The bird is indeed the word. Pro Tour MH3 wrapped up this morning with Simon Nielsen claiming victory with his Bant Nadu build.
Nadu was destined for greatness once the semi-final bracket was revealed, showing three Bant Nadu builds and one Four-Color Nadu deck. The Top 8 was composed of five total Nadu decks.
The Modern Horizons 3 Pro Tour will go down in history as the Nadu Pro Tour; its dominance was evident from start to finish.
We previously covered Nadu’s overwhelming win rate on Day 1 of the tournament, second only to Mono-Black Necro in terms of win rate for popular decks.
Once we add all Swiss rounds to the statistics, it gets even better for Bant Nadu. Frank Karsten broke down metagame win rates in Pro Tour MH3 on X:
As we can see, despite being the most popular deck, Nadu was also one of the highest win rate builds of the entire tournament at 59%. For comparison, Rakdos Evoke pre-Fury banning only had a win rate of 54% at Pro Tour LOTR.
Simon Nielsen’s winning decklist is available from MTG’s official tournament coverage here.
Can Anything Beat Nadu?
How can one beat Nadu in Modern? It was clearly the best deck of the tournament by every metric. Even decks packed full of interaction and board wipes, such as Jeskai Control, only reduced Nadu’s win rate to a 50/50 coin flip.
Bant Nadu beat Boros Energy 67% of the time over 18 matches. That deck runs 4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Galvanic Discharge, and 2 Static Prison main deck. Clearly, removal is not enough to get the job done.
The only deck at Pro Tour Modern Horizons 3 to have a winning record over more than a dozen matches against Bant Nadu is… drumroll, please… Four-Color Nadu.
The four-color version has more access to interaction, such as Orcish Bowmasters main deck, which can combat Springheart Nantuko, and a sideboarded Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.
Even with a favorable matchup, Four-Color Nadu only beat the Bant version 58% of the time, less than Bant Nadu’s overall win rate in the tournament. The Four-Color version eventually lost to Simon Nielsen’s Bant list in the semifinals.
Will Nadu Be Banned In Modern?
You may want to think twice before buying the new Nadu build in Modern. We haven’t seen this level of overwhelming performance since Hogaak was Modern legal.
Hogaak took 5 of the top 8 spots at GP Vegas around the time the deck made its debut in 2019, showing a similar level of initial dominance as Four-Color Nadu.
It’s unclear whether WOTC would emergency ban Nadu or not. Hogaak went on to live for multiple GPs and even made its way to Mythic Championship IV. It warped the format so badly that every sideboard was running a suite full of graveyard hate. Despite this, Hogaak still had a 56% win rate and one top 8 finish at the event.
Will MTG let Nadu flap around the format for months until they take action? Banning other combo pieces like Shuko seems incorrect, as there are multiple substitutes for 0 mana targeting in Modern, such as Outrider en-Kor. Even upcoming Modern cards such as Reconnaissance, which is being reprinted into the format with MTG x Assassins Creed, could become a substitute.
Given how well Bant Nadu performed against builds that already maindeck the equivalent of 8 Lightning Bolts, and the fact that there were virtually no bad matchups in this Pro Tour, it wouldn’t surprise us if MTG caged the bird shortly.
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