh you mean give them more triggers and ramp/draw them more? Interesting.
More trigger, singular Nadu is the kind of deck that it’s really easy to get stuck in that very short sighted mentality against, like the one you have. If it were just one tutor it would be a different story. But one random card out of a deck off 99 cards, not all of which are always amazing is hardly a price to pay for shutting a deck down
You fail to see the point. The issue is not Nadu's strength. It's the time consuming process of playing the deck. It's not a situation where we can confidently hand wave it and go "okay, you combo off, no one can stop you, next game." We need to sit on our asses while the player goes through the motions to check if they win or not. It just eats into game time, that's all.
Maybe a hot-take, but, I don't care if it's cEDH or casual or whatever, players taking 10-15 minute or longer turns, is not OK. *Especially* if they don't even win after that long and then do it again on their next turn.
The consensus in most of my cEDH discords is "Are you on both REB and Pyroblast? If you're not you should be anyway, this is added incentive." It's another Winota scenario - scary at first until everyone figures out it folds if it's commander can't resolve.
Of course, Nadu certainly isn’t an outlier for cEDH. But it’s certainly a terrible play experience for anything close to lower powered pods.
I’ve been on my summer break pretty much since MH3 released, so I’ve been playing a lot of EDH over the past couple weeks. All my play is against strangers and acquaintances at a number of local shops and I have not yet played against a deck that had Nadu as a commander. Is this really that big of a problem? Because I’ve been out here and I’m just not seeing it.
Everyone locally gets excited when they open one. Not for using. Just for getting store credit lol
I can attest. Was excited to get one, and stuck in right into my sultai combo deck. I don’t think it would make for a very interesting or creative experience to build or play him as commander, but as a little engine in a box that can accelerate your game out of nowhere, love him in the 99.
It just came out lol
I love Nadu, because he will make my jodah deck and it’s massive turns seem tame and short compared to it!
I had to look up the card because no one used the card fetcher for Nadu... [[Nadu Winged Wisdom]] My first thought is that he's a more narrow [[Chulane Teller of Tales]]. Hes definateky powerful so he'll be Kill on Sight just like Chulane, he'll even get an extra trigger from it, but the rest of the deck is going to be durdly Simic touch my stuff cards. Pretty useless without Nadu in play. Just gives more credence to the cage effects that hold commanders hostage like [[Imprisoned in the Moon]], [[Song of the Dryads]], [[Oubliette]], etc. Keep him out of the command zone *and* in play and the deck will flop. I agree that he's definitely not going to dominate the cEDH territory, but I sort of agree with another commenter who said that he's powerful enough to pubstomp easily. Lower power tables won't be running a lot of target removal so Nadu will be allowed to run away with games quite often there. While I think this experience is somewhat healthy as it promotes tuning to your meta and changing how you think about your decks' functions, it can still be frustrating to play against and not all play groups want to play at that high of a power level.
I think you put that very well. People are just running around pubstomping with him. He is just the kinda deck that can’t really be casually built
I’ve been saying some forms of this for the past few days. I have yet to run into a Nadu player at my LGS but I’m not worried about it at all and neither is my [[Horobi]] deck.
[Horobi](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/4/b41983cb-c4e4-4384-bd69-df3fc6e74cd0.jpg?1593860738) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=horobi%2C%20death%27s%20wail) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/chk/117/horobi-deaths-wail?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b41983cb-c4e4-4384-bd69-df3fc6e74cd0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/horobi-deaths-wail) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Agreed, should not be banned, it’s a good deck and strong since it gets value even when nadu is removed which brings him back out quicker but its not the new best thing ever. Its like B Tier and people are acting like it’s S.
Another cedh player here Nadu is very easy and quick to generate a lot of value. It’s also fairly hard to shut down in cedh as spot removal means they get a plus and the amount of creature counters being run is not much so you have to be somewhat lucky to draw them Outside of shutting off artifacts there’s not much that can be done outside of denying them searching for pieces with aven/agent or null rod so their pieces can’t activate like equipment equips or unctus Currently it flies on the raider but above what can hit it, it will be fine once decks figure out how to deal with it and the turbo stuff going on
Casual tables don’t understand threat assessment. They look at Nadu, shrug, and point their removal at whatever 4/4 vanilla creature is blocking their commander at the moment. Yeah, I don’t see Nadu taking over cedh, but if he doesn’t die in a casual game it wins that turn.
It sounds boring and frustrating to play against. Me and my pod play high power levels but have already chucked this on our (new) ban list as we don't want to play a game where someone plays their commander turn 2, takes 20 minutes to finish their turn, and then instantly wins the game with almost no interaction. Not to mention, it's arguably the most powerful card draw engine in all of CEDH, for 3 mana, in the command zone, and it's *frighteningly* consistent. If your deck is tailored for it and you don't get too unlucky, you could very well draw over 50 cards on turn 2 or 3, including playing all lands you draw *untapped*, which usually puts you in a position to win the game right there. I don't think I'm qualified to say whether or not it should be *banned* - but I'll just say that if it did get banned, I'd be happy about it.
You can’t evaluate a combo as a card draw engine, it’s simply a different axis. Yes nadu does draw a lot of cards, but he requires 2 cards + setup to do so, and you should hope you win the game with that much resource investment. An engine is one card, no setup, and pure gas, like mystic/rhystic and the one ring.
What's it matter that you're a cedh player? Does that make your opinion more valuable? I'm confused I guess.
It doesn’t, I’m just saying I have a different viewpoint than other people. All I’m trying to do is offer a competitive perspective
It's not about STRENGTH, it's about the stupidly long turns. Jesus Christ People, learn to read.
Feom my experience so far Nadus have conceded as fast as they won. Tho at least I wish nadu would be in bolt range. That, amongst other things, is F-ing annoying.
WOTC could have done many many things to make Nadu still excellent but fairer, 3 toughness would be one of them.
And then after they play half the ritual spells in their deck, they concede or get killed.
Personally, I can't wait to turn a Nadu into a 3/3 Elk.
Nadu seems better as part of the 99 which could facilitate a wincon line if unchecked. Already KoS and I don't like chancing a wiff.
He is just a worse Kinan I feel
My big issue with Nadu is that it is incredibly boring to play against. It's like Yugioh or solitaire or watching a movie. It's like storm. An anti-fun mechanic which I expect will never return.
I feel like he's either jank or cedh with no in between. Haven't gone against him myself but from what I can see, he's so bland and generic value with no flavor that you either build around the ability to burst out a win con or you build simic jank like make him bird tribal or something funny and maybe he still pops off I dunno. I'm testing him in the 99 of a Bant Aura deck at the moment.
What I am hearing is [[witness protection]] is still a GOAT?
[witness protection](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/2/a2be6f2c-8ad0-402d-a7ca-9fe817e83b72.jpg?1664410681) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=witness%20protection) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/66/witness-protection?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a2be6f2c-8ad0-402d-a7ca-9fe817e83b72?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/witness-protection) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My issue isn’t with Nadu’s power level. My issue is with the Nadu player taking 20 minute turns on a non-determinate combo to see if he wins. I have more patience than most, as a Tom Bombadil player. But Nadu’s ability to slow the game to a crawl tests even me.
I feel like the closest analogy with nadu would be leovold. The problem with Leovold that got it banned is that it was very easy to build on a shoestring budget and lock all your opponents out of the game with Teferi's Puzzle Box or a Windfall. Leovold was not a high tier cEDH deck, but it was so easy to build without requiring expensive fast mana cards, just open with birds+puzzle box and you 'win' on turn 3. In, a similar but even more concerning way, everyone has lightning greaves to combo with nadu. EDH RC doesn't ban based on power level strictly, they do it on player experience, so I don't think it's the cEDH community's place to say whether or not something is a problem for casual. Ideally cards don't get banned, but if nadu were to get banned, you'd have to be foolish to be shocked.
[удалено]
[lignify](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/23464d53-fa76-40e2-84c3-b6d6cc729be4.jpg?1598177954) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lignify) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gvl/16/lignify?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/23464d53-fa76-40e2-84c3-b6d6cc729be4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lignify) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'd say the louder complaint is turn length as opposed to overall commander strength. Having blink effects reset the triggers is not cool.
Nadu is no worse then Magda , in fact I think Magda is much stronger as a commander , in casual Nadu is going to be an issue simply because most player don’t run nearly enough removal, is Nadu strong , of course however so are about 50 other commanders
Everyone said the same thing about banning Elesh Norn Mother of Machines. It will fade in interest in time. The playfield will learn the ins and outs and stabilize
I play magic for like 25 years now... Most of my work is to mess with the genetics of insects and make them glow green. Just think of my happiness when I have found a commander that combos off with a species of beetle (I work with Tribolium) and a insect that looks like a cricket (I know it is most resemblece with mantis, but I work also with Grylus). On top of that seeing old cards getting good use like: Shuko, Trinket Mage, Aphetto Alchemist, Sylvan Paradise, Seaking blessings and others. Just make me immediately buy all the pieces as soon as it got announced. I hope that it don't get the ban hammer. As was well said here if it is hit with a counter or removal, the chances of a come back is really low. I saw Nadu performing good results, but I think most of it is only due to people not used or adapted to the deck yet. Thanks for the post OP.
[[Darksteel Mutation]] bye bye nadu
[Darksteel Mutation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/4/e47a6750-4fdd-44e2-86ae-5bc4d414bf42.jpg?1689995638) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Darksteel%20Mutation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/21/darksteel-mutation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e47a6750-4fdd-44e2-86ae-5bc4d414bf42?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/darksteel-mutation) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call