(※This article was written before the release of Modern Horizons 3)
Introduction
Modern Horizons 3 is in full swing. Early exploration of a new set is always the most fun period in constructed Magic, but we already have a potential candidate ready to take over the format in 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》.
It seems easy to misread 《Nadu》 the first time. At first, paying little attention to the exact wording, I thought the ability would be only ever put on stack twice in a turn, period. Turns out, because of the parenthesis placement, the ability will trigger twice per every single creature you control.
This realization turns 《Nadu》 from a finicky way to protect your creatures from removal into a combo enabler that can draw your entire deck in a single turn. Once you do that, winning should be the easier part. I’m always on the lookout for new combo decks, and Nadu seems poised to spawn a new archetype.
Let’s explore some of the available builds!
What is Nadu Combo?
Borrowing the technology from Legacy 《Cephalid Illusionist》 decks, 《Shuko》 immediately comes to mind as a way to keep targetting your own creatures indiscriminately. With 《Shuko》 on the battlefield, if you equip 《Nadu》 immediately after resolving, you’ll get at least one trigger. Even if your opponent retaliates with a removal spell, that will likely trigger 《Nadu》 the second time.
《Nomads en-Kor》 are not legal in Modern, but 《Outrider en-Kor》 is. 《Outrider en-Kor》‘s ability won’t matter much in a normal game of Magic, but as opposed to 《Shuko》, it’s an instant-speed way to trigger 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》, making it even better against removal. If you ever end up passing the turn, 《Outrider》 will let you get your 《Nadu》 triggers once again during your opponent’s turn. It’s a more expensive and fragile option than the cheap 《Shuko》, but the upsides are tempting and it’s really easy to search up a creature card in Modern.
If you assemble either of those, each creature you control can be targeted with a pointless ability and will yield you two 《Nadu》 triggers. As long as you can keep producing creatures, you’ll be able to draw more cards.
Just casting mana dorks you keep drawing can let you dig pretty deep, but the new 《Springheart Nantuko》 is the real star here. Once you’ve played a 《Nantuko》, every land you hit will give you two more 《Nadu》 triggers, and every fetchland will give you four. From there, quickly you’ll reach a point where it’s mathematically impossible not to draw your deck.
Notably, the combo is pretty hard to attack. It’s not actually “Drawing” cards, getting around 《Orcish Bowmasters》; 《Pithing Needle》 and similar can only stop one of 《Shuko》 or 《Outrider en-Kor》 at a time. 《Vexing Bauble》, 《Damping Sphere》 or the like won’t stop you, either – 《Nadu》 doesn’t need to cast anything for free, nor does it cast any spells once the combo is assembled.
Conceptually, I’m just not sure what kind of hate players are meant to use, should the 《Nadu》 combo become a key player in Modern – as the “Combo” is really just a hyperefficient way to create a flood of fool-proof resources.
Deck Variations and Updates
All-In Combo Company Nadu
This was my first draft of a version that’s all-in on assembling the combo. 《Collected Company》 into 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》 and 《Outrider en-Kor》 seems powerful, but it makes your deck pretty inflexible. It’s hard to fit interaction, but 《Collected Company》 will make it easier to keep the board full of creatures – and more creatures in play mean more Nadu triggers. 《Wall of Roots》 makes the cut, ramping to 《Collected Company》 and enabling 《Chord of Calling》; 《Wall of Roots》‘s probably not worth it if you decide not to run 《Chord of Calling》.
《Delighted Halfling》 also helps speed up the deck, but what I especially like about Halfling is the ability to make Nadu uncounterable. Similarly to 《Yawgmoth, Thran Physician》, Nadu should produce card advantage every time it resolves, so ensuring it does seems very beneficial.
《Sylvan Safekeeper》 is another reprint entering Modern. 《Safekeeper》 protects 《Nadu》, triggering the ability in the process at no mana expenditure. Later, 《Safekeeper》 can turn tapped lands and excess fetches into more 《Nadu》 triggers. Just be careful and remember Shroud is not Hexproof and you won’t be able to target your creature again! You might need to respond to your own ability sometimes.
《Nadu》‘s triggers will put the lands directly into play. 《Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth》 helps make superfluous fetchlands do something; while having access to a 《Dryad Arbor》 will let your fetchlands turn into a creatures to keep the chain going.
The win condition of choice is 《Thassa’s Oracle》. Blue is merely a splash, and accessing 
could be troublesome if you already fetched your 《Island》 earlier in the game, but 《Sylvan Safekeeper》 is here to save us. You can sacrifice your 《Island》, reshuffle it with 《Endurance》, redraw it, and tap it for blue again. You can even do it multiple times, should you need to play through a 《Blood Moon》.
An even less apparent and more obscure use of 《Sylvan Safekeeper》 would be to get your 《Endurance》 in play and enchant it with 《Springheart Nantuko》. With the full setup, you could draw your deck and reshuffle with 《Endurance》 until you reduce it down to at least three lands.
Now, every land creates a mana and an Insect token, and every third land you’ll copy 《Endurance》 to do it again. With a Canopy land in the deck, you could 《Boseiju, Who Endures》 and 《Otawara, Soaring City》 every possible target. There’s also a complicated loop where you can force your opponent to draw their deck with 《Cephalid Coliseum》, but a 《Thassa’s Oracle》-type wincon card remains less convoluted and fragile.
《Shuko》 can be found with either 《Stoneforge Mystic》 or 《Urza’s Saga》. While 《Urza’s Saga》 is worth exploring, 《Outrider en-Kor》 pushes us into the direction of Bant. Three-color decks are famously poor at incorporating Saga – so I wouldn’t be excited to run it and would avoid it if possible.
《Stoneforge Mystic》 seems like a solid, but unexciting choice – she can offer some semblance of a “Fair” backup plan in games where the combo plan doesn’t materialize by grabbing 《Assimilation Aegis》, 《Cryptic Coat》, or 《Kaldra Compleat》. Here, I opted to run just a single Mystic as a way to find my 《Shuko》 with 《Chord of Calling》. It was hard to fit the equipments alongside 《Collected Company》, and it’s not clear if a 《Kaldra Compleat》 even really beats anyone nowadays.
While the theory beind 《Collected Company》 was sound, it didn’t work all that well in practice. 《Company》 made the deck inflexible in deckbuilding and sideboarding, and every time my Company failed to find a 《Nadu》, I questioned whether i was really worth to spend four mana on it. The combo was powerful, but assembling 《Nadu》 and 《Outrider》 was also pretty expensive when I wasn’t exactly flipping them off my Company.
Simic Nadu Combo
A revelation came when I saw this 5-0 Simic decklist by Magic Online user Zompatanfo and analyzed it.
Simic Nadu by Zompatanfo – Modern League 2024/06/11 5-0
I realized that natural draw 《Shuko》 was just…good. While it’s a mopey card in fairer games, hands that played an early 《Shuko》 were much faster, and therefore threatening.
While 《Arboreal Grazer》 is fairly ambitious, and I wasn’t satisfied with 《The One Ring》 not contributing to the main gameplan, and its weakness to 《Orcish Bowmasters》 – when 《Thoughtseize》 would be the ones where an extra card advantage tool should be at its best – I quickly borrowed the technology of quadruple 《Shuko》 and took down one of the Magic Online Challenges last week with it.
Bant Nadu Combo #1
Eschewing 《Collected Company》, I was free to build my curve in an unrestrained way. Reluctantly, I kept the white splash to a minimum, avoided cheap white cards, and introduced a couple of 《Urza’s Saga》. Having 《Urza’s Saga》 let me trim down on 《Shuko》 in post-board games, when drawing multiples can be more punishing, especially if the opponent is using 《Pithing Needle》 or 《Disruptor Flute》.
《Summoner’s Pact》 is there just to find Nadu more often. I would avoid playing too many copies of that specific card – Pact’s clause makes it impossible to use it for early development. 《Eladamri’s Call》 and 《Finale of Devastation》 are both available as alternatives if we’d like to run more tutors.
《Teferi, Time Raveler》 gives me that smidgen of interaction while being excellent at protecting 《Nadu》 from removal and counterspells. It’s still a little bit clunky, and sometimes challenging to cast alongside 《Urza’s Saga》.
Dissatisfied with 《The One Ring》‘s performance, I’ll probably just try to play an extra 《Nadu》 tutor or two or more 《Urza’s Saga》. After all, drawing your deck is the best value play.
A sideboard juke threat is only necessary in games where 《Nadu》 gets 《The Stone Brain》 or otherwise extracted. Currently, 《Titania, Protector of Argoth》 occupies the slot – mainly because the interaction between 《Titania》 and 《Sylvan Safekeeper》 is really cute.
Bant Nadu Combo #2
This is the decklist I’d recommend going forward.
Comboing off with 《Thassa’s Oracle》 is one way. But what if we tried to reduce the amount of bad cards in our deck, play more fair, and rely on the sheer volume of cards 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》 can draw?
Bant Nadu Midrange
A build like this won’t draw the entire deck, but the higher card quality and increased amount of interaction should go a long way in games where you are getting disrupted. Instead, you’ll look to create an overwhelming advantage with 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》, drawing a ton of cards and passing with free interaction spells.
《Nadu》‘s colors are probably the best pitch spell pairing. Access to 《Force of Negation》 and 《Force of Vigor》 will be excellent. Moreover, the Elemental Incarnations are creatures you can target with 《Outrider en-Kor》 before they go away when evoked.
To make the deck more consistent, it would be beneficial to include some secondary ways to trigger 《Nadu》. 《Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd》 seems like a fine two-drop if you can get consistent value from the attack, but 《Ephemerate》 is the real all-star. Blinking 《Nadu》 mid-combo will reset its ability fully – now you’ll be able to once again reveal two more cards per every creature, making it much harder to whiff. 《Ephemerate》 + 《Solitude》 is also a proven and powerful combination.
The newly introduced Flares are another free-spell option. It’s nice that if you are about to pass with 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》, a 《Flare of Denial》 will always be online, covering any type and timing of a spell your opponent could muster.
On the other hand, searching for playable, throwaway creatures that you can profitably sacrifice to Flares has been a struggle. Two mana-cantripping bodies like 《Coiling Oracle》 or 《Ice-Fang Coatl》 are probably the best you can do. With that in mind, it will likely be worth it to stick to 《Subtlety》 and 《Force of Negation》.
On the topic of Flares, I tried to build this deck in a way that would support 《Flare of Cultivation》 and failed spectacularly. Just like in the case of 《Flare of Denial》, cheap creatures worth sacrificing barely exist in Modern. The specific mechanics of 《Nadu》‘s ability also incentivize us to keep our creatures in play. Lastly, It’s just simply impossible to include enough basics to support it in a Modern deck without making heavy sacrifices in your manabase.
While it’s tempting to build a 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》 deck in this midrange manner – after all, historically, it’s the slightly slower, but more resilient variants of combo decks that prevail – with 《Nadu》, it’s simply too easy to combo off to bother. The combo is, again, pretty foolproof – 《Nadu, Winged Wisdom》‘s triggers are just a way to produce an overwhelming amount of resources.
When midrangyfying the deck, our goal would be to increase the card quality in games in which we fail to activate Nadu – but one could question if cards like 《Coiling Oracle》《Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd》《Ephemerate》 and 《Stoneforge Mystic》 actually stack up well against the rest of the format.
I’m certainly looking forward to trying the combo-focused approaches as soon as MH3 drops, and this is where I’m putting most of my hope. It’s just the tip of the iceberg as to what MH3 seems to offer, but what we’ve seen so far looks really promising!
Until next time!
