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The term "nonland" is no where to be seen on either glissa or liquid metal coating. This is a land hate combo too. Scary good combo

I’ve never disagreed with someone’s arguments so badly while still agreeing with their conclusions. Arcane Denial is really bad against Haymaker-Tribal decks, where once they’ve ramped you need to counter everything they do. And increasingly that style of deck is becoming more and more of what EDH is.

The math is just wrong here. What matters for card advantage is how many cards you have vs. how many cards your opponents have, let's call this card ratio CR. I think we can agree that if each player has the same number of cards, then no one has card advantage. So, let’s assume a hypothetical scenario where each player has n cards in hand: 1) I have n cards, my opponents have 3n cards in total. Thus: CR = n/3n = 1/3. 2) Now I Counterspell any spell cast by an opponent. I have 1 card less, so does one opponent, therefore: CR = (n-1)/(3n-1) 3) I instead Arcane Denial any spell cast by an opponent. I have the same amount of cards, one opponent is up one card, consequently: CR = n/(3n+1) If n/(3n+1) > (n-1)/(3n-1), then Arcane Denial provides card advantage compared to Counterspell. Let's prove that this is true for all n ∈ ℕ: n/(3n+1) > (n-1)/(3n-1) | multiply both sides by (3n+1)(3n-1) (3n-1)n > (3n+1)(n-1) | calculate the terms on both sides 3n^2 - n > 3n^2 - 2n -1 | subtract 3n^2 and add n on both sides 0 > -n-1 | multiply by -1, the operator flips. n+1 > 0 This is obviously true for all n ∈ ℕ. q.e.d. Therefore, Arcane Denial provides card advantage compared to Counterspell. For example, if each player has 3 cards in hand, Arcane Denial on a spell gives CR = 3/10 = 0.3, whereas Counterspell on a spell only gives CR = 2/8 = 0.25. Given that a CR of 1/3 is neutral, in this scenario casting Counterspell is equivalent to losing 0.75 cards (Because 2.25/9 = 0.25), whereas Arcane Denial is equivalent to losing 0.3 cards (Because 2.7/9 = 0.3). The difference between both spells shrinks as the number of cards in hand increases. So, there is no card advantage argument for Counterspell over Arcane Denial. The only argument in favor of Counterspell (and the reason why Arcane Denial isn’t played in cEDH) is that Arcane Denial concentrates card advantage in the hand of a single opponent rather than spreading it out. This increases the risk of a single opponent collecting a critical mass of cards needed to go off and end the game (Basically, the rationale is that as more cards are accumulated in a single hand, the value of cards in that players hand increases due to synergy). 2 mana for a counterspell is also just not a good rate for cEDH, you’d rather play something like Miscast, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, Mystical Dispute, Dispel or any free counterspell. TLDR: A simple way to look at it would be to think of a card that says: “Counter target spell. Each player draws a card.” This is clearly a neutral effect stacked on top of a Counterspell. Each opponent drawing 1 is also clearly worse than one opponent drawing 2 in terms of card advantage, so card advantage on Arcane Denial must at least be better than this hypothetical card.

The designers of Nadu’s text box deliberately neglected their own creative skillsets and chose the open-ended, busted version of each clause in the text box. Then, they shipped it to development, who slapped a shoddy “twice per turn” limiter in a less-than-effective location on the card and moved on. I’m being harsh, but I adore R&D and this is a design to be ashamed of.

Bro you're confusing yourself with this whole "balancing the equation" idea, mostly because you're bouncing between ways of counting advantage. Just look at it from the plain number of cards in hand/on board. Counterspell Me: 7-1=6 P2: 7-1=6 P3: 7 P4: 7 I end up with two opponents up a card on me. Denial: Me: 7-1+1=7 P2:7-1+2=8 P3:7 P4:7 I only have one player up a card on me. Your math error comes in counting P3&4 as being up a card just like with Counterspell, but that's not because they drew a card, it's because you spent a card. The whole point of that argument is that, by replacing itself, Denial stops the other two players from getting a free advantage against you.

HOLY FUCK

I love the hate for specific card types Really fuels the hater in me

EDH becomes CEDH when there are prizes on the line.

I think one of the core problem with Nadu that I don't really see discussed is how cheap it is. 3 CMC for it is insane.

What was the 'simple trick'?

Thoracle should go too. Been saying it for years.. as a graveyard player. Its boring, uninspired, and too consistent.

I feel like these 4 categories are fine, but don't really help. The difficulty is differenciation in that mid tier category.

Bro the part where you brought up niche combos and showed Samwise Gamgee and Syr Ginger with anointed procession had me dying XD

Natural Balance is a reasonable answer to land ramp. The only problem is that its green, which has all the good land ramp. If it was any other color I think it would have seen play in EDH. If you ever build a green or part green deck that doesn't use land ramp it's worth trying against ramp decks. Stopping/punishing tutoring, landfall, and card draw can all help too. Finally there's red creatures and spells that do damage based on number of lands opponents control.

It's the durdling that I don't like, honestly. Sure, play a busted card. I don't care. But if you're gonna make me sit there and watch you take a turn longer than all of the previous 3 players' turns combined, at least have the good manners to win the game off of it.

Man the type of designated hate they used to print on cards back in the day was the best. I feel like it really helped when going against certain “meta’s” that can happen in standard depending on what the set is based around. And I love me some artifacts lol

My guy suggested land destruction smh

What about Progenitus mommy Hydra !

So it’s Oracle text is just gonna be “Changeling”, huh?

Your one-card-in-hand example really isn't reflective of the use case for Arcane Denial. In late-game situations -- which you mention are the appropriate time for counterspells -- a blue needs to have drawn sufficient counterspells to prevent their opponents' game winning spells from resolving. Counterspell and Swan Song are arguably better cards, strictly speaking, but the blue deck needs to have enough counters to allow them to be drawn reliably. When the Craterhoof Behemoth or eldrazi titan is on the stack, it demands an answer, and letting the owner of those spells draw two cards as compensation is probably perfectly acceptable, especially given that Arcane Denial draws a card for its owner too.

Oloro my fav 😂

I’m probably going to make nadu equipments, none of those free to equip cards, just want to get some more value out of equipping nadu and draw/ramp when they kill my voltron commander lol

Yeah, you're a bit of a hipster lol. I really just build decks I love. I do happen to love tribal decks. I have a Sliver, Dragon, Elf, Zombie, Vampire, Goblin and Ninja deck. I'm part of the problem. But I also play Scarecrow, Egg, and Party decks. I do have a suspend deck with Jhoira that uses Eldrazi, so that's a bit different in terms of Eldrazi tribal. These are only 11 out of 30+ decks. My slivers I turned into Sliver control and it's pretty fun to play. It actually gets to the point where board wipes don't work pretty often. My elves deck has also undergone a lot of work to become more control. As much flash as possible and ability to survive the board wipes. Cards like Viridian Revel propel it into massive card draw in the treasure meta and in general, I do try to put a unique spin on it. Every one of my tribal decks tends to undergo frequent shifts and rotations as I'm playing them and wanting to do different combos.

If Nadu gave me the choice to throw the card away OR draw it. It would be an instant add in to my Sidisi deck

bring back bad bitches in fantasy art

why did they make pir white in that card lol

All im seeing is to just play the og Omnath and keep like a million green mana in my pool.

Arcane can be cast in substantially more situations than counterspell in multi-color decks, especially in decks with no-fetch/shock budget manabases and 3+ color decks. That's because having UU untapped won't happen some of the time when you want to cast counterspell. But having 1U untapped is going to available a substantial portion of the time that UU would not, which makes Arcane Denial more flexible. Kind of like how some players will try to only play point removal that works against multiple type of cards: so they'll play stuff that gives an opponent something back (Generous Gift-type cards) or gives them the option to undo the removal with removal of their own (Imprisoned in the Moon, Song of the Dryads). Low-power decks where Arcane Denial also have a smaller percentage of really strong cards, so for 1U making an opponent swap a card (and the mana to cast it) for two random cards next turn could be a good trade. I think your counterexample of two bolts and two dauthi voidwalkers being drawn after Arcane Denial resolves felt kind of artificial. Let's put aside (the better) Delay for a moment and look at the other single U in casting cost non-type restricted counterspells one might consider in a low-power deck. I might want Arcane Denial or Unsubstantiate over the more efficient but more situational Swan Song or An Offer You Can't Refuse because when you play a small number of counterspells they need to be good in as many situations as possible. Counterspells need to be able to break up combos/engines that use any type of cards. All other the other counters you mentioned are even more type-restricted, have sac/bounce added costs, or have UU in their cost.

This is awesome! Just one thing though, how do you make a copy of Isochron Septer (an artifact) with Copy Enchantment? I don't understand how that's possible, but also I don't think it's necessary anyways with the Tasigur able to loop anything you want.

I play her in Kibo to force my opponents to eat their bananas

Really cool limitation, cool if we saw more like this

That pronunciation gave me mana burn

If you had as program that can play mtg you could put in the 10 000 most popular decks and then put any deck to fight every deck 10 times and you could get the average winrate as a power level (i know it's not practical at all and also assume a program able to play "perfectly" every kind of deck)

You consider the bats to be ban worthy? It does 1 damage per token. It has been an all-star in my Olivia. Most wanted deck.

The RC needs to prove to me that they arent useless and actually make a ban decision on *_something_* otherwise I have no hope of nadu getting hit

I think the easiest way to clear it up is to repeat the effect a few times. If everyone currently has 4 cards in hand what situation would you rather be in at the end? Counter spell x4: you and 1 opponent have 0 cards in hand, 2 opponents still have 4 cards. Arcane denial x4: you and two opponents have 4 cards, one of them has 8 cards. I'm sure we can think of cases where you would still prefer the first case but without context the second situation is more recoverable. It is an extreme example but the 1x is not any different in form, only in severity. In a simplified case of card advantage arcane denial is clearly better. In the case where you are winning there is an argument against giving an opponent two more chances to draw another answer. In case you use it against the arch enemy there is an argument giving them two more cards isn't helpful either. Arcane denial shines best on even board states, where in my experience, counterspells are least likely to be used.

Damn shimmer is so crazy, thats actually such a funny card. Like sure, yavimaya very often gets pulled out by someone but even wo you can mess with whoever looks like they are about to win

Triangle of War is a great find. I have a Jared Carthalion true heir deck that has many burn and fight spells and I missed this one.

Laughs in grouphug

Grand arbiter

I guess this is for when your friend tries to play urza one too many times

And her art is on cover of "The Moons of Mirrodin" book!

My playgroup had a proxy no ban list commander game where my buddy did end up copying shahrazad like 20 times

I usually play 8-12 spot removal (this includes counterspells), and 3-5 board wipes. That is a baseline, and tends to end up larger.

L take. Being down 1 card to a single player is better than being down 1 card to two players.

The 4th way you forgot to mention is the one I use. I play what looks cool. Just in any fantasy world I love dragons, so I will build dragon decks. Doesn't matter if it's Miirym or Ur-Dragon. Hell, I've even been building a deck with Arcades, the Strategist just because he's a dragon

Some of the best cards that combat Thassa's Oracle and Dockside Extortionist both are static effects that stop ETB (Enter the Battlefield) effects, such as Torpor Orb and Doorkeeper Thrull. These are much more common than Cephalid Colliseum, Loran of the Third Path, or even Endurance

power crept zimone and dina...

The game has a bunch of alternatives to Inner Sanctum now and most are better.

well now i have to find a way to build a scarab god deck that isn't zombie tribal, reanimator, spell copy, vehicles, or pillowfort... seriously though, how do you come up with the initial idea? i see how everything cascaded once you figured out the throne/army combo, but the part i struggle with the most is that first push.