It Got Worse At The Pro Tour

The Bird is busted. Let's talk stats, and the coming ban.
Original video on the combo deck: • Let's Talk About Nadu
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#mtg #modernhorizons3 #nadu

[@toastyguy96]

0:51 Nadu so strong it can hide from the banhammer. God help us all.

[@Owesomasaurus]

Soon as its targeted by the banhammer you get a Nadu trigger anyway so its not a total loss

[@emblem3272]

The deck should really be called Fruit Loops. Bird as the mascot, plays like Cephalid Breakfast, and of course the deck has infinite loops.

[@geofastar]

Wasn't fruit loops already used? Pretty sure in the breakfast cereals era you had cheerios, fruit loops and fruity pebbles.

[@QuietEco]

Bring it back!

[@marcoottina654]

"Kinder Eggs" could be subtle and good

[@williamdrum9899]

@@emblem3272 Toucan Sam

[@msump99]

The 0 to equip or target is also a loop so it fits well

[@cephelos1098]

The reason Nadu's win rate was so low is exclusively because of its play rate: tons of Nadu decks lost to other Nadu decks, which brings the win rate closer to 50%. This happens a lot with oppressive options; the classic example being Snorlax in competitive Gen 2 Pokémon having a 50% win rate because it has a 100% play rate

[@DeadlyGrim]

That's super interesting! It's not something that I had thought of before but it makes perfect sense once it's pointed out.

[@aR0ttenBANANA]

Only 50% win rate with 100% play? Gotta get those numbers up, Snorlax.

[@adamstewart5188]

I was going to make that point if someone else hadn't. A 50% win rate in mirror matches, which were very frequent, means its win rate in non-mirror matches was well above 59% overall.

[@Octarinewolf]

@@adamstewart5188 Back of the envelope says somewhere around 81.5% wins in non mirror matches. Assuming 45% of matches were mirror matches 1-(0.45 x 0.41) give 81.55% wins.

[@Vecarith]

@@adamstewart5188 It's about a 62% non-mirror match winrate. Hogaak only had a 58% non-mirror match winrate

[@gpwaltz]

0:51 "So this is Nadu..." Oh god, it phases itself out too?!

[@williamdrum9899]

Of course, that's how you reset the twice per turn (Not sure if that works tbh)

[@mattvoll9094]

​@@williamdrum9899apparently yes

[@archerjagv2993]

@@williamdrum9899 the problem is that phase out usually lasts during your next turn. Ephemerate on the other hand. Or just play a second nadu.

[@williamdrum9899]

@@mattvoll9094 It's still on the battlefield technically. But if it doesn't phase back in until end of turn, I suppose it makes no difference

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@archerjagv2993 Yeah, the fact that Nadu gets even more degenerate if flickered is pretty gross, especially when said flickering is the same colors as the most abusable card with it after Shuko in the form of Outrider en-Kor. Ugh. How dumb the wording on Nadu is just proves that there's basically no playtesting department or at least not a sufficiently staffed one that gives a damn.

[@Rev3rberations]

-WotC prints new busted card to push pack sales -Pro players forced to buy new busted card to stay competitive -Pro players confirm card is busted at tournament, propose banning action -WotC bans symptom component of deck, not the busted card itself, to preserve resale value of packs in short-term -Pro players continue to confirm card is busted by replacing banned symptom component, core deck still problematic -WotC/Hasbro checks earnings of the last fiscal quarter, deems whether or not busted card should finally be banned based on revenue, not health of the game, factoring in compromise of pack sales -Busted card is finally banned, Pro players that bought into the deck forced to buy entirely new decks, likely supplementing lost revenue of packs -PREVIEW SEASON (Repeat Step 1) Same song, every year. Maybe "this product isn't for me."

[@Frommerman]

This economic model strangling everything i love isn't for me.

[@leandromafe]

Pro players don't need to buy cards. A lot of them just rent them.

[@williamdrum9899]

@@Rev3rberations Yugioh does this too, they banned 10 tuners before realizing that Crystron Halqifibrax should have been banned all along

[@CalastantNight]

@@williamdrum9899 Didn't they also try to ban everything AROUND Firewall Dragon when the entire player base knew Firewall Dragon itself was the problem?

[@williamdrum9899]

@@CalastantNight Yes

[@williamdrum9899]

0:52 Rare footage of Nadu mid-flicker to reset the twice per turn limit

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303]

That's a thing? I thought it was tied to the creature itself

[@alexkaplan6581]

​@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303yep

[@Nazgul1393]

technically yes, but when nadu reenters he doesnt remember anything prior to his entering, so every creature gets 2 new trigger

[@valdranne]

@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303I don’t think so, the deck would probably run ephemerate if you could

[@muditjohar5323]

@@valdranneit does work like that. The thing is nadu doesn’t need it. U can instead just make another creature and u can anyways trigger nadu. Ephemerate is a dead card without nadu and thus is not played but the interaction does work so that nadu does not remember having used its trigger on anything and instead resets all of their triggers to 0

[@CeilingPanda]

One thing to also note, if you have a mirror match with Nadu which is VERY common considering the prevelence. So if all tournament was Nadu it would be completely broken but it would only reach 50% WR. So the higher % of the meta a deck is the lower WR it would get in comparison to how broken it is, so almost 60% WR is completely insane.

[@claypidgeon2808]

Wotc's bout to ban Shuko, a 19 year old draft chaff of an uncommon, to fix Nadu. Gonna be hilarious when it happens.

[@williamdrum9899]

@@claypidgeon2808 Note to self: buy every worthless card that has a free activated ability with no once per turn, or untaps. They're all combo pieces waiting for their other half.

[@behemoth9543]

Even they can't be that dumb. The deck is ALREADY playing outrider en-kor and its really not that difficult to move to Lightning Greaves instead of Shuko. Nadu might lose one or two % points from that and still have a higher win% than Hogaak, far above anything that should be legal.

[@arbunckle]

Gonna be funny when they realize people keep playing nadu without shuko and winning.

[@ExodaCrown]

​@@behemoth9543Except you can't get greaves with Erza's saga or equip it twice if you only have Nadu on the field. All the banning shunko does it make the deck a bit less consistent.

[@rey_nemaattori]

As if there are no other equip 0 card 😂

[@w47765]

0:51 Oh hell Nadu learned the secret stealth arts of the Purple Orks from Warhammer 40K! He's unstoppable now!

[@PsychoDiesel48]

"You ever seen a purple orc!? I didn't think so!!" XD

[@Doki1880]

"We don't know our bad match up and that's why we are on it." That honesty such a powerful statement about Nadu decks when it is usually easier to tell what a decks bad match ups are even pretty early on.

[@TheEvolver311]

I mean I get what you're saying but the set had barely been out a few weeks and the Modern Format as a whole was in flux ever since the Beanstalk/fury/1gr cascade instant got banned. It's incredible when pro's actually manage to break a standard format let alone a unfounded Modern format that had its 3 top decks banned out very recently.

[@CRIMS0N_KING]

Banning anything but Nadu is wrong. It's a ludicrous card and will remain format warping even without shuko or whatever they ban

[@lostalone9320]

Nadu is its own engine - You can ban every single enabler, but if you ever print anything else, you'll have to ban it too. All just so Nadu itself can stay legal, but have no support. Just ban it.

[@joelanderson5285]

Really? Without 0 mana equip cost cards it would be garbage.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@joelanderson5285Other measures of abusing it would still exist given how stupid its wording is. Outrider en-Kor would have to be banned too by this logic even if Shuko is the most efficient cost-wise just because in some ways it's even worse at Instant speed and can be Chord of Calling straight on to the battlefield at Instant speed too. Even banning both of those cards too doesn't fix Nadu's actual problems either since it's just that dumb.

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303]

​@@joelanderson52851 mana explore is still really powerful on "weaker" equipment

[@gabrote42]

​@@joelanderson5285 it cycles unless it gets edicted, it's a 3/4 flier in selesnya, makes every buff cantrip and every protection spell goes +2, and even more if you can have more than one creature. It's very strong and very hard to remove with advantage (boardwipes, but remember how THOSE work on Delver, and Edicts, which probably can't hit it because it likes to go wide).

[@simonandersen7942]

They're gonna ban something insignificant and rush a secret lair ninja-weaponry with Shuko and only 3 other cards for $30 and then ban Nadu.

[@c_nrad]

I can see the logic of banning Shuko because it doesn’t allow cards like Nadu to be printed. However, cards like Nadu probably shouldn’t be printed in the first place.

[@seandun7083]

Yeah. It's still okay to print cards that care if they were targeted and have per turn limits, but the design space of giving all your creatures a beneficial ability like that is simply less interesting than equipments with free or non mana equip costs.

[@behemoth9543]

Cards like Cephalid Illusionist exist and have a long and storied history in other formats though. You can only get rid of Nadu, everything else will either be ineffective like with Bridge from Below or require too many bans of other cards with greater fallout.

[@wickederebus]

@@behemoth9543 so ban 5 to 10 cards around Nadu for a few months, let the players have their new toy for a while, then ban Nadu and unban all the other cards that were banned for Nadu.

[@mightyme100]

Conversely, nadu doesn't allow any cards that can target for free to be printed.

[@jmcomparan]

It won't matter in a few days when assassin's creed makes reconnaissance legal, it's just better other than saga not grabbing it

[@neil5652]

Another commentary you can make about the "low win rate" of the deck is that Nadu has a 50% win rate against it self. So if you imagined a meta game of all the same deck the 1 deck would have a 50% win rate but win the tournament. This happen in '11 with Caw Blade. It was so dominant it only sported something like a 52% win rate, but a whopping 28%! of the Pro Tour Paris meta game.

[@garak55]

Oh yeah, I was about to ask about caw blade. 28% is insane lol

[@lzan4gi]

You know what annoys me the most? It's that we're actually not sure if this will be banned. This card is pushed to a stupid level and it's so frustrating becaause they could have toned it down in 20 different ways but didn´t. And the thing is that if they fucked up in several cards or a whole set like Urza's Saga at least we all know bans were necessary and that was it. With these Modern Horizons cards they always just linger around and make everything miserable for longer and we have no idea what's gonna happen

[@magnustherad1093]

I actually think they designed Nadu only for Commander and didn't even look at its implications for Modern.

[@thebigsquig]

I actually think they designed MH3 only for Commander and didn't even look at its implications for Modern.

[@Snow_Fire_Flame]

If that's true, they didn't do a very good job. Played cEDH style, Nadu is a boring "let me play solitaire for 5 minutes and combo everyone off" deck. Played casually, Nadu is a card-advantage staple with massive record-keeping & memory chores - wait, did this creature already get its two activations yet? Hoping it gets banned for the latter reason in Commander, though odds are probably not high.

[@gfjungle]

pretty sure thats just a generic purple background and not nadu tbh

[@PleasantKenobi]

Stealthy bird.

[@Dtoszi]

@@PleasantKenobi😂😂

[@zigzag2370]

​@@PleasantKenobiis that a nod at 4 toughness 😂😢

[@lostmarble540]

it'll be meta commentary once Nadu gets banned

[@williamdrum9899]

@@gfjungle Nadu's in exile and is coming back to refresh the twice per turn

[@TehFoamy]

I heard someone saying “Nadu’s fine, people just need to adapt and play more removal” and I was like “hey yeah, you should tell that to the hundreds of professionals who lost to the deck at the pro tour, I’m sure you know better than all of them”

[@Xoulrath_]

People really need to stop throwing that "professional" tag out like it means some shit. It doesn't. Pro is LITERALLY short for PROMOTIONAL. There have NEVER been professional players in the entire history of the game, that have been on Wizards payroll.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

Just have a card that combines blasphemous act and Armageddon while being an instant with split second and nadu stops being a problem card

[@pluubooruu]

As if blue and green have no way to counter/protect creatures. As if targeted removal doesn't trigger Nadu already. Sometimes people see an OP card and they just want to abuse it as much and for as long as they can. And usually the more toxic it is, the more the people who use it will defend it.

[@Xoulrath_]

@@pluubooruu as if they always have the counter in hand. As if they can always protect it. Sometimes players just want to use their tired, old decks, and not adapt.

[@dmv99]

@@Xoulrath_ exactly. not to mention the amount of cheaters that end up there or how in other countries, people have paid for like 16 tournament slots at tournaments that don't fire to get points to qualify for thr pro tour. it's stupid lol. I'm 100% sure that some average magic player could beat some of the "pros" no problem. The problem is how many people have the time to be a pro or are willing to be a complete failure and abandon full time employment to do that?

[@dmv99]

ban the fucking bird. They banned twin because people played that card to death and because it forced people to skip turn three to not die... same argument here except you have to skip turn 2 to not die and even then you still sometimes die.

[@garak55]

Yeah honestly, that twin and birthing pod are still banned is really quaint at this point. Man I love my rotating modern format.

[@EnerKaizer]

ah, the good ol' "Too new to ban it" issue TCGs can run into. Don't know if this is a first for MTG, but I've seen this in so many other TCGs beforehand. For examples, Union-Carrier in YGO or the Multi-attacker cards for the Dominate Deck in Cardfight Vanguard basically caused the same issue as this bird. These cards broke formats, but, due to them being to new or tied to certain products ment that they were absolutely saved from any restriction, so any other card even remotely connected to them got hammered instead. So yeah, unless this gets to emergency level issues at competitive play be prepared for Nadu to stay a thorn in everyones side.

[@gabrote42]

It is not new. MaRo has said "when we release a card we nake a promise you'll be able to play it. Whenever we ban something, we break that promise" in a ban announcement beforehand. You can look the phrase up

[@Zevox144]

Not new in the slightest for MTG honestly. Oko came out and got banned a month or some later for being a 3 cmc simic card you could get out and immediately see value with. And then the same story with Uro (3 cmc simic too lol) after a few months. And then there was Nadu, 3 cmc simic... My hatred for simic ever since it was the flash archetype in ravnica/war of the spark has continually been validated on a yearly basis.

[@AwsomeDude2471]

Extreme problems require extreme solutions. It’s time to unleash the Gaak.

[@janmelantu7490]

The Gaak vs the Chicken: FIGHT!!!

[@williamdrum9899]

@@AwsomeDude2471 Bring Back The Gaak

[@Bluecho4]

@@janmelantu7490 "Let them fight."

[@TheVaultDescendant]

I wonder how much higher the win% would be if you discounted Nadu vs Nadu games...

[@Octarinewolf]

Back of the envelope says somewhere around 81.5% wins in non mirror matches. Assuming 45% of matches were mirror matches 1-(0.45 x 0.41) give 81.55% wins.

[@lukedraper6313]

0:51 "This is Nadu..." Me: "Maybe the real Nadu is the friends we made along the way"

[@joraddevries]

Am I the only one who loved the pun "Frank Karsten is the gift that keeps un giving"?

[@timw9745]

No, I think Frank Karsten also loved it

[@PM-gf1nj]

Probably yes, because he said: ”… the gift that keeps on giving.” (4:50) It is quite an ordinary English saying, in case you’re not native speaker and heard it for the first time. It even has a Wiktionary entry: en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/gift_that_keeps_on_giving

[@bmccarthy9]

From playing hearthstone where community stats are regularly available - usually a deck starts off with really high winrates and then gets dragged back down as people stop playing jank and start countering the best stuff (like happened to ruby storm, although sometimes the best deck counters the counters better as the meta develops). A deck being at 55% winrate on the ladder after people knew it existed meant it was completely busted. 59% is obscene.

[@jorgemendieta8085]

This FNM I was playing Boros Energy and taxes, in the finals the Nadu deck could in the same turn, pay 4 mana for the two leonin arbiter I was playing, cast chord of calling, and win with a Nadu, all in his 5th turn. The last turn I exiled his shuko. That was bonkers

[@jessoftherocks]

I had the same experience. Solitude plus ephemerate nadu and nantukonjust to have them top deck another nadu and instantly win.

[@zztzgza]

It's funny and kinda sad that modern rotated before standard this year lol

[@KCEBGaming]

Nadu is already super easy to pull in MH3 and as such is relatively cheap. Banning Nadu isn’t going to stop people from buying MH3. There are still retro frame versions of powerful MH2 cards in the boxes, Fetches, the Eldrazi, and niche cards like Cathonian Nightmare that once those energy decks are tuned, have to deal with Recurring Nightmare in Modern

[@Radiodragonofdoom]

If I had a nickle for every time WotC cracked a format in half with a three mana Simic card I'd have 15¢. Which isn't a lot, but its becoming a concerning pattern.

[@tomthemime4318]

I'm optimistic about the bird catching the ban straight out instead of hitting shuko first compared with Hogaak, partially because they might have learned their lesson but more because Nadu is so obviously strong in commander (at least until your pod stops playing with you if you keep playing it) that it reduces the "feel bad" factor if you open a banned Nadu in an MH3 pack.

[@JustaSmilingHedgehog]

"This is a bird." "MY GOD!" "There's more..." "NO!"

[@FLEXmen1]

You're fucking kidding me! You were at Magic con! DAMNIT! I'd have loved it to say Hi to you XD

[@PleasantKenobi]

I was there all weekend, had an event on, was on main stage, and did two Meet and Greets! You should have some and said hi!

[@AMattyDevil]

You forgot to put the card in @ 1 minute

[@JumungesJones]

You just godda believe

[@joshtaylor8832]

He’s all ready for the ban.

[@last7116]

It’s hiding from WotC

[@williamdrum9899]

It's flickering to reset the twice per turn

[@Cthuski]

Absent from your screen like it will soon be absent from the format

[@DorkmasterFlek]

This is one of those cards that just makes you wonder what the fuck was going on. Did it change last minute like Skullclamp? Did it just get missed entirely? What the fuck happened here for something this absurd to see print?

[@williamdrum9899]

@@DorkmasterFlek Good question. My guess is "dies to doom blade" tunnel vision led to this one. Problem is that "When this creature becomes the target of a spell, do a good thing" is just as good as an ETB because even when the creature is removed it did its job. This was part of why Leovold was banned in EDH so quickly- not only could you lock other players out of the game with ease, your opponents couldn't remove it without losing card advantage.

[@starmanda88]

The funny thing is, when that happens, WOTC typically cops to it and issues an emergency errata or whatever to correct it. This was 100% intentionally pushed IMO.

[@51gunner]

It's an Oko-level mistake for sure. Allegedly, testers didn't even think of targeting opponent's stuff with Oko's +1, they just assumed he'd food -> elk the food -> food -> trade food for your 3-drop, etc. But instead, they printed one of the most absurd pieces of repeatable removal in the game's history as anything your opponent played that could beat a 3/3 elk simply became a 3/3 elk and anything you had that was worse than 3/3 could be pushed to 3/3 in turn. Nadu looks similar. I feel like it was maybe intended to be an evasive 3/4 that needs fairly hard removal to get rid of it; you can't Fatal Push it without revolt online nor can you Bolt this bird; play it with some pump spells and it rewards you with another spell to hand or land to battlefield, and removal in response rewards ANOTHER card. It extends this protection to the rest of your board too for some reason, maybe as revenge for all the Birds of Paradise bolted in the past. The existence of free targeted abilities like equip just slid under the radar and now we have a bird that triggers Too Many times.

[@MajesticSundew]

@@51gunner In the sense that it wasn't a mistake and their excuse was blatantly bullshit?

[@BLKCLVR]

To be clear, a 60% winrate in a zero sum game is absurdly high. That's about LSV's lifetime winrate. A closer look at the numbers says a lot. 60% is your expected win%, which means your opponent is expected win% at 40%. 60% is fully 1 1/2 times 40%. When you sit down across from your opponent, you are expected to win 50% more often than they will. Those are overwhelming odds.

[@seandun7083]

Not to mention the large amount of mirror matches mean it has been dragged much closer to 50% than it would be if we only counted matches against other decks.

[@psych0CS2]

Someone needs to edit the classic Bird Up video but instead of the parrot its just Nadu

[@YetiRawr]

It was great meeting you in person an Amsterdam!

[@PleasantKenobi]

LOVED meeting and chatting to people! Thanks for taking the time. :)

[@blaze3422160]

I love hot WotC spends a ton of time in R&D with cards but yet somehow overlook how stupidly cracked some are. My favorite being a quote when one of the development team was asked about Oko and it being incredibly generic removal for pretty much anything and they replied with “we didn’t think it could be used like that”, yet every player looked at it and went, “how’d you miss this?”

[@MajesticSundew]

Easy: They're not doing it on accident.

[@WonderWizard-ld1bk]

I play Magic and Yugioh, Yugioh's most recent banlist hit cards that people have been complaining about for years just to avoid hitting recently released problems called Snake Eye and the most recent YCS was still like 90% Snake Eye

[@shawnjavery]

Funny thing is that the ban list did hurt the power of snake eyes, really a quite significant amount. It basically lowered the power level from the best deck that couldn't be consistently countered to the best deck that you can cheese out of games often enough it feels bad to play. I'm currently number 1 on dueling book, a third party sim, with rescue ace, a tier 3 deck, and any time someone gets close to my points they get multi games losing streaks where they just get sacked and end up losing hundreds of elo points.

[@WonderWizard-ld1bk]

@@shawnjavery I'm not saying it didn't hurt snake-eyes, it just hurt a ton of other decks in the process of trying to nerf a deck that's still tier 0

[@Knokkelman]

In an online game, bird would have gotten the nerf bat so hard nobody could play it anymore, then a small buff so it would see SOME play again. Which makes me think: was he purposely overpowered in so many aspects (only 3 cost, yet 4 toughness, giving the ability to EVERY other creature TWICE a freaking turn) to shake up the meta or have the designers just lost any sense of balance?

[@garak55]

Wotc is staffed by diversity hires and actual, clinical morons. That Mark Rosewater still has a job after almost killing the game so many times is bonkers

[@RiverGloom]

Wow i love the new invisible treatment on this nadu card

[@islarf5095]

Nadu starting to feel like Dark Armed Dragon

[@firethunder834]

Another thing is that Nadu decks are extremely resilient to hate because it runs so many tutors that it can pull silver bullets out of nowhere to shut down cards and decks that are used to stop it. Summoner's Pact and Chord of Calling (at instant speed!) get Suncleanser to shut down Wrath of the Skies, Haywire Mite to hit an artifact or enchantment (can also be found with Urza's Sage, too!), Sylvan Safekeeper to stop targeted removal, Skyclave Apparition to remover a problematic permanent, and so on...

[@E_D___]

Its not Oko, but it is still simic. Why they suck at balancing simic cards?

[@flavorsofpie6361]

Because simic is the most unbalanced color combo just because of what it does. Mana and cards are the two most important resources in this game, and simic gives you both in abundance

[@MajesticSundew]

​@@flavorsofpie6361 Honestly green on its own gives you both in abundance, attaching the best supporting color in the game to it is just insult to injury

[@Zevox144]

Shit like this almost makes me miss simic flash. Almost.

[@silvanobianchini6924]

One thing about Shuko, is that it's tutorable by urza's saga. It would actually be an impactful ban, cause right now, 4 urzas saga and 4 shukos = 8 shukos. Maybe not as impactful enough, but definitely more than bridge of below for hoogak

[@robert8984]

I opened some Nadu during pre-release-/FNM drafts. I thought "That thing will win the PT, i sell it later". Friday it was ~10€, during the PT it was around 9,50€ and on monday it dropped to 7€. I dont get it.

[@jakehr3]

I think what's wild is looking at Nadu's price history It just won the Pro Tour, it is consensus BDIF right now. If you look at the price though, it has gone from $30 to under $10 in about 3 weeks I don't think I've ever seen players en mass anticipating a band harder than Nadu. It is being priced right now as if it was going to be banned soon and players are refusing to buy it because they think it will be relegated to commander only or a fringe weak legacy deck

[@tciddados]

6:20 also worth mentioning, because of the prevalence of the deck, a lot of Nadu's losses were against itself which'll naturally pull its winrate towards 50%, where lesser-played decks would have a better representation of how they fared against other types of decks. I wonder if you took out mirror matches, what its winrate% would be like.

[@williamdrum9899]

7:27 Anyone ever told you that you kinda look like Drannith Magistrate?

[@PleasantKenobi]

I actually signed like, half a dozen at Amsterdam for this reason haha

[@hi1790]

A funny card that they could print to depower Nadu would be leyline of shroud. It would just give all creatures shroud.

[@pedroyochinori8371]

print a card that makes creatures invincible to removal for 0 mana in order to fix the other broken card, gotcha.

[@Zevox144]

@@pedroyochinori8371Actually it should give me 5 mana that doesn't go away with phases for the rest of the turn too. Just in case.

[@James-vv5cd]

Important note about the graph at 5:25: That is a forest plot, which is usually has 90 - 95% confidence intervals as the error bars. To interpret these the standard is usually if the error bars (confidence intervals) do not contain 0 (50% in this case) then the difference is statistically significant (to what every alpha corresponds to the CI interval). Essentially, Dimir Murktide and Domain Zoo, for example have a high win rate but has so little data that the CI are very wide, and thus from a data perspective it's meaningless to interpret. Mono-Black Necro on the other hand has tighter confidence intervals (less random variance because of more data) and contains zero still. Nadu is the only one that does NOT contain zero. Nadu is essentially the only deck both played enough and winning enough for use to have sufficient data to conclude it's winning a LOT. But there's something else to note here there are a lot of Nadu mirror matchups, so in a mirror matchup the Nadu as an archetype will get both a win AND a loss. This means that Nadu has fewer OPPORTUNITIES to rack up wins and STILL the only deck archetype with a win rate that is statistically different from 50%.

[@robbenijs3505]

I was there man, I saw it. Birds everywhere man, it was crazy.

[@deyicon1983]

Feel like sideboard harsh mentor might become a must have in any red deck

[@Theanthill216]

If you look at inga & esika from dmu, and tyvar the bellicose from aftermath…..we start to see the precursor design for what is nadu. They say “each creature you control, once per turn”….and they never saw standard play and went right to edh so they made it double and completely F’d things up.

[@Wauly]

I think the best course of action is to do a very hard errata on Nadu. Make the land come in to play tapped, and/or remove "creature's you control have" and/or make it activate once per turn and/or don't put a land on the field or a card in your hand at all and/or make Nadu have this static ability: "Activated abilities you control cost {2} more" or "Creature's you control have hexproof from you." Idk. They'd have to reprint him in the future with the errata probably.

[@seandun7083]

They don't do power level errata for individual cards. It's much simpler to ban it.

[@Wauly]

@@seandun7083 Doesn't mean it's not the best course of action. hehehe

[@jjohansen86]

Thinking about what happens next, the questions are basically, "Did Wizards learn their lesson from Hogaak?" and "Is Wizards willing to ban an in production rare?"

[@brendanleuthner4851]

The end 😂 "see you next time bitches!" Lmaooo I don't even play modern but he's just so funny!

[@Jeldert]

was really nice to meet you at magiccon pleasantkenobi!

[@wrathisme4693]

Win rait doesn't really give a good estimation of power level because for an incredibly omnipresent deck such as this a lot of those losses are going to be to the same deck. You have to look specifically at the WinRate versus everything else which I'm guessing is much much higher

[@PleasantKenobi]

On Karsten's data, it excluded mirrors.

[@CuTeapot]

I think Nadu might actually get the ban the first time around as its price doesnt really move packs. Nadu is $7 or less and still generally trending downwards.

[@Domekarl]

respect to everyone not playing nadu. especially to Martin who went with Vengevine as th eonly pilot

[@Yoshi6851]

6:25 also fun fact those bars are error bars I believe. If it crosses the dotted line it means it’s not statistically better than expected/ the rest. Notice how bant Nadu is totally to the right of the line. That means it’s drastically outperformed everything It also means ruby storm did much worse than the rest of the decks statistically

[@aduinoch]

You know, I was saying Shuko should be the ban... no I'm thinking outright Nadu ban

[@goliathsteinbeisser3547]

Magic players should look into YGO to prepare for what the future of Magic will be: Power Creep with every set to drive sales, broken staples won't be banned until they are out of print, etc. From what I gather, in YGO almost every set is a modern horizons like set that mostly consists of new takes on old cards. Cards are not collectible for their utility but rarity. The parallels are there.

[@nathanielb5659]

having recently seen rhystic study’s video on kantern control it’s interesting how even the language in the format has rotated almost, i think it was aether grid that was like the OG card termed training wheels (to a wide audience, im sure the term was used before then) and now it’s in this insane power crept combo

[@philippbayer866]

Met him in Amsterdam. Awesome guy. Custodes > Blood Angles.

[@LaughingDepressed]

so with ruby storm as you stated it can atleast be hated out (dampening sphere etc.) and also...you need to completely build your deck around it as it is a storm deck. Nadu is a two card combo essential that you can just slot into decks that needs specific sideboard cards that (almost) specifically only hate on that archetype and it alone. let alone how hard the combo can be to track makes it just a prime target for a ban which i hope they do but.....watch as they ban shuko and it just gets replaced with another 0 equip artifact.

[@MrNoob_11]

As others have pointed out, Nadu's win rate is decreased by the mirror matches that are 50/50. If you consider that Nadu has is 50% against 25% of the field and 59% total then you get that it has a 62% against non-Nadu decks.

[@AlchemicalLove]

And thus Burd Summer began

[@soggytoast111]

Crazy idea -- What if they issue an errata nerf that makes ALL INSTANCES of the ability only trigger twice each turn? Like instead of granting each creature the "this only triggers twice each turn" text, it is a separate part of the static ability that is on Nadu. That way the card isn't just completely wiped out of the game for a newly printed set, but it does remove the combo deck from the metagame. I know these kinds of erratas are frowned upon, but not without precedent.

[@williamdrum9899]

Like a Yugioh style "hard once per turn" that cannot be cheesed in any way?

[@seandun7083]

They have errataed ability words as a whole a few times (companion, Cascade) and they errata when they have a typo (Hostage Taker) or maybe when it doesn't work correctly with the rules (can't think of an example off the top of my head but I'm sure that's one solution they thought about for Serra Paragon), but I can't think of any power level erratas for individual paper cards.

[@soggytoast111]

@@seandun7083 I think what happened with companion would definitely be a comparable situation. If you want to go way back, Parallax Wave received a power-level errata that would be essentially the same as this.

[@seandun7083]

@@soggytoast111 interesting. I wasn't aware of that one. I'm now also remembering that they went through a few iterations of Time Vault errata as well before deciding it was to much trouble. It does seem like they haven't done that for individual cards for a long time though. I think companion was different since changing one mechanic was seen as easier than banning all 10 cards where as adding errata to a single card isn't necessarily simpler than banning that same card (especially since it's legal in more than just modern and might not be to powerful for legacy for example). If they were to errata it, I would like removing "or ability". For anyone not aware, parallax wave for a while was changed to "When Parallax Wave leaves the battlefield, each player returns to the battlefield all cards other than Parallax Wave he or she owns exiled with Parallax Wave."

[@DeadlyGrim]

@@soggytoast111 Parallax Wave did have a power-level errata. But also, they eventually undid it. Likewise, most (if not all) cards that ever got individual power-level errata eventually had that errata undone and had their functionality restored to original functionality as much as possible. Having cards that don't actually do what they say they do is really awkward. The complexity and confusion cost is so high in comparison to the gain that it becomes better to just ban/restrict too-powerful cards instead of endlessly dickering around with them. (With purely digital cards it's relatively viable to do that but Magic ain't just digital)

[@RunawayStereo]

I dont even play MTG outside of commander but I enjoy your breakdowns of the meta and cards

[@pierrebuthaud7640]

Are the winrate of the match-ups between different decks or does it count mirrors ? Because if it does, the actual winrate of the deck itself is actually higher because each mirrors brings the winrate close to 50%. And with a 25% of the tournament being Nadu, there must be quite a lot of mirror in there.

[@Vapor454]

Mythical dispute, strix serenade, tidebinder, subtlety, Hatebear merfolk

[@seandun7083]

Delighted Halfling, 3feri, Chord of Calling, Veil of Summer, Spell Pierce.

[@cjb3527]

The bird's word may be 'Ban the Bird!'

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Nadu is a legacy power level card. It does not belong in modern.

[@Xoulrath_]

Modern is the new Legacy. Or have you not figured that out yet?

[@simonr6268]

Nadu flipping cradles is more fun anyway.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

​@@Xoulrath_ Modern is not legacy. Legacy has a stable metagame and lots of viable strategies. Modern is a horrible rotating format with broken nonsense without any of the format policing cards that keep it fun.

[@Xoulrath_]

@@JohnFromAccounting dude, read the writing on the wall.

[@QuietlyHere666]

​​@@Xoulrath_ nothing statement, effectively "agree with me because it's obvious I'm right" The only writing on the wall is that legacy is and always has been a better format (That wotc refuse to support because they can't monetize it because they won't reprint cards for it)

[@DankAudioStash24]

Nadu didn't show up on screen because it's already been banned on the channel.

[@asimovvomisa4040]

Played against Nadu in Arena Brawl: Turn 1: some equipment Turn 2 Sylvan Safekeeper Turn 3 Nadu Game was over at that point but i did not notice at the moment.

[@pyredynasty]

Bird bird bird bird is the word

[@Surgeslayer]

So, what are the odds of wizards just changing a rule vs a banning? Is there a downside to making equipping a non-targeting ability? Like errata equip to say something like "Choose a creature you control. Attach ~ to that creature." The only "downside" I can see is you will now be able to equip creatures that have shroud, which doesn't seem like much of a problem to me.

[@styfen]

The only correct move here is to ban Nadu as soon as possible. If they don't do that then Nadu's reign will not be stopped, the bird price will spiral more and more, and the only correct move will be to not play Modern if you don't have them. That card is an engine that is stupidly hard to stop moving and combos with so many 0 cost repeatable targeters that the one in my kitchen is currently comboing with the dog's ham sandwich.

[@gatorbait2148]

Has anyone said anything about trying Confounding Conundrum as a hate piece against Nadu? I feel like stopping it's land drops is an effective way of hamstringing their game plan but I'm a dumdum scrublord so idk for sure. I just haven't seen anything about it when I try to look things up. Edit: Nevermind I realized that since the lands come in untapped, you can tap them in response to confounding conundrum's trigger and then it doesn't matter.

[@tcsmagicbox]

I know, they will errata Nadu to "triggers only once per turn" instead of twice a turn.

[@seandun7083]

They don't do power level errata for individual cards

[@ryanbarham8464]

I wonder whether Confounding Conundrum could help keep Nadu in check for long enough to deal with your opponent's tricks?

[@cobblertcg]

There are plenty of bomb rares and mythics in MH3 to sell packs. Watching this deck play out is boring and not fun to watch. Ban the bird

[@NuriDude]

It's a snoozefest. Id have to disagree that he encouraged pack openings, though. Nadu isn't even worth much. Just checked and the cheapest is $7 based on TCGPlayer market, which is less than a pack of MH3. It would be different if it went the route Hogaak did and hit over $50 for a copy at one point. Then people would be a lot more motivated to gamble for that return.

[@stephenpovey4131]

I wonder if restricting the bird would be a compromise to keep it accessible without an outright ban?

[@millerbateman7005]

Outrider allows you to win with thassa on your opponents turn through harsh mentor due to active player non active player interactions

[@seandun7083]

Can you flash in Thoracle?

[@camael4209]

Wouldn't lightning greaves just take over shuko's spot? Yes it's shroud which might hurt but it also means it isn't able to be removed and with 2 creatures you can just equip it to the other when you need to combo it.

[@affinityforanime]

Is a functional errata of Nadu possible? Change the actual text to be "Creatures you control have 'Whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell, reveal the top...'" dropping the "ability" portion of the effect? THAT'S the broken part. Sort of like how Companion got errata-ed?

[@teemothetroll9855]

I think that if they errata Nadu's ability so that it really triggers only twice per turn (not also per creature), it would be in a much more balanced spot. You don't remove a whole new archetype and if you still pull Nadu in a booster it is not just paper imo

[@allanturmaine5496]

I, for one embrace our new toucan overlord.

[@uruigi]

I did see you a few times at Magiccon. You looked like you were enjoying yourself, and now I regret not saying hi. Maybe next time!

[@PleasantKenobi]

Next time!

[@Playingwithproxies]

Best way to beat nadu is probably just make your opponent go through every step to win until they time out in game 3 and it ends in a draw

[@Capn_Lyssa]

That's a good way to catch a slow play penalty

[@JoshRudis]

I'll say that there are obvious ways to hate on any deck (generally), but if you take a card like Drannith Magistrate you don't have a corollary for that for triggered abilities. You have hate for *activated* abilities, but not triggered. Maybe (not maybe but you know) Wizards should have done some triggered ability hate in some... I dunno... Modern set...

[@seandun7083]

You do have dress down, but there aren't any great ones that stick around.

[@timw9745]

Nadu is it’s own problem, not a lot of other cards. Just ban Nadu. Anything else would prove the’re greedy and/or clueless.

[@timw9745]

Prolly greedy

[@sporkliftmctot]

Something else to consider as well about the Ruby Storm deck; It did as poorly as it did in the hands of some of the best magic players of all time. If I recall correctly, both John Finkle AND LSV were playing storm and it did that poorly.

[@freyamiles3718]

12:23 and omnath in standard. Uro got the ban first. Probably 20 other examples

[@shoeshinecs]

Decks were also maindecking Dranith Magistrate

[@brgz87]

This is bad, but let's all remember fondly about pro-tour Oko. 63.1% of the field was Oko, Bant, Simig or Sultai. Good times!

[@spcld2k]

Why doesn't Wizard use restricting more often? Maybe the answer isn't to completely ban things but to bring them down to One Per Deck. In fact, they should ever green the term and just make cards that are restricted off the go.

[@seandun7083]

Only 2 formats restrict cards. With the amount of tutors it isn't always the must effective option and for a lot of cards, it just makes games really swingy based off of if you draw your restricted cards or not.

[@flobo23]

My man from Amsterdam. ☮️☮️ Greetings from northern Germany :)