Recently banned MTG card Nadu, Winged Wisdom was not playtested in its final form, Wizards of the Coast has admitted. Modern Horizons 3 lead designer Michael Majors says he changed the card very late in development to try and salvage it as a powerful commander. The new version was examined by designers, but never tried out.
According to an article by Majors, posted alongside the MTG banlist update on August 26, Nadu, Winged Wisdom was designed as a build-around MTG commander. It was never intended to see much play in Modern, so it must have come as something of a shock when it went on to dominate the Modern Pro Tour and cause the format to grow stagnant during RCQ season.
Assisted by zero-cost abilities like the equip power of artifact Shuko, Modern players could use Nadu to loop together a sequence of triggers that would allow them to draw out their entire deck and win the game. Wizards has deemed the strategy time-consuming and unfun, finally answering players’ prayers to ban the card on August 26, two months after Modern Horizons 3 released.
Major’s article is an eye-opening look at how Nadu was designed, and precisely what went wrong with its creation. Originally, this bird’s ability to draw cards and place lands only went off when spells or abilities controlled by your opponents targeted your permanents. The more important benefit of the card was that it gave your permanents the MTG keyword Flash.
During last-minute checks, when “folks from various departments and disciplines” get to “weigh in on every component of the project and give final feedback”, people brought up concerns about the Flash ability. So, to make Nadu a viable Commander card after it lost this effect, Majors tweaked the card to the version that was released.
“We didn’t playtest with Nadu’s final iteration, as we were too far along in the process, and it shipped as-is,” he admits in the piece, adding that “ultimately the card was my responsibility as the lead designer of the set.”
It seems clear that making major changes to cards and then not testing those changes is a mistake. “I have faith that if the current Nadu had been scrutinized while our contractors were actively playtesting, things would have turned out better,” Majors writes.
Wizards of the Coast has made a change to its ban process because of Nadu’s impact. Rather than timing ban updates around the MTG release schedule, it’s now going to place them around competitive seasons, with the next update arriving on December 16, 2024.
We have to give a nod to both Majors and Wizards of the Coast as a whole for being so open about how this design mistake happened and not brushing it under the rug. However, it’s still a bit worrying that a major decision designed for commander was rushed through in an MTG set that’s supposed to be about revitalizing Modern.
Wizards doesn’t even seem to have achieved the goal of making a fun commander. Instead, Nadu is a candidate for S-rank on our cEDH tier list, and oppressive in any casual pod.
Beyond all others, a lesson Wizards of the Coast could stand to learn is: test Simic cards really carefully.
For more Magic: The Gathering content, check out our guides to all existing MTG Arena codes, and the best MTG Arena decks.