Modern: What Would it Look Like Without Nadu?

Modern Horizons 3 caused quite an uproar in Modern, as we all saw at the last Pro Tour. Nadu Combo is undeniably the deck to beat in the current metagame, and, after it completely dominated the Modern Horizons 3 Pro Tour, many people in the community started questioning whether more bans are necessary.

No one can deny that Nadu has been dominating this format, but we can't forget that MH3 also introduced some important cards in the metagame. The energy mechanic and cards like Necrodominance and Ral, Monsoon Mage have also been quite relevant.

The greatest question pushing Nadu Combo towards more bans, besides its obvious power level, is its game pattern. Nadu Combo matches are long and tiresome, and this is even more accurate on digital platforms.

Speaking of digital platforms, Magic Online Creator Showdown Modern will happen this month, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom won't be legal for this tournament, exclusively. Once again, I'll be at this event as a guest, and, as I was choosing the lists I'm going to use, I thought about writing this article to find out what is the answer to the following question: What does Modern look like without Nadu?

The next ban announcement will be in August, so I believe the MTGO Creator Showdown will be a good example of what can happen if Nadu is banned. Ruby Storm has already become a good answer for this tier 0 deck, and there are also a few other powerful archetypes that might be even better if Nadu is banned. Let's see them.

Jeskai Energy Control

This is the control deck in the format. It uses the energy mechanic to play removals like Wrath of the Skies. During spoiler season, I talked about this card and the potential it had for this format - in fact, it didn't disappoint us, but it was not enough to stop the Nadu Combo at the Pro Tour. Nonetheless, Javier Dominguez still guaranteed a spot in the Top 8 with it.

Jeskai Energy Control has a powerful removal kit that can deal with most threats in Modern. It also has four copies of The One Ring, which is one of the most powerful cards in the entire format, and Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury, which is its main win condition. Phlage is a powerful tool to stabilize games as well, particularly against aggro decks.

Boros Energy

Guide of Souls and Amped Raptor are the heart of this aggro deck that focuses on energy. Guide of Souls, in particular, interacts with many other cards in this list; it fills the board with Ocelot Pride, and gets the most out of Amped Raptor.

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd also brings you interesting synergies, whether with Raptor or with Ranger-Captain of Eos. Unstable Amulet is also important in this deck - it acts not only as a source of card advantage, but also enough damage to finish the game. It is also a good target for Phelia.

Mono-Black Necro

Necrodominance was one of the cards that stood out the most to me during spoiler season, and has performed well in the current Mono-Black Midrange lists, next to The One Ring, Orcish Bowmasters, and Grief.

The main idea behind this deck is to use Necrodominance's ability and its synergy with Sheoldred, The Apocalypse, March of Wretched Sorrow, and Soul Spike to cancel the loss of life drawback. Once Necrodominance is in play, you can draw cards until you have only 1 life point left, and, as long as you find some copies of Soul Spike, you'll be able to deal massive amounts of damage to your opponent.

Boggart Trawler is another interesting addition from MH3. It lets you interact with your opponent's graveyard and deal with problematic cards like Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury and other graveyard strategies. It also leaves a body behind. Furthermore, this deck plays other modal cards you can use as lands, like Fell the Profane, which can deal with creatures and planeswalkers, and Malakir Rebirth, which adds the Scam kit to this deck. This is what will let you play the iconic line of mana/Grief/Scam on turn 1.

The rest of this list is just a viable package of removals and disruptions to stabilize the board and finish the game more easily.

Ruby Storm

Ruby Storm has been quite effective in the Nadu metagame, as it finishes games on turn 3 consistently, or even as early as turn 2. This means it is a bit ahead of Nadu Combo in terms of speed.

This deck's game plan focuses on Ral, Monsoon Mage, which interacts beautifully with spells like Galvanic Relay. With it, you'll use your Rituals to keep casting your entire deck and finish the game with Wish + Grapeshot.

Past in Flames brings you the redundancy and recursion you need to keep casting spells until you can finish the game. Thassa's Oracle is another way to win the game, besides Empty the Warrens.

Goryo’s Vengeance

Goryo's Vengeance has also popped up a lot and performed well. This deck focuses on the card that names it, Goryo's Vengeance, and its plan is to put in play either Griselbrand or Atraxa, Grand Unifier straight from your graveyard. To do that, this deck has many resources to feed your graveyard and ways to protect its strategy. It is, thus, a combo-centric deck as well.

Ephemerate is one of the ways you have to keep your reanimated creatures in play, as well as create extra value with Atraxa and essentially give you the Scam strategy with Grief and Solitude.

Out of the MH3 additions that put this deck on our radar, we have Ripples of Undeath and Buried Alive, which fit this strategy really well.

We still have a few weeks of Nadu Combo in Modern ahead of us, as I severely doubt we'll get any type of emergency ban before August. However, this format also has great decks and has been through some welcome changes if we take a good look at how Modern was before MH3.

I believe Nadu will eventually be banned, though it's difficult to predict whether other cards will be banned as well. Considering Nadu is indeed banned, I believe each of the decks I listed above have potential to perform well, particularly because they're already powerful in the current metagame.

What do you think? Which of these decks will be the new tier 1? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!