On 26th August, WOTC decided to ban Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief. We all knew that the bird was too overpowered, including Wizards themselves. The combination of consistent turn three kills and having a great toolbox to combat hate cards and other top tier decks just couldn’t be stopped by the rest of the metagame. I can even argue that Nadu was the best Modern deck we’ve ever witnessed, but that’s the topic for another discussion. Banning Grief was more of a surprise. It was on the shortlist prior to MH3, but it wasn’t seeing as much play with the new set in the mix. Unlike Nadu, it got banned not because of its dominant nature, but mostly because of being ‘unfun’. Personally, I don’t applaud this type of reasoning – how can we measure if double Grief on turn one is less than looping Rings or getting killed by a combo deck on turn three? Nevertheless, the damage is done, so let’s focus on how these two bans will affect Modern in the near future.

Let’s talk about Nadu first. The first thing that comes to my mind is that there aren’t any losers of this ban. Nadu didn’t have any bad matchups, so I can’t find any archetype that would see less play because it counted on being paired against Nadu. Some could say that Living End could be thrown into this category, but firstly it wasn’t 100% true and secondly, the deck is much worse, if not unplayable, without Grief. Interactive decks like Jeskai Control or UB Murktide should have a decent matchup against it in theory, but according to data it was closer to 50/50. If you want to pick out some losers, I wouldn’t look at any particular archetypes, but rather at narrow sideboard cards that only saw play to stop Nadu. For example, I don’t see a reason to keep running Harsh Mentors. Run Afoul will also most likely dwindle in popularity, but I can still see it as a valuable answer to Murktide in green decks (although Pick Your Poison looks like a better option with instant speed being less relevant).

On the other hand, it’s quite easy for me to pick the biggest winners. In my opinion, we can separate them into three categories:

1. The archetypes that are capable of going over the top of most strategies, but struggled against a turn three combo deck that easily overpowers a single piece of interaction. Big mana decks like Tron or Eldrazi Ramp come to mind.
2. Non-Nadu creature combo decks that were less resilient to hate or were half of the turn too slow will have their moment to shine. Decks like Amulet, Yawgmoth or Soultrader will have another shot at greatness. I’m not saying that they’ll become tier one overnight – I hope that they’ll come back from the fringe of the meta and secure a spot in a solid tier two category.
3. Hard control decks like UR Wizards or Necrodominance. Without Nadu in the format, it will be easier to build those decks to combat the more homogenic metagame. For example, if Energy becomes the next best deck, it will be quite easy to adapt to it. Don’t get me wrong, Energy is a good deck, maybe even a very good one, but there are multiple efficient answers to it in basically every colour.

Speaking of Grief…

At first glance, it may look that the Grief ban should have more far-reaching consequences. In reality, I don’t think it will be the case. Banning it affected three tier decks, two of them – Goryo and Necrodominance – were on the verge of the top tier, and Living End hovered somewhere in the second tier space. But are these decks gone? The first two were not relying on Grief that much, so they might be rebuilt and succeed if the right build is found. I don’t have that much hope for Living End though. It’ll now be defenceless against countermagic, so rather than a tier two contender, I can only see it as an exploit deck to very creature-heavy, nonblue metagames, for example with a lot of Energy. I also don’t expect to see any major changes in terms of the balance of the meta – the lack of Grief won’t wipe out top tier decks and any of them weren’t particularly soft to early Grief.

What metagame should you expect after bans?

Since everyone knew that Nadu will be gone for the last month or so, we’ve been seeing a strange division between the real and the virtual. The tabletop meta had a high representation of Nadu, while MTGO, especially leagues, were mostly bird-free. We could find a lot of reasons – the combo is extremely tedious to execute online, people wanted to test for the second half of the RCQ season, and so on. The Grief ban was somewhat of a surprise, and black decks will have to undergo some adaptations to face this new reality. Based on the Magic Online data, we can try to guess how the future Modern will look like. I’m going to cover the most played decks from the pre-ban metagame and how I expect them to fare in this new environment.

1. Energy will stay at the top of the format. The deck had decent results even when Nadu was legal, and I don’t see a reason for the deck to decline in popularity. It has everything to dominate – fast clock, good card advantage engines, and a lot of room to customise for the expected metagame. Just the fact it can be straight Boros, Mardu, or splash any other colour you need shows its flexibility. You must have a plan to beat it and I can see multiple other decks staying in the metagame mainly because they’ll have a good matchup against it, since Energy has its weaknesses that can be exploited. For example, mass removal is a very effective way of combating it.
2. Storm is probably the most stable turn three combo deck in Modern, but, unlike Nadu, it can be stopped with proper tools. Without Nadu around, it will be the premier combo deck of the format. Is it a good thing for it? I don’t think so. We all have seen how poorly it fared at the Pro Tour, when everyone was prepared with multiple dedicated hate cards. I expect that, at least in the early stages of the development of the metagame, a lot of people will switch their Nadu hate to either straight up Storm hate, or graveyard hate, just to cover a bit more of the metagame. Storm had a few great weeks recently, but I expect the deck to be in a slightly worse position compared to how it was prior to the Nadu ban. Don’t get me wrong though – it will still be one of the best picks for your next RCQ. Some would say that the lack of Grief should help Storm, but the deck wasn’t weak to discard in the first place – with so many Divinations, Storm was good at rebuilding and playing off the top. That’s why I don’t think that the Grief ban will change its positioning.
3. Goryo is in a weird position – the lack of Grief will for sure make the deck weaker. But the core of the strategy hasn’t changed and maybe just adding more Thoughtseizes, Force of Negations, or any other forms of interaction will prove to be sufficient. I can also see the deck evolving towards a more midrange build with Psychic Frog as a centrepiece of the archetype. The only problem I see is that it can get hit by collateral damage from people getting a few extra sideboard slots that were previously reserved for Nadu. However, I don’t think that this will change Goryo’s position and popularity all that much – it always has been a deck that wasn’t intuitive for most of the player base, so it was underrepresented compared to its results. It’s also quite hard to navigate perfectly, which it most likely kept newer players from jumping into the hype train. I’m fairly sure that Goryo players will find a way to once again dominate at the top Modern tables.
4. Eldrazi decks of all kinds will be better positioned. It doesn’t matter if we would look at the Tron build, Through the Breach, or non-Tron ramp with World Breakers and Emrakul, the Promised End – all of them will be better positioned moving forward since they all have tough time against fast creature combo decks, such as Nadu. They’re also naturally advantaged against Energy, so having a deck that beats what’s likely the most popular deck in the format is always a good place to be. The lack of Grief will also help, but it’s quite marginal for the strategy that topdecks so well. I don’t expect big mana to take over Modern though – Storm and Consign to Memory will keep it in check.
5. Jeskai Control and Necrodominance should stay in the same position. They have some good and some challenging matchups and they can be customised to deal with nearly any deck. With Nadu gone there’s one less strategy to prepare for, which makes me more interested in playing control. It’s also worth noting that The One Ring’s protection will once again mean safety for a turn, which is good news for the decks that heavily rely on it. On the other hand, just like in the Storm example, I can see people packing more answers to The One Ring just because they’ll free their sideboard slots and will have to fill them with something. The lack of Grief won’t be as problematic for Necro – it wasn’t a good double Grief deck in the first place because it didn’t have ways to apply more pressure to follow it up. More Thoughtseizes should do the job. 
6. UB Murktide is in my opinion one of the biggest ‘secret winners’ of the Nadu ban. Psychic Frog is a hell of a card, and I expect people to slowly realise how stupidly good it is. I’m not a blue mage, so I won’t try to convince you how well-positioned the deck is, but it has the tools to dominate the metagame, and slowly but surely become the major force of Modern. 
7. Finally, the rest of the metagame. Decks like Amulet, Zoo, Prowess, UR Control, Yawgmoth, Soultrader, Twiddle and many others will have more room to breathe now. I’m curious to see if any of them will shake up this currently stale Modern format. I hope they do, because it’s always better to have more decks around than to play against the same stuff over and over again. 

These are my predictions for how Modern will look like after the Nadu and Grief ban. If you want to share your opinion on the topic, do so in our Discord Channel. It’s free for everyone!

If you are looking for a top-quality primer and sideboard guide for your Modern deck, consider checking out our content! So far we have guides for Energy, Jeskai Control, Necrodominance, Goryo (both will be updated for the post Grief format) and Living End (RIP). Very soon we’ll post new ones for Storm and Prowess, as well as post ban updates to all of our articles. Take care!