We Need to Have a Chat About Modern... 

The major problem is not the one ring, but the second one ring 😅

My biggest issue with ring is just how awful the play pattern is of being safe drawing 3 and then just playing another ring it’s so frustrating to play against

Grief isn't just a mulligan to 5: it's a *bad* mulligan to 5 that is all but guaranteed to not have any copies of your most-desirable 2-3 cards. Also, any answer to Grief (e.g. Vexing Bauble) only works on the play, since on the draw Grief will just discard it and laugh all the way to the bank.

I think there is also some kinda merit to looking at bowmaster as well. Maybe not now but in the future it feels like it will be on one of these lists for defining what creatures are immediately thrown aside every spoiler season from here on out for having 1 toughness.

A card from MH2, a card from LoTR and a card from MH3. It speaks volumes to what Modern is today

Id be pretty invigorated if these three were banned; the format would feel wide open to more fair decks.

Modern has been so bad lately I've actually resorted to playing pioneer 😮

Would have been neat if The One Ring had a deck building clause that only allowed 1 copy in the deck.

Sad part is the person that suggested unmask come with a 3/2 menace body attached to it and Nadu is “only twice per turn” probably got promoted while WOTC fired others who actually balanced sets because the cards they suggested didn’t sell packs

If the format wasnt too fast, Questing Beast would be such a fun card to play against the One Ring.

1000% agree. These cards were the reason why i stopped enjoying Modern. The game patterns are so toxic and not really enjoyable. Pioneer would also be much better with 3-4 bans in the top decks. Legacy needed the Gief Ban 3 months ago.

Thank you so much for advocating for these bans! I wholeheartedly agree that the format would be better off without these three cards and it means a lot to hear it from someone with as big a following as you have

Maybe The One Ring would be better if the player gets the Burden Counters each turn even if you can't use it.

Grief keeps namesake-card combo decks like Amulet Titan in check, with the tradeoff being that it's weak to aggro decks with a lot of redundancy. If Wizards wasn't pushing decks like Boros Energy in Modern, I'd be fully on board with banning Grief, but with MH3, Scam has plenty of terrible matchups.

The One Ring and Nadu are fine!!! Grief is gatekeeping aggressive decks from competing in the format and should have been banned 2 years ago. P.S. Nadu is actually good for the format, it will incentivize interaction spells!

This concept of video is great! Feels like there needs to be more discussion videos like this especially for the modern format. For myself, not being able to tune in to every stream or have irl people to talk about magic.. this discussion type video about the state of modern really fills that void for sure.

I don't see why a Time Walk + Ancestral Recall card should be banned, 4 colorless is significantly harder to cast than 1UU /s

Ban all three already and unban jitte and glimpse cowards

From my experience, the only players that think grief should stay are LE players, because they use it in a "fair" way

Short and Simple all three should be baneed. -Nadu: Jund player perspective, uses Rakdos Charm to kill Nadu players I won many games against Nadu because I play interactive games. Does the card still need a ban? Maybe, I feel like it's busted and most likely needs a ban. But Jund players have been testing and finding ways to counter Nadu. -Ring: Grief is worse than Ring, anyone who thinks it is doesn't understand Discard is always worse than card a draw, look at all the decks that have Ring. 5 even the Nardu deck uses Ring Even one of the grief decks needs ring, Anyone that says Ring shouldn't be banned is coping. It draws them three cards before you can interact with your opponent unless you can remove the ring. Which is indestructible... So out of all the cards Ring should be up there with Nardu -Grief: Grief is backbreaking if done on turn 1, but I have found myself able to recover after grief scam and win games. Grienf checks the combo deck and the people who don't like grief feel like mainly combo players as it checks them. Edit, the argument of grief having the 4/3 body can be a problem and you did mention Saga where Jund does have. As a Jund player, I do want to get back to that low-resource meta, but it's hard when you have the ring.

Say what you will about Grief, but atleast it's just an evolution/power creep of creatures where they have gotten consistently better in the game. The One Ring in contrast is breaking with fundamental design principles for these types of card advantage spells that historically have been: A. Tied to a color B. Destroyable C. Giving protection only at the cost of their card advantage.

agreed on all of those cards. i'd like to add, that grief was the only card of the elementals that does not attack the board, but the hand directly, making it the outlier of the elementals.

As long as the one ring is legal, 4 mana planeswalkers are worthless

Grief is fine, the one ring isn't; And I own a playset of both of them. Nadu should be banned because of boring games alone. I don't think the power is bonkers......

the main argument for me against both Ring and Greif is that they are *boring*. It's boring to start with 5 cards in hand and facing a 4/3 menace. It's boring when a player has protection against everything. And even if these cards were bad (and they clearly aren't) those are play patterns we would want to get away from on just a gameplay experience rationale.

Love this content. Also, The One Ring, Nadu and Grief all needs to go.

Everyone said these cards are healthy for the format LMAO. I been telling people about these cards but when you post something about a ban people become so sensitive because they bought the card and be negative just telling the truth those cards need to go.

Love the discussion style content about deep dives into formats. Good mix up from gameplay

Honestly out of these 3 would be most happy to see the one ring go.

The Infamous Ravenous Chupacabra Rant from Patrick Sullivan talks about the game-design problem with Grief and The One Ring. Grief invalidates synergy and incentivizes more raw power and immediate return (you mention The One Ring being a reaction to Grief, which is right on the money). The One Ring removes the drama behind big, expensive, flashy plays because of it's protection. I don't play Modern so I don't really matter, but the format is bordering kitchen table level of shenanigans.

At the moment, people generally aren't pairing Grief with not dead after all. Grief ephemerate from Goryo's might take 3 cards but the grief is a 3/2 and can only attack from turn 3 onwards. Grief malakir rebirth from mono black necro leaves you with a 3/2 rather than a 4/3 which is a slower clock. Also, there are generally only 4 of these ways of bouncing/reanimating grief in a deck rather than 5/6 that rakdos used to play so it happens less often. Living end is nerfed with the banning of violent outburst so grief is less egregious there. Grief probably shouldn't have been printed to begin with, and Rakdos scam had the highest metagame share before MH3 came out. However, at the time of posting, its metagame share is 0.9% for winning decks. So when people scam now, they are generally not leaving behind a 4/3 and aren't generally following up with a dashed ragavan or dauthi turn 2. I think that with all the busted decks in modern, often taking one card with a thoughtseize isn't enough and grief helps keep powerful combo decks in check. WOTC's rationale for watching grief was the high metagame share of rakdos scam so it remains to see what WOTC thinks of the metagame share of Grief decks assuming just Nadu gets banned in the next announcement.

Great video. 100% agree on Nadu and Grief. Haven't been playing Modern long enough to really have an opinion on the one ring. I will say that I have beaten resolved rings several times, but that is a outcome based conclusion and I know those have their flaws.

I don’t mind grief. The ring would be cool restricted to one copy. But Nadu’s gotta go.

I feel as though grief has needed to be banned for over a year and the fact it hasn’t been banned shows wizards complete and utter ignorance towards how the player are feeling during play.

Grief IS NOT a 1 mana 4/3 discard 2, this happens only in some games and yes, it is likely to disrupt your opponent and pose a big threat but especially with boros/mardu energy in the meta topdecking one of 10 maindeck removal spell or playing amped raptor into 2 blockers is a very very realistic scenario. If you look at the metagame, there are not really many grief "scamming" decks in the top 10, living end uses it "fairly" to protect is combo without the scam possibility and goryo's does the same with the exception that it also plays ephemerate. I think Grief is a "necessary evil" in such a fast modern and you outright kill decks that are actually playing it to protect their stuff while the decks that trying to use it "unfairly" don't perform well anyways

I wonder why people think a card called "Grief" was ever meant to lead to enjoyable gameplay. (Also: Unban Fury, if you ban Grief!)

Grief should have been banned last December instead of Fury and Beans.

My hot take - Grief should go for poor play patterns alone. Thoughtseize is fine. Double thoughtseize attached to a 4/3 body is not fine. One Ring is fine. It's a turn 4 win con. Idk about the birb. Birb should prob go.

The One Ring was a mistake in design. They could've kept it Legendary for Lore Purposes but the BURDEN counters should've been put on PLAYER and not on the card itself, so even if you played another one, each time you called upon the Ring for Power you'd be further down that MY PRECIOUS hole of eventually killing yourself from accessing too much of the power.. just like other cards that give you INSANE card advantage like Necropotence/dominance .. paying 1 life per card.. THE ONE RING'S ability to reset the burden counters is what made this card the massive problem it is today and I'm going to be honest, these 3 cards are the sole reason I gave up on my favorite format. I just do not enjoy it anymore. Mainly yes it's Nadu but even before that with Grief .. I was souring hard and when MH3 dropped of course i returned to try it out and enjoyed it up until The Nadu became so prevalent that I just said NOPE I'm done y'all enjoy.

The problem with ring is that it's an almost guaranteed win. I would like to see what the winrates of games are where you get to resolve a ring. I'm guessing over 65%. It's not fun to have an I win button for 4 mana that's colorless, tutoreable and with downsides that can be negated by playing another copy of it. It's wrong in all levels. Not to mention that this card is probably never getting reprinted bc of IP rights.

I cant take an argument seriously that mentions bonecrusher as main tool against the ring instead of... you know, bowmaster (or even shelly)?

I would also consider urza’s saga. The value that land generates is crazy and the consistency it gives is also hard to beat. It’s played in multiple different decks and style of play similar to the one ring. It’s a land that can generate 2 bodies and then a utility artifact or combo piece.

this pretty much sums up my thoughts on modern atm. im just happy to hear someone with a platform has expressed it. all 3 have been awful for play.

Grief shouldn't have been banned, Wotc's policy in banning is usually when a card is so strong it warps the format or makes a certain deck just way too strong, Grief can suck to play against but it can suck to play against a lot of cards in Modern, are we just going to ban them? It's a strong card that's played in fair decks, with the mammoth amount of removal in the current format and Ruby Storm just winning turn 2 if you don't interreact, Grief is a necessary evil. The fact One Ring missed a ban is astonishing, it's by far one of the strongest cards in Modern if not the strongest now, and is played in the best decks in Modern currently, if you're against Jeskai control or Energy and they resolve ring, you've basically just lost. One Ring should never have been legal to play 4 of them, should have been limited to 1 per deck, also flavour wise is makes more sense also with it being The One Ring

Agree on this completely. These three cards need to go imo. And I believe in the long run of modern, they will go, because they really restrict deck-building.

I think part of what makes the ring so good is the lack of answers to a resolved ring. Haywire is great but a lot of ring decks are also playing karn. I play a lot of yawg so another creature with like a modal etb would help a lot. Like a rec sage that either exiles an artifact/enchantment or gives one of your creatures a +1/+1 counter or something. Idk it’s like haywire, tear asunder, cast into the fire, and that’s it I think? Pretty restricted to green as well. Makes it awkward for a lot of urza’s saga decks that have to have access to green just for the activation of haywire…

Great insights, glad to see it. I own these cards and still want them banned. Its just boring playstyle overall.

I agree with you SO MUCH! Thank you for having the courage to say something. I started the format with MH1, but those sets are more like gates barring modern. With MH2 I became a diehard coffers fan, then they printed Bowmasters/ring/sheouldred in a one month span and instead of paying thousands of dollars I just said fuck it. But you’re right, the elementals, and with how pushed some of the chase cards are (and expensive) it seems like they’re showing no respect to the player base, not to mention, their design team has been doing an awful job. The overarching notion I have is seeing all these pushed cards that become homogenous because they’re oppressive. It’s so drastic and common I can’t take it seriously unless they do, pretty much, exactly what you’re suggesting. I was a huge 8 rack player and I never bought grief because just as you said, the whole line of play doesn’t feel good for anyone even if you’re casting you really want to be saying sorry for playing a zero skill no fun deck. And I don’t say that lightly. Also on a personal note I resent the one ring being a LOTR reference in mtg I think it has no place there and especially in like half the decks, running the “one” ring like give me a break. Ugh m I really want to like modern but there are so many reasons why it kinda fucking sucks rn, gameplay, design, stylistic. Their theories for approaching things have been remarkably off the mark over the last few years

All those cards are very centralizing and the counterplay to each of them is suspicious at best. We'll probably have more broken stuff to deal with once they're gone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I guessed the exact same 3 cards before I even clicked and I was right

I’ve always been a fan of Grief. Sure it feels bad to be on the receiving end, it also feels bad to lose to combo decks or get locked out by the Ring. I think that Grief helps “fair” decks have a chance against combo decks while imposing a very real deck building cost in having to play cards that aren’t very good on their own and as well as a significant number of black cards. Moderns power level is so high currently that most non-combo decks don’t need much to get back in the game against the against a turn one Grief. Phlage is an excellent card against it that just got printed as well. I’m with you on the other two though. I remember when Jace hitting the table meant that you had pretty much lost and the One Ring feels very similar. I don’t hate the card and I think it plays an important role in the meta, but I also think due to it being legendary and resetting the burden counters is just too powerful for a card that has no deck building restrictions and can be played in anything.

I completely agree with these 3 bans. Another thing with the one ring is that the card is pushing 120$. The format is being gate-kept to new players because some of the best decks all have 4 copies of the one ring in it pushing the price for 4 of the most important card in the deck to 480$

I would also add bowmaster, not because is broken (it's not), but because that card is making 1 thoughness creatures impossible to play.

I'd argue to ban Shuko and potentially Urza's Saga instead of Nadu. Getting rid of them both causes Nadu to have a real deckbuilding restriction. They now have to play 4-8 equipment tutors to reliably find something like Umbral Mantle. So not only are you increasing the mana requirement of the engine by 2, but you're also removing the free tutor. If they want to play Kor instead of Umbral, now they need 7 mana to get the engine started. No one is even talking about the secret enabler that turns Nadu from an engine to the combo, Springheart Nantuko. When you look at how the deck actually works, the most egregious enabler actually is the Nantuko due to the token production. Grief is just gross, but with how the format has shaped, it is a necessary evil. With the free tutor in Urza's Saga, so many decks playing The One Ring, and quite a few of the top contenders being combo decks themselves, Grief gives midrange strategies the edge that they need to remain relevant in the format. We've arrived at an age where Thoughtseize and Inquisition just isn't good enough anymore to combat these combo decks. The One Ring is just busted. Get rid of it. Sadly, many players in the MTG community just want to ban things based on emotions rather than a real analysis and understanding of how card interactions within certain decks work. I don't expect many people to agree with my take for this exact reason. Can't argue with someone who isn't willing to remove their feelings from the equation

The one ring is such a problem. Not only is it problematic for the gameplay, but the fact that there's all kinds of legal loopholes wizards has to jump through in order to reprint it, means it will be very expensive money wise, until it's banned, or they print a "universes within," version, which seems unlikely.

I’d also love to see bowmasters gone too, but only if one ring goes first. Bowmasters is a necessary counter to one ring gaining you a board and damage. The reason bowmasters should go is that it limits deck building so much. Every creature with 1 toughness is immediately difficult to play because that card exists let alone making every card draw spell a risk.

Controversial but i feel DRS is safe to unban. Plenty of efficient removal has been printed since then, and I don’t feel like it would be as oppressive.

The one ring is very much a response to the grief decks. if there were interactive low to the ground decks (the kind that can’t recover from a grief scam turn 1) that exploit the “don’t do much, turn 3/4 ring” then it would likely see far less play

Also want to say with the power level of some of these newer cards they should open up the list for some unbans as well.

Personally I think fury was banned for the sins of grief. I don’t think fury was too strong and no creature decks rose from the ashes that fury kept down. The existing creature decks continued to exist and now maybe r/w energy exists without fury. I’m on the fence with the one ring as I don’t think it’s the most broken but some situations definitely make it feel as though it is. Personally I would rather un ban cards than ban cards. I think wizards needs to do a better job of printing counter play to broken cards.

For colorless cards like artifacts usage rate will tend to be a little higher. This is just a case where one ring is really good. Pithing Needle, Tormods Crypt, Hearse, and others are used pretty high when the format indicates, but even smugglers copter has a bit of a downside in that you have to give a card up. This has been an interesting problem in magic since the 90s. Artifacts are OP when theyre good.

One ring being colorless is just two generically good too. 4 mana cards should have different colored mana costs with different powerful abilities but ring just is better in the slot. Jace the mindsculptor is much worse and was banned in modern at one point. 4 generic mama and slots perfectly into tron, titan, combo decks, all matter of control and midrange. it is too much.

These 3 are on my hitlist for sure and I'd almost want to throw Orcish Bowmaster in there as well

If all these 3 cards go i might actually give a shit about the format again

Grief /reanimate broke multiple formats. MH cards are so pushed and stupid. They intentionally print these broken cards and they keep breaking all formats when they get printed. How are you people ok with this crap? You like the format getting warped every 6 months? Hogaak, grief, ragavan, wren and six, urza saga. These cards changed every format they are in, then got banned. Like i told you everyone has to play grief cause its the best card, and now everyone must play it. If everyone has to play the same card wheres the diversity of decks at? There is none, everyone just plays the same cards. I dont like the MH sets at all. Every new set just warps the format and cards get banned. They ruined the game with this imo.

Remember when the best 4 drop artifact was Birthing Pod? Good times. Free Pod and Twin!

It wasn't so long ago that Wizards would have considered banning a heavily played card merely for its 'unfun' play patterns alone. I started playing Magic in 2016, in Standard, and knowing the game for what it was then it really feels like my general take on what constitutes a broken card has itself been power-crept to irrelevance. It is *wild* to me that Teferi, Time Raveler - one of the most miserable to play against and fundamentally game-breaking cards ever to be printed - has not been permabanned from every format besides maybe Vintage, but I now fully expect and accept that opinion to be absolutely in the minority and shot down almost immediately. Grief, Urza's Saga and The One Ring are all (individual) game warping, egregious cards. The One Ring is particularly abominable, and personally I don't see how anyone that's ever played against it could defend it, but then I understand why, too. As a player base we are now so acclimatised to games being dominated by format-warping power level cards that even the worst offenders like The One Ring just mostly blend in with all the lesser ones.

Thanks for explaining your thought process extremely well compared to other magic streamers Doom.

I believe that Grief was going to get banned along with Fury but they already had the "Special Guest" sheet at the printers for MH3 😪

The one ring and nadu is an easier sell for me than grief. I'm always happy to see cards that discourage linear decks. Playing against decks that function like games of solitaire are just so boring to me.

Love the explanation on the one ring

+1 to more discussion style content

You're not losing any of us on a Ring ban, it's easily the most hated card in the game. Garbage overpowered design, I'm glad people are finally looking at the raw numbers of play % it's the strongest card in Modern bar none

I'm not convinced on The One Ring tbh. I feel like it has a decent niche, there are plenty of good non-ring decks out there, and plenty of decent answers/punishment cards for it.

Funny enough, prior to MH3 I would have said that banning the ring would effectively kill control. However the energy package was a huge shot in the arm. And if everyone's card advantage is worse, controls' is that much better. It's funny that in making the one ring so incredibly flavor accurate they made it absolutely miserable to play against.

My biggest issue with TOR ubiquity is that it is a mythic in a set no longer sold. The price for a playset is truly ridiculous for such a recent printing. It turns me off wanting to play a number of decks because you need TOR. I'm not even sure printing a rare in universe version would solve the problem.

6:17 is it possible limitating The One Ring at only one copy per deck? imho the real problem with that in playing is not the “first” but “second” The One Ring

It's a complicated situation for the one ring, reprintability aside. I've seen the argument for smuggler's copter as a generic artifact that lowers deck diversity but by contrast you could conceivably make an argument that the alot of decks outside of the grief package or nadu are held up by the one ring. BUT maybe they're only struggling in comparison to grief and if it was gone it would make it uber dominant and choke out the meta. If you don't want to spend several months teasing that out better to just get rid of all of them

Hot takes are why I watch you! More stuff like this!

Nah, Nadu needs to be banned for tournament logistics reasons first. Scraping data from after PTMH3, there's insufficient (and frankly baffling and contradictory) evidence about how good the Nadu deck actually is, but we can all agree it takes waaaay too long for a nondeterministic combo. It needs to go like KCI did.

Yeah, I really hope Wizards don't drag their feet and get rid of Grief and Nadu at least. And restrict The One Ring, even if that's not common in Modern. That would probably work for this card. Legacy needs Grief gone, too. Like you said, leaving a player with a bad five card hand is no bueno.

When MH3 spoilers began I was like "cool I will get some cards and build a budget deck and play on the nearest LGS". But then I saw that it is not only expensive, but a budget deck means that I would become the punching bag. Now I bought a Pokemon deck and I don't regret it lol

If wotc is dead set on doing these straight to modern sets, they have to put more thought and care into powering up existing decks. Every powerful new card they print is basically pushing out an existing strategy. They always have these half-hearted attempts at reviving dead decks, like tossing a bone to elves or merfolk or goblins, which haven't really been viable for a long time. There's a new sliver. But these attempts don't seem to have been play tested or fully thought out. If you're gonna try to revive some dead strategy, can we have some play testers running that deck against the top 2 or 3 best decks in the format? If those decks still lose to the tier one decks, you didn't actually revive a dead deck or power up an existing deck-- you just got our hopes up.

What’s your opinion on banning grief but unbanning fury?

it obv should have been grief rather than fury. it's not even that the card is that oppressive, it's just that i'm not going to sacrifice a friday (let alone an 8 hour tourney) to play that mind numbingly boring coin flip of a matchup. power creep destroyed the strategy of the game. the "finance" side was the cherry on the cake tho. i can't believe how much y'all let wotc do to your wallet. you know the size of the print runs means none of the "fire era" cards will hold any value, right? if the cards don't hold their value, why bother collecting them? if i return to the game, it's at fnm level only (fk mtg fest and all that) and all the money cards will be proxies. i have no respect for wotc left. someone call me after they fire corporate.

I’ve been saying since Ice age people casting free counterspells isn’t fun. If grief gets banned, all the evoke free pitch spells need to be banned right along with it.

There’s a reason everyone boos when the one ring is cast

When I play mtg I want all players to have access to to as much resources as they can. This is the main reason I don’t plaint playing against discard. I also don’t want very limited hard to get cards to be the best card in the game. I also want to do thing on my turn and I like seeing my opponent do the same. The one ring is wac it’s a colorless referees protection that draws you cards. Nadu stops me from playing magic because my opponent is taking the whole night to finish their turn. And grief is stoping me from playing the game as well. But on top of this all cards that are like extra hate on 1 toughness creatures are bad for the format. By this I mean cards like wren and 6 and bowmasters

Re Grief and forced mulligans: i top8'd in the Fall 2023 RCQ Modern season w/ UB mill. Semi finals was against BR scam and I'm pretty sure I got scammed by T2 both games and got run over

i know several people that have quit modern over the ring. keeping the ring around isnt worth losing players

I like spectating modern. And The One Ring has to be the most busted of these. Its not even a contest. Sure Nadu is more broken when it gets its engine going and grief creates a difficult position to be it, but the One Ring warps the game so much around it its a black hole. I'm sure its miserable to play against because it both slows games down to a crawl and it makes winning a near certainty when its played. Games become "How long until the one ring just buries the other player in card advantage". The player using it basically will always have an answer with the first one ring and always have a second because it combos into itself almost as easily as squadron hawk. Spectating grief is more interesting in my opinion. The main argument to keep grief around is because of cards like the one ring. If it goes, fine, grief can go. But as long as nonsense like the One ring is in the format I'd much rather watch a game with grief and ring than a game with ring and no grief.

what are you talking about? I’ve heard people talking about banning the one ring, or at least limiting it to 1 per deck for like 1 or two weeks now at least

I agree with all of what you said, but I would advocate for restricting The One Ring, as you said the play pattern of cycling them is the main issue and it still exists.

To expand on the ring point... before, in modern, if you wanted to gain great card advantage, you had to work for it, except for ad nauseum. You could grind out games with tireless tracker, or some vulnerable planeswalker that drew a card every turn, or play things like memory deluge. The one ring gives you massive massive card advantage that you really don't have to work for at all. So grindy midrange and control decks that had their card advantage pieces built in... that art is lost. Just shove 4 rings in your deck, and if you were willing to pay the 60 for each of them and your opponent wasn't, well then your card advantage would be far superior. It's totally a power level outlier in the format. It's not appropriate compared to the landscape it exists in. It definitely needs to go

It would be amazing if Nadu didnt get banned. The numbers online dont support a ban so I wouldnt be surprised if they let the bird live through RCQ season

With a power creep that is slowly transforming Modern into Legacy and Pioneer into Modern and a set turnover that makes it untenable to keep pace with the card rotation in Standard, there will soon not be any enjoyable format left to play.

I feel like ring is only as good as it is since it’s the only way to catch up with nadu and grief. The main decks running ring are jeskai control (needs card advantage thru grief and extra time) and colorless/mono green decks that have pretty much no other viable option to catch up on cards

As a player of FoN and the like, I still really dislike the games where I didn't draw the counter and they play the Ring.

Don't stop there. Let's add Orcish Bowmasters to the list too.

Nadu just doesn't have anything going for it. You read that card and wonder how it got made. It's a soulless design with wonky rules text that only exists to enable a broken combo that doesn't even end the game quickly. At least Grief and The One Ring are pretty flavorful and interesting designs even if they are too powerful.