Why WotC Should Ban Nadu

FULL DISCLAIMER: I majored in political science and suck at math, but I'm trying my damn best here people. Additionally, this article was authored between the end of Day 2 of PT Amsterdam and directly following the top 8.

Nadu, Winged Wisdom just posted one of the best showings at a Pro Tour of any new card(s) ever. The deck is comparable to decks (and seasoned) headlined by both Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and Eye of Ugin Eldrazi in terms of conversion rate to Day 2, and slightly behind Eldrazi and significantly ahead of Hogaak (although for context, Hogaak had not received its power up from a ban yet) in terms of top 8 finishes at its first Pro Tour.

But how did this happen, and how did it happen so quickly?

Since its preview before the release of Modern Horizon 3, Nadu has had a lot of hype around it. However, immediately following release, its challenge data seemed to be leaving a lot to be desired. According to mtggoldfish.com, in the lead up to the pro tour, Nadu sat below Boros Energy, Jeskai Control, and Ruby Storm in terms of meta share. Everyone knew Nadu was doing unfair things, although results seemed to indicate it was not as good as people initially thought.

Before jumping into Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3, I think it is important to delve into why the meta presented as it did beforehand. First and foremost, the deck was restrictively expensive and hard to source, seeing as it required 4 rares from a premium product, was in a color combination which was historically not known for being busted (without being banned), and maybe most importantly, required 2 to 4 of an uncommon from 20 years ago (shoutout Shuko) while also feeling like a deck warranting a ban. Additionally, the Nadu combo is notoriously click-intensive on MTGO, which has previously been seen to suppress broken decks which require too many actions, such as Pioneer Mono-Green with Karn, Ballista Heliod in Pioneer, or Devoted/Melira Combos in older modern formats. Most data pre-Pro Tour is pulled from online challenge results, showcases, and prelims. Up until about the 22nd of June, MTGtop8 suffered from similar issues, but an influx of paper events reported bumped up Nadu's presence, albeit still not to an alarming level. This, combined with a lack of consensus and the general slow pace of the modern metagame in paper, likely led to the lack of Nadu results.

Now, for the PT itself.

Let's start with Day 1. Nadu enters the tournament with a total representation of 25.5% of the room (62 players between Bant and 4c Nadu). This is higher than Eldrazi (about 8%, the deck was kept well under wraps pre-Pro Tour) and Hogaak (21.4%) and lower than Junk (28.3%, PT Fate Reforged, the last Pro Tour with Splinter Twin in the format). As a caveat, it is worth noting Junk at PT FRF was categorized differently than we name decks today, with more build diversity in the deck than even the differences between 3 and 4 color Nadu, including decks across archetypes with aggressive, midrange, and even control variants. I would venture so far as to say Junk was more of an archetype than a deck outright.

These numbers are well within reason for very strong decks, but still slightly alarming, especially considering this is a relatively linear and uninteractive combo deck, which implies it would be picked by people who feel the edge gained from playing the deck is greater than playing a deck which may allow more expression of skill in a room of the most skilled players in the world. While impressive, these numbers by themselves do not NECESSITATE alarm, although they should put us on alert heading into...

Day 2, or, when things fall apart.

Nadu posts an 80.6% conversion rate.

It means Nadu has posted the highest Day 2 conversion rate of the most popular deck at a modern PT ever.

This is about the same conversion rate as Eldrazi at Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch (it was hard to find accurate numbers for this, and if anyone can point me to actual coverage/numbers, please send them my way and I will update this) while seeing 2.5x the amount of play. This is also significantly higher than Hogaak's rate at Mythic Championship 4 (71.4%) while still seeing about 25% more play. Compared to the Junk archetype mentioned at PT Fate Reforged, it saw slightly less play (but remember, Junk was a significantly more diverse archetype with much more build variance) but was significantly higher on conversion rate (compared to 63.3%). This is the time to hit the panic button. Adjusting for conversion rate above average, Nadu performed at about 132% the conversion rate of the entire tournament, whereas decks like Eldrazi hit 134% (again with significantly less play), Hogaak hit 126%, and the Junk archetype was at 100%.

Lastly, we should address post-swiss numbers. Nadu ended up with:

Day 1 share: 25.3%

Day 2 Share: 31%

Top 64 Share: 45%

Top 32 Share: 59%

Top 16 Share: 63%

Top 8 Share: 63%

You may notice something about these numbers, namely, as the field narrows, Nadu gains a higher percentage of metagame share. Which is also an alarming metric. It indicates as more and more matches are played, Nadu is more and more successful, and skews towards winning more. Obviously, this would just indicate a deck is very good, but I believe this has not happened since (or outside of) PT Oath of the Gatewatch, and again, Eldrazi started with a meta share of 8% instead of 25%.

If you showed up to this PT on a given deck competitive in the meta, theoretically, you could expect to top 8 3.3% of the time. If you showed up to this PT, and you were playing Nadu, your top 8 conversion rate would be 8.1%. If you were not playing Nadu, your top 8 conversion rate (for all other decks on average) became 1.7%.

Lets think about this in contrast to Eldrazi at its first Pro Tour, which is conceptually about as broken, if not slightly more so, according to these numbers, and significantly more definitive of the following format than any other deck in Modern history outside of Hogaak and perhaps Uro piles (and ignoring modern's start when Cloudpost, Blazing Shoal, and friends were legal for that short month or so).

First and foremost, the numbers are more or less the same in terms of conversion rates, even if the actual presence of Nadu going in was much higher. Eldrazi's conversion rates are actually slightly higher when taken as one archetype (which I have done throughout the article, same for Nadu). But this does present a stark difference in terms of how "broken" these decks are. There are two major arguments as to which one is more problematic.

The argument for Eldrazi is that its significantly lower play rate and therefore relatively ridiculous top 8 conversion rate mean that it is actually more broken, as more decks were in the top 8. In other words, it was relatively stronger as evidenced by its absurd overall win rate compared to its low play rate, lack of knowledge, and what would later be noted as a lack of refinement as the deck switched to be predominantly Red/Green and Blue/White in the following months. Nadu exists on the opposite end of the spectrum. It was a known quantity, builds are relatively similar across the board (at least in the main), and people anticipated this deck being strong despite its middling online results. Yet it still wins at an astounding rate on both days of the Pro Tour, posting unheard of win rates for the sample size. Arguments for both sides are valid, especially because Eldrazi also has more history to reflect on due to warping an entire format or two around it before bans slowed it down and time eventually passed it by until MH3.

ANYWHO, HERE SOME NUMBERS.

That's probably not okay. Ban this card.

Now, let's break down the card itself a bit more, top down. We will start with the cost.

Nadu costs one generic, one blue, and one green mana. This is relatively unobjectionable, although Green is a good color for getting things into play on turn two, it will matter more in the next section. It is relatively cheap, and we will also say here that it is a bit overstatted for the cost.

Nadu is a Legendary Bird Wizard Creature, which again, while relatively innocuous, does come with some things to say. First and foremost, the "legendary" supertype means it synergizes with Delighted Halfling, which lets it hit the stack turn two as well as making it all but guaranteed to hit the battlefield as well if cast off of the Halfling. Being a creature means it has inherent value and is also tutorable. Wizard is also technically relevant, but we have not seen shells in this color pair which care about that particular type (nor do I anticipate we will). It is also a creature, so it comes with most of the traditional weaknesses of a creature, in theory.

Nadu has 3 power and 4 toughness. While 3 power is largely irrelevant in its current play patterns, it does mean that even if locked out of combo potential, it is a legitimate threat, often posing a 6 turn clock in with evasion (7 from a goldfish, but it's fair to expect your OP to take some damage from their lands in modern). 4 toughness is more important, as 3 damage is a common format breakpoint for one mana red removal, meaning it either trades for two or more mana or requires a sorcery speed answer, neither of which is particularly tenable considering how explosive the card is and how much value it tends to provide its controller when removed. It also means they conveniently bounce off each other in combat, which means mirrors are "fun and interactive"™.

Now for the real problem the text box. Flying? Sure, whatever dude. Ability that not only enables combo, but also allows it to almost always trade up with removal? Sweet. Slap it on. Removal is literally a crime (Source: WOTC 2024 comp rules update for OTJ). It draws cards? Yes, but in order to make it dodge restrictions on drawing cards, lets make it not draw cards. Also drawing lands feels bad, but you know what feels good? Putting them directly on the battlefield. And I doubt we'll have room to say the word "untapped", so we'll just leave it out of the file, it seems inconsequential. Shuko and Outrider en-Kor may already combo with it, but we should reprint Sylvan Safekeeper into the format just in case it isn't already safe enough/loaded up with enough combo pieces. Springheart Nantuko feels like icing on the cake. The ability is clearly most of the issue with the card, but the rest of it being good is also extremely relevant as to exactly how broken it is.

But how does this add up to ban-worthy past the numbers? Well first and foremost, numbers aside, Nadu is very, very hard to actually hate out. Most of the "hate" for Nadu would simply stop the card from hitting the battlefield, and in a format with Chord of Calling that is extremely hard to do. Even traditional answers that are historically unplayable, like Nevermore, or historically good, like Meddling Mage, don't stop the Chord plan. Additionally, there are few answers to activated abilities which aren't either too narrow, such as Pithing Needle, or also overcosted, such as Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Creatures in general lack much actual "hate" considering they all draw cards upon entering the battlefield nowadays, or have ward (or some analogue) or recursion. That's a larger argument, but Nadu's ability prevents people from positvely interacting with the card itself, and the diversity of its combo suite prevents entirely shutting down the other parts of the combos with the card.

Nadu also has templating which requires unique tracking, in that it gives all creatures abilities which trigger twice with no real way to actually tell what has happened. This opens the card up to tracking issues with figuring out how many creatures have been targeted, and most alarmingly, opportunities to cheat. This happened on camera at the Pro Tour, and although it was likely as honest mistake (and usually will be), cards should not be designed in a way which makes it so easy to mess up the game state, or worse, cheat.

Lastly, Nadu is not fun. At least not for me. I like interacting with my opponent, decision making, and takings risks which have proportional rewards. Nadu is virtually incapable of being interacted with positively. Considering it replaces itself upon use, it has very linear play patterns which all either involve winning the game or drowning your opponent in triggers and critters until they just kind of fold. Most importantly to me, Nadu has no drawbacks. It's all upside. There is no timing where interaction works positively outside of maybe the stack (see Delighted Halfling). Because of how priority works in MTG, the controller is basically guaranteed 2 cards even if you do have interaction, and god forbid they have protection because then the cycle just repeats. There is no point at which you look at Nadu and say "man, I could be at risk of falling behind if I resolve this now."

So, we see all the reasons to get rid of it (win rate, issues with logistics and gameplay, play patterns, etc.), but are there reasons WotC would consider not banning Nadu?

Well, dear reader, I am just not optimistic about the pattern of bans WotC has showed us in the past when it comes to modern. With Eldrazi, they hit it after 6 months. With Hogaak, it took multiple bans. Oko/OUAT/Uro/Field Pile took almost a year to everything clear out. Even decks based around Mox Opal and Splinter Twin were far past their peaks when they were excused from the format. While I do not think Nadu is necessarily driving MH3 sales as some cards in the past have been (looking at you, Fury and Oko), I do think WotC has a habit of banning around problematic cards before hitting the card itself. I think with Nadu we will see something akin to Yu-Gi-Oh's Firewall Dragon, a card which combo'd with a ham sandwich and was around for far, far too long while everything around it was banned for its sins. We actually have precedent for this behavior as well, through archetypes like Hogaak and Vintage Shops. I do think Nadu eventually will be banned. Just not immediately. And that idea does make me worried about the health of the format, and specifically my place in it.

I hate to leave on such a sour note. Pro Tours should be celebrations of MTG, and as a modern player who loves the format at large, I want to feel happy during our annual flagship event. But this one has just been bittersweet. There are plenty of cool new toys in the format, but also significantly more cards which I think get away from some of the nuts and bolts of the game which I love so much. Nadu is particularly egregious, and unless we figure something out soon to combat it, I think it will need to go before the modern RCQ season starts up this summer.

#BanTheBird

-Kazi Baker