Over the past couple months, Affinity-style decks have seen a big uptick in play in Modern and Legacy. Thanks to the printing of Pinnacle Emissary in Edge of Eternities, these artifact heavy shells now have an incredible new payoff.
Nadu, Winged Wisdom decks also see ample Legacy play, abusing the combo potential of the potent Bird. Yet, what if we told you one player had success mashing these two archetypes together? Following a 5-0 run in a Legacy League and a top 16 finish in a Legacy Challenge, Legacy enthusiast DNSolver has showcased the potential of this new blend. Both aspects of the deck work surprisingly well together, so let’s take a look at what this deck is trying to accomplish.
Affinity Portion
As expected for a deck that features Pinnacle Emissary, there are a boatload of cheap artifacts in this decklist. This makes it more likely that you’ll be able to Warp Emissary turn one and follow up with a bunch of trinkets to generate a board of Drone tokens.
Just like Affinity decks in Modern, Mox Opal plays an essential role here. A free artifact that also lets you cast your other spells ahead of schedule is simply incredible.
To enable Opal and Emissary, both Mishra’s Bauble and Urza’s Bauble show up in playsets. Add in Lotus Petal and a singleton copy of Tormod’s Crypt to fetch with Urza’s Saga, and you’ve got a whopping 17 zero-mana artifacts to work with.
These artifacts make your whole deck tick. In addition to their synergy with Pinnacle Emissary, they help you cast Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Thoughtcast for one mana each. Urza’s Saga and Cranial Plating become much more threatening as well with so many cheap artifacts around.
Your Construct tokens you make with Saga and your Drone tokens you equip with Plating are bound to be enormous. The presence of Mox Opal even lets you play Saga on turn one and start making Constructs on turn two, despite only having two lands in play.
Adding Nadu to the Mix
This brings us to the Nadu portion of the deck. Adding Nadu to an artifacts shell may seem a bit strange, but the legend makes it easier to actually close games.
You’re already interested in playing Urza’s Saga as a token-spewing utility element. The opportunity cost of adding one copy of Shuko to tutor for when you have Nadu lined up is very low, while the reward of setting up Nadu+Shuko is extremely high.
Once you get your Pinnacle Emissary engine rolling, Nadu becomes the ultimate win condition. Every artifact you cast gets you a Drone token, which in turn nets you two Nadu triggers. With so many free artifacts in the deck, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to chain artifacts together and churn through most of your deck. From there, equipping Cranial Plating and Lavaspur Boots to a Drone token will let you attack for lethal.
What’s nice about Nadu in a deck that already features Emry and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is that the combo piece is a Wizard, too. As such, you’re free to run four copies of Cavern of Souls. In a format dominated by Force of Will, bypassing counter magic is a big deal. Pinnacle Emissary is unfortunately not a Wizard, but naming Robot with Cavern is totally fine in a pinch.
Sidestepping Hate
The other thing running Nadu does for Affinity is it helps shore up some natural weaknesses. Artifact strategies are naturally vulnerable to hate cards. Cards like Meltdown answer all of your Drone and Construct tokens at once as well as Mox Opal. Relying solely on your artifacts to pull ahead has its risks.
Nadu attacks on a completely different axis. Against Izzet Delver, using Mox Opal and Lotus Petal to accelerate out a big flier that outsizes Lightning Bolt is already strong on the surface. Nadu doesn’t get hit by any artifact hate cards. Shuko and Lavaspur Boots technically do, but you’ll often be able to significantly pull ahead on resources before exposing either to Meltdown (Null Rod is a bit of a pain if already in play, but fortunately it does nothing against Pinnacle Emissary).
This extra card advantage makes it more likely you’ll have some copies of Force of Will in hand to then fight over hate cards or opposing combos. Force of Negation out of the sideboard further improves combo matchups as well.
The addition of Pinnacle Emissary to Affinity was undoubtedly a major upgrade. We may not have expected Nadu and Emissary to shine together, but there are some compelling reasons to structure your deck this way. There’s no denying that Nadu is a busted Magic card, and this surely won’t be the last time an innovative Nadu build pops up in Legacy.
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