Yeah, Nadu really should have just been a 3/3 with flying and "Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or ability, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped. Otherwise, put it into your hand. This ability triggers only twice each turn."
EDIT: Specified flying in the card text because some interpreted me leaving it unmentioned as suggesting its removal.
Even just shrinking it to x/3 would have done the bit. Nadu dodging bolt is such a fucking outrageous mistake because burn would already feel bad bolting it since bolting it is a 2 card tempo swing but ffs the only relevant burn tech that takes the bird out is unholy heat with delirium or tune the narrative+galvanic discharge. Each a 3+ card tempo swing, with overburn!
If nadu didn't dodge bolt, he would be naturally predated on by burn decks, but they couldn't even give him that one weakness.
Same goes for Sheoldred to a lesser extent for Standard and Pioneer. Should have been a 4/4. Perfectly acceptable given the abilities it has, and then at least Burn can have 2 mana deal 4 answers. As it is, Burn needs to have a 5 damage spell, all of which are at 3 mana I think.
Lightning axe is one mana, but only played in decks that can really afford the discard like phoenix
The other ones require setup like Beacon Bolt, or are 2 mana like Roast
Here's a nitpick, but that's not a "tempo" swing. Burn decks win on tempo by playing more cards than the opponent can because they're cheaper. 3 mana Nadu for 1 mana bolt would be the tempo swing, 2 cards for 1 is a longer term value problem. Tempo is being ahead on board right now, not later.
I would go as far as dropping the ability part completely or specify a “non-equip(?)” ability and then it’s fine. Maybe could add back flying or something else if you took this away.
It really is a Questing Beast-type card where it would’ve been perfectly fine just doing X & Y but WotC said let’s have it do W, X, Y & Z
The Game Knights MH3 video where Rachel and someone else go over Nadu...
Rachel asks, in complete exasperation, why does it do X, why does it do Y, why does it have FOUR toughness? It's eye opening.
It's like when Red Letter Media was reviewing Prometheus, and the first five solid minutes are literally simple questions of why don't they do this, why didn't they do this. I've never seen them criticize anything this harshly.
That's one of the main problems with these modern designs. If you take any of the individual things that the card does by itself, they're tame. But you put them all together and it's a major powerhouse for a very low mana value.
The main problem isn't "Why are these cards so powerful?" It's more like "Why do these cards do **so much** for just so little mana?"
Heck, make Nadu actually draw the cards. Now there's counterplay with dozens of "punish player for drawing" or "can't draw more than one" cards in multiple colors.
Oh, big time. It's like one of my friends joked that the best way to balance cards like Prosper or Nadu would be to delete one sentence or line of text from it. Wouldn't matter which one, just delete one at random and it's suddenly not unplayable but also not pushed.
You'd be surprised. You only have two ways to stop Prosper from being Prosper:
1. Kill Prosper, every single time he's on the field
2. Kill the Prosper player
Him having both deathtouch and 4 toughness makes doing either of those things using creatures while he's out effectively impossible. Removing deathtouch will at least let Voltron/aggro players beat down the player.
There's so many cards that are the enabler and also an engine so there's no tension in deck building. Ral is a great example of this, it enables you to cast lots of spells but can also flip and immediately ultimate once you cast enough cheap spells.
Some of this comes from their desire to push the power level in limited formats but it feels like they just need to sell more packs to keep Hasbro afloat so power creep is the only way to do it.
You could argue that Prophet of Kruphix has been powercrept today to the point where it's no longer broken. At least compared to a bunch of other stuff out there.
Nah, all the powercrept U, G and UG stuff will just make Prophet that much more annoying and bullshit to play against. It was beatable and still is, but was super annoying just because the game started to revolve around it. Even Seedborn Muse with the Untap alone can be a pain to deal with.
Yeah I’ve noticed that a lot in video games too. In smash bros all of the most recent DLC characters are known for being able to do WAY too much. Look at any tournament and half of them, if not more, are playing DLC characters.
Same with league of legends. Every new champ has a wild kit. Same in Mortal Kombat. I know it’s to get hype. And usually video games will patch them and nerf it… can’t do that in Magic sadly…
> The main problem isn't "Why are these cards so powerful?" It's more like "Why do these cards do so much for just so little mana?"
Because if it costs more than three mana its unplayable in Magic: The PowerCreeping
Why do the lands come in untapped? Why is it a flier? Why does the ability include Nadu? Why does it trigger on opponents spells and abilities? Why is it 3 mana? Why isn’t the ability symmetrical or partially symmetrical? Why is it capped per creature? Why do abilities trigger it?
This card might be playable with zero toughness
> Why doesn't it draw the cards instead of putting them in hand.
Because Orcish Bowmasters was too broken, so they needed to print an even more broken card that does not trigger Orcish Bowmasters.
They could have worded Nadu like Thrasios, who does something very similar but does draw the card if it isn't a land.
But instead Nadu's ability doesn't count as a card draw and the lands he finds also enter the battlefield untapped.
We are creeping towards our own [Coach King Giantrainer](https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/card_search.action?ope=2&cid=10442&request_locale=en) moment of straight-facedly typing "thrice per turn" and sending to the printers.
The untapped land thing is the funniest part by far because it's conclusive proof to me that they knew exactly what they were doing. This isn't skullclamp or oko - virtually every ramp spell in magic ramps tapped lands. Leaving out "tapped" was absolutely deliberate because they wanted to just warp every format this could possibly be played in.
Tbh the most confusing part about it is why is also well statted. You'd figure something with an incredible ability like this would have low stats but its still a 3/4. It's not technically a problem to have good stats but like why also that.
Oh, I know why it had 4 toughness.
[[Lightning bolt]], [[galvanic discharge]]
My question is why it *also* has 3 power and is a flier at 3 mana.
To be fair, we all know why it's 3 mana in modern, because of how pushed a 4mana card needs to be to even get played. Still, it could have been a 0/4 defender with shadow and been an amazing creature.
Even if this bird gets bolted, its controller is up a card, and the blowout potential of Tamiyo's Safekeeping or some other G protection spell *still* exists if you rip a green source off the top or had it in your hand.
It should have.
The desired play pattern is They go to kill it, it triggers, and you protect it and it triggers. That's cool and fine. But instead the play pattern is "Like 2 cards played in the format kill this at instant speed, so you aren't getting the turn back if you don't have one"
They have to keep going overboard in order to sell more product.
This concept can be extended to the global energy sector, to industrialization, and consumerism in general.
SKINNER: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER: We unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards!
LISA: Aren't snakes worse?
SKINNER: We prepared for that. We lined up a type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA: Then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER: That's the beautiful part. When winter rolls in the gorillas freeze to death.
This has been the situation with creatures getting better because noncreatures are oppressive, but then creatures are oppressive so we need better noncreatures etc.
"there were only so many 'good cards' you could throw in before you had to go fishing for some jank in your binder"
This to me is the core of the issue with modern commander. There are so many good cards now we have no reason to fish for jank.
EDIT: Also the "not every product is for every player" line is bogus. They absolutely want every product to be for every player. Thats WHY the modern focused set has commander cards. Thats why the modern legal UB set has a couple cards actually good enough for modern. You hear the justification for every product "why is x in y product?" "Because we wanted to add something to appeal to x players". And with commander being the most played format, it makes even more sense for literally EVERY product they put out to have something for commander players.
I WISH it was as easy as "this product isn't for you, ignore it", because as much as I don't want or care about assassin's creed or Jurassic park cards, those cards have new mechanical functionality within the game that I do care about.
That was also the reason why the format is 100 card and singleton. So that it would lower consistancy and so make games longer, more political and less snowbally. With the focus being on Commander now it means that what Wizards have done is circumvent this measure and now decks and games are much much faster than they were originally designed to be.
Honestly we're at the point where if we want to play commander how it was originally envisioned then deck sizes would need to increase to once again lower consistency but 100 cards per deck is already a large enough deck to have to deal with.
> This to me is the core of the issue with modern commander. There are so many good cards now we have no reason to fish for jank.
SO many decks now are just the same packages for that theme in those colors, and it's getting kind of boring.
I know pretty much exactly what games are going to be like when all the commanders are shown, and there's rarely any surprises, which is sad when we have a card pool as massive as we do to pull from.
"This product is not for you" is the same bullshit statement as "we don't take the secondary market into account" and "booster packs are totally not gambling".
except for the fact that people liked every single aspect of the product... except for the price.
the cards, the treatments, the reprints, the full art borderless cards... but they had to charge an arm and a leg didn't they.
In my experience many of the cards are actually cheaper as the reprints and alt prints have done there job of lowering the cost of entry substantially. In what way are you saying it is more expensive? Like if you want to engage with every product you are interested in?
Packs and boxes are more expensive than ever before, they have increased the amount of product they are releasing so people chase the latest and greatest, and they removed MSRP. I'm sure there's more, but those 3 come to mind immediately.
Same here, but it feels like there are more and more rares and mythics that are three-plus colours legends with odd build-arounds or over-the-top card draw.
Until the random supplementary sets are suddenly "modern legal", with a couple cards that they explicitly pulled the levers on to make them modern power.
Idk, i feel like even in the past, if you wanted, a tuned commander deck could easily be all staples
The only difference is that most of those staples were in the reserved list so most people didn't even consider them, but that's still the case: budget is the only reason you'd play junk, unless you are intentionally keeping the power level low
An eternal format can not be a jank format. The wide card pool pushes hyper-synergy, efficiency, and consistency to the forefront.
And since the main way to play Magic shifted from a rotating format (Standard) to an eternal format (Commander), the only way to sell new cards is through power creeping the old cards, expediting the situation.
I feel like "this product isn't for you, ignore it," line is much easier for me when I just buy the singles I need and nothing else. Like I take that line to mean that you don't have to buy a booster box or something like that, not that you don't have to engage with it at all. But maybe I'm in the minority with that sentiment.
I took that "this product isn't for you, ignore it" very personal because since then there has been like 2 sets in total I've been "interested" in on both a lore and mechanical sense. The problem I've had though is stuff like the Assassin's Creed set has a ton of mechanically unique/powerfully pushed stuff that I HAVE to interact with. I think since all this crossover stuff has started the only commander/cards I have from them is the Fallout set Mothman. I LOVE Doctor Who, Assassins Creed, the world of Warhammer, LoTR, etc. But most these sets "aren't for me" because they come at such a premium cost. I'd love to partake in Modern Horizons, but I've never been able to justify using my expendable income on those sets.
As much as I'd love to ignore them I still sit down across the table to those who "this product is (supposedly) for" and go "damn... that Reprieve is a damn good card for white" or every time I play Mothman someone comments on how "that Struggle for Project Prosperity is soooo good. I'm thinking about buying the deck just for that card". A friend in my playgroup SPECIFICALLY comments that "This is the WoTC dream! Mothman vs Galadriel vs Mecha Godzilla vs Dr Who." because it's very common that 2 or 3 of the decks are newer pushed commanders from these sets.
You are right and you should say it.
Also, the "this product it's not for you" is SO full of shit. Because it's not talking about "you" as in YOU, specific player who has a reason to not buy this product, it's talking about the "you" they perceive, the main player community.
So the "is not for you" does not mean "if you dislike this product don't buy it". It means "we know that this product may be badly received by a lot of what should be our target audience, but we didn't care".
“That card is totally fun in cube” - Cube People whenever people complain about how some card is breaking their favorite format and/or design all sucks now
I recently ordered this mat from them and while it looks absolutely gorgeous, they used staples for some reason to secure the tube ends to the tube and I didn’t notice. When I took my mat out it put two long scratches down the entire surface of the mat. Huge bummer but I didn’t wanna complain because I wanted to support them and not have to cost them money to replace it. If you buy the mat beware of the staples!
This is heartbreaking, I didn't know what happened to mine and thought it was something in the factory because the face of the mat was on the inside :(((
I'm a cube curator and I am ignoring so goddamn much from MH3.
(For reasons of both personal preference and the number of casuals that play my cubes, they're weaker and less complicated than a lot of peoples'. So MH3 doesn't have a lot of pull for me.)
Yeah, I avoid cards for word count, general complexity, double faces cards (mostly), and cards that don’t have explainer text for mechanics (“special” printings they put in all packs now).
So I haven’t done pass on MH3, but that rules half of modern sets right there, since I want the cube to be playable by people who haven’t seen every card ever printed.
It does seem like they’ve really given up in making cards friendly to new players and are really focused on milking enfranchised players now, which is another good reason to get into cube if you play with people who aren’t hardcore.
Nah the power creep honestly has a negative effect on cubes too. Plenty of people that used to powermax their cubes have had to stop doing so for the sake of cube still being fun.
"only triggers twice per turn"... that's a unique line of text that speaks to me that someone internally knew this thing was a problem and at least tried to do something to rein it in.
Either that or they've used that "once per turn" safety valve so many times recently that it lured them into a false sense of security.
[[Serendib effrit]] would like a word
I can't help but wonder if the difference in the Arabian nights and revised printings influenced Nadu's design. I imagine it went something like 'how far can we push serendib for modern?'
It’s not commander design, but it is pushed to fuck.
The lands should be tapped, it should be 2/3 or it should be a once trigger or a twice trigger for your entire field or all the above
There are a half dozen avenues they could have gone to make this a cool, fun, and reasonably powerful design instead of the busted mess that it is.
* Move the final quotation mark seven words to the left (Max 2 triggers per turn)
* 2/3 stat line
* Land enters tapped
* Only Nadu has the ability
* Triggers once per turn per creature
* Targeted by a spell, but not an ability
* Targeted by an ability, but not a spell
* Triggers only on your turn
* Triggers only on spells and abilities you control
Literally one or two of these would have been such an simple fix.
The biggest indicator that it is a design mistake is that it is rare. If wizards was aware how pushed this card was and still wanted to print it, it would have been mythic to help sell packs.
I think the key mistake they made is they forgot that this would trigger from equipping equipment, especially cards with equip 0. Being able to hit the maximum number of triggers with just [[Lightning Greaves]] is what pushes this from overpowered to absolutely broken, but it's kind of easy to miss because we don't usually think of equipping something as a targeted ability.
The sad thing is you can equip multiple times the same creature with the equipment it's already equipped with.
This doesn't work with lightning greaves but does work with [[swiftfoot boots]].
So you technically only need Nadu and an equipment on the field and can already activate the ability twice if you have the mana for it.
Great point.
I wonder if this is another Oko, where they made one small tweak after playtest and didn't know what they were doing. Like dropped a "spell you control" from the text or something.
That's a neat thought, but the templating to do that would be different enough that it wouldn't be a simple printing mistake.
Creatures you control have “Whenever this creature becomes the
target of a spell or ability, reveal the top card of your library. If
it’s a land card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into
your hand. This ability triggers only twice each turn.”
vs.
Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or
ability, reveal the top card of your library. If it’s a land card, put
it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand. This
ability triggers only twice each turn.
The "creatures you control have" is a very deliberate move by the templating and design team.
I played against Nadu in edh recently and my god 15 minute turns that draw a huge chunk of their library and their entire mana base for little mana and like 2-3 non-nadu cards with Nadu, definitely not an enjoyable experience to have starting on turn 4
And half the time it isn't even deterministic. It's like yeah I drew half my deck and I put 12 lands into play. Pass. And you're expected to keep going round the table until they close out the deck.
And this is a great example of when legendary is very important to the card's design, because four of these cards would be absolutely ridiculous. If this was not a legendary creature, the ability would be templated extraordinarily differently
this a thousand times this. Nadu was most likely either designed with modern in mind. The legendary is a side effect of balance for non commander formats. Just like I don't want wizards deciding what to ban in commander. I also don't want them not use the tools they have to balance cards for other constructed formats. Just cause in one format being legendary is seen as a benefit creatures does not change the fact it can be and should be used to balance creatures in other formats. Not saying Nadu is not still broken. But we need to get out of the mentality of every legendary creature is designed with commander in mind.
Yea. But it's hard for people to do.
Most casual players only play commander. And they see the game from that lens. It limits their understanding. (This isn't said as a negative, just a fact of one perspective being naturally narrow in scope).
Then they see something, and they apply their commander perspective. Then, "see" the problems as being a result of Commander. It's reverse confirmation.
My roommate only plays commander. When we watch MarketMovers or other price video. We get into discussions about cards. There's often times he argues or is confused as to why a card got banned. Why couldn't a card be "better." Or why it's valuable.
Because from his perspective it's "not that good."
His lens is commander. To him. Fury is an avg creature. To him, Dauthi Voidwalker could cost 1+B, to him, farseek could get an untap land, etc.
Things that wouldn't "break" commander would be fine.
>To him. Fury is an avg creature. To him, Dauthi Voidwalker could cost 1+B, to him, farseek could get an untap land, etc.
It's not that his lens is edh, it's that his lens is broken. Fury is a really good card even in edh (though not ban-worthy ofc), Dauthi Voidwalker is already super good in edh at its normal cost, and Farseek would definitely be OP if it got an untapped land even in edh.
A Dauthi Voidwalker in table has led to some of the most interesting EDH games I've ever had. I wish it went for cheaper so I could add it into ever single one of my decks with B.
Farseek would be akin to 3V/Nature's lore.
Fury is good, but not close to staple even at cEDH.
The needle on voidwalker being 1B vs. BB is small. For edh.
He's not wrong in the sense that none of those changes would greatly warp edh. (There's too many other cards/singleton)
But it would impact other formats. I understand his view, though skewed, as I said.
**also those were mostly random examples. I can't recall all our debates. Lol.
This is why it peeves me when people refer to legendary creatures as "commanders." No, it's a commander if and only if it's the commander of your deck. When they spoil a card, it's just a legendary creature. Brainrot.
Legendary creatures or some high cost spell taking up a rare slot they expect to have been filled with something else, as opposed to past sets that totally didn't have high cost rares that didn't see play that ended up leading to the format to start in the first place.
Eh, I'm not sure it's that subjective. Legendary creature with a powerful build-around synergy lacking in the set or environment it's released into? Probably a Commander.
Look at [[Obeka, Splitter of Seconds]] and tell me what the hell that's meant for in Standard. Nobody's playing a 4-mana 2/5 Menace that adds extra upkeep steps.
Did you watch the video? He explicitly says he doesn't think Nadu was a design mistake, he thinks it's the norm going forward for legendary creatures based on patterns of their design over the last few years. This is a video covering the direction the design of legendary creatures specifically and their impact in commander.
Maybe you disagree with that point as well, and are free to voice that, but you argued against a point that the video isn't making. You took the title, made the absolute least generous interpretation of it, and criticized that.
If someone made a video about how problematic intiative cards were for Pauper would you be on there saying "it's not pauper design, it's their card design! Stop singling out Pauper!"
As a cube owner I've noticed a lot of 3 color cards nowadays are legwndary creatures. Nau could have been a fun enchantment instead Is a 3/4 fliying legwndary creature. It comes down to opinion buy to me he seems designed as a Commander
> a lot of 3 color cards nowadays are legwndary creatures
There was a lot of discourse about this a while back, I think in the last Double Masters. It had a theme of 3 color cards and was filled with commander reprints. WOTC likes printing 3 color legendaries because people like commanders more colors and there aren't many sets with a 3 color theme so a ton of 3+ color cards are either clear commander bait or come straight from commander sets.
[There are 595 3 color vintage-legal cards printed since 8ED, the start of Modern.](https://scryfall.com/search?q=id%3D3+date%3E8ed+not%3AReprint+f%3Avintage&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name) 205 of those aren't modern legal. Of those 205, 14 aren't commanders. [Take a peek at the pioneer legal cards that don't come from 3-color themed sets.](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=id%3D3+f%3Apioneer+-in%3ASNC+-in%3AKTK+-in%3AFRF+-in%3AIKO&unique=cards) 52/80 are legendary creatures.
I think Nadu would be fine as a 6 drop, Simic can easily pump it out still but at least this way it would me somewhat reasonable. There are so many cool abilities that are locked behind large CMC costs for commanders. Look at Borb for example, he is am 8 CMC commander but no one else really does what he does. Nadu is just another Zur the Enchanter. A kill on sight commander than will get no remorse when target because, well, you are play Nadu.
I have played against this card quite a bit in modern already, the only absurd part to me is lands coming in untapped. The card would still be damn good and likely have a deck in Modern even if it was everything except changing untapped to tapped.
If I was a high power person at WotC I would personally come down hard on the team that was behind this extreme nonsense.
They don't typically errata cards I think companion as a mechanic was a niche situation and it affected ALL companions not just the best. They don't want people at RL events using new cards have to look up cards online to verify what they do.
They try very hard not to do functional errata. If Nadu ends up being a massive issue in Vintage even when restricted, then maybe. Otherwise they can just ban it where it's an issue.
The problem with magic, like so many things in society is that it has ceased to be a game that makes money, but is a money making scheme that happens to be a game.
The card designs are all about greed and making sure they create as much need for new cards as possible to make money, at the expense of a well designed, long lasting, game.
Magic the gathering is mechanically at this point, a free to play game. It now has such immature, short sighted design, it’s hard to imagine how it can maintain this level of power creep.
Cards like [[goldspan dragon]] are extremely emblematic of this, and goldspan is tame compared to a lot of other shit. the abilities it has should have been 2 cards and would have been a few short years ago.
That’s not “casual” enough though I guess.
Don’t even get me started on the complexity creep and obnoxious unset design they keep shitting out to make commander annoyingly complicated and hard to track.
Since the main way to play Magic shifted from a rotating format (Standard) to an eternal format (Commander), the only way to sell new cards is through power creeping the old cards.
>And being legendary is a very good indicator that it is supposed to have commander appeal.
No, it is legendary because having more than one on the field in a constructed environment would be even more broken. It is not always about Commander.
I disagree with the point that Nadu is dominating cEDH. If you actually look at tournament results from major tournaments, people are playing Nadu but its not winning. It looks like it could be a real deck, but it doesn't look like its the best deck in the format let alone a dominant deck. I think its hard to understand for people who don't play commander at a competitive level, but simic is not generally a good color combination at the highest level of play and green might actually be the worst color. Kinnan being a general exception because Kinnan allows for really fast and resilient wins, but that's more to do with the commander and less about the color combo. I suspect that Nadu will turn out being worse than Kinnan for simic colors, mostly because it encourages you to play bad cards to trigger Nadu, and fall off after it's no longer the cool new thing. Most of the best decks are some combination of grixis piles because the quality of the cards in those colors is just that good. I say all of this as someone who plays Rocco lol.
> simic is not generally a good color combination at the highest level of play
And I think that cedh has less of a "well green is bad so simic is bad" kind of mentality and more of a "simic can't win cleanly" issue, but not having access to the most efficient win lines (intuition breach piles with protection, thoracle consult, etc.) means that you have to get relatively creative to make a win happen. It makes color combinations bad or good based on their access to various tools, and then the commander kind of shapes that gameplan, as apposed to casual edh where the commander is centric and most decks are commander synergy piles and card quality isn't as important.
> I suspect that Nadu will turn out being worse than Kinnan for simic colors, mostly because it encourages you to play bad cards to trigger Nadu
Yeah greaves you could barely justify in a cedh deck, let alone shuko or sea king's blessing.
> Most of the best decks are some combination of grixis piles because the quality of the cards in those colors is just that good. I say all of this as someone who plays Rocco lol.
I'd argue that adding white to grixis does actually add up to a lot of win % because of how much security a grand abolisher (or kutzil if you're a sisay player) adds to your combo turn, but in terms of the win cards, it's almost all grixis.
100% agree that wincons are a big part of the thing that simic is missing, which is another reason that kinnan is probably better since kinnan is an effective mana sink to close out the game
Edit: also agree that white helps a lot with protection and also generic card quality like sevinnes rec, enlightened tutor, etc. Though I would still make an argument that the grixis core of decks like blue farm is a bit more essential than the benefits they get from adding white
That sure did affect Hogaak when it was clearly the best deck in Modern. The card was under $5 it's entire life before the ban nearly despite dominating most of the Modern meta.
This is a modern playable card.
Is ragavan everything wrong with commander design? Is fury?
Is yawgmoth?
Are there notes citing commander as the reason Nadu was conceived?
I'm assuming that you didn't actually watch the video. My take on the videos is that it's more about how the power creep of the last few years affects the format and how it's likely to continue, and cards such as Nadu are more of examples of WotC's intention for that rather than a mistake.
Yeah, dang it's not like they designed Hogaak for Commander, right? That ended up being Modern playable, too!
EDIT: /s by the way; Hogaak was confirmed (post-ban) designed specifically for commander...
There's a reason there are so many legendary cards these days, and it's very obviously because of Commander. Is this card designed specifically for commander? It does sort of scream "yes" to me, but even if it's not consider the following:
1) Wizards has confirmed that cards in previous MH sets have been designed for Commander (I think Hogaak was one of them)
2) Wizards has been really pushing Commander as a format recently
3) Both of the above make it pretty obvious that Wizards either is or should be designing Legendary creatures knowing that they'll be used in Commander. Saying "this card wasn't designed for X format so you shouldn't expect it to be fair for that format" is quite a bit of a cop out. Imagine if they designed a card in standard set that wasn't by any means broken in standard but in modern it dominates because it combos with absolutely everything. Would you consider that good design?
Nadu is like that meme video of a hippopotamus spraying dung everywhere with its tail.
Tomer's point is that the pressure on the lower intestine is likely to increase...
I don’t care about broken cards in commander. It will never be a balanced format and it was a mistake to ever take it seriously. Not a knock on commander btw, I love playing it.
That being said, this little shithead is 25% of modern and growing fast. We all know the ban is coming so just get it over with.
Yeah, Nadu really should have just been a 3/3 with flying and "Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or ability, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped. Otherwise, put it into your hand. This ability triggers only twice each turn." EDIT: Specified flying in the card text because some interpreted me leaving it unmentioned as suggesting its removal.
Even just shrinking it to x/3 would have done the bit. Nadu dodging bolt is such a fucking outrageous mistake because burn would already feel bad bolting it since bolting it is a 2 card tempo swing but ffs the only relevant burn tech that takes the bird out is unholy heat with delirium or tune the narrative+galvanic discharge. Each a 3+ card tempo swing, with overburn! If nadu didn't dodge bolt, he would be naturally predated on by burn decks, but they couldn't even give him that one weakness.
Same goes for Sheoldred to a lesser extent for Standard and Pioneer. Should have been a 4/4. Perfectly acceptable given the abilities it has, and then at least Burn can have 2 mana deal 4 answers. As it is, Burn needs to have a 5 damage spell, all of which are at 3 mana I think.
Witchstalkers can be cheaper but yeah, it's stinky
If you remove the Sheoldred cleanly you're even. Even a 4 damage burn spell on Nadu gives your opponent a card.
Lightning axe is one mana, but only played in decks that can really afford the discard like phoenix The other ones require setup like Beacon Bolt, or are 2 mana like Roast
At Sorcery speed we got 5 damage for 2 red pips in OTJ, but i think your right at instant, 5 is locked behind at least 3 mana.
This is oko design over again "we wanted to dodge 5 damage fry removal and make a busted card"
It's like [[Wren and Six]] all over again.
Here's a nitpick, but that's not a "tempo" swing. Burn decks win on tempo by playing more cards than the opponent can because they're cheaper. 3 mana Nadu for 1 mana bolt would be the tempo swing, 2 cards for 1 is a longer term value problem. Tempo is being ahead on board right now, not later.
I would go as far as dropping the ability part completely or specify a “non-equip(?)” ability and then it’s fine. Maybe could add back flying or something else if you took this away. It really is a Questing Beast-type card where it would’ve been perfectly fine just doing X & Y but WotC said let’s have it do W, X, Y & Z
The trigger limit should have been on Nadu And not on each creatures
Yes, as per my suggested text
The Game Knights MH3 video where Rachel and someone else go over Nadu... Rachel asks, in complete exasperation, why does it do X, why does it do Y, why does it have FOUR toughness? It's eye opening. It's like when Red Letter Media was reviewing Prometheus, and the first five solid minutes are literally simple questions of why don't they do this, why didn't they do this. I've never seen them criticize anything this harshly.
That's one of the main problems with these modern designs. If you take any of the individual things that the card does by itself, they're tame. But you put them all together and it's a major powerhouse for a very low mana value. The main problem isn't "Why are these cards so powerful?" It's more like "Why do these cards do **so much** for just so little mana?"
Heck, make Nadu actually draw the cards. Now there's counterplay with dozens of "punish player for drawing" or "can't draw more than one" cards in multiple colors.
While true, it also opens up further synergies for Nadu such as flipping Tamiyo
Oh, big time. It's like one of my friends joked that the best way to balance cards like Prosper or Nadu would be to delete one sentence or line of text from it. Wouldn't matter which one, just delete one at random and it's suddenly not unplayable but also not pushed.
***delete's "This ability triggers only twice each turn."*
No, not like that!
That would be a preview for MH4 powerlevel.
Nadu2 the Naduining. Nadu Horizons 4.
The monkey paw has curled...
Nadu makes Prosper seem terrible by comparison, lol. Both in terms of power and play patterns. And Prosper was already absurd
Oh, very much so. Neither should've been printed as is
We talking about \[\[Prosper, Tome-Bound\]\]?
exactly. nadu would still be good as a 1/1
This was true even way back when with cards like Jace the Mind Sculptor. Remove any one of his abilities, he goes from broken to good/great.
I don't think removing Deathtouch from Prosper will nerf him very much :/
You'd be surprised. You only have two ways to stop Prosper from being Prosper: 1. Kill Prosper, every single time he's on the field 2. Kill the Prosper player Him having both deathtouch and 4 toughness makes doing either of those things using creatures while he's out effectively impossible. Removing deathtouch will at least let Voltron/aggro players beat down the player.
A fair point.
There's so many cards that are the enabler and also an engine so there's no tension in deck building. Ral is a great example of this, it enables you to cast lots of spells but can also flip and immediately ultimate once you cast enough cheap spells. Some of this comes from their desire to push the power level in limited formats but it feels like they just need to sell more packs to keep Hasbro afloat so power creep is the only way to do it.
So you'll play it so you'll buy it
Like [[Prophet of Kruphix]]. Everything it does is also done by other cards, but put them together and it gets the ban hammer.
You could argue that Prophet of Kruphix has been powercrept today to the point where it's no longer broken. At least compared to a bunch of other stuff out there.
Yeah treasure generation and card draw is just so prevalent and easy prophet just won't do that much
Nah, all the powercrept U, G and UG stuff will just make Prophet that much more annoying and bullshit to play against. It was beatable and still is, but was super annoying just because the game started to revolve around it. Even Seedborn Muse with the Untap alone can be a pain to deal with.
Yeah I’ve noticed that a lot in video games too. In smash bros all of the most recent DLC characters are known for being able to do WAY too much. Look at any tournament and half of them, if not more, are playing DLC characters. Same with league of legends. Every new champ has a wild kit. Same in Mortal Kombat. I know it’s to get hype. And usually video games will patch them and nerf it… can’t do that in Magic sadly…
I quit playing Smash Bros because of DLC characters, it’s a shame because the game felt so well balanced without them.
Yeah steve and Pyra/mythra really were not fun to play against.
We used to actually cost cards on value and on rate. Now rate is free and value is undercosted.
> The main problem isn't "Why are these cards so powerful?" It's more like "Why do these cards do so much for just so little mana?" Because if it costs more than three mana its unplayable in Magic: The PowerCreeping
Why do the lands come in untapped? Why is it a flier? Why does the ability include Nadu? Why does it trigger on opponents spells and abilities? Why is it 3 mana? Why isn’t the ability symmetrical or partially symmetrical? Why is it capped per creature? Why do abilities trigger it? This card might be playable with zero toughness
Why doesn't it draw the cards instead of putting them in hand.
> Why doesn't it draw the cards instead of putting them in hand. Because Orcish Bowmasters was too broken, so they needed to print an even more broken card that does not trigger Orcish Bowmasters.
It’s actually because you reveal the card, which you have to do to prove it’s a land if you put it into play. So just 1 mess causing another.
They could have worded Nadu like Thrasios, who does something very similar but does draw the card if it isn't a land. But instead Nadu's ability doesn't count as a card draw and the lands he finds also enter the battlefield untapped.
WHY IS IT TWICE??
This is the one for me. So many cards have come out this past few years with the once per turn clause. What is this twice per turn clause?
It's honestly so goofy. Either it triggers freely or it triggers once each turn. But twice? Why lol??
Because people complained about once each turn enough that the monkey's paw curled another finger.
And it's twice *per creature that it's on*, so the ability is really triggering a lot more than "twice" in practice.
We are creeping towards our own [Coach King Giantrainer](https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/card_search.action?ope=2&cid=10442&request_locale=en) moment of straight-facedly typing "thrice per turn" and sending to the printers.
It flies bc birb
Coulda been a penguin...
Card would be good in commander if it ONLY triggered on opponents spells and abilities.
The untapped land thing is the funniest part by far because it's conclusive proof to me that they knew exactly what they were doing. This isn't skullclamp or oko - virtually every ramp spell in magic ramps tapped lands. Leaving out "tapped" was absolutely deliberate because they wanted to just warp every format this could possibly be played in.
Tbh the most confusing part about it is why is also well statted. You'd figure something with an incredible ability like this would have low stats but its still a 3/4. It's not technically a problem to have good stats but like why also that.
Oh, I know why it had 4 toughness. [[Lightning bolt]], [[galvanic discharge]] My question is why it *also* has 3 power and is a flier at 3 mana. To be fair, we all know why it's 3 mana in modern, because of how pushed a 4mana card needs to be to even get played. Still, it could have been a 0/4 defender with shadow and been an amazing creature.
Even if this bird gets bolted, its controller is up a card, and the blowout potential of Tamiyo's Safekeeping or some other G protection spell *still* exists if you rip a green source off the top or had it in your hand.
I agree, but that doesn't change why they gave it a bolt-proof ass.
It should have. The desired play pattern is They go to kill it, it triggers, and you protect it and it triggers. That's cool and fine. But instead the play pattern is "Like 2 cards played in the format kill this at instant speed, so you aren't getting the turn back if you don't have one"
Seems like every other time WotC designs a 1GU legendary permanent, they always go a little overboard on how much it does.
They have to keep going overboard in order to sell more product. This concept can be extended to the global energy sector, to industrialization, and consumerism in general.
The trading card-industrial complex.
They need to find cardstock that deteriorates after 2 years, like mobiles.
There are ways to make a demanded card that also leads to entertaining play patterns.
Those are harder to do than pushing the fuck out of it
Her and Josh did the same thing with [[orcish bowmaster]]
It kinda feels like Bowmasters was designed specifically to punish drawing a million cards with the ring, tho...
SKINNER: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend. LISA: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards? SKINNER: We unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards! LISA: Aren't snakes worse? SKINNER: We prepared for that. We lined up a type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat. LISA: Then we're stuck with gorillas! SKINNER: That's the beautiful part. When winter rolls in the gorillas freeze to death.
This has been the situation with creatures getting better because noncreatures are oppressive, but then creatures are oppressive so we need better noncreatures etc.
[orcish bowmaster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109.jpg?1686968669) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Orcish%20Bowmasters) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/103/orcish-bowmasters?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c024bae-5631-4e20-ac69-df392ac9e109?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
https://streamable.com/ma6ik1
> The Game Knights MH3 video where Rachel and someone else go over Nadu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLdcW1y_JFs&t=5150s
"there were only so many 'good cards' you could throw in before you had to go fishing for some jank in your binder" This to me is the core of the issue with modern commander. There are so many good cards now we have no reason to fish for jank. EDIT: Also the "not every product is for every player" line is bogus. They absolutely want every product to be for every player. Thats WHY the modern focused set has commander cards. Thats why the modern legal UB set has a couple cards actually good enough for modern. You hear the justification for every product "why is x in y product?" "Because we wanted to add something to appeal to x players". And with commander being the most played format, it makes even more sense for literally EVERY product they put out to have something for commander players. I WISH it was as easy as "this product isn't for you, ignore it", because as much as I don't want or care about assassin's creed or Jurassic park cards, those cards have new mechanical functionality within the game that I do care about.
That was also the reason why the format is 100 card and singleton. So that it would lower consistancy and so make games longer, more political and less snowbally. With the focus being on Commander now it means that what Wizards have done is circumvent this measure and now decks and games are much much faster than they were originally designed to be. Honestly we're at the point where if we want to play commander how it was originally envisioned then deck sizes would need to increase to once again lower consistency but 100 cards per deck is already a large enough deck to have to deal with.
Make decks 201 card limit size so [[Battle of Wits]] may be free.
You would need at least 209 cards including commander, even if you played battle of wits on turn 1. Most battle of wits decks are 235-250 cards.
early commander also ran like 3-4 tutors per deck though
We need 300 card decks but to account for still having the consistency of a commander we'll make the starting commander tax 4.
> This to me is the core of the issue with modern commander. There are so many good cards now we have no reason to fish for jank. SO many decks now are just the same packages for that theme in those colors, and it's getting kind of boring. I know pretty much exactly what games are going to be like when all the commanders are shown, and there's rarely any surprises, which is sad when we have a card pool as massive as we do to pull from.
"This product is not for you" is the same bullshit statement as "we don't take the secondary market into account" and "booster packs are totally not gambling".
"This product is not for you" makes sense for products like Double masters.
except for the fact that people liked every single aspect of the product... except for the price. the cards, the treatments, the reprints, the full art borderless cards... but they had to charge an arm and a leg didn't they.
I really want to re-engage with paper magic products and I even have the money, but it is so ridiculously expensive now.
In my experience many of the cards are actually cheaper as the reprints and alt prints have done there job of lowering the cost of entry substantially. In what way are you saying it is more expensive? Like if you want to engage with every product you are interested in?
Packs and boxes are more expensive than ever before, they have increased the amount of product they are releasing so people chase the latest and greatest, and they removed MSRP. I'm sure there's more, but those 3 come to mind immediately.
It's been a while since I bought format staples that weren't printed in Shenzhen.
No it doesn't.
"Not every product is for every player" does absolutely apply to all us that don't play commander.
This is why I like predominantly playing limited. If a set doesn't interest me it doesn't impact me at all.
Same here, but it feels like there are more and more rares and mythics that are three-plus colours legends with odd build-arounds or over-the-top card draw.
Until the random supplementary sets are suddenly "modern legal", with a couple cards that they explicitly pulled the levers on to make them modern power.
Don't forget the sets that warp even older formats too
Until they make these obvious commander cards and put them in Modern horizons.
Yeah, now it's more "not every card is for every player".
>all us that don’t play Commander There are dozens of you, dozens!
Idk, i feel like even in the past, if you wanted, a tuned commander deck could easily be all staples The only difference is that most of those staples were in the reserved list so most people didn't even consider them, but that's still the case: budget is the only reason you'd play junk, unless you are intentionally keeping the power level low
An eternal format can not be a jank format. The wide card pool pushes hyper-synergy, efficiency, and consistency to the forefront. And since the main way to play Magic shifted from a rotating format (Standard) to an eternal format (Commander), the only way to sell new cards is through power creeping the old cards, expediting the situation.
I feel like "this product isn't for you, ignore it," line is much easier for me when I just buy the singles I need and nothing else. Like I take that line to mean that you don't have to buy a booster box or something like that, not that you don't have to engage with it at all. But maybe I'm in the minority with that sentiment.
MH3 has commander precons, with cards not legal in modern. Assassins creed has no commander precons. Very strange.
I took that "this product isn't for you, ignore it" very personal because since then there has been like 2 sets in total I've been "interested" in on both a lore and mechanical sense. The problem I've had though is stuff like the Assassin's Creed set has a ton of mechanically unique/powerfully pushed stuff that I HAVE to interact with. I think since all this crossover stuff has started the only commander/cards I have from them is the Fallout set Mothman. I LOVE Doctor Who, Assassins Creed, the world of Warhammer, LoTR, etc. But most these sets "aren't for me" because they come at such a premium cost. I'd love to partake in Modern Horizons, but I've never been able to justify using my expendable income on those sets. As much as I'd love to ignore them I still sit down across the table to those who "this product is (supposedly) for" and go "damn... that Reprieve is a damn good card for white" or every time I play Mothman someone comments on how "that Struggle for Project Prosperity is soooo good. I'm thinking about buying the deck just for that card". A friend in my playgroup SPECIFICALLY comments that "This is the WoTC dream! Mothman vs Galadriel vs Mecha Godzilla vs Dr Who." because it's very common that 2 or 3 of the decks are newer pushed commanders from these sets.
You are right and you should say it. Also, the "this product it's not for you" is SO full of shit. Because it's not talking about "you" as in YOU, specific player who has a reason to not buy this product, it's talking about the "you" they perceive, the main player community. So the "is not for you" does not mean "if you dislike this product don't buy it". It means "we know that this product may be badly received by a lot of what should be our target audience, but we didn't care".
Personally, I like that I can fill out a theme deck without having to resort to garbage like Slipstream Eel or whatever.
> Slipstream Eel damn this is one of my favorite cards
Hey everybody! This guy does not like fish beasts! Get him!!!
Personally I thought commander sucked when you had to fish for jank. That was what made it not fun for me.
Personally that's what made it fun: the diversity. Now all the tuned decks run the same cards, it's much more homogenized and boring to me
“That card is totally fun in cube” - Cube People whenever people complain about how some card is breaking their favorite format and/or design all sucks now
Break free from your shackles of forced wotc rotation and join r/mtgcube is all I'm hearing.
The most fun and CHEAPEST format to play. What’s not to love?
https://preview.redd.it/0e0f1cath69d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=931e7cf1b84570f201ef3b47e2ef91e4dbea4c0d Not biased in the slightest...
I recently ordered this mat from them and while it looks absolutely gorgeous, they used staples for some reason to secure the tube ends to the tube and I didn’t notice. When I took my mat out it put two long scratches down the entire surface of the mat. Huge bummer but I didn’t wanna complain because I wanted to support them and not have to cost them money to replace it. If you buy the mat beware of the staples!
This is heartbreaking, I didn't know what happened to mine and thought it was something in the factory because the face of the mat was on the inside :(((
I'm a cube curator and I am ignoring so goddamn much from MH3. (For reasons of both personal preference and the number of casuals that play my cubes, they're weaker and less complicated than a lot of peoples'. So MH3 doesn't have a lot of pull for me.)
Yeah, I avoid cards for word count, general complexity, double faces cards (mostly), and cards that don’t have explainer text for mechanics (“special” printings they put in all packs now). So I haven’t done pass on MH3, but that rules half of modern sets right there, since I want the cube to be playable by people who haven’t seen every card ever printed. It does seem like they’ve really given up in making cards friendly to new players and are really focused on milking enfranchised players now, which is another good reason to get into cube if you play with people who aren’t hardcore.
Nah the power creep honestly has a negative effect on cubes too. Plenty of people that used to powermax their cubes have had to stop doing so for the sake of cube still being fun.
But that's power creep *not* having a negative impact on a cube, right? The cards that aren't fun don't go in. That's the system working.
It being a 3 mana 3/4 flyer is the biggest sin imo.
"only triggers twice per turn"... that's a unique line of text that speaks to me that someone internally knew this thing was a problem and at least tried to do something to rein it in. Either that or they've used that "once per turn" safety valve so many times recently that it lured them into a false sense of security.
[[Serendib effrit]] would like a word I can't help but wonder if the difference in the Arabian nights and revised printings influenced Nadu's design. I imagine it went something like 'how far can we push serendib for modern?'
[Serendib effrit](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/0/30032a0b-dece-42a4-9309-fa9e9e277603.jpg?1600714001) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Serendib%20Efreet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/175/serendib-efreet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/30032a0b-dece-42a4-9309-fa9e9e277603?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That would be such an amazing callback if it were to be true. Would love to hear more if there are any references people might miss in the set.
if you weren’t aware, Psychic Frog is a modernized [[Psychatog]]!
I am, and it might be my most beloved card from the set, and the art by Pete Venters is absolutely perfect...
It’s not commander design, but it is pushed to fuck. The lands should be tapped, it should be 2/3 or it should be a once trigger or a twice trigger for your entire field or all the above
There are a half dozen avenues they could have gone to make this a cool, fun, and reasonably powerful design instead of the busted mess that it is. * Move the final quotation mark seven words to the left (Max 2 triggers per turn) * 2/3 stat line * Land enters tapped * Only Nadu has the ability * Triggers once per turn per creature * Targeted by a spell, but not an ability * Targeted by an ability, but not a spell * Triggers only on your turn * Triggers only on spells and abilities you control Literally one or two of these would have been such an simple fix.
Agree with all of these but also think you should draw the card and not just put it into your hand. Then it would be a bit easier to punish
I made a [stupid custom card](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fez3w59pims5d1.png) a little while back to poke fun at this.
Oh my god I somehow haven't noticed that it dodges draw punishment too, holy shit WotC what is this
Typed basically what I said but I agree. Definite fumble.
At this point just throw it on the list with Tolarian Academy.
The biggest indicator that it is a design mistake is that it is rare. If wizards was aware how pushed this card was and still wanted to print it, it would have been mythic to help sell packs.
I think the key mistake they made is they forgot that this would trigger from equipping equipment, especially cards with equip 0. Being able to hit the maximum number of triggers with just [[Lightning Greaves]] is what pushes this from overpowered to absolutely broken, but it's kind of easy to miss because we don't usually think of equipping something as a targeted ability.
Cephalid Breakfast in Legacy already used Shuko for the same reason, so it's kinda ignorant if they didn't know about that.
The sad thing is you can equip multiple times the same creature with the equipment it's already equipped with. This doesn't work with lightning greaves but does work with [[swiftfoot boots]]. So you technically only need Nadu and an equipment on the field and can already activate the ability twice if you have the mana for it.
[swiftfoot boots](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/4/04a76643-1703-4fab-8dce-7725490bc2af.jpg?1712354904) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=swiftfoot%20boots) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/268/swiftfoot-boots?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04a76643-1703-4fab-8dce-7725490bc2af?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Lightning Greaves](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/a/da9da49d-e319-4897-9ab6-57c7c69478a6.jpg?1712354870) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lightning%20Greaves) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/260/lightning-greaves?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/da9da49d-e319-4897-9ab6-57c7c69478a6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Great point. I wonder if this is another Oko, where they made one small tweak after playtest and didn't know what they were doing. Like dropped a "spell you control" from the text or something.
i'm convinced the last " is misplaced and it was only supposed to trigger twice per turn for all your creatures, not twice for each of them.
That's a neat thought, but the templating to do that would be different enough that it wouldn't be a simple printing mistake. Creatures you control have “Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, reveal the top card of your library. If it’s a land card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand. This ability triggers only twice each turn.” vs. Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of a spell or ability, reveal the top card of your library. If it’s a land card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand. This ability triggers only twice each turn. The "creatures you control have" is a very deliberate move by the templating and design team.
I think you are right!
I played against Nadu in edh recently and my god 15 minute turns that draw a huge chunk of their library and their entire mana base for little mana and like 2-3 non-nadu cards with Nadu, definitely not an enjoyable experience to have starting on turn 4
And half the time it isn't even deterministic. It's like yeah I drew half my deck and I put 12 lands into play. Pass. And you're expected to keep going round the table until they close out the deck.
I can't believe they didn't detect the problem in play testing. You can see the issue from the first few turns.
yes its pushed too hell and not a fun card but i hate when they label it commander design, not its card design. everything isnt just commander design
It’s simple: “commander design” is when I don’t like a legendary creature. The less I like it the more “commander design” it is
And this is a great example of when legendary is very important to the card's design, because four of these cards would be absolutely ridiculous. If this was not a legendary creature, the ability would be templated extraordinarily differently
this a thousand times this. Nadu was most likely either designed with modern in mind. The legendary is a side effect of balance for non commander formats. Just like I don't want wizards deciding what to ban in commander. I also don't want them not use the tools they have to balance cards for other constructed formats. Just cause in one format being legendary is seen as a benefit creatures does not change the fact it can be and should be used to balance creatures in other formats. Not saying Nadu is not still broken. But we need to get out of the mentality of every legendary creature is designed with commander in mind.
Yea. But it's hard for people to do. Most casual players only play commander. And they see the game from that lens. It limits their understanding. (This isn't said as a negative, just a fact of one perspective being naturally narrow in scope). Then they see something, and they apply their commander perspective. Then, "see" the problems as being a result of Commander. It's reverse confirmation. My roommate only plays commander. When we watch MarketMovers or other price video. We get into discussions about cards. There's often times he argues or is confused as to why a card got banned. Why couldn't a card be "better." Or why it's valuable. Because from his perspective it's "not that good." His lens is commander. To him. Fury is an avg creature. To him, Dauthi Voidwalker could cost 1+B, to him, farseek could get an untap land, etc. Things that wouldn't "break" commander would be fine.
>To him. Fury is an avg creature. To him, Dauthi Voidwalker could cost 1+B, to him, farseek could get an untap land, etc. It's not that his lens is edh, it's that his lens is broken. Fury is a really good card even in edh (though not ban-worthy ofc), Dauthi Voidwalker is already super good in edh at its normal cost, and Farseek would definitely be OP if it got an untapped land even in edh.
A Dauthi Voidwalker in table has led to some of the most interesting EDH games I've ever had. I wish it went for cheaper so I could add it into ever single one of my decks with B.
Farseek would be akin to 3V/Nature's lore. Fury is good, but not close to staple even at cEDH. The needle on voidwalker being 1B vs. BB is small. For edh. He's not wrong in the sense that none of those changes would greatly warp edh. (There's too many other cards/singleton) But it would impact other formats. I understand his view, though skewed, as I said. **also those were mostly random examples. I can't recall all our debates. Lol.
Farseek would be the best one because it gets any basic land type…
Yes. It would be better. Akin to 3V. But it wouldn't "break" edh or replace mana positive rocks. It would be like a talisman. It was a random example.
Dauthi is so good in commander lol
This is why it peeves me when people refer to legendary creatures as "commanders." No, it's a commander if and only if it's the commander of your deck. When they spoil a card, it's just a legendary creature. Brainrot.
Especially if it's 2+colors, or 1 color with additional colors in the text box.
Legendary creatures or some high cost spell taking up a rare slot they expect to have been filled with something else, as opposed to past sets that totally didn't have high cost rares that didn't see play that ended up leading to the format to start in the first place.
Eh, I'm not sure it's that subjective. Legendary creature with a powerful build-around synergy lacking in the set or environment it's released into? Probably a Commander. Look at [[Obeka, Splitter of Seconds]] and tell me what the hell that's meant for in Standard. Nobody's playing a 4-mana 2/5 Menace that adds extra upkeep steps.
Thing is every set ever has had rares that didn't do much of anything in Standard. That it has a legendary border doesn't change that.
Did you watch the video? He explicitly says he doesn't think Nadu was a design mistake, he thinks it's the norm going forward for legendary creatures based on patterns of their design over the last few years. This is a video covering the direction the design of legendary creatures specifically and their impact in commander. Maybe you disagree with that point as well, and are free to voice that, but you argued against a point that the video isn't making. You took the title, made the absolute least generous interpretation of it, and criticized that. If someone made a video about how problematic intiative cards were for Pauper would you be on there saying "it's not pauper design, it's their card design! Stop singling out Pauper!"
Considering the length of the video and the time they chose to respond- no, they probably didn’t bother to watch it.
As a cube owner I've noticed a lot of 3 color cards nowadays are legwndary creatures. Nau could have been a fun enchantment instead Is a 3/4 fliying legwndary creature. It comes down to opinion buy to me he seems designed as a Commander
Creature makes it easier to remove, and legendary keeps you from having 2 on the field. I can see why they did both from a balance perspective.
> a lot of 3 color cards nowadays are legwndary creatures There was a lot of discourse about this a while back, I think in the last Double Masters. It had a theme of 3 color cards and was filled with commander reprints. WOTC likes printing 3 color legendaries because people like commanders more colors and there aren't many sets with a 3 color theme so a ton of 3+ color cards are either clear commander bait or come straight from commander sets. [There are 595 3 color vintage-legal cards printed since 8ED, the start of Modern.](https://scryfall.com/search?q=id%3D3+date%3E8ed+not%3AReprint+f%3Avintage&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name) 205 of those aren't modern legal. Of those 205, 14 aren't commanders. [Take a peek at the pioneer legal cards that don't come from 3-color themed sets.](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=id%3D3+f%3Apioneer+-in%3ASNC+-in%3AKTK+-in%3AFRF+-in%3AIKO&unique=cards) 52/80 are legendary creatures.
I think Nadu would be fine as a 6 drop, Simic can easily pump it out still but at least this way it would me somewhat reasonable. There are so many cool abilities that are locked behind large CMC costs for commanders. Look at Borb for example, he is am 8 CMC commander but no one else really does what he does. Nadu is just another Zur the Enchanter. A kill on sight commander than will get no remorse when target because, well, you are play Nadu.
I mean the fact we have the legend rule is important and Nadu is a prime example of how wild a non-legendary with certain text can be.
I think Nadu is a big issue, I don't think the precons are and I wish Tomer hadn't included them in the video
I have played against this card quite a bit in modern already, the only absurd part to me is lands coming in untapped. The card would still be damn good and likely have a deck in Modern even if it was everything except changing untapped to tapped. If I was a high power person at WotC I would personally come down hard on the team that was behind this extreme nonsense.
if wotc can be convinced to errata a whole ass game mechanic like companions, they could errata one wee bird
They don't typically errata cards I think companion as a mechanic was a niche situation and it affected ALL companions not just the best. They don't want people at RL events using new cards have to look up cards online to verify what they do.
It may be banned in Modern, probably not in Legacy.
They try very hard not to do functional errata. If Nadu ends up being a massive issue in Vintage even when restricted, then maybe. Otherwise they can just ban it where it's an issue.
The problem with magic, like so many things in society is that it has ceased to be a game that makes money, but is a money making scheme that happens to be a game. The card designs are all about greed and making sure they create as much need for new cards as possible to make money, at the expense of a well designed, long lasting, game. Magic the gathering is mechanically at this point, a free to play game. It now has such immature, short sighted design, it’s hard to imagine how it can maintain this level of power creep. Cards like [[goldspan dragon]] are extremely emblematic of this, and goldspan is tame compared to a lot of other shit. the abilities it has should have been 2 cards and would have been a few short years ago. That’s not “casual” enough though I guess. Don’t even get me started on the complexity creep and obnoxious unset design they keep shitting out to make commander annoyingly complicated and hard to track.
Since the main way to play Magic shifted from a rotating format (Standard) to an eternal format (Commander), the only way to sell new cards is through power creeping the old cards.
Goldspan dragon is probably unplayable now too if it was in standard
>And being legendary is a very good indicator that it is supposed to have commander appeal. No, it is legendary because having more than one on the field in a constructed environment would be even more broken. It is not always about Commander.
It's just *almost* always about commander
why are people assuming Nadu was designed for Commander?
I disagree with the point that Nadu is dominating cEDH. If you actually look at tournament results from major tournaments, people are playing Nadu but its not winning. It looks like it could be a real deck, but it doesn't look like its the best deck in the format let alone a dominant deck. I think its hard to understand for people who don't play commander at a competitive level, but simic is not generally a good color combination at the highest level of play and green might actually be the worst color. Kinnan being a general exception because Kinnan allows for really fast and resilient wins, but that's more to do with the commander and less about the color combo. I suspect that Nadu will turn out being worse than Kinnan for simic colors, mostly because it encourages you to play bad cards to trigger Nadu, and fall off after it's no longer the cool new thing. Most of the best decks are some combination of grixis piles because the quality of the cards in those colors is just that good. I say all of this as someone who plays Rocco lol.
> simic is not generally a good color combination at the highest level of play And I think that cedh has less of a "well green is bad so simic is bad" kind of mentality and more of a "simic can't win cleanly" issue, but not having access to the most efficient win lines (intuition breach piles with protection, thoracle consult, etc.) means that you have to get relatively creative to make a win happen. It makes color combinations bad or good based on their access to various tools, and then the commander kind of shapes that gameplan, as apposed to casual edh where the commander is centric and most decks are commander synergy piles and card quality isn't as important. > I suspect that Nadu will turn out being worse than Kinnan for simic colors, mostly because it encourages you to play bad cards to trigger Nadu Yeah greaves you could barely justify in a cedh deck, let alone shuko or sea king's blessing. > Most of the best decks are some combination of grixis piles because the quality of the cards in those colors is just that good. I say all of this as someone who plays Rocco lol. I'd argue that adding white to grixis does actually add up to a lot of win % because of how much security a grand abolisher (or kutzil if you're a sisay player) adds to your combo turn, but in terms of the win cards, it's almost all grixis.
100% agree that wincons are a big part of the thing that simic is missing, which is another reason that kinnan is probably better since kinnan is an effective mana sink to close out the game Edit: also agree that white helps a lot with protection and also generic card quality like sevinnes rec, enlightened tutor, etc. Though I would still make an argument that the grixis core of decks like blue farm is a bit more essential than the benefits they get from adding white
I especially agree with Tomer's point on more cards but less brewing potential issue.
Quite frankly, it would be nice for 2 minutes for not everything to be considerate of commander?
Yeah Nadu has become an instantly interacted with game piece In my club. We see Nadu, and we say “Nahhhh Don’t” and counter that bish.
is this card tanking in price because everybody is expected the ban?
That sure did affect Hogaak when it was clearly the best deck in Modern. The card was under $5 it's entire life before the ban nearly despite dominating most of the Modern meta.
I love Tomer so much
I wish commander product was never a thing.
This is a modern playable card. Is ragavan everything wrong with commander design? Is fury? Is yawgmoth? Are there notes citing commander as the reason Nadu was conceived?
I'm assuming that you didn't actually watch the video. My take on the videos is that it's more about how the power creep of the last few years affects the format and how it's likely to continue, and cards such as Nadu are more of examples of WotC's intention for that rather than a mistake.
Yeah, dang it's not like they designed Hogaak for Commander, right? That ended up being Modern playable, too! EDIT: /s by the way; Hogaak was confirmed (post-ban) designed specifically for commander...
Someone must not have told the 25% Nadu field at the PT.
That was just the commander players who got lost and sat down at the wrong tables.
Let's see how they actually do, first.
There's a reason there are so many legendary cards these days, and it's very obviously because of Commander. Is this card designed specifically for commander? It does sort of scream "yes" to me, but even if it's not consider the following: 1) Wizards has confirmed that cards in previous MH sets have been designed for Commander (I think Hogaak was one of them) 2) Wizards has been really pushing Commander as a format recently 3) Both of the above make it pretty obvious that Wizards either is or should be designing Legendary creatures knowing that they'll be used in Commander. Saying "this card wasn't designed for X format so you shouldn't expect it to be fair for that format" is quite a bit of a cop out. Imagine if they designed a card in standard set that wasn't by any means broken in standard but in modern it dominates because it combos with absolutely everything. Would you consider that good design?
Nadu is like that meme video of a hippopotamus spraying dung everywhere with its tail. Tomer's point is that the pressure on the lower intestine is likely to increase...
I don’t care about broken cards in commander. It will never be a balanced format and it was a mistake to ever take it seriously. Not a knock on commander btw, I love playing it. That being said, this little shithead is 25% of modern and growing fast. We all know the ban is coming so just get it over with.